Owner wants to sell Veritas

Belgian investment fund Indufin is looking for a new financial partner for its Veritas chain, after a string of disappointing results and an international expansion that is a lot slower than expected.

Onerous in a difficult market

The retailer’s employees have been notified of Indufin’s intention to review the ‘strategic options’ for the textiles retailer, local business newspaper De Tijd reports. Despite huge investments in a new store concept, a modern product range, a new web shop and the Atelier Veritas store concept, the company has posted disappointing results.

Not only did Veritas suffer a 26 million euro loss on a 92 million euro turnover, but its options for the future seem to be limited as well. It operates in a saturated market in Belgium, while attempts for a foreign expansion ended in disappointment: pilot stores in Germany and France did not achieve satisfying results. Indufin had hoped to raise the store number to 200 by 2020 (currently there are 131) and the turnover to 200 million.

Indufin has owned 60 % of the chain’s shares since 2015. The original owners held on to 30 %, the remaining 10 % is owned by the management.