Kika Leiner expects to break even in 2024

Austrian furniture chain Kika Leiner, which ran into difficulties last year, expects to break even in 2024. This is according to a report in the daily Kurier. According to the report, the 2022/2023 financial year, which ended in September, closed with a balance sheet loss of 114 million euros on sales of 597 million euros. The optimism is based on the implementation of key measures. These include the streamlining of the product range and the strengthening of private labels, whose share is to be increased from 20% to 30%. The biggest cuts have been made to the store network and staff. Last year, 23 out of 40 stores were closed and more than 1600 employees lost their jobs.

In 2013, Kika Leiner still had 73 stores in Austria and Eastern Europe and a turnover of 1.2 billion euros. It was then taken over by the Steinhoff Group, which ran into financial difficulties in 2018 and sold Kika Leiner to the Signa Group, owned by investor René Benko. The latter first sold Kika's Eastern European business to the Lutz Group, then last year sold the real estate to Supernova in Graz and the operational business to manager Hermann Wieser.

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