Vandeputte Company Case Study Summary

As fourth-generation owners, Luc, Christian and Pierre Vandeputte developed the company founded by their great grandfather in a way he would certainly have approved. Still based in Mouscron, a small town in the west of Belgium and still operating in the linseed sector, the three brothers developed the family company to best exploit the properties of linseed. As well as producing linseed oil during 1876, the company also produced soap during 1950 and liquid detergents during 1987. A world leader in the production of linseed oil by mechanical pressing and well known across Europe for soaps and detergents, in 2000 the family decided to diversify their business portfolio by creating a new company, Vandeputte Oleochemicals. The main activity of

For instance, at the beginning a small fire broke out because they were working at very high temperature in tanks containing too much oil.
 A very difficult financial situation occurred when OLEO’s activities burnt more cash than they generated. Therefore, their business went through a difficult time on the short-term financial front, and had to battle with the banks to keep their heads above water.

Mentioned here are some alternate courses of actions:
Option 1.
 They need to use OLEO as a research division for Vandeputte. They need to implement successful practices of Vandeputte’s traditional divisions with OLEO.
 This would not only complement Vandeputte with a state of art research facility but also would eventually create value out of the investment.
 However, they still have to invest more.
Option 2.
 They need to sell their facility and get their money back from this mistake investment. As stated OLEO only accounts 3% of the Vandeputte’s turnover.
 Their focus should be on Vandeputte;s company. Nevertheless, they would only have 17 employees.
 However, there would be a possibility that they might miss out on potential