The Essen District Court decided on Monday to lift the insolvency proceedings as of July 31, the German company announced. As of Thursday, August 1, Galeria will once again be “solely responsible.” The department store chain says it will then operate 83 department stores with around 12,000 employees.
New owners
The department store chain, which was created from Karstadt and Kaufhof, had once again run into difficulties after its previous owner, Signa Holding owned by Tyrolean investor René Benko, had slipped into insolvency last year. In May, creditors then approved the restructuring plan for Galeria and the chain was transferred to new owners.
In January, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof filed for bankruptcy for the third time in just a few years. The department store chain had run into difficulties following the bankruptcy of its Austrian parent company Signa. In April, the group then announced that a consortium consisting of the US investment company NRDC Equity Partners and the investment company BB Kapital SA of the 73-year-old entrepreneur Bernd Beetz was taking over Galeria.
Branches to be modernized
Company boss Olivier Van den Bossche announced that Galeria would “concentrate on its core competence as a department store with strong product ranges”. The local focus would be expanded in order to meet the needs of local customers. In addition, there would be branch modernizations for an “attractive shopping atmosphere and an ideal shopping experience”.
Insolvency administrator Stefan Denkhaus explained on Monday that within the seven months of the process, new shareholders for Galeria had been found and the cost structure had been reduced to a “reasonable level”. As a medium-sized company, Galeria now has “a good economic starting position and is starting the future with available liquidity in the nine-digit range”. He hopes that the company and its new owners will have a grace period of 300 days “to implement the future concept step by step”.
