Osnabrück-based shoe chain Reno filed for bankruptcy just six months after changing ownership. The parent company Reno Schuhcentrum GmbH and the subsidiary Reno Schuh GmbH were brought before the district court in Hameln.
According to the company, Reno currently operates about 180 branches, employing a total of about 1,000 people. According to the report, the bankruptcy filing only concerns the German subsidiaries – not the subsidiaries in Austria and Switzerland.
Asked by t-online, the company replied that it could not yet comment on a possible closure. The chain of shoe stores, which is in crisis, found a new owner only six months ago – at the end of September, HR Group, in cooperation with GA Europe, sold cm.sports GmbH.
According to Dieter Metz, Reno’s managing director responsible for finance, attempts to bring the company back into the profit zone, for example by cutting costs, have not been successful. “We actually planned to start with a slightly smaller team, good base store stock and a new range,” explained Metz. However, sales have been below expectations in recent months.
One in ten shoe stores closed
Reno is not an isolated case. Much of the footwear trade is in crisis due to the effects of the Corona pandemic and the price explosion caused by the conflict in Ukraine. Last year, more than one in ten shoe stores closed their doors permanently, Rolf Pangels, CEO of the German Textile, Footwear and Leather Trade Association (BTE), recently announced. According to the association’s estimates, the total number of shoe stores fell by 1,500 (13%) over the year to about 10,000.
Even famous names struggle. For example, in September last year, Hamburg-based shoe retailer Görtz was forced to seek protection in bankruptcy proceedings. The company, which at the time still had 160 branches in Germany and Austria, justified this decision by the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine, high inflation and rising energy prices, which led to a “huge holdback from buyers”, both in branches and in e-commerce. . .
In the meantime, a new investor has been found to help secure Görtz’s future. However, during the restructuring, the number of branches should be halved.
