V&D retail chain to close after takeover talks fizzle out

Dutch department store chain V&D is to close after 130 years after talks over a possible takeover by Dutch retail investor and entrepreneur Roland Kahn failed to reach an agreement.

Kahn, whose Cool Investments company was the only bidder for V&D, had hoped to relaunch the department store chain with at least 35 of the 62 existing stores, which are owned by 25 different investors, but was unable to secure the support of enough landlords.

Dutch media reports said Cool Investments was also struggling to obtain bank financing for the plan.

Receivers for V&D said the company would now be broken up and its assets sold. Supermarket chain Jumbo, which bought the freestanding La Place restaurants out of the V&D portfolio, has said it is interested in the in-store La Place branches.

‘As it has unfortunately not been possible to solve the puzzle between potential buyers, landlords and financiers, a very small group of V&D staff, under the leadership of the receivers, will deal with the disposal of the company’s assets over the coming weeks,’ the receivers said in a statement.

Cool Investments said it regretted that it had been unable to reach an agreement with the management and receivers to relaunch V&D ‘in a new lifestyle formula’. ‘Unfortunately we have to conclude that we have been unable to align the interests of all parties,’ the company said in a statement.

The demise of the V&D brand leaves the door open for Canada’s Hudson’s Bay Company to acquire a number of the vacant stores as it looks to expand its presence in Europe. HBC acquired the German Galerie Kaufhof chain last year for €2.5 bn and also owns the smaller Belgian luxury retailer Galeria Inno. Executive chairman Richard Baker said last week that HBC ‘can’t wait to get started in the Netherlands’.

V&D was declared bankrupt at the end of 2015 after its owner, US private equity group Sun Capital, declined to underwrite a rescue package. Sun Capital took over V&D in 2010 and invested €165 mln in the stores, half of it in the form of loans.

V&D was established in 1887 by Amsterdam shopkeepers Willem Vroom and Anton Dreesman and became the foundation of a Dutch retail empire that at one point included Hema, De Bijenkorf, Dixons and M&S Mode. At the time of its bankruptcy it employed 8,000 people in 62 stores.