After the online shop Tennis-Point filed for bankruptcy, the parent company Signa Sports United NV (SSU) from the Signa Group of the Austrian investor René Benko has also filed for bankruptcy. This emerged on Friday from an announcement by the Bielefeld insolvency court on the Internet. Accordingly, the lawyer Christian Gerloff from Munich was appointed as the provisional insolvency administrator. The “Handelsblatt” had previously reported on it.
Insolvency after withdrawal of financing commitment
SSU announced that Tennis-Point had filed for insolvency a week ago and had already announced further insolvency applications from companies in the SSU group, including the parent company. The reason for the bankruptcy filing was the insufficient financial resources following the termination of an equity commitment from Signa Holding GmbH, SSU reported last week. Benko’s Signa Holding had previously withdrawn a financing commitment of 150 million euros for SSU. In Germany, Signa owns, among other things, the Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof retail chain.
Tennis-Point is based in Herzebrock-Clarholz, Westphalia. SSU NV is registered in the Netherlands but has its registered office in Berlin. It was not initially known why the insolvency application was filed in Bielefeld.
The e-commerce company SSU went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021 and had a peak market value of $3.2 billion. Trading in SSU securities on the New York Stock Exchange had already been suspended on October 11th. SSU claims to include numerous shops such as Fahrrad.de, Bikester, Probikeshop, Campz, Addnature, TennisPro and Outfitter. (dpa)