NRDC Equity Partners, the private investment firm controlled by Richard Baker and his family, has successfully bid to acquire the bankrupt Galeria in Germany, WWD has learned.
NRDC is said to be partnering with Bernd Beetz, the former chief executive officer of Coty, in the deal which was signed Tuesday, according to a source close to NRDC Equity Partners.
Representatives of NRDC could not be reached for comment. The purchase price could not be learned.
The German government put the Galeria department store business up for the sale and held an auction. Galeria operates 90 stores in Germany, generating 2.2 billion euros in sales annually.
The New York-based NRDC is led by Jack Baker, the firm’s founding partner, and Lucas Evans, the firm’s managing partner. NRDC invests in retail, real estate and consumer brands.
Jack Baker is the son of Richard Baker, the chief executive officer and governor of HBC, which is the majority owner of Saks, the luxury e-commerce site; The Bay e-commerce marketplace in Canada, and Saks Off 5th, the upscale off-price e-commerce company. HBC also wholly owns the Hudson’s Bay, the operating company for Hudson’s Bay’s brick-and-mortar stores in Canada, as well as SFA, which operates Saks Fifth Avenue stores, and O5, which operates the Saks Off 5th stores.
NRDC is a separate and unrelated business from the retail group HBC. There has been widespread speculation that Baker is close to a deal to acquire the Neiman Marcus Group, through HBC. “It is still alive,” said one source familiar with the negotiations between the owners of Saks and Neiman Marcus.
Galeria filed for bankruptcy after its Austrian parent Signa, headed by René Benko, collapsed in a financial crisis.
HBC in 2016 bought Kaufhof in Germany for 2.6 billion euros and sold it to René Benko’s Vienna-based Signa Group for 3.8 billion euros in 2019, leading to the merger of Kaufhof and Signa’s Karstadt retail business, forming Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof.
