Running Insight

By Mark Sullivan W hen Finish Line owned the Run Specialty Group, the giant mall retailer was roundly criticized for not understanding the importance of community connections in the run specialty channel. That mindset has changed under the ownership of CriticalPoint Capital, which bought the newly christened JackRabbit Sports business from Finish Line at the end of February. "What attracted us to this business in the first place was that we saw it was about a passionate group of people who love running," said Brad Holtmeier, a partner at CriticalPoint. "These people understand the sport and the product and we really saw this as a retail business that offered a real difference to consumers than buying online." Since closing on the business at the end of February, CriticalPoint has refined the store portfolio to 62 doors. Twelve of those 62 have been converted to JackRabbit branding and the plans are to convert the remaining stores by the end of 2018. The majority of the 62 stores are operating profitably, according to Holtmeier, and CriticalPoint would like to expand the store count through additional acquisitions. "We'd like to go denser in markets where we already exist," he said. And as reported previously in Running Insight, CCP has reached out to store owners in Kansas City and Michigan where it has existing doors. Holtmeier said CCP's home state of California is also a target as are "markets where we may not be, but a passionate running community exists." Holtmeier confirmed that CriticalPoint has called stores looking to potentially acquire them and wants to "transact on a friendly basis." "We've launched a reach out and want to talk to stores," he told Running Insight. "It Depends on where stores are in their lifecycles of their business as to whether it makes sense to sell. Some store owners may be looking to retire or do something else and in that case, it makes sense to look at selling. Others may want the option of being an employee rather than an owner and we'd like to talk with those folks, too." Holtmeier said CriticalPoint would be interested in buying stores and retaining the previous owners as employees because "those people have expertise in their communities and have relationships with the customers." 4 runninginsight.com © 2017 Formula4media LLC. "What attracted us to this business in the first place was that we saw it was about a passionate group of people who love running," BRAD HOLTMEIER CRITICALPOINT New JackRabbit Owner Looks to Acquire More Stores and Refine Web Business Photo: Frank James

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