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Schlecker family bankrupt but will not sell family business

By Rashmi Kumar

The family behind German drugstore chain Schlecker has lost its multi-billion-euro fortune and will be unable to put in money to revive the family business.

That’s according to second-generation Meike Schlecker, who said in a statement that “there are no significant funds [with the family] anymore that could have helped the company”.

Her announcement follows a filing for bankruptcy by the family business last week, after posting losses for the last few years. The Ehingen-based company, founded by Anton Schlecker in 1975, was forced to shut around 1,000 of its stores in 2011.

But selling the main division of the family business is out of the question, Meike said, adding that she, along with her brother Lars, is hoping to bring Germany’s biggest drugstore chain “back out of insolvency and continue running it as a family business”.

She added in the statement that the family had already put in “hundreds of millions of euros” into the business, to help in its restructuring.

Her desire to continue the family's involvement in the business was supported by a court-appointed insolvency administrator, who said in the release that he was open to a “family solution”.

Schlecker had revenues of around €4.7 billion in 2010/2011. Anton was one of Forbes’s richest people in the world in 2010, with a fortune of around $3.2 billion (€2.45 billion), and was Germany’s 26th richest man last year.

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