Amer Sports is seeking up to $1.8 billion in an initial public offering, the company said Monday. The company, whose portfolio of about a dozen sports and outdoor brands includes Wilson, Atomic, Arc’teryx and Peak Performance, plans to offer 100 million shares at a price between $16 and $18 per share. The high-end of its range indicates a valuation of $8.7 billion.
Amer Sports has also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 15 million additional shares to cover over-allotments, the company said. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Securities, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint book-running managers for the proposed offering. The group of 21 underwriters also includes Wells Fargo, Citigroup, UBS Investment Bank and Deutsche Bank Securities.
The company said in a Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that, after commissions and expenses payable, it expects to generate proceeds of $1.6 billion if the IPO price is at the $17 midpoint of the range. Three of the company’s current investors — Anta Sports, Anamered Investments and Tencent Holdings — are interested in purchasing up to $510 million worth of shares at the IPO price, Amer Sports said in the securities filing.
Founded in Helsinki, Finland, in 1950, an investor group led by China-based Anta Sports took the company private in 2019. The deal was valued at $5.2 billion at the time.
The company plans to use the net IPO proceeds to repay all outstanding borrowings under its existing shareholder loans. The remaining proceeds will be used to repay a portion of outstanding borrowings under a revolving credit facility. The company will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol “AS.”
Amer Sports had $2.1 billion of outstanding borrowings on its senior credit facilities as of Sept. 30. Additionally, the interest on that debt is at a variable rate. “If the market rate of interest increases substantially, we will have to pay additional interest on this indebtedness, which would reduce cash available for our other business needs,” the company said.
Amer Sports first announced its IPO plans earlier this month but did not disclose a share price at the time. The company earned $3.5 billion in revenue in 2022, up from $2.4 billion in 2020, according to the filing. For the nine months ended in September, revenue rose nearly 30% to $3.1 billion from $2.4 billion the prior year, but the company’s net loss widened to $113.9 million, up from $104.4 million.
For the three months ending Sept. 30, Amer Sports reported $812.5 million in wholesale revenue, $183.4 million in retail revenue and $150.4 million in e-commerce revenue.
