Private equity firm Berggruen Holdings has won the bid for insolvent German retailer Karstadt, insolvency administrator Görg said late on Monday in a statement.

Private equity firm Berggruen Holdings has won the bid for insolvent German retailer Karstadt, insolvency administrator Görg said late on Monday in a statement.

Karstadt is being acquired by two unnamed Berggruen holdings, the statement said. Terms of the deal have not been made public. A spokesman for Görg could not be reached for comment. Berggruen’s initial bid called for lowering Karstadt's rents and proposed a partnership with US fashion brand BCBG Max Azria Group.

However, the sale is likely to surprise real estate insiders, many of whom expected Karstadt to be snapped up by the Highstreet consortium, which owns the majority of Karstadt’s stores. Highstreet - which comprises Goldman Sachs' Whitehall Funds (51%), Deutsche Bank's RREEF funds (24%), Milan-based Pirelli Real Estate (12%), Generali (11%) and the Borletti Group - submitted a last-minute bid for the insolvent retailer on 28 May. German-Swedish financial investor Triton also bid, Görg has confirmed.

The announcement marks the end of a protracted battle to sell Karstadt’s operational assets, which have likely been sold for far less than the EUR150 mln it was believed they would fetch as recently as March. Last month, Triton is thought to have offered EUR30 mln for Karstadt, as well as an additional EUR60 mln to restructure the German department-store chain.

The court of Essen, with which the insolvency plan was registered in March, will review the sale on 10 June 2010, Görg said in the statement.