Li Ning, the Chinese sports brand, has changed its distributor in Spain, switching from LN Plus in Madrid to Jorcani in Barcelona. Spain is one of the European markets where Li Ning has invested most prominently in the last years, obtaining endorsement deals from the country's national basketball team as well as several football teams.
The deal with Jorcani covers Spain as well as Portugal and Andorra. The company is the distributor of several prominent brands, from Odlo to Fischer, Carrera and Icepeak – one of the brands of the L-Fashion group, which obtained a Europe-wide deal with Li Ning last year.
For the time being Jorcani focuses on outdoor, winter sports and water sports, but a new multi-sports business unit was set up to deal with Li Ning. It is headed by Oriol Rovira, previous managing director of Reebok's design center for southern Europe, and then chief executive of Custo Barcelona, a major Spanish fashion brand.
Li Ning was sold to about 250 stores around Spain. The new distributor wants to focus on a few performance sports, particularly running, basketball, football and fitness, and it will target trend stores for a few ranges of Li Ning footwear.
