De Slegte

Last updated
De Slegte
Industry Retail (Specialty)
FoundedEarly 20th century
FounderJan de Slegte
Headquarters
Almere
,
Netherlands
Number of locations
7
Website www.deslegte.be
www.deslegte.nl

De Slegte is an Almere, Netherlands-based store chain that sells and buys new books (often excessive stock), secondhand books and study books. Between 1 July 2013 and 19 March 2014 De Slegte and another chain of bookstores, Selexyz, combined forces as Polare. After Polare Nederland went bankrupt in 2014, the Belgian branches were bought back by the De Slegte family and changed to their original names. Four branches in Belgium continue to operate, three branches in the Netherlands were added.

Contents

History

Until 2013: De Slegte

Jan de Slegte started buying and selling books from a wagon in 1908. He was a lamplighter in Rotterdam who started engaging in commerce as a side business. When his profession became obsolete, selling books became his main focus. In 1920 he opened his first bookstore. [1] His son joined and sold books on the street market. Throughout the 20th century, the business expanded and grew into a prominent book chain in the Netherlands and Flanders.

1992–2013: BGN and Selexyz

Boekhandels Groep Nederland was one of the larger chains of bookstores in the Netherlands, running 16 branches in Dutch cities, including historic bookstores such as Donner in Rotterdam, one of Europe's largest bookstores; and the Domicanen in Maastricht, located in a 13th-century Dominican church building and cited as an outstanding example of adaptive reuse. [2] [3] [4] Originally, BGN bookstores carried their own name, in combination with the old BGN-logo.

In 2006 every store was rebranded to carry the Selexyz brand name followed by its individual name, for example, Selexyz Scheltema. In April 2012, Selexyz's holding company filed for bankruptcy and sold the chain to Dutch investment company ProCures for €3.5 million. Initially the stores continued at Selexyz.

2013-2014: Polare

The Selexyz operations were combined with those of the 26-store second-hand book store chain De Slegte into a new company, owned 60% by ProCures and 40% by the De Slegte family. [5] The combined company's new name, Polare, was introduced in June 2013. [6] Polare was short for Stella Polare, the Northern Star, which was conceived to be a "guiding light" for the book-buying customers.

On January 28, 2014, Polare closed all its Dutch stores after having sailed into rough financial waters; as they -roughly translated- put it themselves, to "reassess their future strategy". On February 7, Polare filed for an extension of payment. Extensive talks with several large banks and the CB, formerly called Centraal Boekhuis, resulted in green light from some of the banks; but the CB (supplying every single Dutch bookstore) already had come into conflict with Polare about overdue payments in late January, and they effectively blocked the salvation-effort of the Polare chain.

Since 2014: De Slegte is back

Some of the Dutch stores restarted under previous names at old or new locations. The Belgian branches of Polare continued as De Slegte.

In 2020 there are 4 De Slegte bookstores in Belgium (Antwerp, Ghent, Leuven, and Mechelen) and 3 stores in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Leiden, and Rotterdam).

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barnes & Noble</span> American bookseller and retailer

Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U.S. states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foyles</span> English bookstore chain

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HEMA (store)</span> Dutch discount retail chain

HEMA, is a Dutch variety chain store. The chain is characterized by relatively low pricing of generic household goods, which are mostly made by and for the chain itself, often with an original design. The owner is Dutch billionaire Marcel Boekhoorn, who has lost control to bondholders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coles (bookstore)</span>

Coles is a Canadian bookstore chain owned by Indigo Books and Music. Coles currently serves as Indigo's brand for small-scale bookstores in locations such as shopping malls. Some locations are operated as SmithBooks, and the company has recently begun to open selected small-format locations as "IndigoSpirit".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brenninkmeijer family</span> Dutch/German/Swiss family of manufacturers

Brenninkmeijer is a Roman Catholic Dutch/German/Swiss family of manufacturers, which own an international chain of clothing stores. Originally the family came from Tecklenburger Land (Westphalia), selling linen in Friesland in the Netherlands. In 1840 two members of the family founded C&A company in Sneek. Their descendants discovered the potential of the stock of produced ready-made garment. Today, the family owns the Cofra Holding AG, based in Switzerland which in turn controls the C&A fashion business, a private equity company, a real estate fund and two banks. The company focuses its efforts on real estate, sustainable energy and financial services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Heijn</span> Dutch supermarket chain

Albert Heijn, often abbreviated to AH and informally called Appie, is the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands with a market share of 34.8% in 2020. It was founded in 1887, and has been part of Ahold Delhaize since 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sissy-Boy</span>

Sissy-Boy, founded in 1982, is a Dutch high street clothing and accessories chain with over 45 stores in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Independent bookstore</span> Retail bookstore which is independently owned

An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store. They may be structured as sole proprietorships, closely held corporations or partnerships, cooperatives, or nonprofits. Independent stores can be contrasted with chain bookstores, which have many locations and are owned by large corporations, which often have other divisions besides bookselling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bookselling</span> Business of selling and dealing with books

Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brentano's</span>

Brentano's was an American bookstore chain with numerous locations in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B. Dalton</span> American retail bookstore chain

B. Dalton Bookseller was an American retail bookstore chain founded in 1966 by Bruce Dayton, a member of the same family that operated the Dayton's department store chain. B. Dalton expanded to become the largest retailer of hardcover books in the United States, with 779 stores at the peak of the chain's success. Located mainly at indoor shopping malls, B. Dalton competed primarily with Waldenbooks. Barnes & Noble acquired the chain from Dayton's in 1987 and continued to operate it until a late 2009 announcement that the last 50 stores would be liquidated by January 2010. B. Dalton was later revived by rebranding a Barnes & Noble location in 2022.

De Bijenkorf is a chain of high-end department stores in the Netherlands, with its flagship store on Dam Square in Amsterdam. The chain is owned by Selfridges Group, which also owns Britain's Selfridges and Ireland's Brown Thomas and Arnotts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Audax Groep</span> Print media company

Audax Groep is a Dutch print media and retail company, active also in Belgium. The publishing arm publishes magazines. It also produces and prints books, calendars, and flyers for other companies and builds websites. The Audax headquarters are located in Gilze.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free Record Shop</span>

Free Record Shop was a chain of home entertainment stores selling products such as CDs, DVDs and video games, founded by Hans Breukhoven. Its first store opened on October 15, 1971 in Schiedam, Netherlands. At its peak, the franchise had more than 200 stores in the Netherlands and Belgium, but online available music and media supplanted the sale of physical media carriers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thalia (bookstore)</span> German book shop chain

Thalia is a chain of more than 200 book shops in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Bryan George Jeffrey Smeets is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Eerste Divisie club MVV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intertoys</span> Dutch toy and video game retailer

Intertoys is a Dutch chain of stores founded in 1976 that specialises in toys, multimedia and electronics. It is headquartered in Amsterdam.

References

  1. ↑ Van Vliet, Dénis (5 October 2016). "Boekhandel De Slegte keert terug in Rotterdam". Een vertrouwde naam keert terug in de Rotterdamse winkelstraat: De Slegte. De ramsjboekhandel opent zaterdag aan de Hoogstraat, pal tegenover de Markthal, de deuren.
  2. ↑ Anja Sieg, "Dutch book chain Selexyz files for bankruptcy", The Bookseller , March 29, 2012.
  3. ↑ Sean Dodson, "Top shelves", The Guardian , January 11, 2008.
  4. ↑ "Selexyz Dominicanen opens in Maastricht", Crossroads Magazine, November 20, 2006.
  5. ↑ Anja Sieg, "ProCures buys Selexyz bookshops", The Bookseller , April 10, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Boekhandels Selexyz en De Slegte heten voortaan Polare", NU.nl, June 21, 2013 (in Dutch).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.