Telstar Sport & Fashion, a group of four megastores for sports products in the Netherlands, is to be taken over from the beginning of next year by Van Dijk Retail, a holding company run by Edward van Dijk, as reported by Sport Partner this week. This investor is best known in the country as the man behind Time Out Sport, a sports lifestyle franchise formula that was taken over by the USG group three years ago. Since then Van Dijk has been running seven franchised stores in footwear, sports and fashion. Earlier this year Van Dijk acquired the Telstar store in Deventer and opened discussions to turn Telstar into a franchise. The banner, which started as a surf store, has another two locations in Harderwijk and Zwolle, as well as an electronic store and an outlet store in Ermelo - adding up to a combined surface of more than 10,000 square meters. Van Dijk is acquiring Telstar from Lex Groothengel, whom Van Dijk will also replace as general manager. The new owner has made it clear that he wanted to expand Telstar, starting with the conversion of the Petstra Ski Outdoor store in Coevorden, which was just taken over.