Van der Moolen files for bankruptcy

Stockbroking group Van der Moolen has filed for bankruptcy in Amsterdam, just weeks after filing for court protection from creditors.


The 117-year-old company said the bankruptcy ‘can be attributed to a combination of factors that appeared in a period of a number of years: big losses in the US, unsuccessful new initiatives like Online Trader, decreasing revenues in connection with the financial crisis and a cost pattern that structurally exceeded benefits.’
In a statement, the curators said bankruptcy was inevitable because current bills and staff’s September salaries could not be honoured.
The last few weeks had also shown there was no question of a partial sale or restart, the curators said.
Hard times
At the beginning of this month, the Dutch market regulator AFM said it had launched an investigation into Van der Moolen but declined to give further details.
The firm was once one of the top market maker names on Wall Street but fell on hard times in recent years as floor trading at exchanges declined and it tried to adapt its business, news agency, Reuters said.
On Wednesday it emerged a group of 14 Van der Moolen workers had taken over one part of the company’s operations – Van der Moolen Financial Services – which operates as an intermediary for the professional market. The buy-out unit will proceed under the name Aespen.

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