Dhe fashion retailer Peek & Cloppenburg (P&C) from Düsseldorf goes into insolvency proceedings under self-administration. The company announced this on Friday afternoon. The chain with 67 branches justifies the step, among other things, with failed “investments in human resources, material resources and marketing amounting to a three-digit million amount”, which P&C has put into its online shop since 2021. Apparently, however, the online shop does not come up against competitors like Zalando on – especially the Ecommerce has been shrinking across the industry since the end of the pandemic. In addition, the closures during the Corona period would have caused a three-digit million loss.
After Galeria Karstadt and the shoe retailer Görtz is another chain that shapes the German pedestrian zones, in the so-called protective shield process. This enables simplified staff reductions and renegotiations of leases – i.e. noticeable cost savings. Unlike Galeria, P&C doesn’t want to close any stores if possible.
“However, it is already clear that a not insignificant reduction in staff in administration, including management levels, will be necessary,” said P&C. P&C has 6,800 employees, 800 of them in administration.
The insolvency comes as a surprise: It was only at the turn of the year that the former Adler boss Thomas Freude became a new strong man at the family company P&C. He should develop a new strategy for P&C. A new advertising campaign, intended to present P&C in a fresher way, had already started. The declared goal was to become Europe’s leading fashion retailer by 2025.
P&C has an upscale range and sometimes operates with large, architecturally sophisticated stores – for example in Düsseldorf and Cologne. However, some of these areas are now considered oversized and could now be reduced.
“We are sticking to our multi-brand omnichannel strategy. Our focus is now clearly on our core business in stationary retail trade and thus at our stores. The online area is still an important part of our business model, but we will act more cautiously here than in previous years,” explained Freude on Friday. He remains active alongside the insolvency administrator Dirk Andres.
P&C already had to cope with a setback in e-commerce a few years ago. At that time, the shop was called FashionID – and in the end it couldn’t hold its own against the competition.
The Hamburg fashion chain of the same name, which operates largely independently of the Düsseldorfers and is active in northern Germany, is not affected.
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