Yves Maes (43) and Julie Hannes (36) only needed one year of The Sky Is The Limit to make it to the all-star edition. And whether there is anything left to say. “It’s rough,” says Yves. “What I did this year, someone else will do in ten years.”
Until recently, Yves Maes was best known for his bright yellow Maes Containers that you see everywhere. Since the Play 4 program The Sky Is The Limit, the general public can also put a face to that melodious surname. Over the past nine years, TV maker Peter Boeckx has broadcast six seasons of his soap opera. Tanner Yves Maes and his equally no-nonsense girlfriend Julie Hannes, with their infectious Kempen accent, only needed one year to get a place in the all-stars edition.
What do we get to see in this final piece? “That we started pressing hay,” says Yves. “That Willy Naessens visited us and that I went to Maastricht to pick up a new Porsche 911 GT3 RS. (points to the yellow Porsche in the parking lot) Look, there it is, in the Maes company colors! Ah yes, and I also bought the Looise company Grondwerken Ackx. Two drops of water The Sons Van Van As: six brothers who have done earthworks and contract work together all their lives and who tell the camera what they have accomplished. Makes you laugh.”
Squirt in his hole
It is known that Yves Maes is a man with hands on his body. The blood blisters on his fingers make this even clearer. “While cleaning the horse stables, I got a metal gate on my pollen,” he says. “And then I also have the shot in my back. I have been suffering so much over the last few weeks, which is not normal. This morning I couldn’t even get out of bed, so I had to get an injection in my ass.”
That does not immediately indicate that you have started working less hard, as you had announced.
Yves: “No, that’s right. The horse breeding business was intended as a hobby, but is now running at a high level. Twenty foals sold this year, twenty-five next year… It’s getting out of hand, isn’t it? The waste sector is also doing well again after a poor period in 2023. It was our first dip in twenty years: not in turnover, but in profit. But now we are earning our living again. This required a serious reorganization. Together with Julie and a few confidants, I spent two months, seven days a week, in our depot in Brussels to put things in order.”
Julie: “Yves was working day and night, so I helped where I could. At one point I was even literally shoveling away trash. If that isn’t The Sky Is The Limit, I don’t know what is.” (laughs)
Yves: “The corporate structure was becoming too heavy – with an external CEO and an army of managers – so we turned it into a family business again. That meant that we had to say goodbye to a number of people and that I took the reins back into my own hands.”
If you have to thank people for services rendered…
(interrupts the question) “I don’t do that myself. I can not do that. But it was necessary, because the wage bill had increased by twelve percent.”
Is it better now?
(nods) “Shorter lines. We have a staff of 400 people and they all want to work for me, for me personally. A while ago I thought: I’m going to take some distance and focus more on my breeding and agriculture. But after a while I started to realize that I had to sit on the nest again. It’s a good thing I did that, because the numbers dropped. I thought: let me just do it for about four months and I will sort it out. I know exactly which levers I need to pull to get that ship back on course. And when they see that the owner is jumping on the bandwagon again, everyone is on board.”
Are you still working with asylum seekers?
“Yes, and that sounds crazy. I have been nominated for the Trends Impact Awards for this. These people get an opportunity and grab it with both hands. They are all hard workers, very friendly and they never miss a single shift. They start at the bottom of the ladder, but some have already become crane operators or physical chemistry operators. ‘Impossible’, I hear left and right, but it just shows that anything is possible.”
What is the situation with the longest private swimming pool in Limburg?
“No swimming this year, yum. New! Didn’t have time: worked hard, bought a hundred hectares of land, added a new wing to our ranch, renovated stables, built a small house on our property for our mother… Actually way too rude: what I did this year is something someone else is doing. ten years.”
And you really wanted to spend more time with your horses.
“Bwoh, after a while I got tired of that too. Not enough action for me. After a week on the farm I was happy to go back to the waste. And sometimes I’m sick of that waste and retreat to my farm for a week. Me, alone on my tractor: everyone leave me alone. Then I don’t even answer the phone. And then suddenly I’m back at my desk in Tessenderlo at 4 o’clock in the morning. I need variety.”
What about your alcohol cessation?
“Not a drop anymore, for two years. You put that in the newspaper: ‘When my car crashed into the facade of a restaurant, I changed my life’. The day after the publication of that piece, Maria from La Strada restaurant called me: ‘Yves, that accident was good for something. Finally you stopped with that filth.’” (laughs)
2023-10-20 17:04:42
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