The board of directors of Intersport PSC Holding, Swiss licensee of Intersport International Corp., has decided to expand the management, appointing four executives in charge of different activities. They will report to Patrick Bundeli, the former chief financial officer of the company, who was recently appointed chief executive following the resignation of Urs Michael Müller.

The four new managers are Daniel Steiner, in charge of franchising and cooperation with industrial partners; Stefan Probst, heading up the wholesale sector and other activities related to Intersport's private labels; André Felder, running the retail sector along with the company's Sport-Fabrik factory outlets; and Roland Membrez, handling the increasingly important rental business. They have all been working for the company already, and they have been effectively promoted.

The public company, which is controlled by a British equity fund, announced the new management structure while reporting a drop in its consolidated net profit to 1.79 million Swiss francs (€1.47m-$1.99m) for the six-month period ended last March 31, down from CHF 2,915,000 in the same period a year earlier. The operating margin (Ebit) fell to 1.4 percent of revenues from 2.1 percent, due to a drop in gross margins and sales promotions, but the equity/debt ratio remained high at 67.8 percent.

Consolidated revenues declined by 2.2 percent to CHF 135.1 million (€110.65m-$150.52m), with a drop of 1.3 percent in centralized settlements and drop of CHF 4.9 million (€4.01m-$5.46m) in the wholesale business, due to unfavorable weather conditions and the pullout of a major retail member.

Retail sales fell from CHF 10.2 million to CHF 9.7 million (€7.9m-$10.8m). Noting that its Sport-Fabrik factory outlet concept improved its turnover by 2 percent, the company attributed the overall decline to Intersport PSC's abandonment of the Budget Sport format.

The management predicts that the Swiss market will not improve in the short term but says that the company's gross margins should be better in the second half of its financial year.

With estimated sales of CHF 436 million (€357.09m-$485.71m) at the retail level in the past year, Intersport PSC claims a market share of more than 24 percent in the Swiss sporting goods market. It acts as a buying and franchising group for 237 retailers which run 341 points of sale.