Decathlon and Bob's Stores Pull Back in New England

Two major New England chains have retrenched recently. Decathlon, owned by the French sporting goods chain, will close 14 of its 18 stores. Although Bob's Stores hasn't closed any of its locations, it's been laying people off and has postponed an imminent store opening in CT.

Decathlon is a giant, French-owned sporting goods chain. The Mulliez Family Association owns 44 percent; the family of founding president Michel Leclercq owns 43 percent; and company employees possess the remaining 13 percent. Decathlon had 319 stores at the end of 2002, 106 of which were outside France. Total sales were $2.236 billion and operating profit was $269.5 million. The retailer entered the U.S. market in 1999 with the acquisition of MVP Sports. At that time, the New England market looked wide open, especially since Herman's World of Sporting Goods went belly up in May 1996.

Since then, the big box sporting goods chains have been finding their way to New England. The Sports Authority has seven doors in CT, five in MA; two in NH; and one each in ME and RI. Dick's Sporting Goods has four stores in both MA and CT, two in RI; and one each in ME and VT. Galyan's has only one store in the region, in MA.

When Decathlon took over MVP, it installed French management. The MVP doors were much smaller than the typical European stores of 60,000 to 80,000 square feet. In addition, Decathlon stresses private label merchandise?hard and soft?much more than the typical U.S. big box retailer. The company did not use the acquisition of MVP to break out into new regions.

Decathlon will close its MA stores in Medford, Saugus, Danvers, Chelmsford, Braintree, Brockton, Newton, Natick and North Attleboro, as well as its four NH stores and one in ME. The locations are expected to close by mid-December. Decathlon will consolidate U.S. operations into its stores in Burlington, Bellingham, Norwood and Hanover, MA.

A big factor that might have hastened Decathlon's retrenchment is the depreciation of the U.S. dollar versus the Euro. Over the past year, any U.S. revenues and profits were coming back to France as considerably smaller Euros.

Bob's situation is not nearly as negative as Decathlon's. Bob's operates 25 stores in New England. The news from the company was that it was planning to lay off 18 employees at its Meriden headquarters and distribution center. Bob's described the layoffs as a "staff adjustment." But the company has put on hold indefinitely plans to open a new location in Southington, CT. The Southington store was set to open this fall. The local planning and zoning commission chairman said he believed Bob's had dropped plans entirely. ?Bob Carr