Maternity brand Noppies is causing stores to go bankrupt

This is evident from research by RTL Z in annual reports of parent company Nine & Co from Lelystad and the first bankruptcy report of subsidiary Task Retail. Task housed Noppies’ Dutch stores in cities such as Amsterdam, Groningen and Maastricht.

Pregnancy brand

nuggets was founded in the early 1990s by entrepreneur Norbert Mutsaerts and grew into a well-known wholesaler that sells clothing for pregnant women, babies and children throughout Europe. After 2008, the company also opened its own stores in the Netherlands to increase its visibility.

In 2016, Noppies was acquired by the Belgian investor Selling Capital. Under the new director Anne-Gien Haan and with loans from the new owner, the company then went on its own acquisition path.

Growing fits

Noppies successively bought the brands Imps & Elfs, Queen Mum and the German maker of sleeping products Alvi. This is how parent company Nine & Co was born, which in 2018 had approximately three hundred employees and a turnover of 53 million euros.

However, Nine & Co’s most recent annual accounts show that the maternity company suffered significant losses in the first two corona years: 3.4 million euros in 2020 and 4.2 million in 2021. Results for 2022 have not yet been made public.

Shops closed

These losses made intervention necessary. Last July, Nine & Co announced that it would close its ten stores in the Netherlands and three in Belgium. The rest of the company would undergo restructuring and debt restructuring.

“We are essentially a healthy company,” temporary financial director Joris Naalden told RTL Z at the time. “We think we can continue this in the coming years.” According to him, the stores were not profitable, but as a wholesaler and online through platforms such as Zalando and About You, the company sees good opportunities.

Shops bankrupt

It now appears that the ten Dutch stores have not only closed, but have also gone bankrupt. In September, Task Retail, which housed the branches, was declared bankrupt.

According to the first bankruptcy report, which curator Bas van Dijen filed in October, Task Retail is the only business unit that went bankrupt. The other parts of Nine & Co are trying to reach an agreement with creditors outside of bankruptcy. According to the report, the company is suffering from a huge debt burden. At the end of 2021, this amounted to almost 34 million euros.

Debts

The largest creditors were investor Vendis Capital with a credit of more than 14 million euros and Rabobank with 13 million. The party that sold the German subsidiary Alvi to Noppies in 2018 still received more than 6 million euros.

The most recent annual accounts show that Nine & Co’s debt subsequently increased further. In November 2022, Vendis lent the clothing trade another 1.25 million euros. Including the interest due on the loans, the total debt of the maternity store to the investor at the end of 2022 was more than 17 million euros.

Decontamination

According to the annual accounts, Noppies’ parent company already drew up a plan at the end of last year to restructure its debts. The Belgian investor would have to exchange the loans into shares, and Rabobank would provide new financing.

Vendis now has its hands in the maternity brand deducted. In June, the Belgian investor sold his shares to director Haan. According to financial director Joris Naalden, the Belgians no longer have any shares and no claims on the company. “They have written it off completely.” They saw nothing of their credit of 17 million euros.

Conflict met curator

However, the debt restructuring of the children’s and maternity clothing company was delayed in recent months. This was partly the result of a conflict with curator Van Dijen, who is handling the bankruptcy of the store subsidiary.

According to the curator, a ‘difference of views arose with Nine & Co regarding actions prior to the bankruptcy’ of the store subsidiary. He does not want to discuss the precise nature of those actions. The parties have now reached an agreement, according to Van Dijen. “A settlement has been made, which has been approved by the examining magistrate and the bank.”

Regulation

Nine & Co pays compensation to the bankrupt estate. As far as the curator is concerned, this clears the way for completing the debt restructuring of the parent company. “But I won’t discuss that further.”

According to Nine & Co’s financial director Joris Naalden, the debt restructuring is now ‘in the final phase’. He expects to be able to ‘share news with creditors’ within four weeks. He cannot yet say what part of their credit the company’s creditors will have to remove in the event of an agreement.

“I will not make any statements in advance about the offer that we will make to creditors. If we can say something about it, we will first share it with the stakeholders and creditors. However, I can already say that Rabobank has provided a lot of support and is doing its best. showed.”

Second flop from Vendis

The failed investment in maternity brand Noppies and its parent company Nine & Co is the second fashion flop of Belgian investor Vendis Capital in the Netherlands. In 2015, the Belgians bought the Dutch women’s fashion brand Humanoid, which they wanted to grow strongly internationally.

Not much came of that. In 2020, Humanonoid ran into financial problems and Vendis no longer wanted to invest. The companies behind the fashion brand went bankrupt in March 2021. A few months earlier, Vendis had sold its shares to director Maikel van den Dungen, who made a fresh start.

Last summer, Humanoid went bankrupt for the second time. And made a new start again. However, Vendis was no longer involved in this.