As of: January 29, 2024, 5:38 p.m
By: Isabel Winklbauer
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On Monday, the KaDeWe Group announced that it had filed for insolvency proceedings.
In addition to the Berlin department store KaDeWe and the Hamburg Alsterhaus, the company also owns the Oberpollinger department store in Munich.
Munich – The good news: The three luxury department stores should not close.
According to its own statements, the trading company primarily wants to free itself from high rents through the insolvency proceedings.
Because the business actually runs on luxury.
In the 2022/2023 financial year, the KaDeWe Group reported sales of almost 728 million euros, an increase of almost 24 percent compared to the pre-Corona financial year 2018/2019.
Rents in particular have become a burden for department stores, especially Oberpollinger on Neuhauserstrasse.
“According to our estimates, the turnover rent burden is highest in Munich at around 20 percent,” says Johannes Berentzen from the BBE trading consultancy.
Oberpollinger in Munich facing bankruptcy: department store opened in 1905
Part of Benko's crumbling empire: the Oberpollinger in the pedestrian zone.
© Götzfried
The Central Group, founded in 1947, holds the largest share in the KaDeWe Group at 50.01 percent.
This is a conglomerate owned by the Chirathivat family, which is one of the richest families in Thailand.
Forbes estimated her fortune at 12.4 billion dollars (11.4 billion euros) in 2023.
The group, based in Bangkok, is primarily active in the retail, hotel and restaurant sectors and operates, among other things, supermarkets and department store chains.
The remaining shares belong to the troubled Signa of the Austrian René Benko.
The future operation of Oberpollinger is an important matter for the people of Munich and their city center.
Because: The department store is one of the defining houses of the “parlor”.
It has been inviting people to stroll and do luxury shopping for almost 120 years.
When it opened in 1905, the newspapers wrote about the “breath of the big wide world” that now blows through Neuhauser Strasse.
It was built by the architect Max Littmann in the historicist style for the Emden and Sons merchant family.
It was very modern with a glass-roofed atrium and four elevators.
Clothing, watches, jewelry, toys and much more were sold on four floors.
A tea room, a travel agency and public telephone booths were also available to customers.
The name Oberpollinger goes back to the brewer Christoph Pollinger, who took over the property in the 16th century and built the upper one of his two breweries there.
The Karstadt at the train station, fully owned by Benko, closed its doors in 2023. This department store is actually also part of Munich.
© dpa
“Oberpollinger went through several phases of restructuring and was very successful”
The department store was taken over by Rudolf Karstadt in 1927, who deliberately kept the traditional name in order to signal continuity to customers.
Under his leadership in the 1920s, the company adopted a business model that was revolutionary at the time: low fixed prices and cash payments instead of haggling and letters.
Oberpollinger has always had household goods, a large perfumery and cosmetics area, luggage, stationery, clothing and high-priced accessories.
In addition to the restaurant with a roof terrace, there is also a sweets department with a confectionery on the fifth floor.
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During the Second World War, the department store was badly damaged in an air raid.
It was able to partially reopen as early as 1947 and has been expanded again and again since then. “The Oberpollinger went through several phases of restructuring and was very successful,” says Wolfgang Fischer from Citypartner.
Entrepreneurs from different sectors are organized in the association, who, among other things, campaign for an attractive city center.
Fischer talks about customers from all over the world for whom Oberpollinger is a magnet.
Products from luxury brands such as Prada or Gucci have always pleased the rich and famous, but are also attractive to locals.
Fischer therefore assumes that “there will definitely be interested parties.”