If any company knows how to rebound from an ugly brick shot, it should be one in the basketball business. Amer Sports badly missed on the pricing of its initial public offering, despite having an all-star roster of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley on its team as underwriters. The owner of the Wilson, Salomon and Arc’teryx brands sold shares at just $13 apiece, below a marketed range of $16 to $18, valuing it at about $6 billion. Fears about its dependence on China are overblown, however, and make the investment a slam dunk. Amer has upped its game since the

The initial public offering trail for Amer Sports warrants a black-diamond rating. The maker of Salomon skis and Arc’teryx parkas is sounding out new investors after a group led by Anta Sports Products bought it for about $5 billion in September 2019. Impressive growth in China should give the valuation a lift, but chunky debt and the Wilson brand slightly weaken the company’s competitive edge. Amer has been on a tear. Its backers, which include Lululemon Athletica founder Chip Wilson and Asian buyout shop FountainVest, oversaw a 61% increase in adjusted EBITDA during the first nine months of 2023 from a year earlier, on the back

Tapestry is paying for its latest fashion haul with plastic. The U.S. company behind clothing and accessories brands Coach and Kate Spade said on Thursday that it would scoop up rival Capri for $8.5 billion including debt. The move could help it defend share against higher-end European companies like LVMH amid a pullback in luxury spending at home, but the deal’s steep cost – and the big loan it necessitates – makes for a raggedy ensemble. The merger would give Tapestry a makeover from American laggard to more diversified global conglomerate, bringing Capri’s higher-end brands and European footprint into the fold. The purchase price,

Prada is en route to join the A-listers on the other side of the luxury sector’s velvet rope. After years of drift, the $18 billion Italian brand has got a grip on its retail network, clamped down on discounting and spruced up its image. That lays the foundations for a jump in sales and profitability. For investors, promotion to the fashion’s premier league is well worth having. Thursday’s shareholder day was only the second such event since the group, controlled by designer Miuccia Prada and her husband Patrizio Bertelli, listed in Hong Kong a decade ago. To mark the occasion, the maker

Tiffany is sparkling in LVMH’s crown. The famous U.S. jeweller, which tycoon Bernard Arnault added to his collection following a bitter $16 billion takeover last year, has bounced back from the pandemic and already appears to be more profitable than in 2019. The performance contradicts the French luxury giant’s attempt to wriggle out of the deal last year. Future LVMH targets will take notice. After declining to complete its biggest-ever purchase in September, the owner of Dior and Givenchy argued in a Delaware court that the pandemic had “devastated” Tiffany’s business, said that management had mishandled the crisis, and accused

Will Stitch Fix hit its revenue target for the next quarter? Probably. Do millions of Americans want to receive packages of mystery outfits picked by strangers? That’s harder to say. The latter question is the most important one, though – which explains the terrible performance of the $2 billion retail-tech company’s shares. Stitch Fix, which listed just over a year ago, reported quarterly earnings late Monday that outgunned consensus forecasts. The snag in Stitch Fix’s stocking, which drove the shares down as much as 29 percent on Tuesday, was that active users increased by 22 percent year-on-year, rather than the