De Slegte is an

Almere Almere () is a planned city and municipality in the province of Flevoland, Netherlands, located about 20 km to the east of Amsterdam (as the crow flies) across the IJmeer. Bordering Lelystad and Zeewolde, the municipality of Almere comprises ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

-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, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

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 is a person employed to light and maintain candle or, later, gas street lights. Very few exist today as most gas street lighting has long been replaced by electric lamps. Function Lights were lit each evening, generally by means ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

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 (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-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 cultu ...

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, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librar ...

in the

, running 16 branches in

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

cities, including historic bookstores such as Donner in

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

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...

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

adaptive reuse Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an existing building for a purpose other than which it was originally built or designed for. It is also known as recycling and conversion. Adaptive reuse is an effective strategy for optimizing the ...

. 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 Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct language ...

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