It continues to rumble at wholesaler B&S Group. After all the independent supervisory directors of the company were dismissed in December following a conflict with major shareholder Willem Blijdorp, it is now Blijdorp itself who is leaving. The seventy-year-old multimillionaire will immediately step down as vice chairman of the supervisory body, B&S announced on Monday morning. CEO Tako de Haan also leaves the company.
The reason for their departure is an investigation that B&S had started into the way in which the listed group is managed. The company decided to do so because of ongoing unrest, fueled by revelations about “corporate governance issues” in the media, it writes in a statement. That investigation revealed “certain matters” that require further attention.
The results of the internal audits are also a reason to postpone the publication of the annual figures for the time being, according to B&S. The results were initially supposed to be published next Monday, but the company also wants to include the results of the study in the annual report. According to B&S, more time is needed to “complete that process in a satisfactory manner”.
B&S does not share in the press statement what exactly was found during the inspection. The group only reports that it concerns ‘related party transactions’, jargon for trade between two organizations with a close relationship. This is the case, for example, if a company does a lot of business with the private activities of a major shareholder. According to B&S, the transactions being reviewed were not in line with the company’s “strict policy” to avoid conflicts of interest.
Tight grip
B&S (turnover of 1.9 billion euros in 2021, 2,000 employees) is a major supplier of beverages, electronics and cosmetics to airports, cruise ships, army bases and duty-free shops, among others. The company was formed in the eighties and nineties by Blijdorp and a partner. Blijdorp then expanded B&S into the billion-dollar company it is today.
In the spring of 2018, B&S was listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange, where Blijdorp sold part of its interest. In the years that followed, the wholesaler was never able to keep his promise. Although B&S has since been a public company, Blijdorp’s influence is still enormous: his investment fund Sarabel owns more than two-thirds of the shares.
revealed early last year NRC no matter how thin the border between B&S and the private activities of Blijdorp sometimes is. In a marble deal from the entrepreneur in Iran, which ended in a mud fight, the multimillionaire deployed B&S personnel to build the mining organization. revealed at the end of last year The Financial Times how Blijdorp had provided a loan of millions to Tako de Haan, CEO of B&S, for the purchase of a home. That credit was never reported in the annual report.
Investors’ association VEB has repeatedly expressed its criticism of the many connections between B&S and Blijdorp’s other business activities. According to the interest group, the entrepreneur left his mark on a partly public company. For example, Blijdorp and his son Leendert filled two of the four places on the Supervisory Board. The same Leendert is also chairman of the working group that must monitor B&S’s trade with external parties, including his father’s private companies.
Role purity
This also led to discomfort for the two other supervisory directors, professor Kitty Koelemeijer and chairman of the supervisory board Jan Arie van Barneveld. They announced at the end of last year that they were concerned about the control mechanisms at B&S. According to them, it would be better for ‘role purity’ if Blijdorp resigned his role as supervisory director. They said they did not respond to that call.
Read also: Theft, threat, ruined business partners: the two faces of entrepreneur Willem Blijdorp
At that point, the trust between the independent supervisory directors and the rest of the board had already been irreparably damaged. The reason for the quarrel was that Blijdorp made an offer for the remaining B&S shares last year, but that Koelemeijer and Van Barneveld rejected it because they thought it was too low. Shortly afterwards, Blijdorp announced that he wanted to replace the duo, which he did in December.
In response to questions, the top of B&S said at the time that they saw no objections to Blijdorp’s position and its influence in the company. The company now seems to have turned around in this. B&S now writes that Blijdorp and CEO De Haan are leaving because this “paves the way” for a “robust governance structure” that is in line with Dutch corporate governance rules. Bas Schreuders, now a member of the Executive Board, will temporarily succeed De Haan. Commissioner Bert Tjeenk Willink, appointed at the end of December, will temporarily fulfill the role of Blijdorp.
B&S emphasizes that there is no reason to assume that the investigation and its results will have an impact on the company’s results. Revenue in the fourth quarter is likely to be in line with previously communicated expectations. However, gross profit will be lower due to one-off setbacks. Investors do not seem very sure about this for the time being: after the announcement of B&S, the share price is more than 10 percent lower.