The district court in Essen, Germany, has opened insolvency proceedings for the last major German department store chain, the Gallery. The court today gave the go-ahead for the self-management process after the restructuring plan was submitted to the court in time, the company said. The department store giant is owned by Austrian investor Rene Benko’s multibillion-dollar Signa Holding.
The management with the German general representative Arndt Geiwitz can now proceed with the restructuring of the Galeria company, Frank Kebekus was confirmed as administrator of the department store chain. The restructuring concept envisages the repositioning of the Gallery with a range of products more strongly geared towards local needs.
This also includes the integration of mobile, online and branch shopping options. It is not yet clear what the branch network will look like in the future – conversations with the owners continued. Geiwitz originally announced last year that over the course of January it would likely become clear which of the 131 department stores would have to close its doors.
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in Berlin that he did not want to comment specifically on the insolvency proceedings. The German government supported the company twice during the pandemic – due to the special importance of the branches for the inner cities. “However, there are structural issues that could not be resolved during this support period,” he added.