The former CEO of Kaufhof will soon be in charge of the department store group again.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf The ailing department store operator Galeria wants to start over with a new boss. After the protective shield procedure has been completed, the previous sales manager Olivier van den Bossche is to take over the management of the company, as Galeria has now announced.
The previous CEO, Miguel Müllenbach, will then switch to the management of the parent company Signa Retail, in which all retail investments in billionaire René Benko’s Signa Group are bundled. Müllenbach will also represent Signa on the Galeria board of directors.
With this statement, the company documents that it firmly expects the creditors’ committee to approve the company’s bankruptcy plan on March 27. Because only then can it complete the protective shield procedure.
The new Galeria boss started out as a department store manager
If, contrary to expectations, the creditors do not agree, the company will most likely have to be liquidated. The change in management still has to be approved by the supervisory board.
Van den Bossche has many years of retail and department store expertise. He started his career in 2003 as a branch manager of a department store of the Belgian Kaufhof subsidiary Inno in Liège. He was head of Kaufhof for some time before the merger with Karstadt, but left the company in 2017 and then worked for the cosmetics company Rituals. Galeria brought him back in 2021.
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The change at the top of the company had been indicated for a long time. The chief representative Arndt Geiwitz, who supports the management in the protective shield procedure during the restructuring, had internally described van den Bossche months ago as “the strong man” for the implementation of the new concept.
Müllenbach had also been less and less present in the company in recent months. Previously, he had always sought contact with the employees through employee letters and podcasts, but during the course of the insolvency proceedings he appeared less and less and largely left communication of the measures to Geiwitz.
In a message, Galeria Müllenbach thanked him for his commitment over the past three years. He took over the management of Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof in spring 2020, just four months after the merger of Karstadt and Kaufhof “in the middle of the dramatic and completely confusing situation of the first nationwide lockdown of the corona pandemic,” it said.
With “great prudence” he led the company through the first protective shield procedure and then through the Corona period.
Galeria branches should be given more responsibility
The chairman of the supervisory board, Wolfram Keil, explained that Müllenbach himself had expressed the wish to hand over the management of the company. He thanked him for his “tireless commitment”. He said: “Despite the most adverse circumstances, he and the management managed to successfully test new branch concepts.”
It is now up to van den Bossche to use these tests to develop a future-proof concept. A much more decentralized structure of the company is planned, with more responsibility and decision-making leeway in the branches. However, it is not yet clear how this concept should be developed.
“As Galeria sales manager and former Kaufhof CEO, Olivier van den Bossche is predestined like no other for a new start after the protective shield has been successfully completed,” said Keil, chairman of the supervisory board.
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Van den Bossche enjoys a good reputation within the company. The Belgian, whom many address by his first name, has a less hierarchical management style. The company says he is tough on the matter, but friendly in his dealings and gives his employees a lot of freedom. He already spends a large part of his working hours in the branches.
“I am sure that he will succeed in implementing the urgently needed changes in the management culture and in dealing with our experienced employees,” said Müllenbach about van den Bossche when he returned to Galeria. Now van den Bossche has to be responsible for the entire realignment.
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