Eliminating one layer of management, Arena has reorganized its Italian subsidiary, Arena Italia. Enrico Maria Tricarico, who has been the general manager of Arena Italia for the past five years, has left the company, and he will not be replaced.

All the sales, marketing, merchandising, logistic and administrative functions have been placed directly under the supervision of the two joint chief executives of the group, Giuseppe Musciacchio and Luca Selvatici, who were appointed after the departure last June of Cristiano Portas, who ran the company for 17 years.

Furthermore, Luca Belogi, who has been in charge of the group's international business division, handling relations with foreign distributors, has been appointed general sales manager, adding responsibility for sales, e-commerce, trade marketing and merchandising in Italy.

Arena had already started to put together a leaner management structure by eliminating the position of general manager for its German sales subsidiary at the end of 2015. The streamlining of management functions in Italy, which is intended to improve efficiencies, goes with the fact that Italy's share of Arena's turnover, excluding Japan and other territories controlled by Descente, has shrunk from about 50 to 20 percent of sales in the last ten years.

Arena's net turnover increased by 2 percent to €111 million in 2016. Sales were stable in France but grew by 2 percent in Italy and by 4 percent in Germany. Arena also managed a small increase in the U.S., but it was lower than expected. It reached a level of around €150 million globally at the wholesale level, including the sales of its distributors. Descente made a similar turnover with Arena in its part of the world.

Arena hired a new Brazilian distributor before last year's Olympic Games in Rio, Globe Import & Export. Together with Double Line, which has taken over the distribution of its products in Australia from Hanesbrands, Arena is funding a new partnership with Swimming Australia as official supplier of the Australian Dolphins Swim Team, as reported earlier this year.

Meanwhile Portas, who is now 58 years old and still holds five percent of Arena's shares, is looking at the possible acquisition of another company. His non-competition agreement with Arena runs until the end of this year.