Further to the earlier announcement that Beate Uhse was selling Scala Playhouse, the new owners of the international distributor have been revealed as Walter Kroes [pictured] and Trudy Pijnacker, who are already familiar names to many in the trade through their activities with Leg Avenue Europe.
The new management has already made one significant change, choosing to drop the ‘Playhouse’ aspect of the company name and to go forward as Scala, complete with a new logo. Announcing the changes, the company said the acquisition by Walter Kroes and Trudy Pijnacker marks a new step in the evolution of Scala as the ultimate one-stop-shop wholesale distributor and the focus of the company will be solely on B2B. All employees have been transferred so customers will retain their points of contact and there will be no changes to the ordering process.
There will be changes though. The statement continued: “In the coming period, we will be investing heavily in improving the online infrastructure, stock availability and product development. The assortment of Scala will focus mainly on toys, lingerie and drugstore: with the decision made to remove the film and DVD product categories from our assortment for strategic reasons. Scala will continue its partnerships with your favourite suppliers and remains a one-stop-shop destination. To fully make the transition from Scala Playhouse to Scala, we will be moving to a new office location and warehouse, and are working on bringing you a new and improved website, offering an online portal that caters exactly to the needs of our B2B customers.
“The coming two to three months we’ll be working hard on making the transition go smoothly. The Scala Fair on the 3rd and 4th of September will go ahead as planned, giving you the opportunity to get introduced to new owners Walter Kroes and Trudy Pijnacker, plus catch up with the existing Scala team for more information regarding the changes. We are aiming to be ‘fully reloaded’ from Scala Playhouse to Scala for the upcoming eroFame on the 11th to the 13th of October in Hannover, Germany. We see eroFame as a fantastic occasion to represent the new and improved Scala, demonstrate the excellent level of service you can expect of us, and showcase everything our company will offer for B2B retailers.”
