FISHING REPUBLIC, the angling retailer which floated earlier this year, has hooked itself a store in the south of England.
It has bought FishXL, which trades as Cotswold Angling, for £170,000 and it is also opening a store in Crewe. The expansion follows its recent launch into Birmingham and its move to larger premises in Hull.
It will fund its latest developments through a £500,000 share placing, of 3.125m shares at 16p each. The company currently has a market value of £4m.
Steve Gross, founder and chief executive of Fishing Republic, said: “The acquisition of Cotswold Angling establishes us with a presence in the South of England while the new outlet at Crewe complements our existing store network in the North of England. Both outlets readily fit our ‘destination store’ model, which is designed to attract fishermen from a wide area.
“Our aim is to build a substantial presence in a market which is highly fragmented, and we will continue to look for further opportunities to expand our geographic footprint while also building our online offering.”
Cotswold Angling operates from a 4,100 sq ft site near Swindon and made a “marginal operating profit” on sales of £430,000 in the year to September 2014. Its director, Trevor Gunning, will be joining the senior management team of Fishing Republic as a regional operations manager.
Fishing Republic’s Crewe store is an 11,000 sq ft site close to the M6 and next to a fishery, and is scheduled to open next March.
Richard Naish and Ben Proctor both from the corporate group at Walker Morris again advised Fishing Republic, having worked on the June floatation.
Mr Naish said: “Fishing Republic is a much loved brand and an extraordinary story of entrepreneurship led by its CEO Steve Gross. The Group has grown to become one of the leading fishing tackle retailers in the UK and this latest fund raising and acquisition will help the company to realise its growth ambitions.”
The specialist retailer dates back to Mr Gross’s enterprising schooldays 30 years ago when he started Stephen Gross Flies as a 13 year-old.
Three years later it moved into its first premises in Mexborough, Rotherham, and in 1991 he incorporated the business. It opened its first retail outlet in 1999 and in 2005 launched its first store branded as Fishing Republic in Barnsley, followed a year later by Manchester and Hull.
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