Wealthy Moroccan businessman Moncef Belkhayat is bringing Intersport stores to Morocco in 2027

Moroccan businessman Moncef Belkhayat has signed a deal to bring Intersport, the Swiss-based sporting goods chain, to Morocco, adding a sports retail business to a group that already runs French supermarket and home improvement franchises in the country.

One Retail, the retail arm of Belkhayat's H&S Group, will develop and operate Intersport stores across Morocco, the companies said. The first shops are scheduled to open in the first half of 2027 in Casablanca, the country's commercial capital, before the chain expands to other major cities. The partners are aiming for a significant national presence by 2032, according to Moroccan business news site Médias24. Neither side disclosed the number of stores planned or the size of the investment, which Médias24 described only as a large, long-term program.

"Sport & Lifestyle thus becomes a new strategic growth driver," Belkhayat, chairman of H&S Group, said in the statement.

The stores will sell running, football, training, outdoor and lifestyle products from Nike, Adidas, Puma, Under Armour, Asics and The North Face, alongside Intersport's in-house labels McKinley and Energetics. One Retail's teams will handle real estate, operations, logistics, marketing and customer service for the rollout.

A growing retail portfolio

The Intersport agreement extends a run of franchise deals for One Retail, which already operates Monoprix and Franprix grocery stores, Mr. Bricolage home improvement outlets, Turkish cosmetics brand Flormar and the Venezia Ice ice cream chain in Morocco. H&S Invest Holding agreed with France's Casino Group to roll out 210 Monoprix and Franprix convenience stores in Morocco by 2035, its first move into grocery retail.

Omar Benabdallah, vice president of One Retail in charge of its beauty, fashion and sport divisions, said: "Our ambition is to make INTERSPORT an essential reference in sports retail in Morocco." According to Médias24, he tied the project to the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which Morocco will co-host with Spain and Portugal.

Intersport was founded in 1968 as an international purchasing cooperative for independent sporting goods retailers. It operates about 5,260 stores in 40 countries and posted global sales of 14.1 billion euros ($15.8 billion) in 2025, up 0.4% from a year earlier, according to figures the company gave Spanish trade publication Modaes.

"Morocco is a dynamic, rapidly evolving market offering exciting growth opportunities," said Tom Foley, chief executive officer of IIC-Intersport International Corp., the group's Bern-based international arm.

From distribution to retail

Belkhayat, a former Moroccan minister of youth and sports, built his fortune through Dislog Group, a consumer goods distributor and manufacturer he founded in 2005. Dislog distributes products for multinationals including Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Mars and British American Tobacco through a network of about 72,000 shops, and has bought brands and businesses in Morocco and France, as well as building a pharmaceutical and medical devices arm.

H&S Invest Holding, the parent company, also operates in logistics, real estate and manufacturing, and its subsidiaries include Chari, a business-to-business grocery ordering platform. Belkhayat has said he plans to list several group companies on the Casablanca Stock Exchange, starting with Dislog. Investors in Dislog include the International Finance Corp., the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and private equity firm SPE Capital, which committed 450 million dirhams ($45.8 million) to the company in late 2024.