Millions in fine for Van der Valk members: ‘manipulated the price of Ebusco shares’

The investment company of brothers Bas and Bob van den Nieuwenhuijzen has been fined 3 million euros. The company is guilty of driving up the share price of electric bus company Ebusco, reports regulator AFM.

Bas and Bob van den Nieuwenhuijzen are sons of the controversial ‘business doctor’ and businessman Joep van den Nieuwenhuijzen. Their mother is a member of the Van den Valk hotel family. The brothers are also together with a cousin owner of several hotels in the Netherlands, Germany and Curaçao.

With their company VDVI BV (formerly: Van der Valk Investments BV), the two brothers owned more than 23 percent of the shares in the ailing bus manufacturer. In September 2022 they decided to sell a large part of it. But while their bank started looking for buyers, the company bought new shares.

Those purchases drove up the price of Ebusco’s share. This ensured that the large package of shares that the brothers wanted to sell became more valuable.

“With its trading behavior, VDVI has disrupted the natural relationship of supply and demand with regard to the Ebusco share on Euronext Amsterdam,” the regulator writes about trading on the Amsterdam stock exchange. “The price that arose as a result of the purchases no longer reflected the true value of the share.”

The brothers’ company has appealed against the fine. The BV disputes the violation. The effect of the purchase transactions would have been negligible.