Around 500 jobs have been saved during last-minute discussions between Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof and landlords at six locations. The most recent stores to be saved, at least for the time being are in Berlin-Lichtenberg, Beielfeld, in the Alsteral shopping center in Hamburg, Leonberg, Nuremberg-Langwasser and in Singel. In all, the total number of stores facing imminent closure has fallen from 62 to 50. Among others to have been saved in recent weeks were Karstadt department stores in Dortmund, Nuremberg Lorenzkirche, Goslar and Potsdam as well as Kaufhof outlets in Chemnitz and Leverkusen. But the company’s CEO Miguel Mullenbach told employees there was no longer any hope of saving the 50 stores still on the closure list. An ECE official said that it had managed to come to an agreement with its tenant in some locations on new terms for long-term rental contracts on what he called “adapted terms.”
