The supervisory board of the Adidas Group ended up picking an outsider as it decided that Kasper Rorsted, chief executive at Henkel, should take over from Herbert Hainer as the CEO of the German sports company from the start of October. The 53-year-old Danish manager will start at Adidas by joining the executive board in August and take over from Hainer two months later. Hainer will leave before the expiry of his contract at the end of March 2017, after 15 years as the play maker of the German company.
Described as a passionate skier, hiker and football fan, with a weak spot for Bayern Munich, Rorsted made his mark in the last eight years as CEO of Henkel, the German-based consumer goods company, raising its share price from €22 to €93 under his tenure. Henkel's price fell by 5 percent after the news of his departure. He worked previously in Europe for Oracle, Compaq and Hewlett Packard.
Rorsted's appointment puts an end to many months of speculation around the leadership of the Adidas Group. Some investors started pleading for a management reshuffle in 2014, when the company was under pressure due to issues in Russia and at Taylormade Adidas Golf, which led to repeated profit warnings. The criticism abated last year, after the group unveiled a bolder five-year plan, as it started considering the divestment of its golf business and its performance improved, pushing up Adidas' share price. The group's forecast for the full year is that sales will increase by a high single-digit rate in constant currencies, up from €14.5 billion in 2014.
However, some investors still made it clear that they would like an outsider to take charge – and they were apparently satisfied with the board's pick, since Adidas shares jumped by more than 6 percent when the news was announced on Monday. Rorsted was picked over internal candidates who were thought to have been led by Eric Liedtke, the group's executive board member in charge of brands, and Roland Auschel, in charge of global sales.
The board lauded Hainer for his achievements, saying that the group's sales trebled under his leadership, while the number of employees quadrupled and the value of the group soared from €3 billion to €18 billion.
The board also pointed to other dimensions of Hainer's leadership, which earned many plaudits on topics such as employment practices and sustainability.
Rorsted's appointment means that the small town of Herzogenaurach will soon have two Scandinavians at the helm of its emblematic sports companies, with Rorsted at Adidas and the Norwegian Bjørn Gulden at Puma.
The change of management was well received at the Adidas Group's head office, where its employees had been yearning for more certainty about the change in the leadership and its timing.
