After several months of talks, the Ariston-Nord-West-Ring Group (ANWR) has taken over the Sport 2000 license in the Netherlands. Eighty Dutch stores carrying the Sport 2000 banner are to become members of Fair Play International Sports, which is part of the recently merged ANWR-Garant organization in the Netherlands.
The takeover comes after Euretco, the previous owner of the Dutch license, agreed to merge with Intres, another buying group whose retail members run the Intersport stores in the Netherlands. The tie-up could only go ahead if the new entity divested one of the two sports retail concepts.
The deal reinforces the influence of Fair Play in the Dutch sports market, where it already dealt with 130 independent sports stores. Each of them operates with its own banner but some of them have adopted at least one of the specialist concepts launched by Fair Play for football, running, outdoor, tennis, hockey and ski. These concepts consist of shop-in-shops with dedicated displays.
The joint turnover of the existing Fair Play members and the Sport 2000 stores that are joining the group should reach about €180 million at retail level including VAT this year. That makes Fair Play a robust third player in the Dutch sports market: Based on retail sales estimates for 2011, the combination of Intres and Euretco's sports banners excluding Sport 2000 reached a turnover of €412 million, ahead of the USG Group's retail activities, which had sales of €234 million.
Five retailers who were running ten Sport 2000 stores refused to join Fair Play, but all the others committed to the Sport 2000 banner and agreed to become members of Fair Play, with central settlements handled by ANWR's DZB Bank. A major change is that all of these stores will have to take care of their own orders and assortment, while many of the Sport 2000 stores in the Netherlands were previously franchises.
The enlarged Fair Play will operate with two units: one of them consisting of the independent stores and the other comprising the Sport 2000 stores. The ANWR-Garant organization in the Netherlands also has 425 members in shoe retailing who operate 650 shoe stores. The sports units will be managed by Hans de Winther.The entire Dutch company is headed by Dennis Beute.
Another German-based buying group, GMS, which has 127 affiliated shoe retailers in the Netherlands, said a few weeks ago that it was in advanced talks to take over the Sport 2000 license in the country. It regarded the potential deal as an opportunity to move into the sports market. However, the tie-up with ANWR was apparently regarded as a more logical move for the Sport 2000 retailers.
On the other hand, ANWR did not acquire the shares owned by Euretco in Sport 2000 International, which were instead bought back by the Sport 2000 International organization. The ANWR group already has a license for Sport 2000 in Germany, accompanied by a share in Sport 2000 International.
Furthermore, Sport 2000 International may well solicit an offer by ANWR to start working with the banner in Belgium, where Fair Play is represented and has members in sports retailing. The license for Sport 2000 in Belgium is currently in the hands of Sports Direct International (SDI), the British group, which is using it only for buying purposes for its Sports Direct stores in Belgium. In any case, Fair Play said its organization in Belgian sports retailing was very small and its priority for Sport 2000 would be entirely on the Netherlands for the time being.
