That has brought about quite a change, says Spring in `t
Veld. "We now have an additional, very active shareholder
that is really involved with the company. In the past we could,
for example, afford to postpone a new project if that suited
us better, now there is a greater drive to really achieve what
we set out to do."
Our perception of private equity has turned 180 degrees
A major step
What has not changed since Iddink partnered with Rabo
Capital is their continuous growth. They have increased
their market share in the Netherlands, have restructured
their Belgian activities to allow for much faster growth and
have launched operations in Spain where the government is
expected to drive the rapid digitalization of the class room.
The most important step however, the one that marks Iddink's
strategic transformation, has been their takeover at the end
of 2009 of SchoolMaster, a software company that provides
systems for student administration to around 75 percent of
Dutch secondary schools. "We can now offer, via a single
platform, both the digital content and SchoolMaster's
software that manages all information regarding students
courses, their schedules, their presence, their grades and so
on", says Spring in `t Veld. "For schools this creates great ef-
ficiency, and for us it is a major step to becoming much more
than a distributor of books. We want to move deeper into the
schools and help them to become as efficient as they can be
in the area of ICT and educational content. That is Iddink's
broader objective."
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