A group of retail members representing around 70 percent of the French buying group's turnover have threatened to split from Sport 2000 France and join another group or form their own cooperative. According to French press reports, they have given the company's major shareholder, the Activa Capital fund, until May 30 to come up with concrete and acceptable proposals on how it intends to cash out of the group within the next three years.
The action follows the resignation last week of Yannick Morat, a big French retailer representing the membership, as chairman of the group. He had been strongly criticized by Activa for its behavior. Marc Oursin, the former Carrefour executive picked one year ago by Activa to be the group's general manager, is taking Morat's place in the interim.
The tension rose after the increase in Activa's stake in Sport 2000 France to 51 percent last November, exercising an option for €6 million, from its original investment in 37.4 percent of the equity in May 2008, which cost it €20 million.
Activa decided to take over control because of the company's continued losses, but it allowed the representatives of the retailers to retain a majority on the board of directors. The losses were largely due to the rapid establishment of 15 directly owned stores by Sport 2000 France. Most of them have been shut down since. On the other hand, numerous retail members have left the group, leading to a major drop in the total retail turnover, which rose again by 2 percent in 2010 to around €600 million.
It's difficult to predict what the members will do if they don't reach an agreement with Activa. There is some speculation that Ariston-Nord-West-Ring, owner of Sport 2000 Germany, Garant and the powerful DZB bank, may take advantage of the situation. Garant already has an agreement with another French sports buying group, Twinner.
