The Depot decoration retail chain has filed for insolvency under self-administration. Owner Christian Gries wants to secure the future of his company, which is struggling with falling sales and losses, with a new management team.
The Depot chain is insolvent and wants to restructure itself via protective shield proceedings. The Aschaffenburg Local Court approved a corresponding application on Monday. This was announced by the long-established retail company Gries Deco Company GmbH, which owns the Depot brand, in a press release on Tuesday. With the protective shield proceedings, owner Christian Gries wants to “sustainably align the company to the new market conditions in close cooperation with the landlord and supplier base in particular”.
The move does not come as a complete surprise. The retail chain has been making losses for some time, is suffering from falling sales and announced in March that it was considering closing a good 90 of its more than 300 stores in Germany. With a turnover of around 390 million euros in 2023 and more than 4,400 employees, the Gries Deco Group is one of the heavyweights in the decorative retail sector.
Christian Gries himself took over the operational management of the company again at the beginning of 2024 and has since been working to ensure that the company maintains its leading market position in the future. The protective shield procedure that has now been chosen is intended to shorten the transformation process, which was previously planned to take several years, to just a few months, according to reports.
In the protective shield proceedings, an insolvency plan submitted at an early stage should facilitate the restructuring. The company itself can appoint the administrator for the insolvency proceedings.
New management team
To this end, Gries is enlisting the help of experienced restructuring experts Sven Tischendorf and Alexander Höpfner. According to the press release, the two protective shield experts will be appointed to the management board of Gries Deco Company, as will the company's long-standing legal advisor William Panagiotides. Martin Kaltwasser will be the provisional administrator. “The protective shield procedure was very well prepared and deliberately chosen. We will approach all parties involved very quickly - especially employees, landlords, suppliers and business partners, of course - and discuss the next steps together,” explains Christian Gries.
Business operations will continue without restriction. The wages and salaries of employees in Germany are secured for the months of July to September 2024 and all temporary wages have been paid.
The protective shield proceedings are not expected to have any relevant impact on the 34 depot locations in Switzerland. The Swiss subsidiary of the Gries Deco Group has been generating positive earnings for years and is independently positioned. The aim is also to continue a large part of the Austrian Depot locations. This is currently being examined by the debtor-in-possession management. The company is based in Niedernberg in Lower Franconia.