The Hamburg shoe retailer Görtz has become a restructuring case. The parent company Ludwig Görtz GmbH has applied for a protective shield procedure in self-administration, the company announced on Tuesday. Insolvency proceedings under self-administration have also been applied for for two daughters. According to the announcement, business operations in the branches, the headquarters in Hamburg and the two central warehouses continue without restrictions. “All stores are open,” it said.
The wages and salaries of around 1,800 employees for September, October and November are secured by the Federal Employment Agency. “From December 2022, Görtz will again be paying wages and salaries from his own resources.” The current development is justified by the Ukraine war, high inflation and rising energy prices, which would have led to “enormous reluctance to buy in the branches and in the online business”.
Specifically, the parent company and the subsidiaries Görtz Retail GmbH and Görtz Logistik GmbH are affected. The company operates around 160 branches in Germany and Austria. The district court of Hamburg, which is responsible for insolvency cases, appointed the Hamburg lawyer and restructuring expert Sven-Holger Undritz from the restructuring and insolvency law firm White as provisional administrator
The protective shield procedure is a special form of restructuring the company under self-administration, in which the previous management retains control of the company’s fortunes. The management around the boss Frank Revermann and the chief financial officer Tobias Volgmann (CFO) remains in office, the trustee leads the supervision.
With the judicial reorganization proceedings in self-administration, the Görtz Group wants to “consistently restructure and position itself for the future,” the statement continues. The management wants to develop a restructuring plan in the next three months. “If the creditors agree to this plan and the court confirms it, the preservation and sustainable continuation of Görtz will be secured.” Görtz is “a strong and well-known brand that still has a lot of potential”. Renegotiations with suppliers and landlords are now being considered in order to reduce costs.
The company was founded in 1875 in Hamburg-Barmbek. In 2014, the Munich financial investor Afinum joined Görtz. The largest shoe store in Europe is located on Hamburg’s Mönckebergstrasse, and there are other flagship stores in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, Aachen, Hanover and Munich. In 2015, the owner Ludwig Görtz, who often appeared as an entrepreneur on talk shows, gave up the chairmanship of the board of directors.