Germany – The Düsseldorf District Court has initiated insolvency proceedings in self-administration for Esprit Europe GmbH, Ratingen, and six other German Esprit group companies. The next steps are to be decided in the coming days. What is clear is that the outlook for employees at the Ratingen headquarters is bleak.
Esprit announced that the Düsseldorf District Court opened proceedings for the aforementioned companies of the clothing retailer with effect from today August 1st, following the initiation of preliminary proceedings in mid-May. The court also appointed the previous provisional insolvency administrator, Lucas Flöther of the law firm Flöther & Wissing, as the official insolvency administrator.
Two Offers Under Discussion
Following the announcement earlier this week that Hong Kong-based apparel provider Esprit Holdings Limited would focus on managing its intellectual property rights and licensing business, an agreement has been reached to offer the European trademark rights to potential investors in a legally secure manner.
With the approval of the creditors’ committees and the insolvency administrator, two existing offers are now to be discussed. The aim is to reach a binding agreement in the coming days. Both offers involve the acquisition of the European trademark rights.
One of the acquisition concepts aims to relaunch the Esprit brand at a later date, according to the announcement. The second envisages a continuation of operations on a “significantly reduced scale”. In both cases, the sale of the trademark rights will be carried out in agreement with Esprit Holdings Ltd.
1,300 Employees Fear for their Jobs
In both scenarios, management is forced to “completely or largely scale down operational activities in the German Esprit companies” in the coming months.
The approximately 1,300 employees affected by the insolvency proceedings were informed of the situation by management on Thursday. Negotiations are underway with the workers unions on a social plan. The payment of salaries is secured until insolvency-related terminations take effect.
“It has always been our goal for the Esprit companies to be able to continue their business under new ownership and retain as many jobs as possible,” said managing director Christian Gerloff in change of the restructuring. “However, we unfortunately have to acknowledge that not all interested parties are prepared to take this entrepreneurial risk in the continuing very tense market environment for the fashion retail sector.”
This article was first published on FashionUnited Germany, translated using AI and edited by an editor.