Curtain falls (again) on Perry Sport, Aktiesport and Sprinter

Sports Unlimited Retail has been declared bankrupt, spelling the end for 54 Dutch Perry Sport, Aktiesport and Sprinter stores – and for 1100 jobs.

Years of losses

Bankruptcy was declared by an Amsterdam court, RTL Z reports. The retailer had been reporting losses for years, partly due to lockdowns during the pandemic. Its most recent financial statements reported a loss of almost nine million euros over 2021, but stressed – at the time – that the company’s survival was not in danger.

Aktiesport and Perry Sport came into the hands of JD Sports after an earlier bankruptcy in 2016. The British chain closed more than half of its 187 shops and converted some of the remaining shops to the Sprinter formula of its Spanish subsidiary Iberian Sports Retail Group.

JD Sports also has 29 Dutch shops under its own name, but are in a separate company that is financially sound: they are therefore not affected by the bankruptcy.