10:06:15
Again a new owner. Hamburg-based company may invest in hope
Hamburg. The news has caught the cold more than 200 employees: The Alster house is sold. The Austrian companies and René Benko emits more than half of its investments in the three luxury department stores Alster in Hamburg, KaDeWe in Berlin and Oberpollinger in Munich at the Thai company Central Group. The new majority shareholder (50.1 percent) operates in Asia numerous department stores, shopping malls and hotels. In 2012, the Asians have also acquired the Italian department store La Rinascente. When Alsterhaus wanted you to the events not comment, even the works council referred to the executive suite.
The Italians operate eleven stores in the country and generate together with the 2013 acquired Danish department store Illum with 1,600 employees around 600 million euros. The Alsterhaus and the other two department stores come under the roof of La Rinascente. With the new partner a strategic partner will brought on board, informed the Benko holding Signa. Benko still controls the property. The Austrians had the three department stores take effect until mid-September-2013. The head of the Thai Central Group, Tos Chirathivat had already announced in the spring, to invest more than one billion in the homeland and abroad. The Thais want to bring their retail experience and preserve the long history of the three top department stores, respectively. Sales in the European retail sector wants Central Group doubled with the acquisition of 1.2 billion euros and purchase additional department stores in Europe.
The purchase price has not been spoken. But both owner will jointly invest a three-digit million amount in the company. For further decisions unanimity between Benko and the Thais had been agreed. In addition, they want to check whether they could take over competitors in Germany and Switzerland. Concrete plans for acquisitions admit it already. Benko plans to take over the German department store chain Kaufhof, which will repel the Metro.
The Alsterhaus is one of the most famous department stores in Hamburg. Even the former “Warenhaus Hermann Tietz ‘, which later became the Alsterhaus, became the talk of the town. Since 1912, this traditional house is situated on the outer Alster lake.
Especially in recent years, the employees had to suffer strongly. 2009 was the former parent company Karstadt into bankruptcy. The employees feared for their future. The new buyer Nicolas Berggruen had no knack and sold the department store group to Benko.
La Rinascente is one of an Italian family that deals with clothing since 1877. The Italian company is a successful provider of premium and luxury goods houses and Europe’s market leader in this area. The acquisition of other competitors in Germany and Switzerland would be examined closely, Benko said. He also promised that the 1900 employees in the three German department returned step by step in the collective bargaining coverage and would thus again make more money.
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