It’s been a year since Peek and Cloppenburg had to file for bankruptcy. What has happened since then and how is the company doing today?
In March 2023 it became known that the venerable clothing store chain Peek and Cloppenburg (P&C), whose origins date back to 1869, had to file for bankruptcy. According to managing director Steffen Schüller, the reason for the insolvency of Peek & Cloppenburg BV & Co. KG was the effects of the corona pandemic and the increased energy costs caused by the war in Ukraine. Overall, the company made losses in the three-digit million range, Schüller continued.
According to the industry magazine “Textilwirtschaft”, the creditors’ total claims amounted to around 380 million euros. Almost 187 million euros of this were Corona loans from the state-owned KfW Bank. The company agreed with the creditors on a repayment of 50 million euros as part of the insolvency plan. They should also share in the company’s profits for the next two years.
As one of the first steps in the self-managed insolvency process, a total of 350 of the 1,500 employees employed at P&C’s headquarters were laid off. However, the company decided not to cut jobs at its sales stores; none of the 160 stores worldwide were closed as part of the restructuring.
Instead, the company even expanded and opened new fashion stores in Bonn and Berlin. The plan was also to open a sales store in Milan, but after the announcement last year there was silence about the foray into the Italian market. P&C left a corresponding request from t-online unanswered.
In addition, the already planned restructuring of the company structure was further pushed forward. Among other things, all subsidiaries should be pooled into the newly founded JC Switzerland Holding based in Switzerland.
A company spokesman rejected the accusation that the move was about avoiding taxes in an interview with the “Rheinische Post”. It would rather be about simplifying the existing structures and thus being able to better coordinate the various subsidiaries.
According to the company, P&C’s stated goal is to further expand online trading. According to figures from the web analytics company Similarweb, P&C’s online shop is still far behind companies specializing in online trading such as Zalando and About You. But the company Breuninger, which, like P&C, also operates an online shop in addition to department stores, also records significantly higher numbers of hits on its website.
Overall, the company appears to have stabilized over the past year. The company expects profits of 28 million euros for 2024.