With 9.1 million registered customers, Intersport operates in France 431 stores in urban and suburban locations, 259 stores in mountain resorts, 68 metropolitan stores for the Blackstore chain, and 10 outlet stores. Whereas Go Sport currently has 215 addresses, between directly owned and franchised stores, with the Go Sport and Endurance Shop chains.

According to the French daily L’Obs, another sport retailer is considering making an offer on Go Sport: British retail group Frasers, owner of Sports Direct

L’Obs has also reported that Go Sport’s current owner, the Hermione People & Brands (HPB) group, is thinking about a continuation plan as part of the receivership procedure. 

Patrick Puy dismissed

In another development, Go Sport’s CEO Patrick PuyLe Monde and industry magazine LSA.

Puy is a corporate restructuring specialist and was recently involved with the Vivarte

Go Sport is also the target of an investigation for abuse of corporate assets, after “its auditors handed over information regarding several criminal acts,” according to the Grenoble prosecution office. The case was eventually passed on to Junalco, the national organised crime agency in Paris, to which it was reassigned because of suspicions of “organised gang fraud.”

The Go Sport group was founded in 1978 and is based in Sassenage, on the outskirts of Grenoble. After posting losses for many years, it was bought by HPB at the end of 2021 for the symbolic sum of one euro from Rallye, the heavily indebted parent company of French food distribution group Casino

The group’s ultimate owner is FIB, the holding company of Bordeaux businessman Michel Ohayon, currently caught in a perfect storm of financial difficulties and fraud allegations. A subsidiary of FIB, HPB controls a number of retail chains, notably Camaïeu, which was liquidated in September 2022, Go Sport and Gap France, which is also in receivership