Bavaria’s Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) sees realistic chances of being able to save two of the three Kaufhof branches in Bavaria that are threatened with closure. On Thursday he named the two locations in Augsburg and Würzburg. On the other hand, “the fair is well read” for the Regensburg location, said Aiwanger at a meeting of the economic committee in the state parliament.
“I still see realistic prospects for two of the three locations,” said Aiwanger. There is a “certain probability” of continued operation here. But the minister also emphasized: “The breakthrough has not yet arrived.” In his opinion, the discussions between tenants and landlords, particularly about the rent level, went very well. For Augsburg, when asked, he put the probability of things continuing there at 51 to 49. And for Würzburg, he would be “surprised” if no solution could be found there. Because there is even “a little more room in the negotiations regarding rents”.
According to current plans, the financially troubled department store group Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof wants to close 16 of its 92 branches by August 31st of this year, including the three mentioned in Bavaria. This was announced by insolvency administrator Stefan Denkhaus at the end of April. In addition, 1,400 of the approximately 12,800 employees are expected to lose their jobs, almost a third of them at the Essen headquarters.
Attempts are now being made to avert the closure of individual branches by lowering rents. “The core issue is the rent level,” said Aiwanger. However, the pain threshold for lower rents will also be reached at some point for landlords, he admitted. “We are fighting for every location and the 80 to 100 employees there,” said Aiwanger.
There should be another mediation meeting regarding the Würzburg location on Thursday. And the talks also continued in Augsburg. It’s often about more, he emphasized. “There are often entire inner-city locations attached to it.” Realistically, however, “nothing can be saved” in Regensburg. There are no longer any discussions between landlord and tenant there. In Regensburg there are a number of negative factors, such as the poor structural condition of the property and the fact that there are two large shopping centers that compete with each other. “In this respect, not everything goes down the drain if someone closes down,” he added.
Aiwanger admitted that one could of course ask the question of whether the large department store model was still viable for the future. “The answer is: it depends.” It depends on the respective location and the rent levels, but also on “transport accessibility”.