Bizerta Sport, a large-scale Dutch sports brand owner and trading company, has gone through a financial restructuring process that has brought in a new shareholder. Sport Partner reports that the ownership of the company is now split equally between its general manager, Elise Koggink, and Advion, a holding company for several trading companies in the area where Bizerta is based, south of Amsterdam.
The financial restructuring entailed bankruptcy proceedings, which lasted three days and enabled the company to start with a clean slate and a new name, Bizerta Sport Europe. The company said that the bankruptcy became inevitable due to new credit conditions at Deutsche Bank, but that it had in no way affected the company's operations.
Employing 45 people, Bizerta Sport Europe is the owner of the Chamonix outdoor apparel brand, and it delivers private label sports products to many mass market retailers around Europe. Separately, the company also has a joint venture with Waterflow, a Dutch trading agency under the name of Dutch Sports Group (DSG). This company is the Dutch distributor of Weather Report, H20 and Fila tennis apparel. It shares some back office functions and a showroom with Bizerta, and has continued to do so throughout the restructuring.
Two members of Advion's management have been integrated into Bizerta's management. Even though the two companies do not trade in the same sectors, they were reported as saying that they could still achieve some synergies, for example in terms of logistics.
Bizerta is a family business started in 1972 by Robert Koggink in Lisse. Its customer list includes Tchibo, Aldi, Makro, Aktie Sport, Wal Mart, Sport 2000 and many more around Europe. Apart from Chamonix, Bizerta owns the Runtech and Bizerta Basics brand, and it prides itself on running an efficient never-out-of-stock program from its big warehouse.
