Final Day for Remaining Kika/Leiner Branches

After 115 years, the company history of Austria's formerly largest furniture chain, Kika/Leiner, comes to an end. On Wednesday evening, the last remaining 17 locations will be permanently closed, and the future use of the sites is uncertain. Around 1,350 employees will lose their jobs, and thousands of customers will not get their deposits back. Since 2013, Kika/Leiner has undergone three changes of ownership and two insolvencies. As no new investor was found, the chain filed for bankruptcy in early December.

Kika/Leiner's Clearance Sale

Since last December, a clearance sale has been underway at Kika/Leiner, and since January 24th, the furniture chain has been offering a 90 percent discount on all available goods. The St. Pölten lawyer Volker Leitner is handling the liquidation of the company as the bankruptcy administrator.

At the Leiner branch in Vienna West in Hadikgasse, over 50 shoppers and onlookers gathered after the store opened on Wednesday morning. Only packaged individual items on the ground floor are still being sold, the other floors were already closed and cleared out. "There's almost nothing left," said one unsuccessful bargain hunter when leaving the store to the APA. Out of consideration for the employees, the bankruptcy administrator did not grant the media permission to take photos or film in the Kika/Leiner stores on the last day of operation.

All 1,350 employees will lose their jobs in the coming months. Those affected in Lower Austria and Vienna can take advantage of a job foundation if needed and receive further training. Long-term Kika/Leiner employees will only be without a salary in the summer or autumn due to longer notice periods. The furniture chain has many employees who have been on board for more than ten years. After five years of company affiliation, retail employees can only be dismissed quarterly. Competitor XXXLutz plans to take on some of the Kika/Leiner employees. The Wels furniture giant has numerous open jobs in sales, administration, and logistics. "Our doors are open," said XXXLutz manager Thomas Saliger at the end of 2024 to the APA. Among others, the Austrian Post, Ikea, and McDonald's have also offered jobs to Kika/Leiner employees.

In the bankruptcy proceedings of the furniture chain, claims amounting to 265 million were registered by the reporting date at the St. Pölten Regional Court in mid-January. According to creditor protectors, this includes conditional rent damage claims from Supernova - the owner of the Kika/Leiner properties - amounting to 190 million euros. "After the operational liquidation of the furniture stores, the legal processing of the insolvency will take place," said credit protector Stephan Mazal from Creditreform on Wednesday in a press release. "By February, an expert opinion should clarify when insolvency occurred."

According to creditor protectors, 14,000 deposits had to be processed. The insolvency administrator checked the deposits and corresponding purchase contracts in December and January. According to KSV1870, around 3,000 customers who made a deposit have already received their money back by mid-January, as their deposit was particularly secured (including "kikaLeiner Gravel Protection"). About 4,700 therefore receive no money back and must register their claims in the insolvency proceedings. Another approximately 7,000 depositors are trying to partially compensate. "Since the case is so complex, further claims can be registered despite the deadline," said KSV. Therefore, a total sum cannot yet be estimated.

Great Past

In 1973, Leiner started with Kika the first furniture pick-up market in Austria and over the years became Austria's largest furniture chain. The decline of the furniture dealer, founded in 1910, began with the aggressive expansion policy of the domestic competitor XXXLutz in the 1990s and 2000s. In 2013, the South African Steinhoff Group acquired the domestic furniture giant from the then owner family Koch. At that time, Kika/Leiner, with around 7,500 employees at 73 locations in Austria and Eastern Europe and a turnover of 1.2 billion euros, was still the second largest furniture dealer after XXXLutz.

Steinhoff sold the furniture chain to the Signa Group around Tyrolean investor René Benko in a distress sale in 2018. The new owner sold the Kika branches in Eastern Europe to XXXLutz. In 2023, Benko's Signa sold the Kika/Leiner properties to the Graz real estate developers Supernova and the operational furniture business to retail manager Hermann Wieser. Shortly thereafter, the company filed for bankruptcy for the first time. After the second bankruptcy in November 2024, Wieser could not raise fresh financial resources or find an investor.

Sale or Long-Term Rental of Properties is Being Prepared

Supernova, as the owner of the Kika/Leiner furniture stores, is now preparing for the sale or long-term rental of the properties. "Unfortunately, we cannot say more about this at the moment, the process will certainly take several months," said a Supernova spokesman in response to APA's request. In the city of Salzburg, Mayor Bernhard Auinger (SPÖ) is pushing for new apartments to be built on the Leiner site in the south of the state capital. The furniture group Ikea may be interested in the former Kika branch in Dornbirn. The specific subsequent use of the 23 Kika/Leiner branches closed in the summer of 2023 is still largely open. In mid-November 2024, Supernova sold eleven former Kika/Leiner locations to the SAR Leasing GmbH of the XXXLutz Group.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.