The retail group which owns the iconic Berlin department store KaDeWe and two other large luxury German shopping malls has declared bankruptcy, the corporation announced in Berlin on Monday.
KaDeWe Group, part of the troubled Signa real estate empire, is 49.9% owned by Signa Retail, an Austrian-based property empire which itself filed for insolvency last year. The other 50.1% is held by the Central Group of Thailand.
KaDeWe Group said “exorbitantly high rents” in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich “make it almost impossible to operate profitably in the long term.”
Since the start of the pandemic rent has risen 37%, it said.
“There is no question that the group can have a strong future with normal rents,” KaDeWe CEO Michael Peterseim…
