ESSEN, Germany (AFP) - KarstadtQuelle, Europe's leading department store operator, said it planned to sell "as quickly as possible" 77 of its 181 department stores around the country as part of a massive restructuring programme aimed at pulling it out of its current financial crisis.
KarstadtQuelle would initially spin off the 77 stores into a separate unit before selling them, it said.
The stores concerned all had sales floorspace of less than 8,000 square metres.
At the same time, the group said it would not pay shareholders any dividend for either this year or next year.
For 2004, KarstadtQuelle was pencilling in an operating loss of up to 1.34 billion euros (1.6 billion dollars). But it hoped to return to operating profit of 110 million euros in 2005, it added.
Despite the massive reorganisation, KarstadtQuelle said it had no plans to sell its 50-percent stake in tourism giant Thomas Cook.
Earlier, the group had said it had finally found a new finance director after a year-long search.
Harald Pinger, 44, formerly chief financial officer at the industrial gases group Messer Griesheim, would take the financial reins at KarstadtQuelle from October 1, the group announced.
The post has been vacant since former CFO Norbert Nelles quit a year ago.
Another part of the extensive restructuring programme that would lead to an estimated 1.4 billion euros in one-off charges his year was a 500-million-euro capital increase that would help strengthen its capital base and further cut its net financial debt.