Spain’s markets regulator has moved Decathlon’s bid for Intersport Spain assets to a second-phase review, citing high sporting goods market concentration and rejecting the retailer’s proposed concessions as inadequate.
Spain’s authority on markets and competition, the CNMC, sees the potential for trouble with Decathlon’s proposal to acquire many of the assets of Intersport Spain, in liquidation since mid-2025.
The first phase of the commission’s analysis has “detected a high concentration in the market for the sale of sporting goods” and believes the acquisition could end up reducing competition, the market having high barriers to entry. This could in turn, the commission argues, reduce the number and variety of sporting goods on offer, especially from third parties, as well as the quality and specialization of service, the incentives to innovate and geographic coverage. The only region of concern is the island of Tenerife, where the Intersport assets are located.
The commission judges Decathlon’s proposed commitments to mitigate these effects to be “insufficient” and has therefore moved on to a second phase of analysis.
