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Finnish retail giant Stockmann to sell Hobby Hall to domestic SGN

Xinhua, April 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

Finnish retail giant Stockmann announced on Thursday it would sell its online store Hobby Hall to SGN Group, a Finnish family business.

The transaction will be finalized at the end of 2016.

Hobby Hall's 210 sales and support staff in all locations will stay on as employees with SGN.

Founded in 1933, SGN Group is a Finnish family business in the commerce sector. Its fields of business include sports, recreational and household goods, agriculture, environmental management and industrial equipment, as well as snow-making and snow-management equipment.

Stockmann has also agreed with the national postal and logistic service provider Posti Group to transfer Hobby Hall's logistics to Posti. All of the 130 warehouse workers of Hobby Hall will be retained.

On Thursday, Stockmann published its financial statement for the first quarter 2016. Its turnover was 273 million euros (309 million U.S. dollars) from January to March this year, down by 21.1 percent from the same period in 2015, and its operating profit dropped by 28.6 percent.

Suffering from the stagnation of the Finnish economy and the recession in Russia, Stockmann's profits have continued to decline in recent years.

The retail group has made efforts to reverse its financial difficulties since mid-2014.

In October 2014, Stockmann proclaimed its reconstruction plans, which resulted in shutting down Seppala fashion stores in Russia, and significantly reducing Seppala's operations in Finland and the Baltic countries.

In February 2015, it closed its four loss-making department stores, among which three were in Moscow and one in Oulu, Finland. Endit