German store chain Hertie closes

Germany's Hertie chain dates back to the 19th Century

German department store chain Hertie is to close all its 54 stores with the loss of 2,600 jobs, the company's administrators have announced.

At a meeting in Essen, 84% of the firm's creditors voted in favour of shutting it down, after officials said they saw no chance of keeping it going.

Hertie filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2008 after talks on financial restructuring broke down.

It was part-owned by collapsed British financial conglomerate Dawnay Day.

The British firm bought a majority stake in Hertie from German retailer KarstadtQuelle, since renamed Arcandor, in 2005, but the chain's fate was sealed when Dawnay Day became a casualty of the credit crunch and was placed into administration late last year.

At the meeting in Essen, insolvency administrator Biner Baehr recommended the closure of Hertie, blaming Dawnay Day for the company's failure.

Mr Baehr said the British firm had had "no idea" about how to run a department store and was mainly interested in making as much money out of the company as possible.

Hertie is one of the longest-lived names in German retailing, dating back to 1882, when Jewish businessman Oskar Tietz opened its first store in Berlin.

The brand was a contraction of his uncle's name, Hermann Tietz. The family eventually fled Germany during the Nazi era, but the chain survived World War II and continued as an independent firm until it merged with KarstadtQuelle in 1994.