vroom & dreesmann

Vroom & Dreesmann was founded in 1887 by Willem Vroom and Anton Dreesmann.The first branch opened in Weesperstraat in Amsterdam. The company expanded rapidly throughout the Netherlands in the 20th century. It was reorganized into Vendex in 1972 and Vendex International in 1982. In 1987, the in-house restaurant chain La Place was opened. In 1988, Anton Dreesman was replaced as the company's CEO with Abraham Verhoef. In 1999, Vendex merged with Koninklijke Bijenkorf Beheer (KBB), the parent company of retail chains De Bijenkorf and Hema, and was renamed into Vendex KBB. It also inherited KBB's royal designation "Koninklijk". In 2004, Vendex KBB was sold to a new investor group that included KKR, Alpinist and Permira. It lost its royal designation as a result, but was allowed to keep the K in its name. In 2005, Vendex KBB changed its name into Maxeda. In 2007, Vroom & Dreesmann was rebranded into V&D and the red, white and blue logo was replaced with the current version. In 2008, the vd.nl website was launched, much later than other department stores. Since the end of 2010, V&D is a subsidiary of Sun Capital Partners. The company had been on the verge of bankruptcy since early 2015. Jos van der Aart had been working at V&D as a Designer Fashion Accessories.