The leading Russian sporting goods retailer has signed a long-term lease with Colliers International for a 35,000-square-meter warehouse in the Kholmogory industrial park near Moscow. This contract was described as one of the biggest of the kind concluded in Russia over the past year.
Kholmogory is said to be perfectly located with respect to the Russian capital, as it is only 30 km away from the Moscow Automotive Ring Road and it will be crossed by the Moscow Central Ring Road, a major highway in Moscow Oblast that is currently under construction.
Nikolay Uskiv, real estate department director of Sportmaster, reportedly said that the resulting improved logistics will help increase effectiveness and expand the turnover. The good location will enable Sportmaster to react faster to the customers' needs and improve service levels.
Ilya Titarenko, director of Sportmaster's distribution department, commented that the rationale behind the rental of the additional warehouse space was associated with the retailer's continued growth in its core businesses and the increased depth of the product range.
The addition of the auxiliary space will also help optimize the logistics of the company's federal distribution center, located close to Moscow in the satellite town of Zheleznodorozhny.
In the past fiscal year, ended on Aug. 31, Sportmaster enjoyed double-digit growth and opened its 501st store. The current total store count includes 16 higher-end Sportmaster Pro stores, as well as ten stores in China. The company claims a market shares of more than 35 percent in the core segment of the Russian sporting goods market.
Given its relative dominance of the Russian sports market, it is looking for adjacent segments in which it may invest in the future. It may also be tempted to make acquisitions abroad.
Titarenko added that the new warehouse was due to become an important addition to the improvements in supply management that the company has instigated to deal with the deeper depth of products.
According to Knight Frank, the average rent per square meter of warehousing space in the Kholmogory industrial park is close to 3,500 rubles (€47-$54). This means that Sportmaster would pay around Rub 122.5 million (€1.67m-$1.89m) per year for the new warehouse.
