The new owners of the insolvent department store giant Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof want to continue operating over 70 of the 92 branches. The new owners are a consortium made up of the US investment company NRDC and the Mannheim entrepreneur Bernd Beetz.
The signed takeover agreement will only come into force if the Essen district court and the creditors' meeting (May 28) approve the insolvency plan drawn up by Stefan Denkhaus. If they don't do that, the sale won't happen. A further reduction in the number of branches will result in job losses. How many there will be and which Galeria branches will be affected is still unclear. The department store chain was sold to the Signa Group and merged with Karstadt. It is the third bankruptcy within four years for the department store company. The company is owned by Canadian entrepreneur Richard Baker. Through HBC, he was the owner of Galeria KauFhof between 2015 and 2019 before the store was sold.