Statement from the Essen shoe chain in full
The Essen shoe retailer Deichmann has commented on the allegations that in the current situation it would refuse to pay rent to the detriment of other parties. This is wrong. Here is the Deichmann statement verbatim.
“Due to the government-imposed closures of all our sales outlets, it is no longer possible for us to fulfill the operational purpose of our stores. In this unprecedented situation for all of us, we have asked our landlords to temporarily defer rent payments due during the closure. The aim of the current and upcoming discussions with our landlords is to look for solutions together, which partial payments we can make at short notice and how we want to deal with the deferred payments depending on the extent and duration of the closures.
We have no interest in this and will prevent landlords from getting into distress as a result. If this were to become apparent in individual cases, we would do our utmost to help.
We ourselves are in the situation where we had to close around 1.500 branches in Germany, which no longer generate any sales. Although the short-time working allowance provides relief for personnel costs, the costs for logistics, parts of the administration, extensive purchasing of goods and rents continue. The biggest risk factor is that no one can say how long the closures will last. If this phase lasts longer, it will also threaten the existence of economically healthy companies. For us, everything we do is primarily about securing the jobs of our 16.000 employees in Germany. All employees will receive their full salary until April 5th, before parts of the workforce go on short-time work.
For us, as an internationally active company with a total of 43.000 employees, we are also affected by nationwide closures not only in Germany. We had to close our stores in 28 of the 30 countries where we operate. This means that 96 percent of our total of around 4.200 branches are no longer able to generate sales. The costs continue here too. The Deichmann Group operates around 600 stores in the USA alone. The situation here is currently completely confusing. The same applies to Italy and Spain. At this point it is completely unclear when our countries will be able to reopen. Even a healthy company can only bear such burdens for a limited time. Here, too, we talk to all market partners.
In general, we are looking for solutions together with all our partners in the market to overcome this difficult time together. We want no one to be left behind. We see this as our social responsibility.
The collapse in sales is not even remotely offset by online trading, as this is only in the single-digit percentage of sales.”
