After establishing its own sales subsidiaries in Poland and Russia, Asics has agreed to acquire 100 percent control of Asics Scandinavia, the company that is covering the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish markets for the brand, starting next July. The Japanese company is paying the equivalent of €23 million for the 70 percent share held in Asics Scandinavia by Bertel O. Steen, which first got involved with the brand in 1985 as its distributor for Norway.
Asics Scandinavia made a nice profit on sales of 380 million Norwegian kroner (€43.3m-$58.4m) in 2008, and its sales are expected to continue to rise slightly this year, in spite of the difficult economic situation. It is unclear whether the operation will continue to be led by Haakon Nygaard, a 53-year-old Norwegian executive who has been running Bertel O. Steen’s sports department since 1986.
Bertel O. Steen agreed to form a joint venture with Asics in 1999 when the Japanese company decided to give it the distribution also for Sweden and Denmark, where it had been under-represented. Later, Bertel O. Steen acquired the Viking brand of footwear, but this brand is not included in Asics’ new acquisition.
Meanwhile, Asics’ sales are growing in Poland, where the company agreed to take over the distribution after the delivery of the spring 2008 collection by its former exclusive importer, ZG-Plus. This company, which is owned by the Marketing Investment Group, operates a chain of 40 stores under the name of Sizeer in Poland that were converted from previous franchises of The Athlete’s Foot.
Naturally, Sizeer is not buying as much as before from Asics, but the brand’s overall business in the country is growing as other important Polish retailers have been ordering its products because the competition is over. A similar process is expected to take place in due time in Russia, where Asics’ contract with Ilion, a large wholesale company owned by the Sportmaster Group, ended with the fall/winter 2008-09 season. Asics reports it has good communication with Sportmaster as the largest sporting goods retailer in Russia, but says many other accounts have confirmed extremely good pre-orders as they are now taking an interest in the brand that they did not have before for competition reasons.
Asics Polska has been in operation since January 2008, with an office and showroom near Warsaw’s airport. The subsidiary is run by Marek Szostek, who worked for Adidas and Nike before, and it is directly supplied from Asics’ European distribution center in Neuss, Germany. The new office of Asics Russia was opened last November and is run by Igor Formin, a Russian executive who previously worked as sales director with a Russian supplier of perfumes and toiletries. Dieter Bauer, former general manager of Asics Deutschland, helped to set up both operations as a consultant to the company.
