There is now nothing standing in the way of the takeover of Closed by the Böck family of entrepreneurs and the fashion manager Dieter Holzer. The Federal Cartel Office has approved the takeover of the Closed Group, which is in insolvency proceedings, by capital-Home GmbH, which also holds the majority of shares in the Marc O’Polo Group, as the authority announced on Friday.
“Although there are certainly overlaps in the product portfolio of the parties involved, the merger will not lead to market shares in any of the affected markets that could be expected to hinder effective competition,” said Andreas Mundt, President of the Federal Cartel Office. “The Federal Cartel Office was therefore able to approve the merger within a week of registration.”
This means that the proceedings, as announced by the insolvency administrator Stefan Denkhaus, can now be completed by the end of the month. In addition to the approval by the Federal Cartel Office, there was talk last week of meeting further closing conditions, but Denkhaus was confident that these requirements would be met. The future of Closed’s foreign subsidiaries is currently still being negotiated.
In the future, Dieter Holzer will take over the management of the company as CEO and co-partner. Holzer was Maximilian Böck’s predecessor as CEO of Marc O’Polo and is now a member of the company’s supervisory board. During his career, he also ran the clothing company Tom Tailor, among other things. He is supported by the current management team around product manager Gordon Giers and Chief Sales Officer (CSO) Til Nadler.
Closed GmbH filed for bankruptcy on August 5th. The step was “necessary because of excessive debt and the associated financing costs,” it was said at the time. However, the operational business is “fundamentally profitable”.