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After a general assessment, the audit has concluded that the former owner of Gresvig, Olav Nils Sunde, and the owner of Sport 1, Bjørn Rune Gjelsten, can form the largest sports player in the country.
Olav Nils Sunde and Bjørn Rune Gjelsten can finally go ahead with the plan to merge the two companies.
NTB Scanpix
Published:,
The case is being updated …
After the Norwegian Competition Authority announced a month ago that it might be relevant to stop the merger between Gresvig (Intersport, G-Sport and G-Max) and Sport 1, the authority has now been reversed.
It appears in an audit press release Tuesday afternoon.
Thus, everything is in place so that the approximately 50 bankrupt Gresvig stores are grouped into the same group as the Sport 1 stores.
“After a holistic assessment, the Norwegian Competition Authority has concluded that a merger of Gresvig and Sport1 will not significantly impede effective competition in the sports market,” says department director Magnus Gabrielsen of the Norwegian Competition Authority in a statement.
When the Authority announced an intervention in the merger a month ago, the concern was what consequences the merger would have for the sports industry.
Read on E24 +
The drama of three weeks after the bankruptcy of Gresvig: why Gjelsten had to save Sunde
– No basis to intervene
Project manager Jan Kristoffer Høiland said at the time that they feared the industry’s two biggest players would merge into the biggest player.
– Furthermore, we fear that customers who demand franchisors and wholesale services have few or no competing suppliers. Franchisees will have few remaining alternatives, Høiland said.
The Norwegian Competition Authority has now made a different decision. This is carried out after the audit has received a response from the parties, as well as obtained and received more information about the case.
– On this basis, the Norwegian Competition Authority has carried out further evaluations and concluded that there is no basis to intervene against the business combination. These evaluations are related, among other things, to the Authority’s evaluations of the alternative to a merger, Høiland says in the Authority’s statement.
When E24 contacted Sport 1 director Ole-Henrik Skirstad on Tuesday, he had just been informed that the merger has the approval of the Competition Authority.
– We are happy about that, writes the head of Sport1 in a short comment.
Gresvig CEO Lars Kristian Lindberg has yet to respond to E24’s inquiries.
also read
The Norwegian Competition Authority announces action against the merger of Intersport and Sport 1
also read
Background: these are the Gresvig stores that may disappear
Home manager – the only acceptable offer
The merger plans became known in February this year, a couple of weeks after Gresvig filed for bankruptcy.
According to housing manager Håvard Wiker, the offer from Sunde and Gjelsten was the only acceptable one that secured new operations for a significant part of the group.
The plans involved the continuation of at least 48 stores. The least profitable stores have closed in recent months. 600 have lost their jobs.
In the period since the case of the Norwegian Competition Authority on the table in April, the merger parties had held 15 meetings with the Authority until the notice of intervention was known. At the same time, the Norwegian Competition Authority had had four meetings with third players, two of them with Stadion, a company that groups more than 100 sports stores across the country.
