Bakery chain 40 Oebel branches in Bonn and the region rescued
Aachen/Cologne · Investors have been found for 40 branches of the insolvent bakery chain Oebel. The majority of the branches in the Cologne area were taken over by the Schneider bakery.
240 employees of the Oebel Group can breathe a sigh of relief. They work in the 40 branches for which investors have been found, who will also take over the employees, as announced on Tuesday by Dirk Wegener, spokesman for the insolvency administrator. Most of the branches in the Cologne area were taken over by the Schneider bakery. The Elsdorf-based company already operates 114 branches in the Rhineland. Further Oebel locations went to the bakeries Hardt, Lohner and Merzenich, which are also based in the region. Of the original 30 branches in the region, there is now one investor for 20. And according to the insolvency administrator Dirk Wegener, Brinker takes over all but one of the Düsseldorf locations and continues to run them under the name Oebel.
Oebel filed for insolvency in July. At that time, the company still had around 940 employees and over 150 branches, many of them in supermarkets. The reason given by Oebel was logistics problems as a result of the insolvency of the supplier Kronenbrot and also unexpectedly massive sales slumps caused by the weather in June.
When the insolvency proceedings were opened at the beginning of October, Oebel had only around 100 branches left. According to the insolvency administrator two weeks ago, some contracts had expired and employees had also left the company.
"The Oebel Group has had problems for quite some time," Wegener said on Tuesday. The constant change in consumer behavior towards more quality products has also made the company creative. No buyer could be found for a complete takeover of the chain without its own production and logistics. "All the more reason for us to be pleased that we can now offer 40 branches and their employees a continuation perspective after a comprehensive investor process," Wegener continued. The process is not yet over. He believes that there will be a short-term interest in further branches. "I'm fighting for every branch," Wegener said. And in the region in particular, he sees good opportunities to find further investors.
That's why 30 branches will continue to operate for the time being. If no interested parties can be found for them at short notice, however, the employees would have to be dismissed at the end of the month. Depending on their length of service, their employment will end at the earliest at the end of November. A further 30 branches have already been closed since the beginning of October. The insolvency administrator cites a shortage of personnel as a reason. Around 60 redundancies have also been announced so far. Wegener said, however, that the employees had very good chances on the job market.
(Original text: Ralf Arenz / Translation: Mareike Graepel)
