solution in sight
Shoe retail chain Reno is looking for a rescue lane
6/1/2023 1:37 p.m
At the end of March, Reno files for bankruptcy. Almost half of the 180 branches are turned off due to lack of money. The insolvency administrator can now hand over the first branches to a competitor. However, other locations are being closed, sold or continued by other sectors.
A good two months after filing for bankruptcy, the shoe retail chain Reno is beginning to see a way out of the crisis. It is expected that 22 branches of the company, together with the jobs there, will be continued by the competitor Kienast, as announced by the insolvency administrator Immo Hamer from Valtier in Hanover. Nine of these locations will continue to operate under the Reno name.
Negotiations are still underway for the possible takeover of additional locations and employees. The corresponding shops would then not continue to operate as shoe stores, said von Valtier. He did not initially provide any further details. According to the company, Reno recently operated around 180 branches and employed a total of almost 1,100 people.
The Osnabrück shoe retailer filed for bankruptcy at the end of March – just six months after the change of ownership. This affected the parent company Reno Schuhcentrum GmbH and the subsidiary Reno Schuh GmbH. The insolvency proceedings have now been opened on June 1st at the district court of Hamelin, confirmed court director Georg Andreas Gebhardt. The subsidiaries in Austria and Switzerland are also in insolvency proceedings.
Crises meant the end of hundreds of shoe stores
The insolvency administrator spoke of a good solution for the brand. “Just a few weeks ago, the company was in a huge mess with no prospect of even remotely satisfactory results,” said von Valtier. In March, the financial resources of what was once the second largest shoe retailer in Germany were severely limited. Only half of the locations were still supplied with energy. A third of the shops had been terminated due to rent arrears, and the product range had been greatly reduced.
Large parts of the shoe trade in Germany are in crisis due to the consequences of the corona pandemic and the price explosion triggered by the Ukraine war. More than every tenth shoe shop closed its doors forever last year, reported Rolf Pangels, the general manager of the Textile Shoes Leather Goods Trade Association (BTE). Overall, according to calculations by the association, the number of shoe shops fell by 1,500 or 13 percent to around 10,000 within a year.