Parent company of Wilson, Arc’teryx and other sports/outdoor brands files for IPO

Amer Sports is looking to go public.

In the first major retail  IPO of 2024, the Finland-founded parent company of Wilson, Arc’teryx and Salomon and other sports and outdoor apparel brands filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initital offering. Amer Sports has applied to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "AS."

The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. Bloomberg reported that Amer is targeting an IPO of more than $1 billion and a listing could value the firm at as much as $10 billion. (Amer went private in 2019 when it was acquired by a consortium led by China’s Anta Sports.)

In recent years, several of Amer’s wholesale-focused brands have been expanding in brick-and-mortar. Wilson opened its first-ever retail store in 2021, in Chicago. It has since opened seven additional locations, with its most recent, at Mall of America, opening in November.  Salomon operates 114 stores, with 30 in China.

Amer’s Arc’teryx banner has 138 retail stores globally, including 63 in China and approximately 28 in the U.S. 

According to the preliminary prospectus filed with the SEC, Amer’s revenue for the nine months ended Sept. 30 was $3.1 billion, up 29.9% over the year-ago period. The company said its revenue in 2022 was $3.5 billion.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, BofA Securities, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint book-running managers for the proposed offering. Citigroup, UBS Investment Bank, Baird, BNP Paribas, CICC, CLSA, Evercore ISI, TD Cowen, Wells Fargo Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities and HSBC will act as bookrunners for the proposed offering. 

Blaylock Van, LLC, Drexel Hamilton, Loop Capital Markets, Ramirez & Co., Inc., Siebert Williams Shank and Tigress Financial Partners will act as co-managers for the proposed offering.