(updated March 12 2020) Thomas Wanke has been appointed to the newly created position of chief executive of both Karstadt Sports and SportScheck. The former CEO of SportScheck, Markus Rech, is no longer in charge. Furthermore, Stefan Weiss, chief sales officer at Karstadt Sports, will from now on serve as chief sales officer of SportScheck as well.
Wanke managed Karstadt Sports, until the end of 2018. In 2019, he was appointed to the position of sales director at Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, the parent company of Karstadt Sports owned by the Signa Retail group. Weiss formerly worked as sales manager for SportScheck’s brick-and-mortar stores, until 2016.
The two German sporting goods retail chains are being brought under common management following the completion of Galeria Kaufhof Karstadt’s acquisition of SportScheck.
Karstadt Sports and SportsScheck have 32 and 19 stores, respectively, all of them in Germany. It remains uncertain whether Galeria will be on the market with both the Karstadt Sports and SportScheck banners in the long run – or with just one of them. German press reports indicate that they will probably both be kept because both retail banners are strong.
According to the newspaper Die Welt, Wanke aims to double the online sales of Karstadt Sports and SportScheck within the next five years. Such sales account for half of their combined turnover. At SportScheck, which was previously owned by the Otto Group, e-commerce represented 42 percent of the retailer’s sales by the end of its 2018/19 financial year, up from 38 percent in the previous year.
SportScheck’s omni-channel concept will be adopted by Karstadt Sports as well as Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof’s chain of 156 department stores. Reportedly, nearly 75 percent of German shoppers are now purchasing goods online as well as in physical stores, up from around 50 percent in 2012.
After acquiring the Karstadt and Galeria Kaufhof department stores in Germany, Signa Retail made another big move recently in the Spanish market with an investment in the Globus department store chains. Adding other operations, the Signa Retail group boasts an annual turnover of about €8.5 billion, generating a net profit of around one billion euros, with online sales contributing €1.3 billion to the overall turnover. Next to this, the Signa Group’s real estate assets, most of them in city centers, are estimated to be worth €20 billion.
The change of management took place after the German Cartel Office cleared the acquisition of SportScheck by Signa Retail, allowing the completion of the deal. With this transaction, the Austrian-based Signa Retail group has become the largest sports retailer in Germany by adding also the sales of the 153 sporting goods sections of the 174 department stores of Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, plus the German revenues of Signa Sports United’s web stores (Tennis-Point, Fahrrad.de, Campz.de, Outfitter, etc.).
Karstadt Sports is already managing procurements for its own stores as well as the sporting goods departments of the Karstadt and Galeria Kaufhof department stores, 15 of which have a considerable sales surface of more than 1,500 square meters. They work together on category management in the area of running and are planning to do the same for fitness and outdoor products, to judge by reports on a presentation made by Signa Retail to about 1,500 suppliers a few days ago.
Signa has refrained from disclosing the sales of these operations publicly. SportScheck had sales of almost €280 million in the 2018/19 financial year through its 19 physical stores and its online shop. As for Decathlon, its sales have risen considerably in Germany in recent years, reaching an estimated annual level of more than €600 million.
To explain the German anti-trust authority’s decision in favor of SportScheck’s takeover, Andreas Mundt, president of the German Cartel Office, wrote in a statement: “The takeover creates the leading supplier in the sports/outdoor retail sector in Germany. Nevertheless, the result of the transaction is unobjectionable in terms of competition. Nationwide, the joint market shares of Signa Retail and SportScheck are below 15 percent in the relevant areas. Even if the purely stationary retail is considered in isolation, the parties do not achieve a market share of more than 30 percent in any region.”
Also significant for competition in this area, according to the German anti-trust authority, are sports retailers that are members of the Intersport and Sport 2000 buying groups, whose combined sales are significantly higher those of Signa Retail. The online business is also very important in this area of retailing. Online retailers such as Amazon and the online shops of manufacturers generate considerable competitive pressure, Mundt added.
Photo: courtesy of Karstadt
