British retailer Sports Direct buying bankrupt Bob’s Stores parent

Sport Direct is based in the UK. — Founded in 1982, Sports Direct International plc is today the UK”™s largest sporting goods retailer.

British retailing group Sports Direct is spending a total of $101 million on paying off the debtors of bankrupt Eastern Outfitters LLC, which owns Bob”™s Stores and Eastern Mountain Sports. The deal will give the discount sports retailer, based in Shirebrook, its first U.S. presence.

Sports Direct will pick up about 50 U.S. stores, following closures that were announced earlier this month. The acquisition is expected to completed in the first half of May and will provide Sports Direct with what it called “a footprint in U.S. bricks-and-mortar retail and a platform from which to grow U.S. online sales.”

As previously reported, store closings in the area include the Bob”™s locations at 114 Federal Road in Danbury and at the Fairfield Centre Shopping Center at 889 Post Road in Fairfield, and the Eastern Mountain Sports store in the Turnpike Shopping Center at 1939 Blackrock Turnpike in Fairfield.