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Closed since the end of January: Green letters lie in a shopping cart in the warehouse of the former Galeria Kaufhof branch in Hanau city center.

Photo: Arne Dedert/dpa

According to “Handelsblatt”, the decision in the bidding war for the insolvent department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof has been made: the US investor NRDC Equity Partners is to win the contract for the remaining 92 department stores. On Monday evening, Stefan Denkhaus, Galeria's insolvency administrator, informed the creditors' committee, the report says.

The contracts for the purchase of Galeria should therefore be signed on Tuesday. The final decision on a takeover by a new owner will be made by the creditors' meeting in May.

NRDC is the investment company of Canadian entrepreneur and multi-millionaire Richard Baker, who also owns the majority of the department store company Hudson Bay Company (HBC). Baker had previously owned Kaufhof through HBC. At that time, he often flew to the Cologne headquarters on a company jet - together with his lap dog Bella. Even back then, his goal was to move Kaufhof forward. “In fact, Richard Baker’s management is making everything worse,” was SPIEGEL’s conclusion in 2018. In 2019, Baker sold the German department store subsidiary to René Benko's Signa Group. Karstadt and Galeria Kaufhof then merged.

According to Handelsblatt, the consortium that now wants to take over Galeria also includes former Kaufhof supervisory board chairman Bernd Beetz.

The department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof filed for bankruptcy in January. This is the third insolvency procedure for the company. From 2020 onwards, Galeria went through insolvency proceedings during the corona pandemic and received state aid. In 2022 it needed further state aid, and a second insolvency procedure followed in 2023. As a result of the financial problems of the owner, the Austrian Signa Group, Galeria got into trouble again. Some of the department store properties are also part of an insolvent Signa company. Galeria boss Olivier van den Bossche and insolvency administrator Stefan Denkhaus want to preserve the group, which currently has around 12,800 employees.

vet/AFP