Insolvent shoe retailer continues restructuring and is negotiating with several prospective buyers
Schuhhaus Dielmann will close 13 branches of the Dielmann, DSTEP and Sommerkind brands at the end of the year. Shops in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate are affected. 84 employees will be terminated on December 31st. The company said it was not possible to continue working in other stores.
As a result of the difficult situation caused by the corona pandemic, the group of companies started a protective shield procedure in June 2020. “The decision was not easy for us. However, the closures are an essential step for economic and insolvency reasons,” explains managing director Michael Specht, who is responsible for the necessary restructuring course at Schuhhaus Dielmann GmbH & Co. KG together with his managing director colleague Dr. Georg Bernsau from the law firm K&L Gates leads.
Negotiations with prospective buyers are currently continuing intensively, according to a statement. Various scenarios are being discussed, with both partial and complete solutions being possible. The goal remains to find one or more buyers who will invest in the future of the group. Results from the trial are expected in a few weeks. Concrete statements cannot therefore be made at this point in time.
The following branches will be closed by the end of December 2020 at the latest: Frankenthal (Speyerer Straße 16), Frankenthal (Speyerer Straße 18), Frankfurt am Main (Skyline Plaza/Europa Allee), Gelnhausen (Am Ziegelturm), Hanau (Hammerstraße), Kaiserlautern (Fackelstraße), Kaiserslautern (K in Lauern/Fackelrondell), Mannheim (Q7), 2x Neu-Isenburg (Isenburg-Zentrum/Hermesstraße), Neustadt an der Weinstraße (Hauptstraße), Offenbach (Frankfurter Straße) and Regensburg (Regensburg-Arcaden/Friedenstraße). The goods will be sold in these stores until the end of the year. The other 26 branches of Schuhhaus Dielmann GmbH & Co. KG and the eight stores of Sporthaus Robert Hübner GmbH are not affected. Business operations continue here without sales. At the end of September 2020, the branch in the ECE Center Ettlinger Tor in Karlsruhe, which had already been terminated before the protective shield proceedings, will close.
Background
As a result of the nationwide contact restrictions imposed for several weeks and nationwide branch closures in spring 2020, the group's sales collapsed completely. The measures implemented by management as a direct result had a short-term effect. Since a loan application for the necessary bridging financing was unexpectedly rejected, the group of companies started a protective shield procedure for these two companies in June 2020. At the beginning of September, the responsible district court opened the main proceedings.
