2024-07-17 04:22:30
At the beginning of June, the media retailer Weltbild had to file for bankruptcy. A loan that is not paid could have consequences for the subsidiaries.
The insolvency of the mail order company Weltbild has triggered a chain reaction within the group of companies. Several subsidiaries have also filed for insolvency, the Augsburg District Court announced. According to a spokeswoman, the company is currently examining whether other companies in the group will have to follow suit.
The subsidiaries now also affected by the insolvency include the book retailers Jokers and Buecher.de and the children’s goods retailer Tausendkind. Also affected are the backpack supplier Fitz & Huxley and the gardening goods mail order company Gärtner Pötschke. Both had previously filed for insolvency at the district courts in Cologne and Düsseldorf.
At the beginning of June, the main company Weltbild, which operates 14 branches throughout Germany in addition to its online business, filed for insolvency. Nevertheless, the group as a whole was still considered to be “well positioned” at the time. Now, a loan that was not granted has obviously dragged other companies into financial difficulties.
A spokeswoman explained that negotiations between the shareholder Droege Group and banks last week had not led to an agreement. As a result, Droege did not provide a financial injection for its subsidiaries, which led to the insolvency of other companies in the group. Despite the applications for insolvency, business operations are to continue for the time being.
Today’s Weltbild business emerged from the Catholic Church’s company of the same name. Ten years ago, the then Weltbild publishing group filed for bankruptcy, whereupon the Düsseldorf family business Droege took over the Augsburg company and built up the current corporate structure. The WB D2C Group, to which Weltbild belongs, employs a total of more than 2,000 people and generates total sales of around 600 million euros.