The Solingen-based retailer Walbusch Walter Busch GmbH & Co. KG had to accept a setback in the 2022 financial year after years of growth. The parent company of the concepts Walbusch, Avena, Mey & Edlich and LaShoe announced on Monday that sales fell by 6.7 percent compared to the previous year to 400.2 million euros. In Germany, revenues fell by 7.3 percent to 361.2 million euros, abroad by 1.3 percent to 39.0 million euros.
“After the strong growth phase from 2018 to 2021, we are of course disappointed that we were not able to continue this development as planned,” admitted main shareholder Christian Busch in a statement. “In view of the many devastating crises in Germany, Europe and the world, we also have to distinguish which internal reasons and which external influences led to this result.” For example, the effects of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine had a negative impact on business. “Up until February, the world was still fine for us economically. Therefore, we certainly cannot ignore the crisis as an argument for this unsatisfactory situation,” emphasized Busch.
For the current year, the company does not expect any significant improvement in the situation and is therefore only aiming for stabilization of sales at a level of around EUR 400.0 million. “For 2023 we do not yet see any tailwind from the market and can only hope that we have reached the bottom,” explained Busch. But he was “also confident that the great efforts of the team in recent months have made a very important contribution to overcoming the crisis”.