SIGNA announced that it is taking over 75.1% of the Karstadt Premi-um Group business and 75.1% of the Karstadt Sports business. The German Competition Authorities (Bundeskartellamt) will have to authorize the transaction.
Karstadt Premium is the operating company of the tree legendary luxury stores KaDeWe in Berlin, Alsterhaus in Hamburg and Oberpollinger in Munich. Karstadt Sports with its 28 specialized outlets is one of the leading suppliers in Germany. Berggruen Holdings will maintain its 24.9% stake of Karstadt Premium Group and Karstadt Sports as well as 100% of the core business with another 83 department stores.
The amount of €300 million will strengthen Karstadt Group to continue the already successful strategy “Karstadt 2015” and will serve to modernize the individual Karstadt department stores to secure Karstadts future development.
Christoph Stadlhuber (managing director, SIGNA):
“This transaction marks the next milestone of SIGNA’s success story. The takeover of the Karstadt Premium and the Karstadt Sports businesses boosts SIGNA to one of the leading companies for inner city retailing in top locations in Germany. The whole Karstadt Group will benefit from our investment and the ongoing successful path “Karstadt 2015” will be further fuelled and can be executed.
SIGNA being the largest landlord of Karstadt, this step means a strategic investment in the company. Our philosophy then and now was always: We believe in the future of inner city locations with strong an modern department stores, we believe in Germany as the European economic driving force and we believe in Germany’s retail, but above all we believe in Karstadt and its 20,000 employees.”
Source: Signa
