Bart Verhaeghe


Bart Verhaeghe, is a Belgian entrepreneur. He became president of Club Brugge in 2011 and one year later he became the majority shareholder. He is also chairman of project developer and former vice-chairman of the Royal Belgian Football Association. He also co-founded the independent think tank in 2006. He is chairman of the Board of Directors at Itinera.
Verhaeghe encourages entrepreneurship, among other things, with his passionate plea for more ambition and courage in our society. That’s the key message in his book 'Durf!’ which was published by Van Halewyck in 2019.

Early life

Verhaeghe was born into a Brabant family with West Flemish roots. He grew up in Grimbergen and played soccer at KSC Grimbergen and Hoger Op Merchtem. After secondary school at the Jan van Ruusbroeck College in Laken, he studied law at the Catholic University of Leuven and obtained a Master of Business Administration at Vlerick Business School.
He started his career at KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting organizations. He resigned after nine months to start as an entrepreneur. At industrial building company Verelst, he developed project developer Eurinpro specialising in logistic real estate and of which he became CEO. This company grew substantially and was sold in 2016 to the Australian company Macquarie Goodman for 400 million Euro.

LakeSprings

Verhaeghe invests in sports, real estate, private equity, listed shares and non-profit organisations. These investments are part of the family holding LakeSprings nv. As real estate investment, Verhaeghe bought the Castle of Bever from Count Eric de Villegas de Clercamp in 2004. The castle has been fully renovated and is surrounded by roughly 20 hectares of park area.

Real Estate: Verelst, Eurinpro and Uplace

In 1992 Verhaeghe took his first steps in real estate when he met building contractor Luc Verelst. He acquired a stake in the industrial building company Verelst, from which Eurinpro later emerged. This company grew into a global player in logistic real estate. Verhaeghe also set up two real estate funds, Siref and Retail Estates. He used these investment companies to list his retail property and semi-industrial property on the stock market. In 2006, Eurinpro was sold to the Australian company Macquarie Goodman for 400 million Euro
Verhaeghe then set up the real estate company Uplace, specialised in developing innovative projects where living, working and relaxing go together. Near Brussels, Uplace develops a new workshop district called , where training, production, consumption and circularity meet at a very central location in Belgium. The work shop district is designed by Professor and architect Alexander D’Hooghe.

Club Brugge

In 2004, at the request of the Flemish government, Verhaeghe developed a feasibility study for schools and football stadiums. Subsequently, he was contacted by the then board of Club Brugge, which developed plans for a new stadium. Verhaeghe additionally developed a strategic vision for the first division. At the request of the board of directors at the time, Verhaeghe implemented the internal changes, became chairman and hired Vincent Mannaert to become CEO of Club Brugge. Mannaert leads the operational operations of Club, supported by a professional management team.
The Board of Directors was also subject to major changes: several entrepreneurs made their entry. At the end of 2012, the trade fund of the non-profit association Club Brugge K.V. was transferred to the limited liability company Club Brugge, to which an amount of 15 million euros was contributed. Verhaeghe became the majority shareholder.
Under Verhaeghe and Mannaert, Club Brugge grew to become one of Belgium’s top clubs. From 2014 to 2020, it achieved the best results of all clubs in the Jupiler Pro League. During this period, it won the most games in regular competition, the most championship titles, it played two cup finals in which Club won one. In the same season, Club Brugge won 2 Super cups and also walked away with the most individual prizes. At the European level, over the last five years Club has played four times in the Champions League group stage.
Verhaeghe saw turnover grow from 43 million Euro to 94 million Euro over an eight-year period from 2011 to 2019. Over this time, Verhaeghe was working, alongside the government, on plans for a new stadium for Club, a task that was complicated by legal appeals. At the beginning of 2020, the City of Bruges and the Board of Directors of Club Brugge announced that there are plans to build the new stadium on the current Olympia site. Club Brugge will build the stadium with its own means, the city will grant a long term ground lease for the use of the grounds. As soon as the new stadium is ready, the current Jan Breydel stadium can be demolished.
The Club Brugge training complex, Belfius basecamp in Westkapelle, has already been realised. The first stone was laid on 12 September 2018. Ten months later the first-team squad officially took residence.

Royal Belgian Football Association

In 2013, the Pro League delegated Verhaeghe to the Executive Committee of the RBFA. Three years later he took up the position of director and became Vice Chairman. Together with former chairman Gérard Linard, Verhaeghe reorganised the association which made a loss of 8 million Euro in 2016, into a financially healthy federation. Verhaeghe and Linard rolled out a code of ethics for all RBFA employees and partners. The rules of good governance were adopted with a professional management team that, under the leadership of CEO Peter Bossaert, was given the keys to manage the operational management of the RBFA.
Verhaeghe was also chairman of the Technical Committee. Together with Mehdi Bayat and Chris Van Puyvelde he appointed Roberto Martínez as national coach. Verhaeghe was head of delegation at the World Cup in Russia where the Red Devils won bronze.
In June 2019, Verhaeghe resigned from the RBFA so that he could focus on Club Brugge and his other professional activities.

Books