At least 62 Kaufhof and Karstadt branches will be closed. These include locations in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, but also in many smaller cities. The closings affect around 7,500 employees.
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There is a clear cut at Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof: Management and employee representatives have agreed on a social plan. After that, at least 62 Kaufhof and Karstadt branches will initially be closed, 110 will remain. Various locations are affected, including apparently several branches in Berlin and Hamburg, in Munich, Dortmund, Frankfurt and Cologne (Note: The full list can be found at the end of the text). Up to 6,000 full-time jobs are to be cut, which affects around 7,500 employees who are being dismissed. A transfer company is to be founded for them. The department store group still has 25,000 employees.
In addition to the department store branches, around 20 Karstadt Sports stores are to close; also 100 of the 130 travel agencies. The terms of the collective agreement concluded at the end of 2019 should apply to them. Its validity was revoked with the initiation of protective shield proceedings under self-administration at the beginning of April. Trustee Frank Kebekus and General Manager Arndt Geiwitz have reached an agreement on this with the Verdi union and the general works council. As the Southgerman newspaper learned from several people familiar with the process, the agreement is subject to the reservation that the remaining landlords reduce rents.
The insolvency plan should be presented next Monday
The amount of rent reduction also depends on the business success of the respective branch. If landlords refuse, the agreement provides for further branches to be closed. The insolvency plan is to be presented to the creditors’ committee next Monday. If he does not agree, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof would have to go into regular bankruptcy. The creditors would then have to expect the conditions to deteriorate further. The former CEO Stefan Fanderl, whose departure was surprisingly announced last week, is also said to be affected by the protective shield proceedings: he will not receive any severance payments because of the protective shield proceedings.
In the negotiations, Kebekus and Geiwitz had initially threatened to close 80 branches and cut an additional ten percent of the workforce. The Verdi union claims that the management has taken the cut of an additional ten percent of the jobs off the table in the negotiations that have been going on since Monday.
Another prerequisite for a final agreement is the approval of the shareholder. Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, like some of the department store properties, is owned by Signa Holding owned by Austrian real estate investor René Benko. His consent, however, is a formality, he had used Kebekus and Geiwitz.
The following branches are to be closed:
- Galeria Kaufhof: Berlin Hohenschönhausen, Berlin Ringcenter, Braunschweig, Bremen, Brühl, Chemnitz, Dortmund, Düsseldorf Wehrhahn, Essen, Frankfurt Hessen-Center, Fulda, Göppingen, Hamburg AEZ, Hamburg Mönckebergstraße, Hamm, Ingolstadt, Cologne Weiden, Landau, Leverkusen, Mannheim N7 , Munich Stachus, Neubrandenburg, Neunkirchen, Neuss, Osnabrück, Stuttgart Bad Cannstatt, Witten, Worms.
- Karstadt: Berlin Charlottenburg, Berlin Gropius-Passage, Berlin Müllerstraße, Berlin Tempelhof, Bielefeld, Bonn, Bremerhaven, Dessau, Dortmund, Düsseldorf Schadowstraße, Essen, Flensburg, Frankfurt Zeil, Goslar, Gummersbach, Gütersloh, Hamburg Bergedorf, Hamburg Wandsbek, Hanover Georgstraße, Iserlohn, Leonberg, Lübeck, Mainz, Mönchengladbach Reydt, Munich Am Nordbad, Munich OEZ, Neumünster, Norderstedt, Nuremberg, Nuremberg Langwasser, Potsdam, Singen, Sulzbach MTZ, Trier Simeonstrasse.
- Also affected: Bargain center Gießen, bargain center Frankfurt NWZ, the not yet opened branch in Berlin Tegel.
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