Primark is poised to step up its colonisation of the German highstreet with reports that it will move into department stores vacated by ailing retailer Karstadt.

The Dublin-based retailer, which trades in Ireland as Penneys, has indicated an interest in taking over the lease on a Karstadt store in Hamburg next summer.

Karstadt employees are set to lose their jobs, have reported seeing Primark staff already taking measurements in the building. A Primark takeover is also rumoured for the Karstadt store in Stuttgart, with other stores likely to follow.

"We assume that talks have reached a conclusion for a new tenant, possibly Primark," said Michael Markowsky, shop steward with the Stuttgart Karstadt branch employing 230 people, to the Stuttgarter Nachrichten daily.

Prime site

Primark recently opened its first store in Stuttgart, in Germany’s southwest, but is reportedly keen to snap up the prime site on the city’s Königstrasse.

Karstadt’s 17,000sqm store in Hamburg-Billstedt, meanwhile, is probably too large for the Irish retailer, making it likely the space will be shared with other retailers.

Neither Karstadt or Primark commented on the rumours, but any deal is likely to happen quickly as the Karstadt stores are set to close in June.

After years in decline, Karstadt’s parent company filed for bankruptcy and the department store business has changed hands twice in four years. The department store chain’s latest owner, an Austrian investor, has announced plans to shut six stores with the loss of 2,000 full-time jobs.

Strength to strength

While Karstadt, founded in 1881, seems in terminal decline Primark, founded in Dublin in 1969 as Penneys, is going from strength to strength in Germany. With nine stores already and plans for more, Primark has cracked one of Europe’s toughest retail markets by selling back to German consumers the low-cost concept familiar to them from domestic discount supermarkets

Aldi

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Lidl

.

Last July, Enda Kenny open- ed Primark’s second store in Berlin, on Alexanderplatz. Rumours persist that it may yet open its third branch soon: either adjacent to Zoologischer Garten train station or in Karstadt’s landmark Hermannplatz store.