Hamburg office supply chain Staples is insolvent

Everything is sold from pens to printer cartridges to office chairs: now the Hamburg office supplies retailer OfficeCentre GmbH is in insolvency proceedings with its German retail chain Staples. Business operations will be “continued without restrictions,” said provisional insolvency administrator Sven-Holger Undritz on Tuesday. First of all, it was ensured that wages and salaries can be paid out on time despite the insolvency. In coordination with the provisional creditors’ committee, an investor “who will lead the company out of insolvency again” is being sought “very promptly”. The “Hamburger Abendblatt” had previously reported on the bankruptcy.

Staples has 700 employees and 50 stores

According to the insolvency administrator, the company is the largest stationary retailer for office supplies in Germany with around 700 employees, 50 branches of the “Staples” brand nationwide and an online shop. The preliminary insolvency proceedings had already been opened on February 7th. The competent court for insolvencies in the Hanseatic city is the district court of Hamburg (file number 67g IN 33/22). The insolvency administrator is a partner in the restructuring and insolvency law firm White & Case. “I and my team are currently getting an overview of the situation at the company that was hit hard by Corona,” said Undav, according to the Hamburger Morgenpost.

According to the information provided by its insolvency administrator, OfficeCentre GmbH is a subsidiary of the Netherlands-based New Office Center Beheer BV, which is in the process of its own restructuring process, which is independent of the German insolvency proceedings.

In a letter to its suppliers, quoted by the Dutch trade magazine KBM, Office Center blamed the corona measures in Germany and the Netherlands for the economic difficulties. These would have led to a sharp decline in business visits and thus also in sales. The web shops could not have compensated for this loss of sales.