Several British newspapers have reported in the last few days that Chris Ronnie, who abruptly left as chief executive of JJB Sports nearly two years ago amid allegations of misconduct, is preparing to return to retailing. He has teamed up with Andrew Duckworth, a partner at Winterhill Asset Management, to pick up British retailing assets through Premier Sports Retail, a company set up by the two partners in Manchester three months ago.
Ronnie told the Manchester Evening News that he was interested in footwear, apparel and lifestyle retailing. Winterhill Asset Management is specialized in asset valuation and sale services to insolvency practitioners. It is expected that there will be opportunities to snap up cheap retail units in Britain in the coming months, as some retailers suffered in the festive season and just received their rental bills.
Ronnie and Duckworth already attempted an acquisition in October by approaching DW Sports, the British sports retail group set up by David Whelan, who previously founded JJB Sports. The two men knew each other since Whelan sold his remaining shares in JJB Sports to investors around Ronnie in 2007. Whelan later acquired the 53 fitness centers of the cash-strapped JJB Sports, with adjoining sports stores in all but three of them. Hiring many former JJB staff, Whelan renamed the stores DW Sports. He then outlined plans to double the size of the network to about 100 stores in two years, most of them in fitness centers, but at the end of last year DW Sports still had only 58 stores.
In November, DW Sports confirmed that it had put an end to the discussions with Ronnie. It may not have helped that several players in the British sports business are still under investigation. The Serious Fraud Office, which has been studying alleged wrongdoings at JJB Sports and its largest rival, Sports Direct International, said last year that it would not bring any charges against the two retailers but that its investigation into individuals was ongoing. Furthermore, some of the former JJB staff hired by DW Sports were not exactly eager for the sale to Ronnie to go through.
