Now resolved: Signa subsidiary Galeria to new owners

Galeria still operates 92 locations with 12,800 employees. It is still unclear how many there will be in the future. According to Denkhaus, this involves the takeover of at least sixty branches. If there were 60 locations left after the sale, about one in three would close. Many employees therefore have to fear for their jobs. “We really fight for every industry,” Denkhaus said recently. The chain faces fierce competition from online retailers from Amazon to Zalando and international textile chains.

American investor has already been the owner at some point
A consortium consisting of the American investment company NRDC Equity Partners of Richard Baker and the German entrepreneur Bernd Beetz will now take over the bankrupt department store chain from René Benko.

The 58-year-old has a majority stake in the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) and Saks Fifth Avenue chains, which operate numerous department stores in the US and Canada. Baker already owned Galeria Kaufhof. HBC, which claims to be North America’s oldest company, acquired the German department store subsidiary of the Metro retail group in 2015. It was the first step into the European market for department store chain Baker’s.

First bankruptcy shortly after the merger with Signa
The merger with Signa followed at the end of 2018, HBC became minority owner of the new holding company, Signa initially acquired 50.01 percent of the merged company and then all shares in 2019. However, the following year the new department store giant Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, which had more than 240 locations across Europe with approximately 32,000 employees, went bankrupt for the first time.

In January 2024, Galeria filed for bankruptcy again; it was the third bankruptcy within three and a half years. At the beginning of April, the responsible court in Essen opened the procedure.