Berlin - Quelle, a mail-order company which was once an
icon of European capitalism, teetered Saturday on the brink of
collapse as it was revealed that it had no cash of its own.
Both Quelle, based in Fuerth, Bavaria, and its German parent
Arcandor declared insolvency on June 9. Berlin has stonewalled on
calls for a loan to keep the group going.
Arcandor confirmed a report in the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung
that Quelle had remitted all its cash to Arcandor just hours before
the insolvency filing.
Since then, Quelle's operations have been entirely funded by
suppliers allowing bills to go unpaid.
Quelle is the keystone of Arcandor's web of mail-order and online
vendors in 28 nations, employing 20,000 people.
Until the 1989 fall of Communism, Quelle's 1,000-page mail-order
catalogues were the bible of clothes and home appliances for East
Europeans behind the Iron Curtain. Most German households own a few
low-priced Quelle products.
An Arcandor spokesman denied the handover was motivated by the
insolvency. He said remittances of all cash to Arcandor from
subsidiaries had been a daily and automated practice, allowing it to
pool group resources.
Horst Seehofer, the premier of the state of Bavaria, pressed
Berlin on Saturday to rush 25 million euros (35 million dollars) in
aid to Quelle, matching an offer of 21 million from his own state.
Today, Quelle takes web orders, but younger Germans perceive
Quelle's 70,000 wares as faintly out of date. Its has just published
its winter catalogue using borrowed funds.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story