Breakthrough at Karstadt: Department store chain and Verdi decide … – Handelsblatt

Karstadt

Not only 15,000 Jobs, including 78 branches to stay until at least 2021.

(photo: Reuters)

in the Midst of the important Christmas business has been achieved for the employees of the Department store chain Karstadt after difficult bargaining for a breakthrough. Karstadt and the Verdi Union agreed on Friday in Frankfurt am Main, among other things, on a long term site and employment protection, arrangements for the payment of Christmas and holiday money, as well as arrangements to future salary increases.

Karstadt was in a serious crisis and had to leave in may 2013, as a result, the coverage rate of collective agreements. The company is since a few months back on course for recovery. The company itself referred to in a communication to the vertices on the “success of the intensive modernization of the last two fiscal years”. The final Text of the new collective agreement should be formulated in the next few weeks, said Verdi.

The site and employment guarantee is to apply, according to the Union for all 78 branches, and thus for more than 15 000 Employees. The aim of the agreement is the complete return in the tariff binding at the latest in 2021, Karstadt.

Karstadt and Kaufhof were Two houses with Tradition

• The race for the biggest German store chain Galeria Kaufhof, is gone. The Metro group sold in June 2015, his daughter, for € 2.8 billion to the canadian retail group Hudson’s Bay. The Disadvantage of the owners of the competing chain Karstadt, Rene Benko, who was also interested in Kaufhof. For the ailing Karstadt group, it might be even harder to compete. Hudson’s Bay wants to use Kaufhof as a springboard for further Expansion in Europe.

• Kaufhof generated in the 2013/2014 financial year, with around 21,500 employees around three billion euros in sales and earned operational almost 200 million euros. Around two million customers a day visit one of the 104 Were and 16 Sports stores in more than 80 cities in the whole of Germany. In Belgium, Kaufhof operates 16 stores under the name of “Galeria Inno”. Kaufhof, with its headquarters in Cologne, can look back on an almost 140-year history: in 1879, the merchant Leonhard Tietz in Stralsund, opened a small textile business and thus laid the Foundation stone for the house. Metro chief Olaf Koch had made Kaufhof for sale, because he looks for the Department store concept under the umbrella of the Metro not provide sufficient opportunities for Expansion.

• An almost equally long Tradition, such as Kaufhof and Karstadt. In 1881, Rudolph Karstadt founded his first store in Wismar. The branch network grew rapidly. Karstadt absorbed the Neckermann Versand majority, took over Hertie and merged at the end of the 1990s, with the mail-order source to KarstadtQuelle. However, the business model began to show the strain. Karstadt castle houses, sold his real estate, slithered his but nevertheless, in 2009, together with his former parent company, Arcandor, filed for bankruptcy. In 2010, the billionaire Nicolas Berg then took over Karstadt green out of insolvency. Four years later, he passed Karstadt then completely to the Austrian real estate Investor Rene Benko. The Essen-based company operates today with approximately 16,000 employees and 81 stores, by 2016 at the latest, a further five are to be closed. 2012/2013 accumulated Karstadt a loss of 131 million euros, sales fell by nine percent to 2.67 billion euros.

• Hudson’s Bay was founded in 1670 and is the oldest company in North America. So far, the Toronto-based, and once the fur trade made the group operates only in Canada and the United States. The publicly traded company offers, among its brands, Hudson’s Bay, Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue clothing, accessories, shoes, beauty products and household goods. In Canada and the USA, Hudson operates’s Bay and over 300 shops. 2014, the turnover of the group amounted to 8.2 billion Canadian dollars (about 5.8 billion euros), the profit was the bottom line of almost $ 240 million.

• Kaufhof is supposed to be for the Canadians a springboard for Expansion in Europe. Here you have to put in priority with the traditional Italian chain La Rinascente, as well as the largest European Department store chain, the Spanish El Corte Ingles. La Rinascente was taken over in 2011 by a majority of the Thai Central Group. The took over recently, in addition, 50.1 percent of the operative business of Karstadt-luxury homes of the Benko: the KaDeWe in Berlin, the Alster in Hamburg house and the Department store Oberpollinger in Munich.

“the Important thing is that now both clarity for our staff about our Tarifweg, as well as the agreement on the collective level, the economic performance of Karstadt taken into account,” said Karstadt-work Director Miguel müllenbach.

“It is good that the tariff binding is restored. It is important that Karstadt now active the future of the Department store," said Verdi Federal Board member Stefanie use Berger. For this, there is a need to make the necessary investments and sufficient staff. Verdi negotiator Bernhard Schiederig of uncertainty.

Karstadt was also overthrown because of the Bankruptcy of the parent company, Arcandor, 2010, in a crisis, and wrote in the red. The consequences of this were staff reductions and branch closures. In 2014, the Department store chain was taken over by the Austrian company Signa. In the course of its restructuring Karstadt-Chef Fanderl had turned the company. The warehouse has been reduced, margins have been higher.

Already the end of October, Karstadt had communicated to pay in the face of a positive business development of the nationwide, approximately 14, 000 employees now, but is a Christmas money. This was not provided for in the reorganization plan originally. At the end of September completed financial year 2015/2016 was a “another challenging year in the sign of the change programme,” it said in a Letter of Fanderl. Karstadt have, however, stabilized income, the cost is reduced, and so overall a good development.

other chains are under pressure. The reasons chains and discount clothing stores to apply Cheap, but also Shopping centers and manufacturer-owned stores and increasing Online sales.