Belgian interiors chain Casa files for bankruptcy; Fate of Dutch shops, workers unknown
Belgian interior store chain Casa has filed for bankruptcy. The company has 17 stores in the Netherlands, De Telegraaf reported. All the company’s Belgian stores and offices are being closed. No decision has been made, as of yet, with regards to the company’s Dutch activities, as the stores are currently still open in the Netherlands.
Casa has struggled financially for a longer period of time. They announced last year that they intended to close a third of their stores in the Netherlands. Casa International has now said that they are unable to pay their debts. The company’s website was taken offline at noon and emails are receiving no response. Over 540 people will likely lose their job in Belgium due to the bankruptcy.
The Belgian interior store chain has looked for investors for months with no success, according to Kristel van Damme of the Belgian christian trade union ACV. She added that the chances of a restart are slim.
Despite this, the news came as a shock to the Dutch employees. “I know nothing. We finished last year successfully,” One store manager in Roosendaal told De Telegraaf. He has been told to expect more information in the coming days. In addition to the Netherlands, the company also has stores in France, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Spain, and Portugal.
Casa filed a request for judicial reorganization at the end of October 2024. As a result, it was protected from creditors. This protection runs until March 12. "During that period, a debt restructuring was negotiated with a number of creditors, but unfortunately this did not lead to the intended result," according to Casa.
A total of 63 stores in Belgium owned by Casa International will now close, as will the distribution center and headquarters in Olen, Belgium. More than 3,000 people were employed by Casa and its logistics firm, according to a press release written about a year ago. At the time, the company had 450 stores in ten markets. The company found success in the interior decoration space, with a focus on household goods, textiles, and bathroom items.
Casa was founded in Belgium in 1975 as an offshoot of household goods mail-order company, Fort. It was eventually acquired by the family behind the Blokker retail chain in the Netherlands in 1988. That family held the interior decoration shop for more than 30 years, overseeing a period of expansion that brought the company’s stores into eight other European markets, as well as Morocco and Aruba.
The Blokker family also owns the Xenos retail chain, and brought Casa to the Netherlands in 2018 by converting 34 Xenos stores into the Casa brand. The Blokker family sold off its ownership to Dutch investment firm Globitas in 2021. Then, last April, Globitas announced that it sold majority ownership to Swedish-Lebanese retail investor Ayad Al Saffar, who previously held the Kijkshop and Lucardi retailers in the Netherlands.
Just two months later, Al Saffar sold off his stake to his chief commercial officer at Casa, Frank Pruijn. The Dutch businessman has been the majority owner of Casa since June. He is the former head of sales at DIY chain Praxis.
