Selling its equity at a 60% premium, what gives PUMA the edge?

Author | Xie Yunzi

Anta's acquisition of PUMA has finally been finalized.

On January 26, Anta Sports announced in a statement that it had signed a share purchase agreement with Artémis at a price of 35 euros per share, amounting to approximately 1.506 billion euros (about 12.4 billion yuan), planning to acquire 29.06% of PUMA's shares.

After the completion of the transaction, Anta Group may, as the largest shareholder, seek to appoint a suitable representative to the supervisory board. It is worth mentioning that this transaction is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, and the funds for the equity acquisition will all come from Anta Group's internal cash reserves.

Just half a month ago, Reuters reported that the negotiations between Anta and the Pinault family behind Artémis had stalled, mainly due to a large difference in valuation. The Pinault family expected PUMA's share price to be no less than 40 euros per share. Judging from the current result, the price of 35 euros per share is the outcome of the negotiation. However, compared with PUMA's latest closing price, the acquisition premium still exceeds 60%.

Image from Wind

PUMA's history can be traced back to the early 20th century. This old German sports brand was once part of the same company as Adidas. The founders of the two brands were brothers from the Dassler family. Later, they developed independently due to different concepts.

In the following decades, PUMA rose rapidly by sponsoring athletes and teams, and gained a good reputation especially in sports such as football and track and field. In 2007, Kering, the parent company of GUCCI, acquired PUMA for 5.9 billion euros. Relying on its diversified layout, it successfully weathered the global economic recession caused by the US subprime mortgage crisis in 2008.

However, under Kering's operation, PUMA, as a sports brand, faced problems such as a wavering brand positioning and an imbalance between professionalism and fashion. In 2016, after losing the endorsement of Cristiano Ronaldo, PUMA turned to cooperate with Rihanna. Although the trendy star brought short - term sales growth, it damaged the brand's professional sports image.

In terms of professional technology, when Nike launched Flyknit and Adidas developed Boost and other innovative technologies, PUMA still relied on the improved EVA mid - sole, and its product update cycle was also slower than that of other competing brands.

In 2018, Kering spun off PUMA to focus on its luxury business and distributed about 70% of the shares it held to the Pinault family, the largest shareholder of the group. The latter finally acquired the remaining approximately 29% of PUMA's shares through Artémis. After the "black swan" event of the pandemic, the global economy entered a downward phase again. At this moment, the Pinault family's sale of PUMA's equity can also be regarded as the last step in its strategy of divesting non - core assets and focusing on luxury goods.

In contrast, some believe that the impact of this acquisition on the global sports industry by Anta Sports is no less significant than Anta Group's acquisition of Amer Sports in 2019.

Ding Shizhong, the chairman of Anta Group, also said that acquiring PUMA's equity to become the largest shareholder is an important milestone in Anta Group's in - depth implementation of its "single - focus, multi - brand, globalization" development strategy. "Anta has always valued the long - term value and potential of the PUMA brand. Good brand genes and value accumulation are rare opportunities. We believe that PUMA's share price in the past few months has not fully reflected the long - term value of the brand."

However, the current market environment is very different from that when Anta acquired Amer Sports. For mature sports brands, a slowdown in growth is a general trend.

Wind data also shows that since 2026, PUMA's price - to - sales ratio has always been below 0.5, which is relatively low among sports brands, indicating that the market's valuation of PUMA is relatively conservative. Currently, PUMA is indeed in a "vulnerable stage" of performance losses and strategic transformation.

Financial report data shows that in the third quarter of 2025, PUMA's sales decreased by 10.4% to 1.96 billion euros after exchange - rate adjustment. The cumulative sales in the first nine months decreased by 4.3%. It was also in this quarter that PUMA reported a net loss of 62 million euros, compared with a profit of 128 million euros in the same period last year.

At the financial report conference call at that time, Arthur Haller, PUMA's new CEO, frankly pointed out that PUMA currently lacks sufficient brand popularity. According to a market research commissioned by the company, PUMA's position in consumers' minds has fallen behind its competitors and is no longer among the top three preferred sports brands of consumers. "Our product line is too complex, which has prevented our core products, the iconic products that PUMA should be remembered for, from being truly established."

Image from PUMA's official Weibo

Another aspect that needs continuous strengthening is PUMA's distribution channels.

According to previous financial reports, about 70% of PUMA's revenue comes from the wholesale channel, while the industry benchmark is usually 60%. Even worse, among its top ten global customers, three are mass supermarkets, which seriously damages PUMA's brand image. As of the end of the third quarter, PUMA's inventory level soared by 17% year - on - year, reaching a high of 2.1 billion euros.

Facing difficulties, PUMA carried out reforms through measures such as layoffs and channel adjustments. In December last year, PUMA just opened its largest flagship store in Europe in London. In Haller's plan, 2026 will be a transition year for PUMA, and it will take at least until 2027 to resume growth above the industry average.

Judging from Anta Group's previous acquisitions of FILA and Amer Sports, brand reconstruction and DTC channel transformation are what it is good at. This also shows that while "fully respecting PUMA's independent governance and culture", Anta can still provide support other than capital.

It is a clear fact that by acquiring PUMA's equity, Anta has entered the same arena as Adidas in the football field. Although PUMA has been losing ground in terms of performance and market competition, it still holds cooperation resources with top clubs such as Manchester City and AC Milan. Meanwhile, 2026 is a major year for the World Cup. Anta may take advantage of PUMA's event resources to further achieve global exposure for its brands.

Of course, before that, Anta has to go through the painful period of strategic transformation with PUMA. As of the time of publication, Anta Sports' share price rose 2.03%, quoted at HK$77.90 per share.

*Disclaimer:

The content of this article only represents the author's views.

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