Academy Sports & Outdoors

Houston — Jones Lang LaSalle’s Capital Markets group has closed the sale of Montgomery Plaza on behalf of Weingarten Realty Investors. American National Insurance Company purchased the 304,867-sq.-ft. shopping center, located in Conroe, Texas.

Montgomery Plaza retailers include Academy Sports & Outdoors, Big Lots, Conn’s Appliances, 99 Cents Only and Petco. In addition to the inline space, there are two multi-tenant pads and two single-tenant pads.

Katy, Texas -- Academy Sports + Outdoors will open its first Memphis-area store on Sept. 27, in Collierville, Tenn. In conjunction with the opening, Academy has signed a multi-year partnership with The University of Memphis and its athletics multimedia rights holder, Tiger Sports Properties.

The new 73,000-sq.-ft. Collierville store will be Academy's eighth store in Tennessee.

Greg Bailey was named director of business process and implementation at Enhanced Retail Solutions, a software and consulting firm focused on point of sale analytics and demand planning solutions for suppliers and retailers.

Huntsville, Ala. -- Brentwood, Tenn.-based GBT Realty has completed construction on Huntsville, Ala.’s first Academy Sports + Outdoors. The 72,000-sq.-ft. store, which opened on April 26, is the third Academy Sports development for GBT. Reed Construction served as site contractor and Stewart Perry Construction as general contractor on the project.

GBT completed construction in fall 2012 for stores in Mobile, Ala., and Smyrna, Tenn.

Katy, Texas -- After placing some restricted Houston Astros merchandise on the sales floors of several of its Houston stores, Academy Sports + Outdoors issued a formal apology to the Major League Baseball team and its fans.

"We express our apologies to Houston Astros fans, our partners at the Houston Astros ball club, along with Major League Baseball for inadvertently releasing the new Astros t-shirts in limited quantity," said Rodney Faldyn, Academy Sports + Outdoors president and CEO.

Westlake Village, Calif. -- Academy Sports + Outdoors ranks highest in customer satisfaction, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2012 Sporting Goods Retailer Satisfaction Report. The inaugural report measures the overall sporting goods retailer customer satisfaction experience by examining five key factors: staff, cost, facility, merchandise and sales/promotions.

Houston -- New York private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. LP said Tuesday that it plans to acquire a majority stake in Academy Sports + Outdoors, the Katy (Houston), Texas-based privately held sporting goods retailer with 131 locations throughout the Southeast.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

According to KKR, Academy Sports' president Rodney Faldyn will stay on as president and will assume the CEO job from David Gochman, who is the grandson of the chain’s founder.

Katy, Texas -- Houston-area sports retailer Academy Sports + Outdoors announced Tuesday that it will enter the Atlanta market with a new store opening on April 1.

The 70,000-sq.-ft. store is located in McDonough, and is the chain’s fourth store in Georgia.