The receiver of Kika/Leiner has specified the number of possible terminations. About 2,000 of the 3,296 employees will be retained and about 1,300 will lose their jobs. The number of branch closures has not changed.
It was initially believed that 1,900 people were affected. The numbers are not set in stone: “There is no job guarantee in insolvency proceedings,” stated bankruptcy trustee Volker Leitner at a press conference in St. Pölten on Thursday.
According to Leitner, the approximately 600 people who work for the – not bankrupt – catering companies do not have to worry about their jobs. At the end of May, the employees of Kika/Leiner received their salary. The payments from June 1 to the opening of restructuring proceedings on June 13 are therefore open to insolvency claims and can be registered with the Insolvency Payment Protection Fund, which must be transferred with “not too much delay”.
From June 14, i.e. during the mass period, “wage claims will be paid again on time, entirely from the follow-up”.
Number of branch closures remains at 23
According to Leitner, no changes are planned for the 23 branch closures; the existing concept should be implemented here in the restructuring process. “The company with 110 years of tradition” will continue “with the other 17 locations. You can only hope that this will all work out.”
The branch closures are planned for the period from June 15 to August 15, probably after the current sale. With regard to notice periods, an average of three months is expected.
End of procedure “mid-October possible”
With regard to the funds made available by the new owners Hermann Wieser and Supernova, the press conference spoke of a “high double-digit million amount”. If the restructuring plan is accepted in the vote on Sept. 25, the end of the proceedings “may be in mid-October,” Leitner predicted.
Although Leitner did not mention figures in many respects, the “Kurier” quotes from the as yet unpublished balance sheet of Leiner & Kika Möbelhandels GmbH for the financial year 2021/22. There is a balance sheet loss of 130.7 million euros and a payment to the tax authorities of 52.5 million euros.
Both the “Kurier” and the “Standard” highlight the huge increase in rental costs for Kika/Leiner. Signa denies this in a statement. Since the takeover in 2018, there have been “no increases in market rents”.
Kogler questions Benko’s “pirouettes”.
In general, Kika/Leiner continued with politics on Thursday. “There are several deviations and they are now being investigated,” Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens) said at a press conference in Vienna. The group of Kika/Leiner and Rene Benko clearly drove a “very nice rally, with pirouettes that others didn’t always understand”, says Kogler.
“I am in good spirits that we are now looking at exactly what is going on,” said the vice-chancellor. For him, it is “very, very good news” that the Chief Financial Prosecutor, Wolfgang Peschorn, is now investigating everything so that the republic’s claims can be filed accordingly. “Honestly, I’m also interested in what happened then.”
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
