Frankfurt/Hanover, June 11 - German retailer Arcandor AG, which filed for insolvency on Tuesday, denied a report it was planning to only sell a 51 stake in its Karstadt department store chain and offload the rest later.
A spokesman for the company rebutted the report, which appeared in German daily Die Welt on Thursday, adding no decisions had yet been made.
Die Welt had cited company sources as saying Arcandor was planning to sell a majority in Karstadt, aiming to keep a minority stake for the time being which could be sold at a later stage.
Shares in Arcandor were up 4.1 percent at 1133 GMT, while Frankfurt's midcap index was up 1.1 percent.
Metro AG Chief Executive Eckhard Cordes previously said he would be interested in taking over half of Arcandor's Karstadt stores and merging them with Metro's Kaufhof stores. However, on Wednesday Metro said talks with Arcandor about a possible department store tie-up had been put on hold, adding the door remained wide open for further talks.
Arcandor's collapse, following the German government's decision to reject emergency state aid, has made the company Germany's biggest non-bank casualty of the financial market crisis.
Banking sources told Reuters on Tuesday Arcandor's stake in Thomas Cook Group of about 53 percent serves as collateral for its creditor banks, and a sale of that stake by the banks within three to 12 months would be realistic.
The Financial Times Deutschland newspaper reported, citing company sources, that Arcandor's insolvency administrator Klaus Hubert Goerg is examining whether that lien can be challenged.
A spokesman for Goerg said the main task would be to get a first overview by next week.