Marc Oursin, 48, is the new managing director of Sport 2000 France, filling a void left after the abrupt departure late last year of Jean-Paul Onillon. In the early 1990s, the new manager set up the international buying office of a big French chain of hypermarkets and supermarkets, Promodès, that later merged with Carrefour. He then ran Carrefour’s operations in Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan and Belgium, handling company-owned stores as well as franchises.
The new manager wants to improve the supply chain significantly on the basis of his experience in the food sector. His international experience may be helpful in connection with the recent tie-up of Sport 2000 France with Italy’s Sport Point Group, which is taking the Sport 2000 franchise to Italy, and the establishment of a joint purchasing organization with Groupe Go Sport.
His most urgent task, however, is to restore the profitability of the 25 corporate stores that Sport 2000 has set up or acquired in the past couple of years with the financial help of Activa Capital, a French investment company that took over 37 percent of the shares in Sport 2000 France in 2008.
A former plan to launch 60 new stores has been discarded. A few of the corporate stores may be closed down. Company officials are also wondering whether they should continue to support the parallel development of a network of bike shops under the Mondovélo banner, as the market is structured differently.
Along with other managers, Oursin is becoming a shareholder in a company that owns 4.2 percent of Sport 2000 France. He will be reporting to William Monti, president of Sport 2000 France, who ran its operations on an interim basis. The 52-year-old executive, who has a chain of sporting goods stores affiliated with Sport 2000, was recently elected president of Sport 2000 International, as we have already reported. Its 3,824 affiliated stores in 24 countries generated sales of about €5 billion in 2009.
For its part, Sport 2000 France reports a turnover of €617 million for last year, up by 3.2 percent from 2008. Aside from its mountain shops, sales grew by 1.1 percent on a comparable store basis. The Sport 2000 banner was carried by 502 stores in France at the end of last year, including 22 units in mountain areas and 14 at other locations. Nine more bike shops adopted the Mondovélo banner.
