Appel plays down Arcandor fallout

Deutsche Post DHL will be affected by the insolvency of German retailer Arcandor and its mail-order unit Quelle, but will not suffer badly from the fallout, its chief executive said on 1 July, reports Reuters.

Deutsche Post DHL will be affected by the insolvency of German retailer Arcandor and its mail-order unit Quelle but will not suffer badly from the fallout, its chief executive said on 1 July, reports Reuters.

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“If you have a customer as large as that, it definitely has an impact on us to a certain extent,” Frank Appel, on a visit to China, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

“But we are a large company with good cash position. We will not suffer from that,” said Appel, declining to be more specific.

Deutsche Post DHL handles much of Arcandor’s warehousing and logistics for its Karstadt department stores. Contracts between DHL, the department stores and Quelle involved a minimum sales obligation of €2.4bn ($3.39bn) for a remaining term of seven years, according to Arcandor.

Quelle, along with its parent company, filed for insolvency on 9 June after Arcandor failed to raise new financing and the German government denied its requests for state-backed guarantees and rescue aid.

The company was struggling to finance a big debt pile built up over years of acquisitions, and its plight worsened as the recession in Germany hit sales.

Quelle was given a temporary €50m lifeline by federal and state governments earlier this week, allowing it to reorganise its businesses.