Friday was the very last working day at the old Van Hool. Crisis manager and co-CEO Marc Zwaaneveld spoke further with takeover candidates last week, so that the curators can immediately start next week with two offers in hand. A complete script is ready for Tuesday. The board of directors will meet at 10 a.m. to file the books, assisted by the lawyers of Lydian and Linklaters. There will be a special works council afterwards at 11 am. Peggy Schuermans of ACV Puls especially hopes that it will already be indicated what can be expected in terms of job retention. The union fears that this will end in disappointment.
The 2,500 current employees realize that they have closed a chapter in their lives. There will be room for an unknown number of them at the acquirer, but for many there will not be. There was no big collective farewell on that last working day. “Some of the employees have still completed orders, others are already temporarily unemployed, others have taken a day off,” said Hans Van Eerdewegh, union representative at the ABVV.
Behind the scenes, we were still working feverishly on a restart. The two candidate acquirers, Dumarey Group and the VDL-Schmitz consortium, have now been identified. The curators have also been selected. Speed can now be increased. “That speed is important. You cannot lose the staff and suppliers, because then a restart will be difficult,” Guido Dumarey, one of the prospective acquirers who already has experience with takeovers, explained earlier in this newspaper.
Who needs more clarity in the coming days?
1 The staff: avoid that sought-after profiles leave too quickly
A blessing in disguise: Van Hool Koningshooikt is located in a region with a tight labor market. At Voka Mechelen-Kempen they collect potential vacancies for the affected employees. “The counter currently stands at 251 companies, which together have 1,100 vacancies. 35 percent of this is located within a radius of 20 kilometers from Koningshooikt. And there are still vacancies,” says Wim Brillouet, spokesperson for Voka.
Several Van Hool employees are already applying for jobs because they are tired of the uncertainty of the past few weeks. Particularly sought-after profiles, such as engineers or trained technicians, can quickly find work elsewhere. Clarity is therefore urgently needed: which departments will be retained and which will not? And who is there still room for and who has to look for another job? This has to happen quickly, because if the acquirer wants to take over, say, the R&D department, but the engineers have already moved elsewhere, it will become worthless.
Precisely for that reason, the Flemish government has asked the VDAB not to deploy Van Hool for a month, so as not to unnecessarily complicate a restart with the necessary personnel.
2 The suppliers: getting parts again
Zwaaneveld made no bones about it at Monday’s press conference: many suppliers no longer want to supply Van Hool, because they fear that they will not see their money. As a result, the buses can no longer be finished. Many companies also have outstanding claims on Van Hool. And without parts, a buyer cannot make buses. The longer the restart is delayed, the more suppliers will drop out, whether or not because they themselves are in trouble due to Van Hool’s bankruptcy. The acquirer will therefore have to quickly provide suppliers with payment guarantees, provide working capital and place new orders with advance payments.
3 The customers: want to know when their bus will be delivered
Strangely enough, customers dropping out is not that big of a problem. Van Hool got into serious trouble, among other things, because travel organizations canceled their orders en masse during corona. Now the situation is reversed: plenty of touring buses are being ordered again, causing a shortage of production capacity in Europe. The acquirer therefore inherits a full order book for the touring buses. Customers want to know quickly when and whether their bus will still be produced. Governments also want to know whether their city buses will be delivered. The electric city buses for the Olympic Games in Paris, among other things, are made by Van Hool. According to Zwaaneveld, there are fewer orders in the semi-trailer division due to the troubles.
4 The acquirer: who?
The curators decide that. The West Flemish Guido Dumarey has already submitted an offer and the Dutch-German tandem VDL-Schmitz will follow. According to De Tijd, Schmitz Cargobull is interested in the industrial vehicles division, VDL would limit itself to buses. On Friday, another candidate emerged, an as yet unknown smaller player who wants pieces of the company. The trustees can also invite additional bidders themselves, because it is their job to maximize proceeds, for the creditors and in their own financial interests.
Of the parties already in the bidding phase, Dumarey is the underdog. He has to compete against two industrial players who can fit parts of Van Hool into their respective groups.
VDL will be particularly interested in Van Hool’s customer portfolio and trading fund. Making buses in Koningshooikt makes little sense. The factory is not very efficient. VDL has just built a new factory in Roeselare for the production of electric city buses. It can optimize its existing platform, including head office, through Van Hool and thus improve the profitability of the loss-making bus division.
The jobs in Koningshooikt should then come from the German group Schmitz Cargobull. Van Hool has a turnover of around 120 million in the industrial vehicle market with 638 workers. Schmitz Cargobull has a turnover of 2.6 billion, has approximately 7,000 employees and is active internationally.
Dumarey says that he still wants to produce city buses in Koningshooikt, but according to maximally standardized processes. The current traditionally structured factory does not allow this. This means setting up a new production apparatus. Dumarey also said that the company software is outdated and therefore needs to be completely renewed. He would have the coaches made in North Macedonia and eventually also in the US if ‘Made in America’ so required. Van Hool is an important player in touring buses in the US through the ABC company.
In practice, Dumarey wants a quick restart, but with an initial modest production. In the beginning there would only be work a few days a week. Does Dumarey want to offer more to the whole than the industrial tandem, which can realize many synergies? That is not obvious. Dumarey will also have to invest heavily.
5 Who loses?
The financial debts amount to 250 million, the social security debt more than 50 million. On top of that, there are still important debts to suppliers. In the event of bankruptcy, many social debts will be added, the severance payment on top of the 30,500 euros per employee that is paid via the Fund for the Closure of Enterprises (FSO). The Flemish Region has guaranteed 30 million euros of the bank debt through Gigarant, but through the securities it has on the real estate and the commercial fund through the banks and Gigarant, that loss can be limited to 15 to 18 million. In addition to the direct consequences, there are also indirect consequences of the bankruptcy, such as suppliers who are in danger of disappearing.
