According to a report, the creditors of the department store group Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof should again waive billions in the ongoing insolvency proceedings. This is what the insolvency plan envisages, on which the creditors are to vote on March 27 in Essen, the ‘Wirtschaftswoche’ reported.
If the creditors should reject the concept, “business operations will have to be stopped immediately”, the magazine quoted on Thursday from a “summary of the essential content of the insolvency plan”. A sale of the company as a whole is also out of the question in this case. The department store group did not want to comment on the report when asked.
Creditors should waive most of the claims
According to information from the newspaper, the management is asking landlords, suppliers and other creditors to waive a large part of the claims in order to enable Galeria to start over. The restructuring consultants therefore expect “insolvency claims entitled to plan payments” totaling 1.41 to 2.36 billion euros.
According to Wirtschaftswoche, creditors without collateral should only receive 2 to 3.5 percent of the amount owed to them if the insolvency plan is accepted. In the event of a rejection, however, there was a risk of even greater losses. Because then “much less will be left for them,” according to corporate circles.
According to the report, creditors who have collateral face fewer losses. This also includes partial amounts from the state economic stabilization fund (WSF), which has supported Galeria with 680 million euros in recent years. According to the insolvency plan, the WSF should get back around 88 million euros from the sale of the inventory. In addition, he should be involved in the sale of Galeria subsidiaries such as the Belgian chain Inno.
At the end of October, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof had sought rescue using protective shield procedures for the second time in less than three years. Creditors had already waived billions in claims in the first process so that the department store chain could find a way out of the crisis.