(SGI) Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof (or Galeria for short), the new holding company formed last year from the merger of the Galeria Kaufhof and Karstadt department stores, submitted an application for protection from its creditors which was approved by the local court of Essen on Wednesday. Stressing that the proceedings are not equivalent to insolvency, a spokesman said they also apply to the group’s Karstadt Sports stores but not to the SportScheck chain that it recently acquired. Galeria had previously stopped paying rent and transferring money to its suppliers. Negotiations for state support did not bring the desired results. All the stores of Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof and Karstadt Sports have been closed since March 18 due to the coronavirus. The company said that it has been losing revenues of about €80 million per week. For the current financial year, Galeria was expecting Ebitda of more than €100 million and a net loss of similar magnitude on sales of about €5 billion. More in SGI Europe.