China Sports Retailer Anta Nears $5.2 Billion Deal for Amer
08 December 2018 - 12:34AM
Dow Jones News
By Ese Erheriene and Dominic Chopping
China's leading homegrown sports retailer is close to wrapping
up a EUR4.6 billion ($5.2 billion) takeover of Finland's Amer
Sports Oyj, as it seeks momentum in a fast-growing home market
dominated by foreign giants.
Anta Sports Products Ltd. made the bid with a consortium that
also includes tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Chip Wilson, the
Canadian billionaire founder of athletic-apparel retailer Lululemon
Athletica Inc. Amer, which specializes in winter sports, would
broaden Anta's range for a hoped-for surge in consumer demand for
skiing and snowboarding gear as the Bejing Winter Olympics of 2022
near.
Amer's board of directors voted unanimously to recommend the
EUR40-a-share offer to shareholders, the company said in a filing
Friday, though it isn't yet a done deal.
An agreement would give Amer access to Anta's distribution
network and sourcing capabilities in China, the consortium said in
a statement. Chip Wilson and Tencent couldn't be immediately
reached for comment.
Though Anta--which sells Fila and other branded clothes as well
as its own-brand products--posted record profits last year, Nike
Corp. and Adidas AG have far larger and faster-growing shares of
China's sportswear market.
The domestic market provides the lion's share of Anta's revenue,
but the company aims to be a global competitor with multiple
brands, Chairman and Chief Executive Ding Shizhong said earlier
this year.
Chinese companies have been snapping up European clothing
brands, aiming to benefit from a hot consumer market at home.
China's retail sports market has grown 44% in the past five years,
according to Euromonitor, and while it is only about a third the
size of the U.S. market, research firm Mintel predicts it could
grow to $37 billion by 2022 from $28 billion last year.
Besides winter-sports names Atomic and Arc'teryx, Amer brands
include Wilson, which makes the tennis rackets used by Serena
Williams and Roger Federer, as well as Louisville Slugger, the
official bat of Major League Baseball.
The Anta group has more than 10,000 stores, mainly in China and
Hong Kong, plus a small presence in Singapore and Macau. But
between 2013 and 2017 its China market share increased only
slightly, to 8% from 7.6%, according to Euromonitor, while Nike's
grew to 21% from 17% and Adidas's to 20% from 15%.
Zhou Wei contributed to this article.
Write to Ese Erheriene at ese.erheriene@wsj.com and Dominic
Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 07, 2018 08:19 ET (13:19 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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