Continuing the reorganization of its sales apparatus in Europe, Speedo has decided to transfer the distribution of its brand in Spain from Sport Concept to a company being set up by Francisco (Paco) Borja in Elche following his planned recent resignation as country manager of Reebok in Spain. The new contract becomes effective on July 1.
The new company is negotiating other deals for the representation of foreign sports brands on the Iberian market, and also for international licenses, capitalizing on the fact that many of the garments developed by Borja and his team at Reebok were adopted for the global market.
Oriol Rovira and some other former collaborators will join him in the new company, which will be owned and managed by Borja and his two sons, Alberto and Alex. The Speedo brand will be handled in particular by Alex, who is 33 years old and spent nine years at Reebok, working on marketing and retail. His 37-year-old brother, Alberto, was Rockport brand director and took care of golf and fashion products.
The Speedo brand has been marketed in Spain for more than 30 years by Sport Concept and its predecessor, Cidesport. Run by Daniel Rosal, son of Carlos Rosal, Sport Concept is now looking for other sports brands to represent. Its only other activity is a license for Mistral sportswear in Southern Europe, with a concentration on the Spanish and Italian markets.
Interestingly, while the Rosal family introduced Nike to Spain, Borja introduced Reebok to the country. Their relationship with both brands has been highly controversial. Cidesport lost the distribution of Nike in Spain in the early 1990s, and their dispute went all the way up to the Spanish Supreme Court. Reebok agreed to form a joint venture with Borja, and the Adidas Group raised its stake in the operation to 100 percent at the end of last year. Borja was a top executive of Kelme before he started selling Reebok products in 1986 with a high measure of success.
For a while, before Nike took over the distribution in Spain fully, Reebok was the No. 1 sports brand there. This feat probably impressed Pentland Group, which owns Speedo and owned Reebok for a while. It also seems that Borja promised high minimums in order to get the Speedo contract. Sport Concept’s sales of Speedo products declined to less than €7 million last year, due in part to the economic crisis, but figures from NPD show that Speedo is slightly ahead of Arena in terms of market share. They had previously reached a peak of around €11 million when Sport Concept had a license for Speedo beachwear, but that part of the deal was canceled in 2001.
