Blaauw was founded in the late 1970s by ceramist Gerard Blaauw and it focuses on the niche market of kilns for professional applications. Approximately twenty are made to measure for, among others, Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum, De Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles and ceramic artists in the United States.
Cool
“They’re highly specialised products known for, among other things, very precise gas control. Totally fascinating,” says Van Erven. So he seized the opportunity to take over Blaauw. “But then, of course, it’s important to keep a cool head. Contacts passed me on to Hoek en Blok. And there was an immediate click. In the end, they managed the whole deal: from the financial due diligence and financing from the bank and an informal investor, to the drafting of the acquisition contracts and the shareholder agreement.”
Compliments
“The team of Ad Riebergen, Julian Pieper and Nathalie de Man even received compliments from the seller for their thorough approach to investigating the valuation of the company. What I particularly liked was that they are all just very pleasant people to work with. Everything is explained clearly and they get on board with you. Not in their own interests, which is something I’ve sometimes seen with consultants, but genuinely in my interests as a business person.”