US investors

Now fixed: Signa subsidiary Galeria to new owners

View of the entrance to the Kaufhof store at Alexanderplatz in Berlin

(Bild: APA/dpa/Jörg Carstensen)

The insolvent department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof is going to a consortium led by investors Richard Baker and Bernd Beetz. The investors have been awarded the contract for the Signa subsidiary, announced Galeria insolvency administrator Stefan Denkhaus in Essen on Wednesday.

Galeria still operates 92 stores with 12,800 employees. How many there will be in the future is still open. According to Denkhaus, the aim is to take over at least 60 stores. If 60 stores were to remain after the sale, around one in three would close. Many of the employees must therefore fear for their jobs. "We are really fighting for every store," Denkhaus said recently. The chain is in fierce competition with online retailers from Amazon to Zalando as well as international textile chains.

US investor was already the owner once
A consortium consisting of Richard Baker's US investment company NRDC Equity Partners and the German entrepreneur Bernd Beetz will now take over the insolvent department store chain from René Benko.

The 58-year-old has a majority stake in the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) and Saks Fifth Avenue chains, which operate numerous department stores in the USA and Canada. Baker was previously the owner of Galeria Kaufhof. HBC, which claims to be North America's oldest company, took over the German department store subsidiary from the Metro retail group in 2015. It was the first step onto the European market for Baker's department store chain.

First insolvency shortly after merger with Signa
The merger with Signa followed at the end of 2018, HBC became a minority shareholder in the new holding company, Signa initially took over 50.01% of the merged company and then all shares in 2019. However, the new department store giant Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, which had more than 240 locations across Europe with around 32,000 employees, slipped into its first insolvency the following year.

In January 2024, Galeria filed for insolvency again, the third insolvency in three and a half years. The Essen district court opened the proceedings at the beginning of April.