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Economic Sectors

Commerce

Ac­cor­ding to the 2013 Com­merce Re­port of the As­so­cia­tion of Ger­man Cham­bers of Com­merce and In­dus­try (DIHK), which sur­veyed a re­pre­sen­ta­tive num­ber of both who­le­sa­lers and re­tailers in Ja­nu­ary 2013, the cri­sis at­mo­sphere that arose in Ger­man com­merce in 2009 has now cal­med down again. The in­dus­try has sta­bi­li­zed and is ta­king a ge­ne­rally op­ti­mistic view of the fu­ture. The as­sess­ment of the si­tua­tion has es­pe­cially im­pro­ved among who­le­sa­lers and midd­le­men, but the si­tua­tion for au­to­mo­tive sa­les is dif­fi­cult. Lack of do­mestic de­mand is seen as the main risk to com­pa­nies, es­pe­cially if it sla­ckens fur­ther be­cause of ri­sing costs of en­ergy and com­mo­di­ties, which gnaw away at the con­su­mer bud­get.

Un­for­tuna­tely, the po­si­tive trend found by the DIHK only par­ti­ally matches our own im­pres­si­ons from day-to-day ex­pe­ri­ence. Brick-and-mortar sel­lers, es­pe­cially who­le­sa­lers, face par­ti­cu­larly great chal­len­ges in set­ting their com­pa­nies on a sound ba­sis for the fu­ture. Ri­sing costs, es­pe­cially from lon­ger busi­ness hours, and con­ti­nuing tough com­pe­ti­tion with an in­cre­asing con­cen­tra­tion of mar­ket par­ti­ci­pants, are coun­tered by only slight growth in con­su­mer de­mand. In­ter­net sel­lers are enjoy­ing very high growth ra­tes in some fields, but in many ca­ses are still loo­king for a sus­tai­nable busi­ness mo­del. The is­sues are as di­verse as the forms of com­merce and the si­zes of the com­pa­nies in­vol­ved – so it goes wi­thout say­ing that there’s no one-size-fits-all so­lu­tion.

With our ex­ten­sive prac­tical ex­pe­ri­ence in ad­vi­sing com­mer­cial firms, we view our­sel­ves as a part­ner who speaks your lan­guage and knows the kinds of tasks you face. We can work with you to de­ve­lop so­lu­ti­ons for your busi­ness-ma­nage­ment, tax and le­gal ques­ti­ons, all the while kee­ping an eye on the big pic­ture – your com­pany’s growth.

Our services at a glance

  • De­ve­lo­ping fran­chise con­cepts, and im­ple­men­ting their le­gal, tax and busi­ness ad­mi­nis­tra­tion as­pects
  • Re­viewing terms of purchasing coope­ra­ti­ves; set­ting up a “clean team” where ap­plica­ble
  • Busi­ness ma­nage­ment con­sul­ting, e.g., on op­ti­mi­zing purchase pri­ces
  • Le­gal and tax struc­tu­ring of split-ups into in­ter­lo­cking ow­ner and ope­ra­tor busi­nes­ses (in­clu­ding split-ups where the ow­ner and ope­ra­tor en­ti­ties are both part­nerships) so as to se­pa­rate busi­ness pro­per­ties
  • Coope­ra­tive ar­ran­ge­ments in purchasing, ad­mi­nis­tra­tion and sa­les/dis­tri­bu­tion, in­clu­ding joint ven­tures
  • M&A tran­sac­tions, with spe­cial at­ten­tion to fea­tures spe­ci­fic to com­merce (as­set deals, va­lua­tion of in­ven­to­ries, re­tail per­mits, etc.)
  • Busi­ness va­lua­ti­ons for tran­sac­tions and in busi­ness suc­ces­si­ons, on a cor­po­rate law ba­sis or un­der stan­dar­di­zed va­lua­tion me­thods
  • An­ti­trust re­views ta­king ac­count of sec­tor-spe­ci­fic mar­ket de­fi­ni­tion cri­te­ria
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