The UK company paid about EUR 450 million for the acquisition, ecommercenews.eu reports. Apax and the current shareholders of RFS Holland are close to an agreement. The deal would especially be lucrative for three men.
Ad Scheepbouwer (former CEO of Dutch telecommunications company KPN), Paul Nijhof (former CEO of the company) and Berend van der Maat (former CFO Wehkamp) took over RFS Holland Holding in 2008 and now own 80% of the company. The European private equity firm IK-Investment Partners also owns a share.
Previously, there were some attempts to sell RFS, but none of them materialised. In March 2012, the company decided to continue on their own. And, in 2013, it invested EUR 100 million to build an ecommerce logistics center.
For years, Wehkamp.nl was a pioneer in the Dutch ecommerce sphere. Already in 1994 the mail order company introduced 24-hours delivery and in 1995 it started its
own auction website. In 1999, all of Wehkamp’s products were for sale online. RFS’ revenue decreased by 0.7% to EUR 498.1 million in the financial year 2013/2014. Apax in the Netherlands also owns business software company Exact and chip maker NXP.
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