Björn Borg, the Swedish underwear and sportswear brand, has acquired full ownership of its subsidiary in the U.K. The company has bought out a minority shareholder who owned 20 percent of Björn Borg U.K. The shareholder was Callum Sneddon, managing director of Björn Borg U.K., who left the company at the end of May. Neil Smith, former U.K. sales manager, is to take over as country sales manager. Sneddon has been the managing director at Björn Borg U.K. for the last five years, after stints as global head of sales at Pringle of Scotland, vice president of sales in Europe, the Middle East and Asia at Speedo and commercial director at Firetrap. The buy-out comes after a similar move in the Benelux countries, where Björn Borg has decided to terminate its partnership with the Baseline Group, although the company will continue to hold rights for the four-year term of notice until November 2019, unless the parties agree on an earlier takeover. The partnership with Baseline turned the Netherlands into one of the largest markets for the Swedish brand, along with Sweden. Björn Borg's turnover reached 1.4 billion Swedish kronor (€151.1m-$168.2m) in 2015, excluding VAT, at consumer level. Its net sales amounted to about SEK 574 million (€61.9m-$69.0m). A spokeswoman said that Björn Borg has also recently opened an office in Berlin for the German market, which it previously covered through a distributor. Daniel Puchner, former key account manager for Icepeak, was appointed to lead the German office in April.

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