The Central Group from Thailand is taking over the property of the Berlin luxury department store KaDeWe. The group is also considered a possible full owner of the department store business, which includes the Alsterhaus and Oberpollinger.
The property of the Berlin luxury department store KaDeWe is being completely taken over by the Thai Central Group. The previous owner was the now insolvent Signa Prime Selection. As the Central Group announced, a complete acquisition by the Thais has now been agreed.
According to Berlin’s Senator for Economic Affairs Giffey, the Central Group is apparently paying a billion euros for the building on Berlin’s Tauentzienstrasse. The takeover is good news for the department store and for Berlin, said the SPD politician.
The takeover is also coming department store business?
The Central Group has been doing business with Signa, the bankrupt department store group owned by the Austrian René Benko, for years. The current issue is the property of the department store in Berlin. The Thai group of companies is probably also one of the candidates for a complete takeover of the KaDeWe Group, i.e. the department store business. The Central Group, which is backed by a billionaire family from Thailand, already holds a majority of 50.1 percent of the shares.
Central Group managing director Tos Chirathivat said in a statement: “We will continue to work with everyone involved to find the best possible solution so that our department stores can resume normal operations – better and stronger than before and as quickly as possible. ” The Central Group is an international conglomerate based in Bangkok that, in addition to department stores, also owns hotels and develops large real estate projects.
Luxury on eight football fields
The traditional luxury department store in Berlin is about eight football fields, i.e. around 60,000 square meters of shopping space. KaDeWe primarily sells high-quality clothing, shoes, handbags and delicatessen. In addition to the Kaufhaus des Westens – KaDeWe for short – in Berlin, the Oberpollinger in Munich and the Alsterhaus in Hamburg also belong to the KaDeWe group.
At the end of January, it filed for self-administration bankruptcy, but business operations have continued since then. According to the company, very high rents were the reason that led to the situation.
Signa is smashed
Signa also owned Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof. Now new owners want to get the insolvent department store chain back on track. The investors have announced that they want to continue operating more than 70 of the current 92 branches.
The Austrian Signa represents one of the largest bankruptcies in the retail and real estate business. In the meantime, Benkos Signa-Holding has filed for bankruptcy and withdrawn the restructuring plan. Now it’s about quickly exploiting the assets and breaking up the group.