Oxylane, the parent company of Décathlon and other minor retail chains, has decided to appoint Michel Aballea, who has been running its operations Décathlon Sports India since 2007, as its new chief executive from the beginning of 2015. He will take the place of Yves Claude, who will steer the development of the group in Southeast Asia from an office in Singapore, as first reported on sport-guide.com.
It could not be determined at press time whether the group intended to expand into new countries in Southeast Asia from the Singapore office, which has been handling production for Décathlon since 2005. Anyhow, the change of management seems to confirm a shift in the development of the group toward the emerging markets as well as the growing importance of Singapore as a strategic development hub in Asia.
As previously reported, the leading Russian sporting goods retailer, Sportmaster, has set up its Asian development office in Singapore, for example, even though it has a sourcing office in Shanghai and plans to open its first Chinese store in the northern part of the country, where climatic conditions are similar to those of Russia.
Over the years, Décathlon has managed to grow faster in warmer regions of Europe like France, Spain and Italy than in the northern part of the continent. Including Décathlon, the Oxylane group opened 33 of its 58 new stores in 2012 in Europe, but the majority of the new openings last year took place in emerging markets, with many new store openings in all the four BRICs: China, India, Russia and Brazil. Dominique Thomas, brand manager of Décathlon and its former international director, moved to Brazil two years ago to develop the group's business in that country.
Claude, who is 57 years old, has spent 33 years with Décathlon and Oxylane, the holding company created in 2008. He has been the chief executive for the past 13 years.
Prior to that, in 1992, he took on the management of Décathlon's subsidiary in Spain, which is now still the second-largest market for the chain after France.
Under Claude's reign, the company created by Michel Leclercq in 1976 has seen its turnover grow 2.5 times to more than €7 billion a year, with a fivefold rise in its sales outside France, overtaking Foot Locker as the world's leading integrated sporting goods retailer.
As for Aballea, he ran the huge private label business of Décathlon before being sent over to India. He created Tribord, the water sports brand of the group.
