by RTL Z··Modified:
Right to left
Despite the infusion of American capital, the Blokker retail chain is once again in dire straits. Sales are lagging behind expectations. If things do not improve in the coming months, measures will have to be taken in the fall of 2024 to avoid a cash shortage. This is stated in the annual report of the parent company Mirage Retail Group (MRG).
Accountant KPMG warns that the company may no longer be able to meet its obligations. It suggests that MRG could sell business units to raise cash or roll over or refinance loans due next year to avoid problems.
In addition to Blokker, MRG is the owner of Intertoys, the Dutch subsidiary of Miniso, and MRG Logicstics, the former Blokker warehouse in Geldermalsen. It was also the owner of BCC, which has since been declared bankrupt, and Big Bazar, which has also been declared bankrupt. That company was sold in 2021.
Entertainers
The company can now only sell Intertoys, Miniso and MRG Logistics. Intertoys tried in vain last year to raise money for its loss-making sister company Blokker, but that sale was called off at the beginning of this year for unclear reasons. “We will now wait twelve months before we look at this again,” CEO Ynse Stapert told RTL Z in February.
He didn’t want to explain why MRG couldn’t sell the game series and how much money it needed to stay afloat.
To save Blokker, Intertoys eventually bought up the toy inventory from home stores, in order to free up funds on the sister company’s balance sheet.
red numbers
Last year, Blokker posted a loss of €2 million on sales of €345 million. MRG also posted a significant loss.
In 2023, there was a loss of around €21 million, according to the annual report. This is already better than in 2022, when the value was in the red by €86 million. The parent company is kept afloat thanks to loans from investors and through Intertoys, which is profitable.
Last year there was a net profit of 7.1 million euros. Intertoys took out a loan from Rabobank to finance the business plan. This money is intended only for the toy chain and cannot be used to rescue Blokker.
improvement plan
So the chain has to make money in a different way, for example by attracting more customers. A store improvement plan has been in the works for some time.
“In the coming months, management is expected to refine BIokker’s improvement plans for 2024 and 2025 to reduce the risk of underfunding,” the annual accounts prepared by KPMG said.
Gordon Brothers
The pessimistic tone of the annual accounts is striking. In May, there was still a positive mood at Blokker after reaching an agreement with a US bank for a new capital injection. Dutch banks were reluctant to lend money.
The Gordon brothers were willing to do this, with the lender lending the money for three years. Blokker pledged shares as collateral for this. “It’s about enough money to facilitate our business plan,” Stapert told RTL Z at the time.
Now that store sales are disappointing, it seems that this loan was not enough at all.
Losing millions
The home store chain traces its roots back to 1896, when Jacob Plücker opened a hardware store in Horn. It grew, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, under the leadership of his grandsons Jaap and Ab, into a very successful retail group, which also included chains such as Intertoys, Bart Smit, Lein Bakker, Zinus and Marskramer.
But over the past ten years, the retail giant has completely collapsed. The group has suffered losses of hundreds of millions, and in 2017 the founding family decided to sell most of its store fixtures. In 2019, Blokker itself was also sold to Mirage CEO Michel Witteveen.
Witteveen also failed to put Blokker on the right track. Despite repeated promises of profitability for years, the home-store chain continued to make losses. In 2023, it reported a loss of 7 million Analysis by RTL Z.