Specializing in sports shoes, the French brand Courir has been officially acquired by the British group JD Sports Fashion.
The British sports clothing and accessories group JD Sports Fashion formalized on Wednesday the acquisition of the French distributor Courir, announced in May 2023, to develop its activity in Europe, its general director declared to AFP. The operation is “an opportunity to strengthen our leadership in Europe and develop our market share in the main European countries”, starting with France which is “the leading sneaker market”, explained Régis Schultz on Wednesday.
Who sells the most clothes in France?
The two brands will coexist because “Courir’s clientele is different from that of JD Sports, more feminine and a little older,” he explains. Courir currently operates 323 stores under the Courir brand in France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Luxembourg. 36 other stores are operated via franchise agreements under the Courir brand, particularly in Overseas, the Middle East and Africa. The distributor “also operates three stores under the Naked brand”, specifies JD Sports in a press release.
In 2023, Courir achieved 725.8 million euros in turnover and a profit before interest and taxes of 50.3 million euros, according to the same source. The acquisition price is 520 million euros, “financed by the use of existing liquidity and by drawing down a revolving credit line,” says JD Sports. The group plans to “continue the development of Courir à travers l’Europe” with the current team, including boss Pierre Chambaudrie.
21 stores sold
The European Commission approved the operation at the end of October, requesting in particular to sell 15 Courir stores in France and 6 Courir stores in Portugal. They “will be sold to Snipes during the first quarter of the 2026 financial year”, assures JD Sports, specifying that they will retain “the Courir brand until their sale to Snipes”.
Asked about the time spent between the announcement of the acquisition and its finalization, Régis Schultz indicated “not wishing to comment on the time taken by the European authorities to validate the acquisitions”, limiting himself to observing that an operation of the same magnitude “took a month” to be validated in the United States. Listed on the London Stock Exchange, JD Sports achieved 10.4 billion pounds (around 12.5 billion euros) in turnover in 2023, for a net profit of 538.8 million pounds.
In April it bought its American competitor Hibbett for $1.1 billion.
