Arcandor
company
Arcandor AG was a holding company located in Essen, Germany, that oversaw a number of companies operating in the businesses of mail order and internet shopping, department stores and tourism services. It was formed in 1999 by the merger of Karstadt Warenhaus AG, founded in 1920, with Quelle AG, founded in 1927. In 2005, the corporation had about 68,000 employees and annual sales of €15.5 billion. Its stocks were traded on the Mid Cap DAX until September 2009. The company's largest store was Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, and the largest store operated by Karstadt was in Frankfurt.
Arcandor requested financial assistance from the German government, which was rejected by the European Commission on 3 June 2009. On 6 June 2009, the company announced it was no longer able to pay rent for its department stores, which the company had previously sold and leasebacked. Three days later, the company filed for bankruptcy.
History
On 14 May 1881, Rudolph Karstadt founded his first store Tuch-, Manufaktur- und Konfektionsgeschäft Karstadt (Karstadt fabric, factory outlet and ready-to wear store) in Wismar. In 1884, a second store was opened in Lübeck.
“Arcandor” enters the record as company. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Arcandor and company can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q136132. VIAF identifies the subject as 130038796. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1999, 1920, 1927 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arcandor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.