SportGroup Acquires ProGrass from Rockwell
Summary
The company operates in more than 70 countries, maintains production plants in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region and has manufactured and installed more than 7,000 fields and 16,000 tracks including the Olympic games and international venues.As consultants and sponsors to Soccer, Football and Baseball, “The addition of the ProGrass team will bring us closer to the sport and enable us to better service the needs of our customers,” say Heard Smith and Andreas M. Schulze Ising, Managing Directors of SportGroup Americas, “by bringing the industry into a new era with our German engineered, American made, modern, environmentally friendly, tailor made sport surfacing products.” “The synergy created by the ProGrass team joining the SportGroup family will now enable the North American Organization to provide a One-Stop Shop for athletic fields,” said Robert Thomas, President of ProGrass, “further enabling us to serve more venues as well as enhancing SportGroup’s design-build capabilities and go-to market strategy for North America.By adding ProGrass to its existing portfolio of companies and brands (which includes APT, Astroturf, Melos, Polytan, Poligras and Rekortan), SportGroup expands its North America presence and further consolidates its position as a global leader in the sport surfacing market.The acquisition will strengthen SportGroup’s proven combination of its worldwide existing contractor network and directly targeted activities to new levels for the better of the industry.SportGroup, founded in 1969, is the world leader in artificial turf systems and running tracks, with over 1,000 employees and $375 million annual revenue (2015).As consultants and sponsors to Soccer, Football and Baseball, “The addition of the ProGrass team will bring us closer to the sport and enable us to better service the needs of our customers,” say Heard Smith and Andreas M. Schulze Ising, Managing Directors of SportGroup Americas, “by bringing the industry into a new era with our German engineered, American made, modern, environmentally friendly, tailor made sport surfacing products.”“The synergy created by the ProGrass team joining the SportGroup family will now enable the North American Organization to provide a One-Stop Shop for athletic fields,” said Robert Thomas, President of ProGrass, “further enabling us to serve more venues as well as enhancing SportGroup’s design-build capabilities and go-to market strategy for North America.