Financing Dutch Creative Brands Group

Dutch Creative Brands Group is an entrepreneurial ‘ideas factory’. The inventor of kitchen accessories such as the wine cooler and pineapple slicer, is also behind the TV programme to find the Netherlands’ best idea. To keep the business in family hands after its founder Bernd Schneider retired, NIBC provided his son Patrick with risk-bearing capital to realise a management buy-out: a decisive moment for the family and a long-term ambition of both men.

With NIBC’s financial support, Patrick Schneider plans to expand the business by strengthening the existing brands and continuing to develop and roll out new product lines, both organically and through acquisitions.

What began with a single invention in 1986 – the Vacu Vin wine saver – today Dutch Creative Brands Group designs, develops, assembles and sells its products to customers all over the world. While the majority of its sales are realised outside of the Netherlands, the company has always maintained a strong Dutch foothold with all its operations and quality control centralised in Delfgauw. It has outsourced its assembly here to local people with special needs for over 25 years. 

Working to a tight deadline, NIBC successfully completed this complex transaction within a month of the proposal. Traditionally MBOs require both an investor as well as a senior lender. NIBC, however, was able to provide a bespoke financing solution as a single party while meeting the family’s wish to keep control of the company.