In recent years, it has been said that middle-aged men have three treasures: fishing, Moutai, and Archaeopteryx, and middle-aged women have three treasures: Lululemon, Ralph Lauren, and Archaeopteryx. No matter how the other two treasures are exchanged, the Archaeopteryx will still stand in it.
Recently, Archaeopteryx's newly launched "Year of the Dragon Limited" clothing has become popular again, and now it is hard to find. According to Zhongxin Jingwei, on New Year's Day, 46-year-old Mr. Xing came to the Arc'teryx store in Beijing's Wangfu Central early to line up to buy the "Year of the Dragon Limited". "I came at half past six, and it took me three and a half hours to get a set, which was not easy. ”
"The store opened at 10 o'clock on the 1st, and the 'Year of the Dragon Limited' was sold out at 10 o'clock, and there was no replenishment later. You can take a look at the second-hand platform. The clerk of the Arc'teryx Wangfu Central store said that the "Year of the Dragon limited" models sold in the store, including jackets and T-shirts, have long been out of stock. On a second-hand platform, the original price of 8,200 yuan Archaeopteryx "Year of the Dragon Limited" jacket has been fried to about 12,000 yuan.
Image source: Screenshot of Archaeopteryx's official Weibo video
The parent company of Arc'teryx applied for listing
Just last week, Anta Sports (02020. HK) announced that Amer Sports, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as "Amalfen Sports"), a non-wholly-owned subsidiary of its joint venture Amer Sports Holding (Cayman) Limited, has formally submitted a prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This is the first Chinese company to go public in the United States in 2024.
Founded in Finland in 1950 as a tobacco company, Amalfen Sports expanded its business to shipping, printing and other fields. It wasn't until 1974 that Amalfen acquired a hockey equipment manufacturing company that it began to develop its sports business.
Up to now, Amalfen Sports has more than 10 outdoor sports brands, including Arc'teryx, Salomon, Wilson, etc., which are well-known to domestic consumers.
Source: Amalfen Sports official website
Back in early 2019, Anta Group, Tencent, FountainVenture Capital, Anamered Investments (an investment company held by Lululemon founder Chip Wilson) and others formed a consortium to acquire Amalfen Sports for 4.66 billion euros (about 36 billion yuan). It also became the largest cross-border acquisition in the history of China's sporting goods industry.
"This is the most important decision I've made since I started my business. In early 2019, Ding Shizhong, chairman and CEO of Anta Group, sent an internal letter describing the acquisition of Amalfen Sports in such words.
Some voices believe that Anta's acquisition of Amalfen Sports is to replicate the second FILA. In 2009, ANTA bought the rights to operate FILA in China from Belle International. Under ANTA's operation, FILA has achieved rapid growth for many years and has become ANTA's "cash cow".
On January 5, ANTA released its latest operating performance for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023. According to the announcement, compared with the same period in 2022, the ANTA brand's retail value (in terms of retail value) in 2023 recorded a positive growth rate of high single-digits, while the FILA brand recorded a positive growth in the high range of 10% to 20%.
In addition to FILA, ANTA has also previously acquired DESCENTE, a Japanese high-end ski professional sports brand, and KOLON, a high-end outdoor lifestyle brand in South Korea.
Use the listing to pay off debts
In the past two years, outdoor style has become a new trend, and established outdoor brands such as Arc'teryx and Salomon have successfully captured the traffic. A search for Archaeopteryx-related notes on Xiaohongshu yielded more than 200,000 items.
According to the prospectus, Amalfen Sports was acquired by an investment consortium led by Anta Group in 2019 and started its transformation, and since then, the performance of Amalfen Sports has accelerated.
Specifically, from 2020 to 2022, the revenue of Amalfen Sports will be 2.446 billion US dollars, 3.067 billion US dollars, and 3.549 billion US dollars respectively, with a total revenue of more than 9 billion US dollars, and the year-on-year revenue growth in 2021 and 2022 will be 25.39% and 15.72% respectively. The net losses were US$237 million, US$126 million, and US$253 million, respectively, totaling more than US$600 million.
In terms of liabilities, Amalfen currently has total liabilities of US$8.138 billion, current liabilities of about US$1.435 billion, current assets of US$2.36 billion, and cash and equivalents of only US$284 million. The current situation is exactly the same as the purpose of the listing stated by Amalfen - the prospectus shows that the company intends to use the proceeds from this offering to repay all outstanding borrowings under existing shareholder loans, including joint venture loans, co-investment loans, etc.
Although there is no money now, Amalfen is very profitable. In the first three quarters of 2023, Amalfen Sports' revenue increased by 29.9% year-over-year from $2.4 billion to $3.1 billion, gross margin increased from 49.4% to 52.2%, net loss increased by 9.1% year-over-year from $104.4 million to $113.9 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased by 61.3% year-over-year from $261.8 million to $422.1 million.
It is worth noting that Greater China is already the fastest growing market for Amalfen Sports' revenue. From 2020 to the third quarter of 2023, Amalfen Sports' revenue in Greater China increased from 202 million to US$590 million, with a compound annual growth rate of 60.9%, and the proportion of revenue also increased from 8.3% to 19.4%.
Greater China is also the number one market for Archaeopteryx. In the first three quarters of last year, Arc'teryx Greater China achieved revenue of US$453 million, contributing nearly eighty percent of the total revenue of Greater China and accounting for more than forty percent of Arc'teryx's total global revenue.
Source: National Business Daily Comprehensive China-Singapore Jingwei, 21st Century Business Herald, Southern Metropolis Daily