Heavily loss -making Tom & Co is planting 70 new pet stores in Belgium: “Especially in Flanders”
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Despite a few heavily losing years, the Belgian pet store chain Tom & Co is planning to extend considerably. In the next five years, the company wants to open 70 new branches in our country. « Especially in Flanders, where we are less represented, » Topman Jean Richard de Latour told De Tijd.
Tom & Co currently has 136 stores in Belgium, 67 in France and two in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Nine out of ten branches are operated by the self -employed. In 2023, Tom & Co recorded a company loss of 19 million euros and the company went into red net as a net 22.3 million euros. The pet shop chain blames the bad grades mainly on “technical and accounting factors.
According to De Tijd, the Investment Fund Verlinvest from the De Spoelberch family, an important shareholder of AB InBev, paid too much in 2022 to get half of Tom & Co. As a result, value reductions followed and last year Thierry Le Grelle resigned as CEO.
According to the newspaper, the financial situation of the company raises the question of how Tom & Co will pay the expansion plans. The owners are said to plan a capital increase.
