Amer Sports, owner of Wilson and Salomon brands, mulls raising up to US$1.8 billion in US IPO, sources say

Amer Sports, the maker of Wilson tennis racquets and Salomon ski boots, is seeking to raise as much as US$1.8 billion in a US initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company could market about 100 million shares in a range of US$16 to US$18 each, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Terms of the potential offering may be announced as soon as in the coming days, the people said.

Details of the share sale including size and timing may change, the people said. A representative for Amer Sports could not immediately comment.

The listing would be the biggest in the US since a crop of IPOs led by semiconductor designer Arm Holdings’ US$5.23 billion offering in September failed to deliver a hoped-for rebound in the market.

While Arm’s shares have since gained 54 per cent from the offer price, Birkenstock Holding had gained less than 1 per cent as of Friday, while Instacart and Klaviyo remained well below their offer prices.

The largest IPO since Birkenstock’s US$1.48 billion listing in October was Thursday’s US$1 billion offering of American depositary shares by investors in Kazakhstan mobile app company Kaspi.kz. Also this month, Smith Douglas Homes raised about US$162 million.

China’s Anta eyes boost from Finland unit Amer’s US$1 billion New York IPO

This week, KKR-backed BrightSpring Health Services and clinical stage biopharmaceutical company CG Oncology are scheduled for share sales. Including a sale of convertible securities, BrightSpring is seeking to raise as much as US$1.36 billion on Thursday, the day after CG Oncology’s listing targeting US$212 million is set to price.

Amer Sports, which is backed by China’s largest athletic-apparel producer Anta Sports Products, owns brands including Louisville Slugger baseball bats, Arc’teryx outdoor gear and Atomic winter equipment.

Founded in Finland, Amer Sports has bolstered its owned retail footprint to include 138 Arc’teryx stores, 114 Salomon stores and nine Wilson owned as of September 30. It has also found Greater China to be a spot of growth, driving nearly one-fifth of its total revenue in the first nine months of 2023 with “significant runway for growth in the region” as it opens more stores and scales its e-commerce platform, its filings show.

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The company had a net loss of about US$115.6 million on revenue of US$3.05 billion for the nine months ended September 30, according to the filings. It sees a collective market opportunity across its brands of about US$522 billion as of 2022.

Amer Sports has more than 10,800 employees globally, and offices in Helsinki, Munich, Krakow and Shanghai, according to a statement.

A consortium led by Anta acquired Amer Sports for about US$5.2 billion in 2019 as part of an effort to bring high-end athletic equipment to China’s increasingly wealthy middle class. The buyer group also included Tencent Holdings and Chip Wilson, the billionaire founder of yoga-apparel retailer Lululemon Athletica.

Amer Sports’ IPO is being led by Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. The company plans for its shares to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AS.