With the $84 million acquisition of the Houston-basedchain closing Jun. 7, GRTS management is encouraged by progress made thus farand doesn’t see a repeat of issues that hampered the Sportmart-Gart Sportsmarriage. To that end, the information technology (IT) process of bringingOshman’s into the Gart-Sportmart system is said to be five months ahead of whatit was during the Sportmart acquisition. Merchandise management and payrollwill be linked by early Jul. Oshman’s Houston headquarters is slated to beshuttered Aug. 21, and an operations staff of about 50 will be utilized for thechain.

GRTS, which still expects the Oshman’s transaction tobe accretive to earnings this ... Log in to view full article.