Zentrasport, also known as Sport 2000 Austria, has appointed Holger Schwarting as its new managing director. The 46-year-old Schwarting worked for Nike in the 1990s. Later on, from 2003 to 2006, Schwarting was on the board of Intersport Austria until he switched to the management of Sport Eybl & Sports Experts, then an Intersport member and now a licensee.
Schwarting succeeds the Austrian buying group’s long-time boss, Gerhard Schwab, who is leaving the second-largest Austrian buying group after leading a ship that floated through better and worse times during the 12 years under his rule. Altogether, Schwab’s record was positive: When he began, the group’s turnover was some €185 million compared with €368 million at retail prices for the financial year ended last April. In the same era the number of retailers increased from 187 to 272, including new affiliated retailers in Eastern Europe.
However, while he could pride himself on running a group of strong retailers in the alpine valleys and the ski resorts, where sporting goods retailers traditionally dig for gold, the group has failed to make its mark in big places such as Vienna. This came along with the huge expansion of strong players such as Eybl, Sports Experts, Hervis and Gigasport in a highly competitive market.
The number of retailer members decreased slightly in the past year to 272 compared with 281 in the prior year. The loss of members came mostly from Austria and not from the other countries in which the group has its fingers. In Austria, the number of affiliated retailers dropped from 224 to 210. This comes from succession problems within family-run shops and some retailers that no longer fulfilled the financial requirements of the group.
In the Czech Republic, the number of retailers increased from 30 to 32 in the same period. Meanwhile, the number of shops there went up by five to 62. In Hungary, the group recorded three new members bringing the total of affiliated retailers to 17, while the number of shops is now at18 (compared with 15 in the year before). In Slovakia, the population of the tribe of retailers remained stable at 13, but the number of shops jumped from 24 to 27.
Next to Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Zentrasport also holds the license of Sport 2000 for Poland, though the group is currently not operating in that country. Sport 2000 Austria’s figures are promising though: The headquarters’ operating profit was up to slightly more than €1 million last year compared with a loss of nearly €500,000 in the previous period.
