According to CMDsport, the Iberian Sports Retail Group (ISRG) has acquired a 50.1 percent stake in Bodytone International Sport, a Spanish-based producer and international distributor of professional gym machines and equipment. The purchase price was undisclosed.
Bodytone has until now been wholly owned by American Sport Invest, which has become the minority stakeholder, at 49.9 percent. ISRG – a company controlled by JD Sports Fashion that operates the JD Sports, Sprinter and Sport Zone retail chain on the Iberian peninsula – has installed Sprinter’s chief executive, Ángel Segarra, as Bodytone’s new chairman and given its own CEO and CFO, Miguel Mota and José Pérez-Milá Fernández, seats on the board. Bodytone will be retaining its current CEO, Joaquín José Marín Muńoz. Both he and Bodytone’s other top executive, Jerónimo Domínguez Ortiz, will remain aboard at American Sport Invest.
A generalist in the sporting goods market, ISRG has spent the past year expanding through acquisition. In early June, it moved into the Netherlands with the purchase from JD of both Aktiesport and Perry Sport. By late June, it had moved in also on Deporvillage, the Spanish-based e-tailer for cycling, running, outdoor and fitness.
Speaking to CMDsport, Mota said that Bodytone’s acquisition will enable ISRG to gain a presence in certain specialist channels of the sporting goods market both in Spain and abroad. The company would “like to get closer to the fitness consumer” in particular and expand the services available to holders of the Sprinter Pass, especially as Sprinter has just inaugurated a new store concept for urban athletes. Bodytone’s management structure will undergo no change, but the company will enjoy proper financial and experiential backing to expand and optimize its B2C business.
