Company type | Public |
---|---|
FWB: ARO | |
Industry | Retail |
Founded | 1999 |
Defunct | 2009 |
Fate | Bankruptcy |
Headquarters | Essen, Germany |
Number of employees | 68,000 (2005) |
Website | www |
Arcandor AG was a holding company located in Essen, Germany, that oversaw a number of companies operating in the businesses of mail order and internet shopping, department stores and tourism services. It was formed in 1999 by the merger of Karstadt Warenhaus AG, founded in 1920, with Quelle AG, founded in 1927. In 2005, the corporation had about 68,000 employees and annual sales of €15.5 billion. Its stocks were traded on the Mid Cap DAX until September 2009. The company's largest store was Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, and the largest store operated by Karstadt was in Frankfurt.
Arcandor requested financial assistance from the German government, which was rejected by the European Commission on 3 June 2009. [1] On 6 June 2009, the company announced it was no longer able to pay rent for its department stores, which the company had previously sold and leasebacked. [2] Three days later, the company filed for bankruptcy. [3]
On 14 May 1881, Rudolph Karstadt founded his first store Tuch-, Manufaktur- und Konfektionsgeschäft Karstadt (Karstadt fabric, factory outlet and ready-to wear store) in Wismar. In 1884, a second store was opened in Lübeck. Soon, 24 stores had been opened in all of Northern Germany. In 1920, the business was turned into a joint stock company.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, department stores founded by Jewish families like the Tietz and the Wertheims were forcibly transferred to non-Jewish owners in a process called "Aryanization". KarstadtQuelle acquired many businesses and properties in this period. [4] [5] [6]
In 1984, Karstadt acquired the mail-order business Neckermann Versand. In 1994, it acquired the department store chain Hertie, to which KaDeWe belonged. In 1999 it merged with Quelle AG to become KarstadtQuelle AG. On 1 July 2007 the company was renamed Arcandor AG.
On 5 June 2009, investigations started into possible breach of trust offenses by Arcandor's former CEO Thomas Middelhoff.
In June 2009, Arcandor filed for bankruptcy protection after its request for loan guarantees of up to €650 million was rejected by the German government. [3] The German government subsequently agreed on 30 June to provide a €71 million loan to Quelle. [7] The company's holding in the Thomas Cook Group was sold by Arcandor's creditor banks in September 2009. [8]
The administrators of Arcandor chose in October 2009 to liquidate the Quelle mail order business, following unsuccessful attempts to find a buyer. [9]
In September 2010 the American investor Nicolas Berggruen bought the Karstadt business to save it from insolvency. [10]
Arcandor was active in the following business segments:
Arcandor's websites, when taken together, put Arcandor easily in the top 20, and maybe in the top 10, in the rankings of all web properties ranked by numbers of unique visitors per month, among internet users in Germany. [11] Most of this traffic was shoppers at online stores branded with the company's brick-and-mortar store brands or its mail-order catalog brands.
Quelle Ag, which merged with Karstadt, was founded on the 26th of October 1927 by Gustav Schickedanz.
In 1932 Schickedanz joined the NSDAP and therefore was able to acquire several major companies in the region by Aryanization from their former Jewish owners. 1939 Quelle had around two million regular customers and made 40 million Reichsmark.
After the second World War the Allies banned Schickedanz from exercising his profession, his properties were confiscated and he was sentenced to imprisonment with labour. In 1948 he was released, during him serving his sentence, his sister, Liesl Kießling, managed Quelle. His wife opened the first Quelle store after the war, in 1946. Since 1948 the delivery business of Quelle was being rebuilt. As the Denazification Process on Gustav Schickedanz began, it was noted that of Gustav Schickedandanz's past capital of 9 Million Deutsche Mark about 7 Million were of former Jewish ownership.
Thomas Middelhoff is a German corporate manager. From 1994 to 1998, he was a member of the Executive Board of Bertelsmann AG, until he then served as CEO of the Bertelsmann media group from November 1998 to July 2002. In 2002, he was Head of Corporate Investments in Europe for Investcorp International Ltd until May 2005. From May 2005 to February 2009, Middelhoff then took over as Chairman of the Board of Management of the retail group Arcandor. After Arcandor, Thomas Middelhoff founded the investment company BLM in London with Roland Berger and Florian Lahnstein. The spin-off Pulse Capital Partners LLC emerged from this company.
Georg Wertheim was a German merchant and founder of the popular Wertheim chain of department stores.
The Kaufhaus des Westens, abbreviated to KaDeWe, is a Thai owned department store in Berlin, Germany. With over 60,000 square meters (650,000 sq ft) of retail space and more than 380,000 articles available, it is the second-largest department store in Europe after Harrods in London. It attracts 40,000 to 50,000 visitors every day.
Hermann Tietz was a German-Jewish merchant, co-founder of the Tietz Department Store. He was buried in the Weißensee Cemetery.
Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH was a German department store chain whose headquarters were in Essen. Until 30 September 2010 the company was a subsidiary of Arcandor AG and was responsible within the group for the business segment of over-the-counter retail.
Wertheim was a large department store chain in pre-World War II Germany. It was founded by Georg Wertheim and operated various stores in Berlin, one in Rostock, one in Stralsund, and one in Breslau. Its Jewish owners were forced out after 1933 by the new Nazi government. After the war, owner Karstadt operated various store branches across Germany under the Wertheim name, all of which either closed or were rebranded Karstadt.
Karl Amson Joel was a German textile merchant and manufacturer with Joel Macht Fabrik. He was the grandfather of American musician Billy Joel and British conductor Alexander Joel, who are half-brothers.
Rudolph Karstadt was a German entrepreneur.
Gustav Abraham Schickedanz was a German entrepreneur and Nazi party member who profited from the Aryanization of Jewish companies.
Thomas Cook Group plc was a global travel group, headquartered in the United Kingdom and listed on the London Stock Exchange from its formation on 19 June 2007 by the merger of Thomas Cook AG — successor to Thomas Cook & Son — and MyTravel Group until 23 September 2019, when it went into compulsory liquidation. The group operated as a tour operator and airline, and also operated travel agencies in Europe. At the time of the group's collapse, approximately 21,000 worldwide employees were left without jobs and 600,000 customers were left abroad, triggering the UK's largest peacetime repatriation.
Primondo is the holding company for all mail order brands of Arcandor AG.
Madeleine Schickedanz is a German heiress and philanthropist. She is the daughter of Gustav and Grete Schickedanz, the founders of catalog retailer Quelle Versand, which was merged with Karstadt to form Arcandor, a company listed in Germany's Mid Cap DAX stock index until its 2009 bankruptcy.
Dawnay Day is a privately owned financial services group. Founded in 1928, the London-based group, employs more than 1,000 employees and claims to own gross assets of more than $4-billion. It has offices in Europe, the Middle East, India, the US, and Australia.
Sylvie di Giusto is a New York-based based Austrian professional Speaker, Consultant and Author.
Hermann Wronker AG was a German department store chain. Its holdings included the largest department store in Frankfurt before World War II.
Signa Holding GmbH is Austria's largest privately owned real estate company. Signa Holding GmbH announced insolvency proceedings at the end of November 2023. The company will apply for self-administration restructuring proceedings at the Commercial Court of Vienna.
Kastner & Öhler is an Austrian chain of department stores, based in Graz, Styria, Austria, and mainly active in southern Austria. The family-run company dates back to a shop founded in 1873 by Karl Kastner and Herman Öhler. They were the first company in Central Europe to install fixed prices and ran mail orders, and built the first department store in Austria-Hungary. Today's company includes an online shop and the chain for sport, Gigasport, established in 1994.
Neckermann Versand AG is a former German mail order company founded by Josef Neckermann in 1950. It was one of the leading mail order companies in Europe.
Georg Karg was a German businessman in the department store industry. After rising in the employ of the Hermann Tietz Department Stores, Karg took over the company when it was Aryanized, that is forcibly transferred to non-Jewish owners under the Nazis. After the Jewish owners were forced out, Karg was appointed managing director, running the stores under the name Hertie.