Morning Briefing: Galeria: Weiterbetrieb gesichert, Rettung fraglich / BMW: Fachkräftemangel in Vorzeigewerk

Good morning, readers. Starting today, I will report from Paris. Welcome to your day. At Galeria, it's time to take a breather, at least temporarily. The Federal Employment Agency has approved insolvency payments for the salaries of employees in the 83 stores, temporarily securing the operation. However, the crisis cannot be ignored.

In the facilities, strings hang lazily in the air, and many goods are no longer being sold. Most of the inventory is under the ownership reserve of suppliers or has been pledged to Gordon Brothers for a million-dollar loan. It is becoming increasingly clear that, after decades of gradual decline and now the fourth bankruptcy, the once-glorious retail icon lacks substance.

It is difficult to imagine that Karstadt and Kaufhof once operated a combined 150 stores and employed 160,000 people in their prime. My colleague Florian Kolf has researched how this situation arose: Changing owners primarily sought to earn money from the real estate. "What was missing among the shareholders was strategists with retail expertise who would have had an interest in developing a long-term and sustainable vision for a future retail store," says Johannes Berentzen of trade consultancy BBE.