Karstadt
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| GmbH | |
| Industry | Department Stores, Retail |
| Founded | May 1881 |
| Founder | Rudolph Karstadt |
| Headquarters | Essen, Germany |
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Key people
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| € 2,673 million (2013) | |
| - € 131.056 million (2013) | |
| Owner | Signa Holding |
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Number of employees
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16,545 (July 2014) |
| Website | www |
Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH is a German department store chain whose headquarters are in Essen. Up until 30 September 2010 the company was a subsidiary of Arcandor AG (which was known until 30 June 2007 as KarstadtQuelle AG) and was responsible within the group for the business segment of over-the-counter retail.
On 9 June 2009 Essen District Court ordered provisional asset administration and protective measures in response to an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings. It also appointed a provisional insolvency administrator. The insolvency proceedings were opened on 1 September 2009. On 7 June 2010 the board of creditors resolved to sell Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH to the investor Nicolas Berggruen. Berggruen had taken over all Karstadt stores by 1 October 2010. This had been determined by Essen District Court on 3 September 2010. On 14 August 2014 it was announced that Karstadt had been completely taken over by Signa Holding of the Austrian investor René Benko, which already owned the majority of the sports shops and premium stores.
Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH comprises 83 department stores, 4 bargain centres, 2 branches of K Town and the online shop karstadt.de. The 28 sports shops belong to Karstadt Sports GmbH. The three premium stores - Oberpollinger in Munich, Alsterhaus in Hamburg and Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin which, with a sales area of 60,000 square metres, is both the largest German and second largest European department store, belong to The KaDeWe Group.
Its only major German competitor is Galeria Kaufhof.
On 14 May 1881 Rudolph Karstadt opened his first store in Wismar under the name “Tuch-, Manufactur- und Confectionsgeschäft Karstadt”. Karstadt’s strategy of offering fixed low prices in place of the still normal haggling was successful from the start as a result of which he had soon opened branches in 24 towns across Northern Germany. The second Karstadt store opened in Lübeck in 1884. The first customers included Thomas Mann and his brother Heinrich. Further branches opened in Neumünster (1888), Braunschweig (1890), Kiel (1893), Mölln (1895), Eutin (1896) and Preetz (1897). In 1900 Rudolph Karstadt took over 13 stores from his highly indebted brother Ernst Karstadt in Anklam, Dömitz, Friedland, Greifswald, Güstrow, Hamburg (Röhrendamm), Ludwigslust, Neubrandenburg, Schwerin, Stavenhagen, Wandsbek (Lübecker Straße) and Waren (Müritz). Further branches opened in Bremen (1902), Hamburg-Eimsbüttel (1903), Altona (1903), Hannover (1906) and Wilhelmshaven (1908). An early highpoint was the opening in 1912 of the branch in Hamburg’s Mönckebergstraße which, with a sales area of around 10,000 m², was the first such department store in a major German city. Karstadt also moved increasingly into the in-house production of clothing, opening a large material store in Berlin in 1911 and a clothing factory in the following year. In addition to this, a factory for the production of men’s clothing was opened in Stettin in 1919.
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Wikipedia