With the ongoing reports about the insolvent Austrian real estate and trading group Signa Holding, things are not getting any quieter at Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof either. The Essen department store group is said to have to dig deep into its pockets for the properties that belong to Signa.
The real estate company Signa Prime Selection AG, which has also been insolvent since the end of December, owns 18 Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof department store properties. At these locations, the retailer, which in turn belongs to the other Signa subsidiary Signa Retail Selection AG, has to pay up to a third of the respective sales in rent, according to well-informed circles.
At the Hohe Straße location in Cologne, the share of sales that has to be paid to the Signa subsidiary as rent is over 30 percent. The average rose from 16 to 19 million euros between 2019 and 2023.
But in Frankfurt am Main too, rent is said to make up almost 27 percent of sales. At the locations on Hamburg’s Mönckebergstrasse and Bonn, the share of sales to be paid is just over 20 percent. The rents for properties in Mannheim, Düsseldorfer Königsallee and Berlin Hermannplatz are just below that. In comparison, the rent at the Berlin luxury department store KaDeWe is said to be around 13 percent, according to reports.
Galeria is expected to pay Signa around 180 million euros in rent per year for the 18 locations. The retailer currently operates a total of 92 department stores and employs around 15,500 people.