A British investment company, Primosole Holdings, has acquired a majority stake in Samurai Sportswear, a 25-year-old sports apparel producer based in Norfolk that is relatively well-known in the rugby sector. Its founder, Terry Sands, was a former team manager of England Rugby. Besides five rugby clubs in England and Hong Kong, Samurai works with the Derbyshire Country Cricket clubs. It also boasts thousands of clients in schools, universities, colleges, corporations and amateur sports clubs in hockey, netball and athletics around the world.
Samurai will keep its directly owned Chinese manufacturing facility in Shenzhen. The business plan calls for pivoting the company’s approach to branding, marketing and technology, strengthening its teamwear platform and developing Samurai as a broader athleisure brand with new investments in e-commerce.
The company is opening a new office in the Shoreditch district of London. A new management team will be formed around Samurai’s newly appointed CEO, Stefano Schivo. He is replacing the company’s founder, who will retain the role of director of commercial relationships. Schivo describes himself as a “high-octane and forward-looking” business professional who lived in eight different countries and executed more than 20 multi-million M&A and financing transactions across the EMEA region. After founding a technology start-up, he worked for BNP Paribas and, most recently, as vice president of investment banking at the Nomura group.
No details could be obtained about the terms of the latest transaction or Samurai’s turnover. We only could learn that more than half its sales are generated outside the U.K. It has sales representatives and agents in Ireland and France. Open for distribution partnerships, it also has a presence in 21 other countries including Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Samoa and Kenya.
Primosole, which partners with large family offices to acquire majority stakes and operational control in small and medium-sized growth-oriented enterprises in various sectors, was advised in the transaction by Wilson Partners and Marriott Harrison. Samurai was advised by Castle Square Corporate Finance and Mills & Reeve.
