The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that last summer, the chief executive officer of retailer Groupe Dynamite, Andrew Lutfy, presided over the opening of Royalmount, an 824,000-square-foot mall in Montreal in which he owns an 80-per-cent interest. The Globe's Susan Krashinsky writes that in November, Groupe Dynamite completed its initial public offering. The parent company of mall stalwarts Garage and Dynamite now trades in Toronto with a market cap of $2.2-billion. The company has 300 stores and is planning an overseas expansion for Garage, beginning with multiple locations in Britain in the coming year. In short, Mr. Lutfy is banking on the future of retail -- both with his own fast-fashion stores, and with the launch of a flashy luxury mall at a time when very few developers are building new shopping centres. "There's still another 90 per cent to go," Mr. Lutfy said. Future phases of the multibillion-dollar project include office towers and residential units. High-end fashion brands used to rely on department stores to sell their merchandise, but that has changed. "All the luxury players have realized, actually, operating a store ain't that complicated, and you can control the whole thing," he said.