The Russian brand of sports lifestyle clothing opened its first store outside Russia and Ukraine at the end of March in the recently inaugurated Westfield Stratford City shopping center of London, the largest one of its kind in Europe. It is voluntarily placed next to the Olympic Park, where Bosco Sport will enjoy strong visibility as the sponsor of the Russian, Ukrainian and Spanish Olympic teams.
The Ukrainian and Spanish deals are new. At the last Olympic Games in Beijing, the two teams were sponsored by Nike and Li-Ning, respectively. Bosco has been an official supplier of the Russian Olympic Games since Salt Lake City in 2002, and the contract will continue with the Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. It will also be an official sponsor of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi under a contract worth $100 million.
Bosco Sport is banking on all these investments to make a dent in the international market outside Russia and Ukraine, where the brand is sold in about 200 stores, 65 of which are single-brand stores owned or franchised by Bosco. It already has one more store in London and others in Barcelona and Madrid in the pipeline. In the longer term, it is targeting alpine ski resorts such as Courchevel and St. Moritz, where many wealthy Russian tourists spend their winter holidays.
Officials of the Russian company declined to disclose Bosco Sport's present turnover. The brand is part of the large Bosco di Ciliegi group, which represents many European fashion brands in Russia and owns important retail properties in Russia such as the GUM department store near Moscow's Red Square. The group has a total annual turnover of around €600 million.
