Horten AG

Horten AG
joint-stock company
Industry Retail
Founded Duisburg (1936)
Founder Helmut Horten
Headquarters Düsseldorf, Germany
Divisions department stores (Horten (1936-2004)/ GALERIA Horten (1988-2003) / MERKUR (1945-1988))
smaller department stores (DeFaKa (1936-1973) / Horten extra (1988-1993))
discount department stores (Hanse-SB 1974-1989)
restaurants (bon appetite / KUPFERSPIESS))
Own Brands (Horten, Miss H.)

Horten AG (Aktiengesellschaft) was a German department store chain founded by Helmut Horten in 1936 and headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany.

With up to 80 stores all over Germany, Horten ranked fourth-largest among German department store chains, after Karstadt, Kaufhof and Hertie.

Until 1988, Horten operated some of its department stores under the name of Merkur, some smaller department stores were called DeFaKa (Deutsches Familien Kaufhaus), but they had all been replaced with modern types of Horten department stores until the 1970s. In 1988 Horten introduced a new concept for their department stores, it was called "GALERIA"-concept and proofed to become a very successful venture for the Horten AG. Also in 1988, the Horten AG decided to separate their smaller locations, which should not be branded with the new GALERIA-design, and founded the Horten-Extra GmbH covering its thirteen smallest stores. It was planned to refresh the 39 bigger stores with the GALERIA-Design, but this goal has not been implemented. Horten-Extra was only a small division and ten of these stores were sold to Kaufring AG in 1993. Kaufring AG then re-branded these ten Horten-Extra stores to the fictional name J.Gg. Rupprecht, which had no history of its own. J.Gg. Rupprecht stores were never successful and one of the reasons, Kaufring AG filed for bankruptcy and finally went into liquidation. The few stores never made a profit and subsequently in 2001 all J.Gg. Rupprecht stores were closed, too late to rescue the Kaufring AG. The other three stores of Horten-Extra also did not have successful histories. The location in Dortmund was closed directly after the ten Horten-Extra stores were sold; it was renovated as a mall (Westfalen Forum). The Westfalen-Forum was from its beginning a "dead mall": the first and second floors were finished, but never opened because there were no tenants for those two floors. The basement also closed a year after its opening. The main tenant of the ground floor and basement (Adler fashion) closed in 2006. The other two Horten-Extra stores became part of Kaufhof (Neuss and Schwäbisch Gmünd) and were traded for a few years as Horten again, until the year 2000, when both stores closed because they were considered too small to be renamed Galeria Kaufhof.

The 'Carsch-Haus' in Düsseldorf was the finest department store of the Horten AG and served as kind of a flagship store. It is now run by Kaufhof, but still trading as Carsch-Haus. This store has a very interesting and unique story, as in the 1980s it was dismantled stone by stone and later rebuilt only a few feet away. This became necessary because the 'Rheinbahn' (public transport in Düsseldorf) had planned to build a subway station under the building. After rebuilding, the Carsch-Haus became Horten AG's most modern department store and a model of development for the Galeria-concept.

Horten was one of the most modern German department store companies of the 1960s and 1970s. Many new stores were built while the traditional, long-established high street stores were renovated, modernized, and in some cases, expanded. Horten built the first department stores that included car parks and petrol stations. They wanted to be the target for customers from the suburbs who had their first cars and did not want to travel into the cities by bus or tram. In addition to their large number of high-end downtown department stores, Horten built some new "edge of downtown stores." Every department store featured a restaurant, most located on the top floor. In the 1960s they were called "KUPFERSPIESS" (Copper Kettle). Later, Horten began to reorganise them into self-service-restaurants and called them "Bon appetit" or "Horten-Restaurant," also combined together as "Bon appetit: Ihr Horten-Restaurant." In the 1990s Horten also began introducing the Galeria-concept for its restaurants and gave them a new food distribution sector and a lighter outfit. After Kaufhof took over Horten, they merged their two restaurant companies "Bel-Terine" and "Bon appetit" into one, dubbed "DINEA." Smaller restaurants with less service were called "Grillpfanne."

Horten's dark brown interiors morphed into a more modern and fresh look with the introduction of the new Galeria stores in the 1980s, with an emphasis on lighter colors such as blue, light gray and white. Some of the bigger stores added food courts called "delikatessa" and also added onsite supermarkets. After returning from a visit to the United States and returning with the concept, Helmut Horten opened Germany's first supermarkets in the basement floors of his department stores. They were innovative, modern, and much larger than most German grocery stores at the time.

In 1968 Helmut Horten sold all of his company shares and was never seen at celebrations of the Horten AG (like the 50th anniversary in 1986). Helmut Horten died in 1987, at this time his former company was part of BAT (British-American-Tobacco).

In 1994 competitor Kaufhof took over Horten and - over a ten-year period - all Horten department stores were either renamed Kaufhof, sold or closed. This process ended in 2004 with the last stores being closed or renamed and the Horten name disappeared. Today only one store - the Carsch-Haus in Düssldorf - still has the Horten logo on its facade, struck in stone over the main doors. The former name "Horten im Carsch-Haus" was done away with in 1996. In 2008 Kaufhof cleaned the Horten stone-logos, and they are now clearly visible on the facade. The store now simply trades as Carsch-Haus and wasn't changed into Kaufhof. A Galeria Kaufhof store is located in the same street.

In 1995 the Horten AG became a real estate company and rented the Horten-stores to Kaufhof. The operating business was transferred to the Horten GALERIA GmbH, which was later merged into the Kaufhof AG.

Many former Horten and Galeria Horten department stores now trade as (Galeria) Kaufhof.

Former Horten Department Stores

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