Arcandor administrator denies unit sale process set

Photo : AFP

FRANKFURT, Sept 6 (Reuters) - German retailer Arcandor's (AROG.DE) insolvency administrator on Sunday 6 September denied a report that a date had been fixed for the start of the sale process for department store unit Karstadt.

Focus weekly magazine cited banking sources as saying that investment bank Merrill Lynch, which has the mandate to look for potential investors, would allow interested parties access to initial financial data on Karstadt from the end of September. A spokesman for Klaus Hubert Goerg, the insolvency administrator of Arcandor, told Reuters the schedule for the sale process had not yet been determined.

"We are in talks with various parties about possible contributions to the restructuring," the spokesman said.

A bidding process on Karstadt would make sense only after key points of the insolvency plan have been agreed upon, and the plan should be presented to creditors in early November, he said.

Insolvency proceedings began last week for Arcandor, which went bust when its request for state aid was rejected. (Reporting by Nikola Rotscheroth and Joern Poltz; editing by Karen Foster)