Weltbild, once a major player in German bookselling, will shutter its remaining 14 brick-and-mortar stores and lay off approximately 440 employees as it plans to cease operations by the end of this month. The stores, which were once a familiar sight in German city centers, offered a wide range of books, along with music, films, and sidelines. The company, which filed for insolvency in June, failed to secure an investor to continue its operations.
At its peak in 2011, Weltbild had more than 300 outlets around Germany, employed some 6,400 people, and boasted revenue of a billion euros. After its first bankruptcy in 2014, the company was acquired by the Düsseldorf-based Droege Group. Its new owners repositioned the company as the WB D2C Group and implemented a broad restructuring program, which resulted with a majority of its stores closing in the past decade.
While Weltbild GmbH & Co. KG will be liquidated, there may be hope for some of its subsidiaries. The group includes online bookseller buecher.de and health products company Orbisana, among others. "We continue to actively seek future solutions for the other companies and brands. The starting positions are very different,” said Christian Plail, who is overseeing the company’s insolvency.
A possible white knight for the stores is Thalia, Germany's dominant bookstore chain, which has expressed interest in acquiring Weltbild's stores, reported Borsenblatt.
