Sprinter's group reinforces its 'online' and follows the Estela de Decathlon with the purchase of sport

Alicante.The Iberian Sports Retail Group Sports Distribution Group (ISRG), controlled by the British JD Sports and owner of the Alicante Sprinter firm, continues to grow with an acquisition blow.The group, born in 2018 of the fusion with the Portuguese Sonae (owner of Sport Zone) then marked an objective: to be able to look at you to the French Decathlon as a great sports retailer in the peninsula.And during confinement, he detected an important weakness: his online channel was not mature to assume the fall in physical sales.Two issues that you have resolved in a single movement: the acquisition of the Spanish company Deportvillage.

This company, founded in 2010 by Xavier Pladellorens and Ángel Corcuera, specializes in the sale of sportswear, especially for cycling, running and outdoor activities.But specialized in something else, which was what made it suitable to underpin the ISRG project: in Internet sale.The last year, Deportvillage billed about 120 million euros, practically double the previous year.The Sprinter group has bought 80% of the company (the other 20 remains in the hands of its founders) for about 140 million euros, and mechanisms have been articulated to facilitate the sale of the rest of the company in the coming years.

Sports Exponential Growth during the past year has a lot to do with Pandemia.Sporting articles were one of the most sought after categories both during the months of confinement, to play home at home, as well as distrustful.The fact of being online specialists allowed them to absorb in this scenario all the volume of business that classic retailers such as Sprinter or JD Sports were not able.That is what the ISRG group is looking for with the operation, in addition to gaining volume.As Alicante Plaza has said, the Alicante -based group was only able to recover online 20% of its combined sales in both channels during the months of confinement, although in the broken one it was compensated with growth of 10% monthly monthly.

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The second benefit of the operation for the group is that, by not overlapping its clientele, the integration of Deporte.The objective, in fact, is that the group reaches this year the 900 million euros of billing (when it was founded, the group billed about 500 million between JD, Sport Zone and Sprinter).A business figure that also includes the JD business in the Netherlands, transferred to ISRG, and that places the group in the Estela de Decathlon, by cutting the distance between the two signatures in half: the last year, the multinational gala billedIn Spain around 1.900 million.Also, the group will use more than 9.000 people and will cover more than 60 sports disciplines with 1.000 brands.

The executive president of JD Sports, Peter Cowgill, pointed out after announcing the acquisition that Sports "has a strong focus on the consumer and is the market leader in his categories in Spain with a significant potential for greater international development"."We welcome Sports to the group with the confidence that its excellent team will add their capabilities and results to our project to offer European consumers the best experience of purchasing multi -brand and omnichannel sports equipment in the market," added the general director ofIberian Sports Retail Group, Miguel Mota.

This is the last of a long acquisition list (mostly, made directly from the United Kingdom) that has been carrying out in recent months, to consolidate its position in markets such as the United States or central Europe.The purchase of 80% of Deportvillage is announced a few days after the Matrix Shareholders Board is held, next Thursday.As this newspaper has told, the Proxy Advisor Glass Lewis has recommended that shareholders vote against the president's remuneration policy, Peter Cowgill, and relieve it from the position for a bonus of 5 million euros after receiving millionaire public aid during the pandemic.