During its annual convention, held on June 22 in Mainhausen, the ANWR Group reported an increase of 3 percent to €7.8 billion in transactions through the group in 2013. ANWR Schuh, ANWR Garant International (AGI) and the other directly managed buying groups recorded a combined increase of 4.1 percent to €2.4 billion, with gains of 1.7 percent in footwear and 9.6 percent in sporting goods. In the first five months of this year, the directly managed buying groups recorded an increase of 6.5 percent. Geographically, these groups had increases of 3.7 percent in Germany, 10.4 percent in the Netherlands, 2.8 percent in Belgium and 14.9 percent in France. The growth in the Netherlands was largely due to a merger with the local Fairplay organization. Conversely, there were declines of 3.1 percent in Switzerland, 5.1 percent in Austria, 0.8 percent in Scandinavia and 17.1 percent in Eastern Europe. The operating profit of the group rose by 3.1 percent to €7 million. The next big issue for the ANWR Group will be the upgrading of its logistics in order to improve the on-time delivery of shoes and the optimization of inventories in the stores (more in Shoe Intelligence).

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