Arc’Teryx and Salomon parent Amer Sports Inc. re-entered the public markets Thursday, a day after trimming the share price of its initial public offering.
The IPO and stock price are being closely watched as the market assesses investor appetite for IPOs domestically.
Amer Sports, which is trading under the ticker AS on the New York Stock Exchange, said Wednesday it was pricing its shares at $13. That’s a discount from the $16 to $18 per share it indicated late last month in a filing to the SEC, which would have raised between $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion.
Within apparel and footwear, Germany-based Birkenstock Holding Ltd. began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in October, opening to a lukewarm response from Wall Street. The sandal company priced its IPO at $46 per share, reflecting the midpoint of its range.
Amer Sports originally launched as a tobacco business in 1950 in Helsinki and didn’t enter sporting goods until the ’70s. It went public in 1977.
It was taken private in 2019 following its acquisition by a joint venture consisting of Anta Sports, FountainVest, Anamered (which involves Lululemon founder Chip Wilson), and Tencent. Anta, a China-based maker of athletic apparel, holds the largest stake at 56%, according to a filing last month with the SEC.
Photo courtesy of Salomon.
The ownership has allowed the company’s business to see growth in the greater China market with the region generating $523.8 million in 2022 revenue. That equates to 14.8% of companywide revenue. Greater China was tracking at 19.4% of total revenue in the first nine months of 2023, “and we believe there is signficiant runway for growth in the region as we continue to roll out retail locations across our brands and scale our e-commerce platform,” the company said in its registration statement.
Amer Sports’ business is segmented across three categories: technical apparel, outdoor performance, and ball and racquet sports. Aside from Arc’Teryx and Salomon, its portfolio also consists of Wilson, Atomic, Armada, EvoShield, and other brands.
The company considers its Arc’Teryx, Salomon, and Wilson divisions to be its core brands with a combined 261 company-owned doors across the three.
The Amer Sports business has seen revenue grow from $2.4 billion in 2020 to $3.5 billion in 2022. Its net losses have widened during that same time going from $237.2 million in 2020 to $252.7 million in 2022.
So far in the first nine months of 2023, the companywide business generated revenue of $3.1 billion, up 29.9% from the prior-year period. The company’s net loss during that same period in 2023 totaled $113.9 million, up from $104.4 million a year earlier.
See more coverage of the Amer Sports IPO here: https://thedaily.outdoorretailer.com/amer-sports-ipo-special-report/
