According to Capital information, the department store chain KaDeWe filed for insolvency with the responsible district court in Charlottenburg on Friday evening. The application was submitted after the Charlottenburg district court closed, according to company circles. The original plan was for there to be official communication about the developments on Monday. On Saturday afternoon, Capital reported on the application, and later the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” also reported. The company has not yet made any official statement.
Not only the legendary KaDeWe department store in Berlin is affected by the bankruptcy, but also the Alterhaus in Hamburg and the Oberpollinger in Munich. Behind the three department stores is the KaDeWe Group, which is 49.9 percent owned by the Signa Group led by the Austrian entrepreneur René Benko.
Many years ago, Benko had separated the trading business in the luxury department stores in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich from the normal branches of the then independent Karstadt department store chain and incorporated it into a separate company. The majority owner of the KaDeWe Group, with recent sales of around 800 million euros, has been the Central Group from Thailand, the country’s largest operator of shopping malls, since 2015. The billionaire Chirathivat family, most recently the fourth richest family in Thailand, is behind the Central Group.
The Potsdam insolvency lawyer Christian Graf Brockdorff is being discussed as the administrator for the luxury department store chain. The insolvency court decides who will conduct the proceedings. According to Capital information, the management had already brought consultants from the Frankfurt law firm Finkenhof, which specializes in insolvency law and restructuring, into the company a few weeks ago. This article first appeared in the business magazine “Capital”, which, like stern, is part of RTL Deutschland.
