The Netherlands: Turmoil in the "green" market

The news came on 3 September: The garden centre company Europatuin, with 47 affiliated garden centres, had declared a state of insolvency. According to information from suppliers, some of the garden centres had got into financial difficulties owing to the poor season. However, the Europatuin head office in Woerden had taken on long-term rental guarantees for many member companies, which some individual outlets then laid claim to, pushing Europatuin as a whole into insolvency. Some of the garden centres were still trading profitably, giving rise to the hope that Europatuin would continue to exist in some form.
In October the first details emerged regarding the survival of the speciality stores. Five members, who between them run ten stores, expressed an interest in acquiring the Europatuin name and engaged in negotiations with the administrator and the Europatuin managing director Jandt Batenburg, who operated two Europatuin stores of his own together with his son. Several of the other stores had already enquired of other garden centre chains – for example Tuinland, Intratuin and Vesa-Tuin - whether there was any possibility of affiliating with their stores. Industry insiders were expecting to see internal streamlining of the chain, which would then go ahead with a relaunch involving considerably fewer units.
Then things began hotting up in December: Ed Maas, a property magnate in Wassenaar who has courted controversy in the Netherlands on account of his political activities, bought the name Europatuin from the bankruptcy assets, together with the two stores in De Bilt and Zutphen, which were owned by Europatuin prior to the bankruptcy. Ed Maas and his property company VHS had already acted as a lender for these two stores. The question for many former Europatuin operators now was whether they would join the new company. Ten stores in all, including the two owned by the company, belonged to Ed Maas's new Europatuin Group in December, although he was still counting on up to 20 former Europatuin stores joining him.
But the situation seems to have developed in an entirely different direction: the Europatuin store in Emmeloord has joined Holland’s biggest garden centre chain Intratuin, with which other former Europatuin garden centres are currently in discussion. Six Europatuin operators came together in October to form the new chain Tuin-Wereld (Garden World), which has been launched initially with eight stores. Its head office is in Oud-Beijerland and store locations include Enschede, Wychen and Wilp. According to a spokesman for the company, the chain intends to operate these eight stores for the next few months before possibly expanding to include further stores. Another 16 former Europatuin outlets (Amstelveen, Delft, Dirksland, Etten-Leur, Goes, Gouda, Hulst, Heesch, Helmond, Landgraaf, Leidschendam, Nuth, Oostburg, Renesse, Uden and Zuid-Scharwoude) have joined the newly established franchise organisation Life & Garden, set up by the plant wholesaler Waterdrinker in Aalsmeer, while some operators have gone to smaller garden centre groups.