The ailing department store group Gallery Karstadt Kaufhof gets a new boss. The former Kaufhof boss Olivier van den Bossche is to take over the management of the last large German department store group in a few weeks.
His predecessor, Müllenbach, is to join the Galeria supervisory board and become part of the management of Galeria’s parent company, Signa Retail.
Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof plans to close 47 branches. The reason is the bankruptcy of the company.
With Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, one of the last large department store chains in Germany is disappearing. In our ticker we will keep you up to date on how the individual branches and the company as a whole are progressing.
23. 03. 2023
CEO Müllenbach is replaced
The badly hit department store group Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof gets a new boss. After the end of the current insolvency proceedings, the former Kaufhof boss Olivier van den Bossche is to take over the management of the last large German department store group, as the company announced on Thursday.
After three years at the head of the group, the previous Galeria boss Miguel Müllenbach is moving to the management of the Galeria parent company Signa Retail. He will also sit on the Galeria supervisory board in the future. The group expects the insolvency proceedings to be completed in early May.
Business Insider reported on the plans last week. At that time, Galeria did not want to comment on it.
22.03.2023
Aachen fashion chain wants to take over four Galeria branches
According to its own statements, the Aachener fashion chain has made preparations for the takeover and continuation of initially four previous Galeria Kaufhof locations. It is about the Galeria houses in Coburg, Cottbus, on the Frankfurt Zeil and in Nuremberg-Langwasser, said managing director Friedrich Göbel. Göbel explained that his company had already signed the leases for the four properties. The contracts would become legally effective as soon as the previous tenant had given notice. For a number of other Galeria locations, there are “well advanced negotiations” on leases, Göbel said. These would result in further rentals.
Aachener assumes that by February 2024 between ten and 25 previous Galeria locations can be rented and continued. According to the information, so-called Aachen department stores are to be built on the areas. Göbel wants to announce the concept for this at the beginning of April. All previous Galeria employees would be taken on if they wished.
Aachener currently operates seven branches in Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein. Göbel was previously the head of the fashion chain Sinn.
16.03.2023
Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof wants to close 5 fewer department stores
Germany’s last major department store group, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, will close five fewer department stores than announced at the beginning of the week. A company spokesman said.
This is the list of stores scheduled to close by July 30, 2023:
Celle, Coburg, Cottbus, Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen, Hagen, Hamburg-Wandsbek, Hamburg-Harburg, Leverkusen, Munich train station, Neuss, Nuremberg, Nuremberg-Langwasser, Offenbach, Paderborn, Regensburg Neupfarrpfalz, Saarbrücken, Siegen, Wiesbaden.
This is the list of stores scheduled to close by January 31, 2024:
Berlin-Charlottenburg, Berlin-Müllerstraße, Bielefeld, Braunschweig, Bremen, Darmstadt, Dortmund, Düsseldorf Schadowstraße, Essen, Esslingen, Frankfurt Zeil, Hanau, Heidelberg Bismarckplatz, Hildesheim, Kempten, Krefeld, Leonberg, Limburg, Lübeck, Mönchengladbach, Pforzheim, Reutlingen , Rosenheim, Schweinfurt, Siegburg, Stuttgart-Eberhardt-Strasse, Viernheim, Wuppertal.
15.03.2023
Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof is closing 52 branches as a result of the bankruptcy
Germany’s last major department store chain had announced that it wanted to close 52 of the 129 department stores that were still in operation as part of the ongoing insolvency proceedings. The closure is to take place in two waves by the end of January next year. This will also eliminate several thousand jobs.
According to the plans of the department store group, the remaining 77 branches are all to be comprehensively modernized over the next three years. In the future, the group intends to focus its product range primarily on the areas of clothing, beauty care and home accessories. However, before the restart, the creditors’ meeting on March 27th in Essen must give the green light. If she rejects the insolvency plan, the company is threatened with immediate collapse.
At the end of October, Galeria had to seek rescue in protective shield insolvency proceedings for the second time in less than three years. At the time, CEO Miguel Müllenbach named the exploding energy prices and the slump in consumption in Germany as the reason for the threatening situation of the company. The General Works Council also blames management errors for this.
With material from the dpa