Status: 03/14/2023 5:18 p.m
The department store group Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof wants to close 52 of the 129 remaining department stores in Germany. At least 5,000 of the 17,000 employees will lose their jobs. The Lübeck location will also be closed. 110 jobs are affected there.
Lübeck’s Mayor Jan Lindenau (SPD) announced that he would hold talks with Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof and the real estate owner RFR on how a closure on January 31, 2024 could still be prevented. “We very much regret that Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof did not recognize this potential and the associated opportunities and intends to close the Lübeck location.”
Ver.di promotes new concepts
At the ver.di union, the decision to close the Lübeck site was met with incomprehension. According to Bert Stach, Head of Retail at ver.di in the north, the location definitely has future prospects. “The problem is that the concepts come from the 70s or 80s. Changes are needed. New concepts are needed, online retailing needs to be strengthened. You have to try out new ideas. In order to operate a department store of the future, the management must also change.” At ver.di they want to fight for every location and every job.
Mareike Petersen from the Schleswig-Holstein trade association also assumes that many large department stores will have to downsize in future in order to survive. But she is also convinced that department stores will continue to play a role in the future and that they will find each other, as she put it. Above all because, from their point of view, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof and other department stores were actually on the right track up to Corona, for example in terms of modernization processes.
The Kiel location will be retained
The group wants to keep its branch in the state capital. However, it is unclear in what form. Karstadt is still making profits in Kiel, but the so-called space productivity is too low for the group. According to Kiel’s Lord Mayor Ulf Kampfer (SPD), the location is to be downsized in order to remain profitable. The Kiel branch is currently around 20,000 square meters.
According to the mayor, the group plans to give up the basement (action area), ground floor (access to the brick pond) and the entire sports area. One is in talks with the owner of the building about possible new tenants, so Kampfer. It is unclear how many of the approximately 190 employees will be able to keep their jobs during the downsizing. As soon as the branch in Lübeck is closed, Kiel would be the only branch in Scheswig-Holstein.
Blame energy prices and slack consumption
At the end of October 2022, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof filed for bankruptcy for the second time in three years. The CEO gave the exploding energy prices and the slump in consumption due to the corona lockdowns in Germany as reasons. Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof has already received government support twice. The department store group received a total of 680 million euros from the Economic Stabilization Fund for support.
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