Courir

Courir is a leading French retailer of sneakers.

Founded in 1980, Courir has built strong and longstanding partnerships with major brands, including Nike, Adidas, New Balance and Puma, enabling the group to offer exclusive product lines, limited editions and capsule collections as part of its wide range of products.

With over 320 stores across Europe, including one of the largest store networks in France, and a growing omnichannel approach, Courir has rapidly established itself as a leading retailer in lifestyle and fashion footwear, particularly amongst women and young people.

VALUE CREATION

Equistone has worked closely with the management team to support Courir’s carve-out from Groupe Go Sport, which involved a 15-month investment programme to enable Courir to operate on a standalone basis and included the implementation of new IT infrastructure and the recruitment of a CFO, an e-commerce manager and a senior digital advisor. 

Courir has achieved significant geographic expansion outside of France, opening 20 stores in Spain, 22 in Belgium, five in Portugal, three in the Netherlands and two in Luxembourg. Further expansion resulted from the group completing its first add-on acquisition of Denmark-based online retailer, Naked in July 2021. 

A strong focus on investing in Courir’s digital development led to the appointment of a non-executive director to accelerate this strategy. As a result, Courir has developed a growing omnichannel approach combining e-commerce, web-to-store and store-to-web sales, which has generated a three-fold increase in digital sales.

Overall, revenue has significantly increased, from €390m in 2018 to €735m in 2023, and the group employs over 2,500 people across Europe.

THE EXIT

Equistone sold its Fund VI investment in Courir to JD Sports, a global omnichannel retailer of sports, fashion and outdoor brands