De Slegte is an

Almere Almere () is a Planned community, planned List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Flevoland, Netherlands across the IJmeer fro ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

-based store chain that sells and buys new books (often excessive stock), secondhand books and study books. Between 1 July 2013 and 19 March 2014 De Slegte and another chain of bookstores, Selexyz, combined forces as Polare. After Polare Nederland went bankrupt in 2014, the Belgian branches were bought back by the De Slegte family and changed to their original names. Four branches in

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

continue to operate, three branches in the Netherlands were added.

History

Until 2013: De Slegte

Jan de Slegte started buying and selling books from a wagon in 1908. He was a

lamplighter A lamplighter or gaslighter is a person employed to light and maintain street lights. These included candles, oil lamps, and gas lighting. Public street lighting was developed in the 16th century. During this time, lamplighters toured public s ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

who started engaging in commerce as a side business. When his profession became obsolete, selling books became his main focus. In 1920 he opened his first bookstore. His son joined and sold books on the street market. Throughout the 20th century, the business expanded and grew into a prominent book chain in the

and

Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, la ...

1992–2013: BGN and Selexyz

Boekhandels Groep Nederland was one of the larger chains of

bookstores Bookselling is the commercial trading of books, which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, book people, bookmen, or bookwomen. History The foundi ...

in the

, running 16 branches in

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

cities, including historic bookstores such as Donner in

, one of Europe's largest bookstores; and the Domicanen in

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; ; ; ) is a city and a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital city, capital and largest city of the province of Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg. Maastricht is loca ...

, located in a 13th-century Dominican church building and cited as an outstanding example of

adaptive reuse Adaptive reuse is the reuse of an existing building for a purpose other than that for which it was originally built or designed. It is also known as recycling and conversion. The adaptive reuse of buildings can be a viable alternative to new con ...

. Originally, BGN bookstores carried their own name, in combination with the old BGN-logo. In 2006 every store was rebranded to carry the Selexyz brand name followed by its individual name, for example, Selexyz Scheltema. In April 2012, Selexyz's holding company filed for bankruptcy and sold the chain to Dutch investment company ProCures for €3.5 million. Initially the stores continued at Selexyz.

2013-2014: Polare

The Selexyz operations were combined with those of the 26-store second-hand book store chain De Slegte into a new company, owned 60% by ProCures and 40% by the De Slegte family. The combined company's new name, Polare, was introduced in June 2013."Boekhandels Selexyz en De Slegte heten voortaan Polare"
NU.nl, June 21, 2013 (in Dutch). Polare was short for Stella Polare, the Northern Star, which was conceived to be a "guiding light" for the book-buying customers. On January 28, 2014, Polare closed all its Dutch stores after having sailed into rough financial waters; as they -roughly translated- put it themselves, to "reassess their future strategy". On February 7, Polare filed for an extension of payment. Extensive talks with several large banks and the CB, formerly called Centraal Boekhuis, resulted in green light from some of the banks; but the CB (supplying every single Dutch bookstore) already had come into conflict with Polare about overdue payments in late January, and they effectively blocked the salvation-effort of the Polare chain.

Since 2014: De Slegte is back

Some of the Dutch stores restarted under previous names at old or new locations. The Belgian branches of Polare continued as De Slegte. In 2020 there are 4 De Slegte bookstores in Belgium (Antwerp, Ghent, Leuven, and Mechelen) and 3 stores in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Leiden, and Rotterdam).

References

External links

De Slegte
{{Bookstore chains Retail companies of the Netherlands Bookstores in the Netherlands Retail companies of Belgium Store brands Used bookstores