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Karstadt is a department store of the old order.

The first store was opened in Wismar in 1881 and it’s been synonymous – along with Kaufhof, Hertie and others – with the “everything under one roof” retailing concept.

Karstadt swallowed Hertie in 1994 and then merged with Quelle, a huge mail order/bricks and mortar retailer.

And then declared bankruptcy last year when their liquidity went to zero.

It seems to drift around in a no mans’ land, with a target market that’s aging and not very wealthy. Which would include me, but I don’t consume, so there..

Ms jb reckons that the difference between department stores in the States and here is that over there, the department stores have the good stuff and the boutiques the tat and over here it’s vice versa.

And if she wouldn’t know about this stuff, no-one would…

There’s currently a battle for ownership, with Berggruen Holdings, a private American investor getting the nod ahead of Highstreet, a Canadian asset management company which owns the properties via a sale and lease back deal.

Except that to make the deal work, Berggruen needs Highstreet to drastically reduce the rents currently being charged (which were a key driver for the bankruptcy in the first place.)

Did someone say “hell, chance, snowball”?

I’m not holding my breath….

10 Jun This entry was published on 10 June, 2010 at 11:00. It’s filed under Commerce, Mainz and tagged Karstadt. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.