As of: March 26, 2024, 3:58 p.m
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A Galeria branch in Hanau is being closed: After the third bankruptcy in just a few years, the department store chain is under enormous pressure.
© Boris Roessler / dpa
The insolvent department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof is currently under the control of an insolvency administrator.
That should change: two bidders are said to be interested.
Düsseldorf - The almost 13,000 employees of the insolvent department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof should have clarity about their future in April.
Galeria's provisional insolvency administrator Stefan Denkhaus said on Tuesday that he was entering into final talks about a takeover with two bidders who had experience in German retail.
They are interested in taking over “60 plus X”, which still has just over 90 branches.
Financial investors are not among them.
Denkhaus announced that he wanted to seal the contracts with one of the bidders in April.
Then there should also be clarity about new rental agreements for Galeria branches.
Germany's last large department store group, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, slipped into bankruptcy at the beginning of January for the third time in just over three years, and Denkhaus took over the helm.
The imbalance is the result of the bankruptcy of the Signa empire of the Tyrolean investor Rene Benko, to which Galeria belonged.
Some of the department store properties are also part of an insolvent Signa company.
Galeria boss Olivier van den Bossche and Denkhaus want to maintain the group, which currently has around 12,800 employees, and are looking for a new owner.
The deadline for submitting binding offers expired at the weekend.
“Lead into a good future” - interested parties probably have enormous financial power
“I assume that it will be one of the two,” said Denkhaus, referring to the remaining investors.
Both interested parties had the financial strength to stabilize the department store group and “lead it into a good future”.
However, there will be further job cuts.
Denkhaus itself is already working on converting its headquarters in Essen - because it is designed for the work of a corporation and is therefore too big.
Van den Bossche would like to forego the construction in Essen altogether and move into a branch with his employees.
Denkhaus also wants to reduce the rents of department stores.
Galeria had complained about excessive rent payments to Signa.
Benko's insolvent group also owned almost 20 of the department store properties.
The Verdi union had spoken out in favor of a new owner with trading expertise for Galeria.
This should, if possible, preserve Galeria as a whole.
Competition from online retailers from Amazon to Zalando has been a problem for Galeria for years.
In addition, the group also suffered from home-made problems in the past.
Changes in ownership, management and strategy had already put a strain on Karstadt and Kaufhof and then on the Galeria group, which merged under the umbrella of Benkos Signa.
(Reuters, lf)