Pawlowski sells Sparkys

Petr Homolka, through Wormelen Group, purchased the Czech toy retailer Sparkys from Sebastien Pawlowski for an undisclosed price. Sparkys operates a network of 18 shops in Prague as well as a few regional cities across the Czech Republic. Katharine Butler, Pawlowski’s wife and co-owner of Sparkys, was considering an acquisition a year ago. In an interview with e15, she said that five toy retailers are too many for the Czech market. She said that the toy retailer has to earn a minimum of CZK 800m in revenues to stay competitive, and Sparkys was only netting CZK 330m. In addition to Sparkys, Homolka also acquired the e-shop 4kids.cz, creating a company with annual revenues running to CZK 1.5bn.