The insolvent supermarket chain Real is giving up 18 stores to competitors, but there were no interested parties for 45 branches. They are scheduled to close by the end of March 2024, the company announced.
The ailing supermarket chain Real is on the verge of collapse. The company is giving several branches to competitors and wants to close the last stores by the end of March 2024. As Real announced, 14 stores are to be transferred to competitor Rewe, three branches to Kaufland and one store to Edeka.
The Federal Cartel Office still has to approve some of the plans. The remaining 45 stores will be closed by March 31, 2024 because “despite intensive efforts, no buyer has yet been found” for these locations.
5,000 employees affected by bankruptcy
The hypermarket chain Mein Real filed an application to open self-administered insolvency proceedings in September. This affected more than 5,000 employees in 62 stores and the headquarters in Mönchengladbach, it was said at the time. The insolvency proceedings under self-administration should make it possible to maintain business operations and to conduct negotiations with competitors about the possible takeover of locations.
The chain is owned by the financial investor SCP. He initially sold the company in June 2022, but bought it back in May 2023 in view of the “critical economic situation”.
SCP acquired the Real chain with its 276 stores at the time from the Metro trading group in 2020 in order to break it up and sell it on. Kaufland, Edeka, Globus and Rewe secured a large number of the most attractive branches.
The company with the remaining 62 locations then went to the family office of the Tischendorf family of entrepreneurs in the summer of 2022 before it was acquired back by SCP in May.
Discussions about social plan
Bojan Luncer, CEO of real GmbH, said that with the transfer of 18 “my real stores” a long-term perspective was secured for around 1,500 employees.
“Despite intensive efforts, the closure of stores is unavoidable given the difficult situation of real GmbH.” Discussions would be held with the works council with the aim of concluding a reconciliation of interests and a social plan.