Sport 2000 gets new owner

The specialist dealer community decided on this step at an extraordinary general meeting on Thursday and informed about it today, Friday. As reported, the creditors of the insolvent Sport 2000 cooperative Zentrasport accepted the restructuring plan with self-administration in November, albeit with a lower quota.

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This ensured the continuation of the association, according to Sport 2000. The ANWR Group, based in Mainhausen in Hesse, is a European trading cooperation to which around 20,000 medium-sized companies are affiliated via its credit institutions DZB Bank and Aktivbank. These include companies from the shoe, sporting goods, leather goods and financial services sectors. With the Sport2000 national association, ANWR is already active in the sports retail sector in five countries; the retailers use the range of goods, marketing and services.

“Financial security” and “numerous opportunities”

“The merger with ANWR not only provides financial security, but also opens up numerous opportunities through the use of cross-border synergies,” said Holger Schwarting, CEO of Sport 2000, in a press release.

It is said that around 150 dealers and 150 suppliers have now joined the new structure of Sport 2000 Austria or are currently doing so. As part of the Sport 2000 national network, Schwarting hopes to gain momentum from retailers in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Schwarting says we are now working intensively on what the future model with the ANWR and the Sport 2000 state association will look like in detail.

In 2022, the Sport 2000 group made 735 million euros in sales in Austria, 815 million including the Czechs and Slovakia. According to the status at the time, 305 dealers and 565 shops as well as 3,217 employees belonged to the trading community.