Last Friday, fruit and vegetable giant Greenyard announced a serious restructuring. The loss of 422 jobs and the sale of an important department ends the business model of Hein Deprez to bind supermarkets to Greenyard by supplying all types of fruit and vegetables.
Deprez is also in danger of losing all control regarding ownership of shares, because Greenyard has started increasing its capital. According to observers, this will amount to between 70 and 120 million euro. Deprez can’t personally pay this.
400 million euro in debt
On 4 March 2015, Deprez announced three fruit and vegetable companies would merge, resulting in Greenyard being able to supply everything ‘from soil to mouth.’ Four years later, this merger project has failed. Balance was lost considerably, and according to KCB Securities, the company is 400 million euro in debt.
Too ambitious
According to an observer, Hein Deprez is too ambitious, and he isn’t the only one who thinks so. Even co-CEO Marc Zwaaneveld let this on in Friday’s press release. “The decision to merge was good. The company grew considerably because of it. The model has a lot of potential in the long term. However, not enough time was spent on the integration and consolidation of the various departments,” according to Zwaaneveld.
Please click here to read the entire article in De Tijd (link to Belgian website).
Source: De Tijd.