| Cofra Holding AG | |
| Type: | Private (AG) |
| Location: | Zug, Switzerland |
| Num Employees: | 51,000+ (2019) |
| Owner: | Brenninkmeijer family |
Cofra Holding AG is a privately held company established in 2001 in Zug, Switzerland, to coordinate the global businesses of the Brenninkmeijer family. It is active in the fields of retailing, real estate, asset management, private equity and renewable energy. Cofra is owned and managed by members of the Brenninkmeijer family. Its chairman is Martijn Brenninkmeijer, and the CEO is Boudewijn Beerkens.[1]
Cofra has various subsidiaries, including C&A, Redevco, Bregal Investments, and Anthos Fund & Asset Management.
C&A, the fashion retail company, is the oldest business in the group. It was founded in 1841, when brothers Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer opened the first C&A store in Sneek, the Netherlands.[2] As of 2019, C&A had around 1,900 stores and employed over 50,000 people in 21 countries - mostly in Europe, but also in Brazil (since 1976), Mexico (since 1999) and China (since 2007).[3] [4] In 2019, C&A Modas became a listed company in Brazil, trading on the BE Stock Exchange under the ticker CEAB3.[5]
Redevco, a European commercial retail and residential real estate business, was founded in 1999 and is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Redevco currently manages more than 300 properties. Its assets under management total EUR 7.5 billion.[6] Redevco's CEO is Andrew Vaughan, who was appointed to the position in November 2011.[7]
Bregal Investments is a platform of private equity and fund investment vehicles, founded in 2002.[8] Since inception, Bregal has invested more than EUR 13 billion.[9]
Anthos Fund & Asset Management (AFAM) was founded in 1929. It provides asset management services to the Brenninkmeijer family, their philanthropic foundations and the pension funds of various Cofra entities.[10] AFAM's CEO is Jacco Maters, who was appointed in September 2018.[11]
In November 2021, Cofra announced an investment in Scotland-based vertical farmer Intelligent Growth Solutions as part of its Series B Funding round, which also included Cleveland Avenue LLC (Chicago) and DC Thomson (Dundee, Scotland) as investors.[12]
In January 2022, Cofra took over the Dutch greenhouse manufacturer Dalsem.[13] In April 2022, Cofra Holding announced the acquisition of Ontario Plants Propagation.[14]
Cofra is a privately held company owned by a group of around 60 descendants of Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer. The group is also known as the “Sneekerkring”, a reference to the town of Sneek, where C&A was founded.[15] Within the group of family owners, key decisions are taken on the basis of consensus rather than voting.[16] Martijn Brenninkmeijer is the chairman of Cofra's executive board.[17] In a 2016 Die Zeit interview with Maurice Brenninkmeijer, Götz Hamann and Uew Jean Heuser wrote that company shares cannot be inherited; they can only be obtained by family members who serve as Cofra executives.[18]