Berlin / Dusseldorf – Thomas Fox the CEO of Karstadt predicts a great future for his department store chain in Germany. “The best times of these department stores in Germany still lie ahead,” lectured Fox on Wednesday even before the industry gathered at the German trade conference in Berlin, “Germany is a country store.”
To prove that he is onto something Thomas Fox known as a restructuring showed for the first time after the end of the Karstadt bankruptcy in October concrete figures on how the department store change is faring and the numbers do indeed astound. The company has earned € 93 million over the past fiscal year 2009/2010 (September 30) before taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). None of the branches write more red numbers, and there are no stores that are under threat of closing. “We have made the rotation,” said Fox. Yet the profits must stillpay the costs. Karstadt in the previous year had recorded a loss of 120 million €.
Originally, the Karstadt-rescue team based their time frame on a profit of € 35 million – now it was nearly three times as much.
This Karstadt profits on the one hand reflect a sharp rise in the consumer sentiment of the Germans. “The conditions for retailers are currently good,” confirmed the Order Conference Michael Huether, director of the Institute of German Economy (IW). Reasons for this are, inter alia, rising wages and falling unemployment.
Secondly, Karstadt’s success can be attributed to Fox’s better management. In order to create further growth, Fox plans to modernize many outdated Karstadt stores. “We must become more attractive,” said the manager – and no one objected at the industry meeting.
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.