BERLIN — Gay publishing house The Bruno Gmünder Group — publisher of “Men” and other publications — announced today that it has filed for insolvency in an effort to restructure the company.
A recent bid for new capital that could have averted the move was denied.
The company said it will be business as usual under the restructuring and it will continue to meet its debts.
Adjustments necessary for the switch to digital transformation and modernization that ate up considerably more resources than originally anticipated were cited as reasons for the restructure. The company said its new business models have not been able to compensate for the decreasing sales of formerly best-selling products.
“Recently, due to rapid changes in the consumer marketplace and diminishing purchases of physical media, the publishing company has been experiencing a decrease in the sales of products that were once bestsellers,” the company said.
Founded in 1981, Bruno Gmünder was acquired in 2011 and installed a new management team consisting of Tino Henn, Nik Reis and Michael Taubenheim that attempted to restructure and optimize its product range that includes a number of print products as well as an increasing number of digital products such as e books, apps and websites.
Travel guides, magazines, photo books, comic books and works of fiction and non-fiction are also part of the company's range of product offerings.
The restructuring will allow the company to preserve and reorganize the enterprise. The company said that the proceedings according to German and EU law are different from the insolvency laws of the U.S. although there are similarities between the German Insolvency Statute and the provisions of U.S. Chapter 11. “However, this is not a bankruptcy, but a way to keep cash flow solvent to meet regular debt obligations and allow the company to avoid a bankruptcy, and to get ‘back in the black,’” the company noted.
This process will let Bruno Gmünder modernize the company and maintain business in the future without the burden of prior debt. The "Bruno's" stores, Brunos.demail order services, the fiction, non-fiction and photo book departments, the "Spartacus" guide, the "Spartacus-Traveler" and "Männer" magazines, as well as other in-house products will continue uninterrupted.
The executive board said it is well aware of its responsibility and obligations to lead the company through the general publishing crisis into the future while preserving its rich tradition of products and services for the international gay community.