Amer Sports, the Finland-based company controlled by Anta Sports and parent of Salomon, Wilson, Atomic, Arc’teryx, Peak Performance, Armada and other brands, has confidentially filed for an initial public offering in the USA to offer between $1 and $3 billion of its equity, Bloomberg reports, citing sources familiar with the matter. According to Bloomberg, the company plans to go public early next year. Only in April did Amer Sports hire Andrew Page, the former CFO of Foot Locker, as the group’s CFO and a member of its board of directors. Bloomberg had already reported in December 2022 that Anta might seek an IPO of Amer.
Amer’s parent company, AS Holding, is majority-owned by Chinese sporting goods giant Anta Sports. Other shareholders include Lululemon founder Chip Wilson and Shenzhen-based holding company Tencent Holdings. The consortium acquired the then-listed Finnish company in 2019 for €5.6 billion. Since the acquisition, several Amer brands have been divested, including Suunto in 2022 and Precor in 2021. After initial losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Amer posted two consecutive years of double-digit growth. In 2022, the group returned to the black, generating a net profit of RMB 50 million, following a loss of RMB 154 million in 2021. Revenue increased by 22 percent to RMB 24.03 billion in 2022. Most recently, Amer reported its best H1 since the acquisition by Anta.
