Astroturf, one of the biggest suppliers of synthetic playing surfaces to sports stadia and facilities worldwide, has filed for bankruptcy protection as it attempts to push through a sale to a new owner. SportGroup Holding is waiting in the wings to snap up the beleaguered company for $92.5m, according to the Wall Street Journal newspaper. The outdoor sports surface provider is on a spending spree and has expanded its share of the market considerably recently, having also acquired rival turf producer SYNLawn. Astroturf, which has offices in the US and Germany, is supplying surfaces for competitions at the upcoming Rio 2016 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brazil. “AstroTurf is the missing puzzle piece that enables us to cater to North American athletic turf clients,” SportGroup CEO Frank Dittrich said. “SYNLawn will make SportGroup one of the strongest players in the landscape turf market. These brands add tremendous value to SportGroup and its future as one of the global leaders in outdoor sports surfacing.” Astroturf’s lawyers have claimed that the sale will facilitate “substantial distributions to creditors, whereas continued operation of the debtor’s business under a cloud of litigation would likely result in a decrease in value”. However, rival company FieldTurf disagrees. Last October, a US court ruled against AstroTurf and in favour of FieldTurf, which claimed that the former had knowingly infringed upon a patent belonging to a rival company. FieldTurf was awarded $30m in damages, while it has been reported that AstroTurf does not have the finances to fulfil the court order. “FieldTurf views the proposed transaction as an attempt to deprive AstroTurf’s creditors of the fair value of the assets and to avoid payment on AstroTurf’s outstanding patent infringement verdict,” a FIeldTurf spokesperson told the Reuters news agency.
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