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Innsbruck – “The excitement has been great in the last few days about whether we can open the house and how we can do it,” said Kastner & Öhler CEO Martin Wäg on Wednesday just before the official opening, alluding to the change of the traffic light. from Corona in Innsbruck. to the color orange. “But since May, the trade has shown that shopping is not dangerous.” It is possible to keep your distance and wear a mask to keep people healthy.
Retail has proven since May that shopping is not dangerous.
Martin Wäg (Kastner and Öhler)
The Styrian family business opens its fashion store in Kaufhaus Tyrol on an area of 6500 square meters. It is the largest fashion house in western Austria and the second largest location for Kastner & Öhler; the largest is the parent company in Graz. Kastner & Öhler has invested around € 7 million in Innsbruck and 90 jobs have been created. “We are happy that we were able to reach an agreement with René Benkos Signa,” said Wäg. Kaufhaus Tyrol is owned by real estate investor Benko. He bought it in 2004 and then rebuilt it. Kastner & Öhler now represents around a fifth of the sales area at Kaufhaus Tyrol. The Styrian company, to which Gigasport also belongs, employs around 1,900 people in Austria and had sales of more than 290 million euros in the 2019/20 financial year.
Martin Wäg .
© Thomas Boehm / TT
Kastner & Öhler also suffered from the Corona crisis, according to Wäg, the trading company is missing a double-digit million amount in sales due to the lockdown. This year it will end with losses, as the TT has already reported. “We are confident that we have stable ground under our feet,” Wäg said. The use of various state aids is arduous.
After the lockdown period, Kastner & Öhler needed liquidity support and applied to the financial agency Cofag for liquidity guarantees from the Corona relief fund. “The initiation was long,” said Wäg, “but it worked.” At that time, Kastner & Öhler was assisted by Raiffeisen-Landesbank (RLB) Styria. The subject of fixed cost grants is also “very complex”. Everything is currently being prepared for this. But it is already clear that the damage “will in no way be compensated for,” Wäg said. The company made use of the reduced working hours until mid-June and so far it has not been necessary to cut staff.
After stores reopened in May, the purchase rate at all 33 locations, now 34, including Innsbruck, was slightly better, Wäg reported. The online business “grew tremendously” during the closing, but of course it could not offset the turnover of more than 30 stores. (see)
