Oy Patrol Trading, a former distributor of Asics in Scandinavia and the former owner of One Way Sport, has taken over the distribution of Brooks Running in the Nordic countries through a merger. It has taken over majority control of Brooks Scandinavia from Erik Nystedt, a former country manager of Asics who had set up the operation at the beginning of last year.
Nystedt, who had worked for Asics for 17 years, will remain a minority shareholder of Brooks Scandinavia and will continue to run the operation, concentrating on Sweden, Norway and Denmark, where he will retain his current team, including Mikael Magnuson, a former product and sales director of Asics who worked for Brooks for the last four years.
Based in Finland, Oy Patrol will take care of its domestic market and the Baltic countries for Brooks. Founded in 2005 and run by Peder Pading, the company has been Asics' distributor for Finland and the Baltics for 30 years, but the contract expired last Dec. 31.
Oy Patrol is still the distributor of Fischer Sports in the same countries. It is also the distributor of One Way Sport, the Finnish brand of ski poles and related products, in Finland, Sweden and the Baltic countries. As previously reported (SGI Europe Vol. 29 N° 19+20 of June 7, 2018), Patrol bought the intellectual property rights of One Way Sport last April, but then sold them a few months later to Fischer, which has already started marketing its complementary products in various countries.
