Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news

German home decoration retailer B&Q has agreed to buy five stores in China from US retail giant PriceSmart Inc. for 6.95 million pounds (105 million yuan) in cash, today's Beijing Times reported.
The stores will be redesigned into B&Q's home decoration hypermarkets.
The deal doesn't involve the land property rights of the stores, but does include rental business, according to Hu Lifeng, spokesperson with B&Q China headquarters' public relation department.
He declined to reveal the locations of the five stores, only saying they are in North, West and Northeast of China and fit perfectly into B&Q's China strategies.
"These stores will have a positive impact on B&Q's expansion policy in China", Hu said.  The five stores will bring the total number of B&Q's stores in China to 26. B&Q plans to expand to 80 stores in China by the end of next year.
Citing sources close to the deal, the Beijing Times report said one of the stores is in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, two are in Sichuan Province, one is in Tianjin Municipality and the other is in Shandong Province.  B&Q has officially signed an aquisition agreement with the Harbin store.
B&Q and PriceSmart began talks half a year ago, according to industry sources.  The cash deal will help bail out PriceSmart, which licenses 13 warehouses in China and is having financial problems here, analysts pointed out.