The fashion brands Kara and Pietro Filipi have cleared out their shops in the latest sign of how the coronavirus crisis is killing retail businesses. Michal Micka, who is in charge of the brands, told Seznam Zpravy that the move was intended to prevent landlords from seizing inventory from the stores in lieu of rent. “We brought the inventory to our central warehouse,” he said. “It’s protection of our business from landlords.” But he may have other creditors to worry about. The news portal reports that the brands grew thanks to loans and to bonds and that online sales weren’t even coming close to making up for store revenues. “We were set up for growth and for revenues of around CZK 100 million monthly, but now they’re a tenth of that. We’re paying employees but we want to agree on new conditions with the shopping centers. I appreciate that our creditors are patient,” he said, adding that he could have inventory returned to the stores when the shopping centers if there are new conditions. CPI Property Group released a statement confirming that goods were being removed from the Kara and Pietro Filipi stores in its shopping centers.
