The trading company Schuh-Oase GmbH & Co. KG, based in Nassenfels in Upper Bavaria, has also got into financial difficulties due to significant losses in sales. The shoe retailer, which in addition to its main business also operates branches of the Tamaris and Rieker brands in Bavaria, had to file for bankruptcy on December 19, 2022, confirmed the provisional insolvency administrator Matthias Hofmann at the request of FashionUnited.
According to the lawyer from the law firm Pohlmann Hofmann, which specializes in restructuring cases, the step became necessary “after it became foreseeable that the company will no longer be able to cover the costs incurred from future income and from the existing income in the medium and long term to settle the financing”.
Business operations will continue for the time being
In the past two years, Hofmann explained in a statement that it had been possible to compensate for “significant sales declines since the onset of the corona pandemic” through “government aid on the one hand and concessions on the part of the landlords of the 10 branches”. “With the expiry of the agreements with the landlords at the turn of the year, however, the company will no longer be able to secure its financial requirements in the medium term.”
The business operations of all ten stores can be “continued without restrictions” for the time being, and there is already “agreement with key business partners regarding the continuation in the coming weeks and months,” stressed Hofmann. The salaries of the around fifty employees are secured by the insolvency money until the end of February.
“New conditions” are being negotiated with the landlords of the ten shops
How things will continue with the shoe retailer in the future depends not least on further concessions from the landlords. Corresponding negotiations represented “the core of the restructuring efforts”, explained the provisional insolvency administrator.
“In my opinion, there is a long-term perspective for the company above all if it succeeds in agreeing new conditions for the future with the landlords of the 10 branches, which will still have a lower sales level compared to the time before the Corona pandemic enable cost-covering continuation”, explained Hofmann.