All four Munich branches of the financially struggling department store group Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof will be retained – including the location on Rotkreuzplatz. Of the Munich branches, it was considered the most at risk in the current insolvency phase. When insolvency administrator Stefan Denkhaus announced on Saturday the list of 16 of a total of 92 Kaufhof branches in Germany that had to close, three of them were in Bavarian cities, namely Augsburg, Regensburg and Würzburg, but none in the Bavarian capital.
“The relief is of course great,” says Alfred Birkenmayer, works council chairman of the Rotkreuzplatz branch, which seemed particularly threatened by closure. “We had a staff meeting this morning and had a glass of champagne.” However, the joy is of course clouded by the closures at other locations; the connections are particularly close to the Bavarian ones.
:The department stores in these cities are closing
The list of “closing branches” is out: it affects cities where the locations are not profitable, three in Berlin, three in Bavaria, but not in Munich.
The 80 Galeria employees at the Rotkreuzplatz branch, but also the 40 employees at the attached market hall who are employed by another company, no longer have to worry. Birkenmayer himself does not yet know why the department store on Rotkreuzplatz was not affected, or whether a reduction in rent could possibly be achieved in the negotiations. The location is in line with the planned new buildings Neuhausen, where an affluent clientele can be expected, has a good perspective. It would actually be “profitable if it weren’t for this crazy rent burden.”
A real estate subsidiary from René Benko’s Signa Group, which previously also included the Galeria department store group, acts as the landlord at the Rotkreuzplatz location. However, the Signa rental company demanded an extremely high rent for the building from the Signa department store division. According to reports, it was a good 18 percent of sales; ten to twelve percent is considered a reasonable rent in a good location like Munich.
Munich’s Verdi boss Heinrich Birner and city councilor Anna Hanusch (Greens) do not yet know details of the negotiations. In any case, Birner is initially “glad” that the department store on Rotkreuzplatz and with it the jobs and shopping opportunities for the residents of the area have been preserved. “I hope that there will be peace and quiet for the next few years,” says the trade unionist. Green politician Hanusch, who is also chairwoman of the Neuhausen-Nymphenburg district committee, is also “greatly happy” about the news. Because Rotkreuzplatz is a location that “definitely works and is important for our district.”
The prospects for the other branches had already been good at the beginning of the current Galeria insolvency. The building on Marienplatz also has a high rent burden, but it is the branch with the highest turnover in the entire group. The branches on Münchner Freiheit and in the OEZ reportedly have moderate rents and good sales figures at the same time.
(With material from dpa)