Eric Leemans, chief executive of A.S. Adventure, the leading Belgian outdoor retailer, is expanding his assignment by taking over the same tasks at Bever Zwerfsport, by far the largest specialist chain in the Netherlands. The two banners are part of the ABC group, which also operates Cotswold Outdoors in the U.K. Mostly owned by Lion Capital, a British investment firm, the ABC group has turned into a mighty international outdoor retailer, as shown by our upcoming outdoor retail chart. The group’s Dutch arm was previously run by Didier Maclaine Pont, who left the company earlier this year. His tasks were temporarily taken over by Frederic Hufkens, the chairman and chief executive of the ABC group, but Leemans has become the Dutch retailer’s general manager. He still reports to Hufkens, and the two managers work closely together on Bever Zwerfsport. Before he joined A.S. Adventure last year, Leemans worked in real estate and in project development at Aldi, and later Lidl. Since then he has been steering profitable growth at A.S. Adventure and is expected to apply some of the Belgian retailer’s most successful recipes in the Netherlands.
