FRANKFURT/DUESSELDORF, April 9 (Reuters) - A consortium

including Hudson's Bay Company CEO Richard Baker's investment

firm NRDC Corp is set to take over German department store chain

Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, two sources familiar with the matter

told Reuters on Tuesday.

Galeria, Germany's most prominent retailer, earlier this

year filed for insolvency following the collapse of its parent

Signa, the Austria-based property empire that has become the

biggest casualty so far in Europe's real-estate crisis.

Baker's Hudson's Bay Company had owned Galeria Kaufhof for

several years before a sale to Signa and the chain's merger with

Karstadt.

An announcement of the deal could come as soon as Wednesday,

the people said.

NRDC and German businessman Bernd Beetz, former head of

cosmetics company Coty ( COTY ) and a former supervisory board chairman

at Galeria, will lead the consortium, the people said.

Reuters was unable to immediately contact Bernd Beetz. NRDC

did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent

outside of business hours.

A spokesperson for Galeria's insolvency administrator Stefan

Denkhaus declined to comment. Last month, Denkhaus had said he

was in talks with two bidders.

Galeria's latest insolvency filing is its third in recent

years. The pandemic pushed it to file in 2020, and soaring

inflation and energy costs in the wake of the Ukraine war hit it

again in 2022.

This time, Galeria's troubles stemmed from the collapse of

its owner Signa, which had committed to providing Galeria with

200 million euros, a payment that became unlikely in light of

its troubles.

Germany's Handelsblatt business daily first reported that

NRDC would win the bid.