Karstadt - The big sale
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Karstadt - The big sale |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2010 |
| length | 40 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK without age restriction |
| Rod | |
| Director | Georg Wellmann and Ingolf Gritschneder |
| script | Georg Wellmann and Ingolf Gritschneder |
Karstadt - The big sales is a documentary film by WDR about the background of the KarstadtQuelle insolvency.
action
In October 2002, the contractor shall Josef Esch , asset managers of major shareholder Madeleine Schickedanz , Matthias Graf von Krockow , Spokesman of Bankhaus Sal. Oppenheim and Leo Herl , member of the Supervisory Board of the company and husband of Madeleine Schickedanz, have agreed to a majority of the KarstadtQuelle property to sell, with the aim of driving up the share price, but beforehand to buy more shares cheaply through small businesses to be founded. Josef Esch confirmed that there had been such considerations. Investor Thomas Middelhoff , later appointed CEO of KarstadtQuelle AG, is said to have played a major role as a financier with over 15 million euros. With his help and that of other investors, Oppenheim / Esch bought five of the Group's properties at a reasonable price in 2004, had them renovated and rented them back to Karstadt at overpriced rates. In an in-house audit and several legal opinions it was later determined that the sale had been carried out "bypassing the control bodies". Quotation from the report of the auditing company : "Major parts of the cooperation agreement between KarstadtQuelle and the Oppenheim / Esch Group were only concluded orally."
After taking over the chairmanship of the supervisory board in June 2004, Middelhoff is said to have deliberately presented the company's situation negatively in order to drive the share price into the basement. It is speculated in business circles that Oppenheim / Esch was able to buy large shares cheaply through companies founded in the meantime. Madeleine Schickedanz finally held the majority in KarstadtQuelle in May 2005. In the same month, Middelhoff was appointed chairman of the board by the shareholder Schickedanz and is said to have booked unjustified and overpriced flights for a total of more than EUR 4.6 million through a private charter company from Oppenheim / Esch. He drove the share price up in the years 2005 to 2007 through layoffs, the cancellation of company pensions (here for one billion euros alone) and the demand for wages waiver as well as the sale of a large part of the real estate. The real estate purchase and to Goldman Sachs ( High Street consortium) have been instrumental in. The authors of the documentation speak of the fact that in the course of the transactions "apparently millions of euros flowed into unknown channels". The properties were leased back to Karstadt; the rents were increased by a total of 27.1 million euros by 2008. Contrary to his statement, Thomas Middelhoff is said to have waived 30 percent of his salary, but received his full salary and a severance payment of more than 5 million euros. Internal reports state a pension of over 12,000 euros from January 2011.
In a letter to the CEO on February 26, 2009, Middelhoff wrote shortly before his departure: “In retrospect, it is clear that the goal of saving the group and putting it on a sustainable footing has been achieved.” Three months later, his successor Karl -Gerhard Eick file for bankruptcy.
Awards
The documentary was awarded the German Business Film Prize 2010.
“The authors manage to show how the huge company could go to the dogs. The film shows that the relationships between private investors and managers were closer and wider than known - and what impact this had on the end of the company. That's investigative journalism. "
Web links
- Karstadt - The Big Sale at the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Karstadt - The big sale on prisma.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Karstadt - The big sale. How the department store went bankrupt ( Memento from April 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), DasErste.de ( WDR ), February 24, 2010
- ↑ Brigitte Koch: “The shards of the Middelhoff era” , FAZ , May 24, 2009
- ↑ Karstadt documentation receives the German Business Film Prize ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , dapd / themed portal, November 16, 2010, accessed on June 28, 2015.
- ↑ Marbach and Bottwartal: Interview with the jury chairman Stefan Schnorr ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Stuttgarter-Nachrichten.de , November 17, 2010
