The fact that Signa intends to sell individual Kika/Leiner locations has been known since November. At that time, there was talk of four to 15 locations being offered on the market in Austria.
René Benko first took over the then Kika/Leiner flagship store in Vienna’s Mariahilfer Strasse at the beginning of 2018. Now, the entire real estate portfolio has been acquired by Supernova Invest for a price estimated to be around 500 million euros.
According to a recent press release, The Supernova Group led by real estate investor and shopping center operator Frank Albert will take over the real estate, while the operational business of Kika-Leiner will be taken over by former Kika/Leiner and Lutz Manager Hermann Wieser.
“The separation of kika/Leiner was not an easy decision. The management team around CEO Reinhold Gütebier, together with all employees, has shown great commitment to the company under the most difficult market and crisis conditions in recent years and has fought against the upheavals in the furniture market. We are very grateful for this. From SIGNA Group’s point of view, the takeover of Kika/Leiner was a very good investment despite the difficult market environment”, comments Christoph Stadlhuber, CEO SIGNA Holding.
“We bought the real estate; we have nothing to do with operations. We are doing our core business and are looking forward to Hermann Wieser positively managing the operation in the future. But it won’t be easy,” says Frank Albert in an interview with KURIER. “There are 39 furniture stores in total”, adds Frank Albert; however, the actual acquisition price has not been confirmed.
Frank Albert founded today’s Supernova Group in 1994 and is also its CEO. The company develops specialty stores and shopping centers in Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Romania. In addition to these key markets, Supernova Group also operates in Germany, Slovakia and Serbia. Since its foundation, Supernova has realized 145 projects.
