Stadium, the Swedish sports retailer, is offloading its eight remaining Danish stores to Sport24, a Danish retailer that already announced earlier this year its planned acquisition of Sportigan, a buying group for smaller Danish sports retailers.
The buyer says it intends to take over the Stadium stores in October, assuming approval from the competition authorities. They neatly complement the 20 existing Sport24 stores, which are all established in Jutland, while the Stadium stores are mostly in Copenhagen and around Zealand, with two other stores in Aalborg. Sport24 has another 28 outlet stores, three of them already in Zealand.
Stadium remains a leading Scandinavian player with its stores in Sweden and Finland, plus the two stores it opened recently in Germany. The Swedish group has yet to respond to queries about the sale in Denmark, but it apparently comes after several years of losses in the country and may be part of a strategic plan adopted after Karl Eklöf moved into the chief executive's seat.
Stadium has already reduced the number of its Danish stores from twelve to eight by the end of the fiscal year ended in August 2015. They yielded sales equivalent to 257 million Swedish kronor (€27.1m-$30.7m) excluding VAT for the year in Denmark, down from SEK 302 million in the previous year. The entire Stadium group reached a turnover of SEK 5,288 million (€557.7m-$631,8m) for the fiscal year, which was an increase of 4.7 percent.
Yet the profit after financial items declined sharply to SEK 114 million (€12m-$13.6m), compared with SEK 220 million. The group had 161 stores at the end of the period, 123 in Sweden and 28 in Finland, eight in Denmark and two in Germany.
Sport24 intends to take over the Stadium stores at the end of September and to transform them into Sport24 stores one week later. The two retailers were targeting some of the same consumers, but Stadium sells a large share of private labels. Sport24 stores have an average of 700 to 1,200 square meters, although it already has two stores of about 1,500 square meters. The concept is urban, with a mix of performance sports and lifestyle products that appeals to Danish women.
Stadium, which was delivering to Danish stores from its Swedish warehouse, has apparently agreed to move out the remaining inventory of its private label products. The buyer wants to retain Stadium's approximately 170 employees in Denmark.
The deal marks another bout of expansion for Sport24, which was formed after three former members of Intersport broke away from the buying group four years ago. Sport24 reaped sales estimated at about 650 million Danish kroner (€87.3m-$98.9m) in 2015, including VAT.
As we have previously reported, it was announced in April that Sport24 intended to take over Sportigan, a buying group with 135 franchised and independent stores yielding annual retail sales estimated at DKK 700 million (€94m-$106m). With surfaces of about 200 to 500 square meters, these stores often target demand in team sports and other local activities. Five of the stores are running specialists trading as Løberen.
Sport24 is to finalize the centralization of Sportigan's operations at its own office in Silkeborg next April, when Sportigan is to move out of its offices in Aalborg. Sportigan's former online store has been closed and an updated version is to be launched in October.
Sport24 says that the acquisition of the Stadium stores opens up more opportunities for expansion. The average purchase per customer at Sport24 is above the average at Stadium in Denmark, but the new owner emphasizes that the offering should be adjusted for the Jutland stores.
