The CEO of Big Bazar calls on suppliers to think carefully and not get nervous, after various parties filed for bankruptcy for the chain of deals due to payment arrears. It is likely that Heerke Kooistra will take longer to pay all the bills. “But it is not true that we cannot afford it.”
And Cuestra admitted in a conversation with the ANP news agency that he was “not ready” for the “hetze”, which he believes has been brought up. Since an angry owner of Goes filed for bankruptcy of the chain, many suppliers have become afraid of not paying the bills.
According to Koestra, even a supplier with a fourteen-day-old invoice contacted the owner’s collection agency from Goose. Now that agency is trying to collect creditors from Big Bazar.
He plays with fire
However, according to Koestra, it is not an exception in retail trading to have accounts open for a little bit longer, say sixty, ninety or even 120 days. “Summer is the driest time of the year. You make up for it at the end of the year,” he explains. According to Koestra, the €22,000 involved in the rent arrears at Joyce is no reason for bankruptcy anyway. “We have already transferred €22,000 each morning At 11 o’clock in the morning.”
Koestra believes the collection agency is “abusing bankruptcy law” and calls the modus operandi “mood making.” But in his view, he is also “playing with fire.” “If half of the suppliers become stressed and don’t deliver anymore, scale will collapse, and with it sales volume.” Big Bazar has about eight hundred suppliers. Koestra doesn’t dare say how many people are feeling nervous right now.
The director admits that Big Bazar itself “makes an ethical mistake with leases”. Big Bazar has stopped paying rent to loss-making stores in order to talk to landlords about lowering the rent or buying out the lease. “We should have approached this completely differently. In the meantime, we’re talking to many suppliers and landlords. The rent associated with it is sometimes quite high if you look at the quality of the location. Some shopping streets suffer from a lot of traffic,” says Koestra. vacancies.
The retail real estate group Wereldhave also recently filed for bankruptcy with Big Bazar. Cuestra estimates that it is a claim of about one and a half tons, stressing that “this will not cost us much.” “But there should not be more. We need peace and loyal stakeholders.”
Unlimited free access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss a thing from the stars.
“Lifelong zombie fanatic. Hardcore web practitioner. Thinker. Music expert. Unapologetic pop culture scholar.”