Troubled department store group: creditors decide on Galeria’s future

Status: 03/27/2023 08:48 a.m

At a meeting of creditors today the future of the Galeria Group is to be decided. The management demands the waiver of claims in the billions. The trade union ver.di hopes for rescue.

The creditors of the department store group Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof want to set the course for the future of the ailing traditional company at a meeting in Essen this morning. The most important item on the agenda of the creditors’ meeting is the vote on the insolvency plan drawn up by the company’s management.

Creditors should waive billions in claims

According to media reports, in its insolvency plan, the company’s management is asking landlords, suppliers and other creditors to waive claims of more than one billion euros. This is how you want to give the group a fresh start. In addition, 47 of the last 129 department stores are to be closed and thousands of jobs eliminated as part of the renovation.

Despite all the hardships, acceptance of the insolvency plan is considered likely. Because in this way the creditors can hope to get at least a small part of their money back. If the insolvency plan is rejected, on the other hand, according to insolvency experts, there is a threat of the end for the group and possibly a total loss of the receivables.

Ver.di is pushing for rescue

Immediately before the creditors’ meeting, the ver.di trade union appealed to all those responsible to give the department store and its employees a future. “There is a lot of potential. The new management must use this, also and above all in the interests of the employees,” said ver.di federal board member Stefanie Nutzberger of the dpa news agency. It’s about people, livelihoods and jobs. “Galeria and the owner bear social responsibility for them.”

Nutzberger emphasized: “Galeria has a future if the employees are taken along: A digital stationary department store of the future needs their experience, their qualifications, their social skills in dealing with customers. We expect that all those responsible act in this spirit. ” She reiterated that the union will fight for every job.

Difficult times for the Galeria group

At the end of last year, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof sought rescue in a protective shield procedure for the second time in three years. The group cited the consequences of the corona pandemic and the Ukraine war as reasons for this.

A first protective shield procedure, which was initiated in 2020 during the first corona lockdown, brought only temporary relief to the company, despite the closure of around 40 branches, the loss of around 4,000 jobs and the cancellation of more than two billion euros in debt.

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