Status: 11/12/2022 4:51 p.m
After high losses, C&A has had a new management for two years. An interview with CEO Giny Boer shows that there are many plans for the clothing chain – but there are still significant problems.
tagesschau.de: What is your first impression when walking through pedestrian zones?
Giny Boer: It’s not just about impressions. It’s facts. Even before Corona there was a strong trend towards online trading. In the Corona period, this grew rapidly. Corona is still here. We don’t know what will happen next and what the customers will do. But I was really amazed at how strong and how quickly customers came back to the stores.
tagesschau.de: In many department stores and shopping centers, there are only large numbers of customers on the ground floor. What should happen to these concrete castles that stand four, five, six stories high in the cities and exude the charm of the seventies?
boy: Generally speaking: We have a need for apartments in Germany. Make beautiful apartments out of the buildings! But don’t give the impression that we’re going to build apartments in the future: we don’t own the buildings, but we do give back excess space to the landlords. We are currently discussing this with our landlords in concrete terms.
To person
Giny Boer has been CEO of the German fashion retailer C&A since January 2021. Before that she worked for 23 years as a manager for the furniture manufacturer IKEA.
Floors go back to landlords
tagesschau.de: They don’t publish how many stores C&A is closing. How much space are you giving up in Germany?
boy: How much area? I dont know. We analyzed our inventory of stores. Stores that are too big do not fit into the concept. We give floors back to our landlords or we look for another shop.
tagesschau.de: How many staff are you downsizing?
boy: Ha! We are looking for people in sales – especially in Germany. And we are looking for people for the digital business.
tagesschau.de: C&A stands for inexpensive clothing and has earned a reputation for not being hip. What do you want to change?
boy: We’re changing a lot. We are changing C&A with everything the new management is doing. We are becoming more modern everywhere. Look at what I’m wearing: it’s a lot more stylish than it used to be. We change business. We have already converted or renovated 730 shops or we have moved to better locations.
tagesschau.de: There’s a loyal clientele on a budget who don’t want to go to Primark or KiK. What are you doing to not scare off this clientele?
boy: I’m not afraid at all that we will lose customers. If I walk through pedestrian zones and see what people are wearing, then that suits us. Stylish has nothing to do with super fashionable. We sell durable basics: the clothes you wear every day. And it should also be stylish.
“400,000 jeans manufactured in an environmentally friendly way”
tagesschau.de: C&A sells clothing under its own brand. You have now started a laboratory factory for jeans in Mönchengladbach. Why are you changing from retailer to manufacturer?
boy: We learn from our own production what works with our suppliers and what doesn’t. We can also react to trends much more quickly than when working with manufacturers in distant Asia. And we are proud that Mönchengladbach is a green factory. This year, 400,000 pairs of jeans will be produced in an environmentally friendly way using renewable energy.
tagesschau.de: C&A was pretty weak in the online business. How should this continue?
boy: We have a new online shop. We work with Zalando and Amazon. It’s getting better every year and we’re growing more online than our competitors.
tagesschau.de: The last C&A annual report mentions a financial guarantee from the Brenninkmeijer family, which owns the company. This guarantee expired six weeks ago. Is there a new one for your business?
boy: We are a private family company and do not publicly discuss business metrics.
tagesschau.de: Your auditor writes of an imminent danger for C&A without the financial guarantees. This is a critical issue.
boy: We don’t talk about it publicly.
tagesschau.de: Ms. Boer, when you took over management in the middle of the Corona crisis, C&A was making a loss of roughly one million a day. Have the numbers gotten better?
boy: Oh yes, for sure. And I also know how much.