Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
The Dutch provider of home care services Solace ATC, active in the Twente area in the eastern part of the Netherlands, was declared bankrupt on 19 July 2016 due to excessive debts with the tax authority and pension funds, causing all of its 225 employees to lose their jobs. The director and owner of the company claims it is a result of the decentralisation of home care provision to the municipal level which was implemented simultaneously with severe budget cuts, which meant that municipalities in the region purchasing services from Solace ATC drastically decreased the volume of services purchased, while neither labour costs nor actual needs felt by clients, many of whom needed extensive care, decreased. The largest Dutch union FNV, which had warned about an imminent bankruptcy on 18 July 2016 after hearing about non-payment of holiday bonuses, is critical of the role played by the owner-director in preventing the bankruptcy. The union claims more could have been done, and even suggests clients were encouraged to switch over to another care provider owned by the same owner. FNV also denies that it refused to let Solace pay the holiday bonus in several instalments, which according to the owner could have prevented the bankruptcy. Solace is not the first home care provider to go bankrupt since the decentralisation. Thebe (2000 employees) and Panthein/Vivent (1750 employees) went bankrupt in 2015, and TSN (up to 11,000 employees) in 2016.
Eurofound (2016), Solace ATC, Bankruptcy in Netherlands, factsheet number 88213, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/88213.
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