US investor Baker, Beetz-led group to buy Germany's Galeria, sources say

By Emma-Victoria Farr and Matthias Inverardi

FRANKFURT/DUESSELDORF (Reuters) -Germany's Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof is to be taken over by a consortium including U.S. investor Richard Baker, CEO of its previous owner Hudson's Bay Company, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

Galeria, Germany's most prominent retailer, earlier this year filed for insolvency following the collapse of its parent Signa, the Austria-based property empire that has become the biggest casualty so far in Europe's real-estate crisis.

Baker's Hudson's Bay Company had owned Galeria Kaufhof for several years before a sale to Signa and the chain's merger with Karstadt.

Galeria said it would present a new investor at a press conference on Wednesday.

Baker's investment firm NRDC Corp and German businessman Bernd Beetz, former head of cosmetics company Coty and a former supervisory board chairman at Galeria, will lead the consortium, the people said. NRDC did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Galeria's insolvency administrator Stefan Denkhaus declined to comment. Last month, Denkhaus had said he was in talks with two bidders.

Galeria's latest insolvency filing is its third in recent years. The pandemic pushed it to file in 2020, and soaring inflation and energy costs in the wake of the Ukraine war hit it again in 2022.

This time, Galeria's troubles stemmed from the collapse of its owner Signa, which had committed to providing Galeria with 200 million euros, a payment that became unlikely in light of its troubles.

Germany's Handelsblatt business daily first reported that NRDC would win the bid.

(Reporting by Matthias Inverardi and Emma-Victoria Farr; Writing by Miranda Murray and Tom Sims; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Jan Harvey)