Update from 18 April 2023:
The traditional company A. W. Niemeyer is offering discounts of 25 per cent on its product range. The specialist for boat and yacht accessories has launched a clearance sale in its seven shops in Germany and Austria as part of the closure of its branch business.
The discount is available on all boat-related products such as care products, equipment, electronics, navigation technology and sailing clothing. Boats from OceanBay by awn, engines, price-linked items and vouchers are excluded from the discount.
A. W. Niemeyer has branches in Kiel, Lübeck, Dormagen, Berlin-Reinickendorf, Berlin-Adlershof and Vienna in addition to its headquarters in Holstenkamp, Hamburg.
Discounts are also available in the online shop. The discount code displayed on the homepage - currently "LEINENLOS" - must be entered in the corresponding field during the checkout process.
Items that are no longer available online are labelled "sold out". They can no longer be added to the digital shopping basket. Furthermore, it is no longer possible to pay via PayPal. Refunds of previous Paypal orders to customers are therefore also not possible. The insolvency administrator points this out. Customers who had paid via Paypal but then did not receive any goods or wanted to cancel the order must claim their money back directly from Paypal. The existing AWN Paypal account has the necessary cover for this, it says.
The message from 3 April 2023:
Hamburg lawyer Stefan Denkhaus, who has been appointed insolvency administrator for A. W. Niemeyer, has just made the bitter news public. He had been looking for investors since the end of January. Initially, six investors had also signalled concrete interest in a takeover of AWN, according to the lawyer, which is why there was great hope that AWN could be preserved.
From mid-March, however, the number of interested parties had steadily decreased following the due diligence process. Last Friday, negotiations with the last remaining interested party failed. This was probably mainly because the owners of the store properties were seeking to increase rents, but also because of the low margins that can now only be achieved in bricks-and-mortar retail.
AWN will therefore now begin the clearance sale at all locations at short notice, which is scheduled to last until the end of May.
Lawyer Stefan Denkhaus regretted this end for AWN. In a statement, he said: "I am particularly sorry for AWN's highly motivated workforce of around 100. They were prepared to make massive cuts in order to contribute to stopping the sustained loss-making situation. Brick-and-mortar retailers cannot compete with the margins achievable in online retailing, but they have to keep up with the sales prices. This is why the decline of large parts of the retail trade in cities can hardly be stopped at the moment, and A.W. Niemeyer is an example of this negative trend."
In January, it became known that Germany's largest water sports outfitter had run into financial difficulties. YACHT-Online was one of the first to report on this in detail. At the end of February, the insolvency administrator told YACHT extremely optimistic about the chances of preserving the company. And last week, the opening of a new branch was even announced. So now the end comes as all the more of a surprise.
More on the topic:
