Signa Sports United, which claims to be already biggest online player in the European sports retail market, has acquired TennisPro Group, a racquet sports retailer serving mostly customers in France and southern Europe. The contracts were signed on June 25, granting Signa control of TennisPro's online retail companies and its network of 46 franchise stores in France, Belgium and Italy.
The acquisition nicely complements the operations of Tennis-Point, another European multi-channel retailer, based in Germany, in which Signa Retail took a majority stake in December 2016. At the time, Tennis-Point had 12 stores and 19 online shops in 10 languages. It has now boosted the number of its physical stores to 21 and cut back its online shops to 14 websites in 14 languages.
More recently, in the second half of 2019, the subsidiary rolled out myTennis, which has taken the lead in Germany among tennis community apps for its offers of live scores, rankings and statistics while also connecting players, coaches and fans. It has been downloaded more than 200,000 times and will be rolled out in France during the second half of 2019.
Led by Jean-Christophe Schaffo, a former tennis player who took over the company in 2015, TennisPro is said to be offering a unique customer experience in tennis, badminton and pádel through special events, racquet customization, video training tutorials and other services.
Over the past few years, Signa has made a number of other internet-focused acquisitions in the sports industry, building up what Signa Sports United's chief executive, Stephan Zoll, calls “vertical-specific sport communities.” The acquisition of Tennis-Point was preceded by three others in 2016: Dress-for-Less, a German online retailer of discounted name-brand apparel; Outfitter, another German online retailer of sports apparel, footwear and accessories; and Internetstores, a European online retailer of cycling and outdoor products.
The acquisitions continued in 2017. In April, Signa Retail purchased Probikeshop, a French online cycling retailer, which enabled Internetstores to expand an important segment of its business from its Germanic and Nordic home markets into southern Europe. Just a couple of months later, operating through its subsidiary Karstadt Warenhaus, Signa Retail took a 70 percent stake in Hood.de, a German online marketplace for a wide range of products – sporting, fitness and outdoor goods included. In February 2018, Signa acquired Stylefile, an online retailer of sneakers and streetwear.
In January of this year, Signa Retail began looking to the Far East, establishing partnerships with two online retailers in the sports industry: Aeon Co., Japan's largest retailer in the industry, and Central Group, which operates in Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Signa Sports United now consists of about 80 web stores operating in 17 countries, with a customer base of about 2.5 million. In addition to the websites mentioned above, the group's online banners include Fahrrad.de, Bikester, CAMPZ and addnature.
For the fiscal year ended in September 2018, Signa Sports United posted revenues of €442 million, generating a profit. Its sales have been growing since then at high double-digit rate on an organic basis, with stable margins.
The group says it is in advanced discussions with other potential partners in order to consolidate its position as the leading sports experience platform in Europe for athletes, clubs, fans, associations and the wider sports ecosystem. It is aiming to build up the biggest sports platform in the world.
