Two weeks after the Osnabrück shoe retailer Reno filed for insolvency, its former parent company, the HR Group, is also insolvent. A company spokesman announced on Wednesday that the company had filed an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings for nine German companies with the district court in Osnabrück. It has already been opened at seven subsidiaries.
According to the court, the Munich lawyer Christian Gerloff was appointed provisional insolvency administrator. The “Wirtschaftswoche” had previously reported on it. The HR Group also has a logistics location in Thaleischweiler-Fröschen in Rhineland-Palatinate.
According to the company, the wages and salaries of the approximately 750 employees are secured until the end of June 2023. The group’s foreign companies in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary are not directly affected by the bankruptcy filings.
The HR Group had sold Reno with the entire branch business in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to an investor on October 1 of last year. An interested party was also sought for the system business and the logistics location in Thaleischweiler-Fröschen in Rhineland-Palatinate.
According to the company, this search came to a surprising standstill. This is also related to Reno’s bankruptcy filing at the end of March, because the HR Group continues to provide extensive IT and logistics services for Reno.
Shoe retail in crisis
In addition, the HR Group will be burdened by the consequences of the corona pandemic and the energy crisis, price increases and outstanding receivables. “Consumers’ continued reluctance to buy and the correspondingly lower demand from retail customers had a direct negative effect on sales and liquidity,” it said.
Almost the entire shoe trade is currently in a crisis, said Gerloff in a first statement. “Nevertheless, the system business and logistics are tried and tested business models in which the HR Group has proven and recognized competence in the market.” He wants to stabilize ongoing operations and explore all options for a viable future solution.
Large parts of the shoe trade are in crisis as a result of the corona pandemic and the inflation caused by the war in Ukraine. According to the Trade Association Textile Shoes Leather Goods (BTE), more than every tenth shoe store closed last year. Overall, according to calculations by the association, the number of shoe shops fell by 1,500 or 13 percent to around 10,000 within a year.
