Andreas Zinschitz will join the management of Kastner & Öhler next July 1 to handle its sports division, consisting mainly of the Austrian retailer's chain of Gigasport stores, and its human resources department. It's a new position within the group, which employs 1,820 people and reached sales of €272 million in the year ended Feb. 28 through its 49 stores. Gigasport has 19 stores in Austria, 3 in Slovenia, one in Slovakia and 11 in the Czech Republic. Zinschitz, who is 50 years old, was previously the general manager of Tui, the international tourism agency, for Austria. His position on the executive board of Kastner & Öhler is new. He will join two other top managers on the board, Thomas Böck and Martin Wäg. The company says it decided to strengthen the board because of a new emphasis on innovation, where Böck will be playing a leading role. There is talk about starting up new specialty retail formats for Gigasport, which has not opened a store outside Austria since 2008. The company got a special prize at the annual Textilwirtschaft Forum for its department store in Graz, which reopened last October on 40,000-m², of which 8,000 m² are for sports products.

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