Marc Aurel lost its CEO in March — by May it was in insolvency

Marc Aurel, the Gütersloh womenswear house, positioned itself as the bridge between mainstream and premium, with around 100 employees and roughly €25 million in sales in 2024. Then the curve bent: in 2025 revenue fell and the company slid into the red.

On 19 March 2026 the company announced that chief executive Elena Weege was leaving after barely eighteen months at the top. Marc Aurel kept silent on the reasons; alongside the change of leadership it announced restructuring, to stabilise the business and unlock potential. The new managing director, Jan Brandt, was an interim manager who had worked on turnarounds since 2009 — chiefly in the automotive industry, not fashion.

The restart lasted seven weeks. On 6 May 2026 Marc Aurel opened insolvency proceedings in self-administration, with Düsseldorf lawyer Frank Kebekus appointed as custodian. The business kept running, an investor search began, and the works council was brought into the process; what the procedure meant for the hundred-plus employees was, at that point, open.

The sequence is the case: a loss year, a CEO gone in eighteen months without explanation, an outsider from another industry installed to restructure, and insolvency before his first quarter was out. Management churn did not cause the filing — but it left the company entering the procedure with no continuity at the top.