Decathlon Shutters 14 stores in New England, USA

BOSTON, USA (September 19) - Decathlon Sports which runs 18 sporting goods stores in New England plans to shut down 14 of them. Reason is that these stores have not met or exceeded the targets set as the French owned firm confirmed yesterday. This moves comes just four years after Decathlon bought MVP Sports in the US to add that chain to its total of 320 stores, mostly in Europe. The stores that will close are in Medford, Saugus, Danvers, Chelmsford, Braintree, Brockton, Newton, Natick and North Attleboro, as well as four New Hampshire stores and one on Maine. Insiders say the stores will close by mid-December although a spokesman of the French company could not confirm this. He could confirm however that the 14 stores will be closed definitely. Decathlon will consolidate US operations in the better performing stores: Burlington, Bellingham, Norwood & Hanover. Industry insiders expect Decathlon to enlarge the 4 remaining stores to European size: approx. 50.000 to 80.000 square feet of space. Decathlon, with $3.17 billion in sales last year is the world's second largest sporting goods retailer (no: 1 is Footlocker) and the only market they have not as yet been able to conquer is the US, the biggest sporting goods market worldwide. They are very successful in Europe but have had trouble melting in the US culture. The stores affected have an average of 25 employees so 350 jobs could be affected. (MH)