toy
Bookseller Thalia buys two toy companies
If you want to buy building blocks, dolls or board games, you don’t have it easy in some city center. Because more and more toy dealers are throwing the towel. A bookseller wants to fill the gap.
The bookseller Thalia strengthens its ambitions on the toy market. After the company from Hagen had taken on a toy business for the first time last year – the retailer Mukk with a large location in Münster’s old town, Thalia now announced a significantly larger acquisition: The book trade chain will take over the Spielwaren Krömer GmbH and Toysino GmbH on October 2025. Only the approval of the antitrust authorities is still pending.
Both companies have the same owners, namely the brothers Christian and Daniel Krömer. Your company headquarters are so far in Schrobenhausen in Bavaria. Krömer has 18 branches in Bavaria and Toysino in Germany, formerly Toysino was called myToys, the Krömer brothers had only taken over the inpatient mytoys shops from the trading group Otto in 2023 and converted to Toysino.
Thalia would like to continue to drive all 39 shops from Krömer/Toysino, the jobs there will be obtained. Notification of disclosure was agreed at the purchase price. The previous owners and managing directors of the two companies, the Krömer brothers, hand over their complete company shares to Thalia, but they get jobs at Thalia and take over the new player segment in a leading function.
Structural change in the toy market
Thalia has long been no longer a pure bookseller, rather the company also offers stationery, calendars and gifts such as cups. Thalia already has toys in its range, with the takeover of Krömer/Toysino this business area is expanded. A company spokeswoman said the companies taken over already had children’s books in their range. Thalia will bring in his expertise to the further positioning of children’s books in the shops. However, it is not planned to offer adult books in the shops.
The toy retail is in change. Many parents buy cuddly toys, sandpit excavators, children’s books and plastic game figures no longer in shops in the city center, but online. The stationary retailers feel that, many give up and close. Drug markets such as Müller or DM want to fill the free gap in the offer by also offering toys. With Thalia, another large company is now positioning itself to do more business with toys.
“Toys Krömer and Toysino are two well-established players in German toy retailers,” says Thalia boss Ingo Kretzschmar. “Many classic toy dealers withdraw from the city centers in many places – we want to actively counteract this development and remain present with attractive shops as anchor points in urban space.”
Christian Krömer said that he firmly believes that “the combination of our toy competence and the infrastructure of Thalia will bring noticeable advantages to customers – and offer our teams a future -proof perspective”.
dpa
Source: Stern
