The Osnabrück shoe retailer Reno is insolvent just six months after changing ownership. Insolvency proceedings were opened at the district court of Hameln against both the parent company Reno Schuhcentrum GmbH and the subsidiary Reno Schuh GmbH, as the court confirmed on Wednesday. The company itself also confirmed this via a media agency. Valtier’s Immo Hamer was appointed provisional insolvency administrator. The “Wirtschaftswoche” had previously reported.
According to the company, Reno currently operates around 180 branches and employs a total of around 1,000 people. The submitted insolvency application therefore only affects the German branches – not the sister companies in Austria and Switzerland.
The ailing shoe retail chain only got a new owner six months ago. At the end of September, the HR Group sold the shoe retailer to cm.sports GmbH in cooperation with GA Europe.
Reboot out of bankruptcy
Even before the takeover by a new shareholder in autumn 2022, insolvency could not be ruled out, according to a statement. The company is currently in coordination with the provisional insolvency administrator in order to enable a new start from the insolvency, said the Reno managing director responsible for finance, Dieter Metz.
Attempts to bring the company back into the profit zone, for example through cost savings, were not sufficiently successful. “We actually planned to start with a slightly smaller team, a good base of branches and a new range,” said Metz. In recent months, however, sales have fallen short of expectations.
The shoe trade as a whole is in crisis
Reno is not an isolated case. Large parts of the shoe trade are in crisis due to the consequences of the corona pandemic and the price explosion triggered by the Ukraine war. More than every tenth shoe shop closed its doors forever last year, reported Rolf Pangels, the general manager of the Textile Shoes, Leather Goods (BTE) trade association. 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.
Well-known names are also struggling. The Hamburg shoe retailer Görtz had to seek rescue in a protective shield insolvency procedure last September. The company, which at that time still had 160 branches in Germany and Austria, justified the step with the effects of the Ukraine war, high inflation and rising energy prices, which would have led to “enormous reluctance to buy” in the branches and in the online business.
In the meantime, a new investor has been found who is supposed to secure the future of Görtz. However, the number of branches is likely to be halved as part of the restructuring measures.
