On 9 June 2009 Essen District Court ordered provisional asset administration and protective measures in response to an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings.

On 7 June 2010 the board of creditors resolved to sell Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH to the investor Nicolas Berggruen.

On 14 August 2014 it was announced that Karstadt had been completely taken over by Signa Holding of the Austrian investor René Benko, which already owned the majority of the sports shops and premium stores.

[2] Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH consisted of 83 department stores, 4 bargain centres, 2 branches of K Town and the online shop karstadt.de.

HBC CEO Helena Foulkes said the two companies were excited to bring together two "iconic banners to create Germany's leading retail business.

Karstadt's strategy of offering fixed low prices in place of the still normal haggling was successful from the start as a result of which he had soon opened branches in 24 towns across Northern Germany.

An early highpoint was the opening in 1912 of the branch in Hamburg's Mönckebergstraße which, with a sales area of around 10,000 square metres (110,000 sq ft), was the first such department store in a major German city.

This meant that the Karstadt Group was now also represented by the Althoff stores in Dülmen (opened 1885), Rheine (1889), Borghorst (1889), Bottrop (1893), Bocholt (1893), Recklinghausen (1893), Essen (1894), Münster (1896), Duisburg (1899), Gladbeck (1901), Lippstadt (1901), Coesfeld (1902), Remscheid (1901), Dortmund (1904) and Leipzig (1914).

After the First World War, Karstadt expanded rapidly and in July 1926 it established the EPA-Einheitspreis-Aktiengesellschaft with which it created a network of low price department stores.

In 1932 Rudolph Karstadt stepped down from the management of the company following the dramatic decline in sales which accompanied the global economic crisis.

A restructuring plan included a reduction in the share capital and the closure of numerous branches and production facilities; Epa AG was sold.

More than 30 of the remaining 45 stores in the West – including the then "flagships" in Berlin-Kreuzberg (Hermannplatz) and Hamburg (Mönckebergstraße) – had been destroyed or severely damaged.

In 1977 Karstadt acquired a majority share in Neckermann Versand AG and, with an annual turnover of 10.62 billion DM, became the Federal Republic's largest retailer.

Following German reunification, former Centrum department stores were taken over in Brandenburg an der Havel, Dresden, Halle, Magdeburg, Wismar and Görlitz.

The takeover of Hertie also left Karstadt as the owner of a number of properties which the National Socialists had expropriated from the Jewish department store founder Wertheim.

Ever since the founding of Karstadt Feinkost the departments have been gradually refurbished and repositioned with a modified product range under the new brand Perfetto.

The ongoing crisis situation led in August 2005 to the sale of 74 Karstadt branches with sales areas below 8,000 square metres (86,000 sq ft) (Karstadt Kompakt – which was later known as Hertie GmbH and then closed following insolvency), 51 SinnLeffers clothing stores and the specialist retail chain Runners Point.

In addition to this, liquidity problems meant that the Karstadt parent company Arcandor was no longer able to make rental payments to the Highstreet consortium, the owners of the department store buildings.

Following an adjustment of the labour agreement covering the restructuring process, Berggruen's Plan was approved by the trade union Verdi.

The logistics division of the company, KarstadtQuelle Beschaffungslogistik, continues to operate under the name Corporate Service (Germany) GmbH (CSG).

In September 2013 it was made known that Berggruen was selling 75.1% of both the premium and the sports stores to the Austrian Signa Holding of the investor René Benko.

In justifying her move she explained that "detailed checks, the experiences of the past few months and a closer knowledge of the economic situation have led me to conclude that the pre-conditions for the path chosen by me no longer exist".

[citation needed] On 15 August 2014 it was announced that the Vienna-based Signa Holding was taking over the troubled department store chain for one Euro.

Four years ago the Chairman René Benko successfully opened an Austrian chain of department stores which could serve as an example for Karstadt.

On 19 August 2014 an ad-hoc statement from Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH announced that the company's former Labour Relations Director and Head of Personnel Kai-Uwe Weitz who, together with the Finance Director Miguel Müllenbach, had been provisionally managing Karstadt since the departure of Eva-Lotta Sjöstedt in July, was also immediately leaving the company "by mutual agreement".

The structure was seized first by the SS in 1943 and then by the British occupation forces after World War II, when it was renamed Cumberland House.

The closure of Karstadt's branches in Dortmund (Kampstraße), Munich (am Dom) and in Hamburg's Elbe Shopping Centre was announced on 10 November 2009.

The branch with the highest sales was the one located next to Munich main station which offered 300,000 products and covered 40,000 square metres.