Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
Hellweg Die Profi-Baumärkte GmbH, the Austrian subsidiary of German DIY retailer Hellweg, entered self-administered insolvency on 30 June 2026. Reasons included weak consumer demand, supply-chain pressures, and rising rent and operating costs.
GPA and the works council advised employees and prioritised job protection. Investor talks collapsed; according to credit protection agencies, the liabilities in Austria amounted to €23.88 million with approximately 280 affected creditors. The legally mandated minimum restructuring-plan quota of 30 percent was offered and unanimously approved by the creditors.
The insolvency followed similar proceedings initiated by the German parent company on 16 June 2026: Hellweg 2026 - DE.
UPDATED, 31/08/2026 A closure application for the two stores in Styria (Graz-Raaba and Fürstenfeld), employing 44 people, was filed on 12th August after the prospective buyer saw no future for them. An application for the court-ordered closure of the remaining four locations was filed on 31 August at the Linz Regional Court. The affected stores are the branches in Ried im Innkreis and Kirchdorf an der Krems (both in Upper Austria), as well as the Straßwalchen (Salzburg) and Graz-Eggenberg (Styria) stores. In total, they employ 116 people.
UPDATED, 24/09/2026 The insolvency administrator has applied for the closure of the remaining business units on 23 September as no agreement with a potential investor has been reached. The remaining operations/headquarters affect 17 employees.
Following these closure rounds, no Austrian site will continue operating.
Eurofound (2026), Hellweg, Bankruptcy in Austria, factsheet number 301211, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/301211.
While large-scale redundancies at major manufacturers dominate the headlines, the true impact of this restructuring is being felt most acutely within the wider supply chain. This article examines the uneven distribution of job losses, the growing geographical shifts in production,...
Eurofound’s ERM restructuring legislation database offers an overview of key restructuring-related regulations in the EU Member States and Norway. Its content is continuously updated to reflect any changes made by national legislators in response to, for instance, policy shifts, legal...
Can Europe still achieve its ambitions for battery manufacturing? To answer this, the article looks at data from Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor and explores what recent large-scale restructuring events reveal about the state of play in the EU battery sector.
This working paper offers a comprehensive methodological overview of the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) databases. Even though the methodology has not changed over time, new categories have been added, and the way it has been used by researchers and policymakers...
This Eurofound research paper explores key trends in restructuring in recent years, highlighting the companies that announced the largest job losses and job gains in the EU. It builds on an analysis of company announcements recorded in Eurofound’s European Restructuring...
In 2023, thousands of workers in big tech lost their jobs. Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Salesforce had been considered to offer good and secure jobs up to this point. Giants of the information and communication technology (ICT) sector,...
