AMSTERDAM: With a revenue of €200 million, Klaas Puul is one of the largest shrimp processors in the Netherlands. The company, founded in 1968 and based in Volendam (a fisher’s city close to Amsterdam), employs 3,500 staff, across its headquarters and production facilities in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Morocco.
Last year Klaas Puul’s management team launched a divestment process, in a bid to attract external financing, and, more importantly, to ensure continuity of the firm’s operations. The company is a family owned business, and, according to Evert Mooijer, the current owner, the firm had no proper succession plan from within the family’s ranks, triggering the owners to look at external options. “Klaas Puul still has a lot of untapped potential, yet there is no successor in the family to realise this,” he comments.
