One of the biggest Russian sports apparel producers, Mustang-2, is expecting to continue to grow substantially this year, but the growth may be stifled by a shortage of qualified personnel. It has many orders from Adidas, the Russian Forward group and other important clients for the next months, but the lack of skilled professionals in elaborate tasks such as design and marketing threatens to slow down the projected boost, despite the fact that its total staff doubled to 250 employees in the last five years.
Due in part to this shortage, the company has been unable to develop its own Mustang brand, which it decided to stop because it was losing money, company officials say. It also failed to develop further a collaborative project with Décathlon, which now operates seven superstores in Russia. However, it continues to make about 200,000 items of sports sweatshirts, winter coats, hosiery, bags and other types of sports products, and its business has been growing in spite of the recent recession. Its turnover is expected to grow to the equivalent of $5 million this year from $3.4 million in 2008, $3.5 million in 2009 and $4 million in 2010, Mustang-2 invested $160.000 into its own manufacturing facilities in Tver in 2010 and is planning to spend an additional $300.000 in 2011.
Mustang-2 makes sporting kit for the big CSKA and Dinamo football clubs and for the Russian Ministry of Sports and Ministry of Defence. It has been working under the contract with Adidas for a decade. It also supplies an important local brand, Sprandi. Team sports uniforms and winter coats made by the company and branded as Rossija (=Russia) are sold by major Russian retailers such as Sportmaster. However, its biggest single client is Forward, which has its own chain 30 stores and supplies hundreds of partner stores. It has also its own online store, Forward-sport.ru, which has been weathering the recent financial crisis well.
Forward's sporting kit has been worn by the two major Russian political leaders, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, on several occasions. Since its foundation in 1998, Mustang-2 itself has been receiving some support from the team around Putin, who helped develop the sports industry in the Tver area in the past.
