Mavi Boncuk | Eroğlu Holding (Loft and Colin´s) is the new owner of Mexx[1].Bankrupted Dutch fashion company Mexx is facing important days as its Dutch guardian has stated he feels a relaunch is imminent. Mexx was declared to be bankrupt in December, creating a domino effect starting with the Dutch company, followed by the Belgian and German branches.
The potential buyer announced as Eroğlu Holding wants to keep large parts of the company active, with plenty of stores and a majority of the staff - both in Belgium and the Netherlands. Globally, the group has some 1,500 employees.
[1] In the 1970s, fashion designer Rattan Chadha and his business partners PK Sen Sharma, Adu Advaney, Suveer Arora, Ronny Lemmens, Horatio Ho and Arun Mehta (known as the Founders of the company) supplied clothes for department and wholesale stores in the Netherlands, which were specifically designed and labelled for the stores. Revamping the business in 1980, they created two popular clothing brands—"Moustache" for men and "Emanuelle" for women. Both labels had coordinated collections focused on lifestyle and youth fashion. In 1986, the two brand names were merged to form: M (from Moustache) + E (from Emanuelle) + XX (an abbreviation for "kiss kiss") to create MEXX.
Over time, Mexx has grown to become an international brand with over 800 stores in 55 countries and more than 10,000 point of sales. It has grown rapidly and is now an internationally prominent company, employing over 6,000 people worldwide.
In 2001, Mexx was bought by the U.S. fashion company Liz Claiborne for $264 million and an Earn out which amounted to another $275 Million.Thus, for many years it belonged to the Liz Claiborne group—a multi-brand business listed on the New York stock exchange that markets fashion, design, accessories and perfume internationally. In 2011, Liz Claiborne, as part of a restructuring, sold Mexx to private equity firm The Gores Group at a loss but retained a minority interest in the Mexx chain of stores.On December 4, 2014, three holding companies of Mexx were declared bankrupt by the district court of Amsterdam. On December 5, 2014, a judge in the Netherlands declared 315 Mexx stores, which serves worldwide including 95 Locations in Canada, bankrupt. The stores are expected to remain open while the chain sells off merchandise.