ANTA (02020) officially becomes the largest shareholder of Puma, further advancing its multi-brand and globalization strategy.

In the golden autumn month of October, ANTA Sports Products Limited (02020), China's largest and the world's third-largest multi-brand sportswear group, has taken another key step in its global expansion. On October 7, ANTA Group officially announced that it had completed the acquisition of a 29.06% stake in PUMA SE, the company behind the globally iconic sports brand PUMA, from Artmis SAS, an investment company under the Pinault family, for a cash consideration of 1.5055 billion euros, having obtained approval from all relevant regulatory authorities and satisfied customary closing conditions. ANTA Group has officially become the largest shareholder of Puma. This strategic acquisition of a stake in Puma marks a milestone in ANTA Group's "single focus, multi-brand, globalization" strategy. The two parties will achieve complementary advantages across core dimensions such as category layout, regional channels, and operational capabilities: Puma can leverage ANTA Group's multi-brand operational experience, DTC capabilities, supply chain, and other middle- and back-office support to unlock its growth potential and embrace major opportunities in the Chinese market; ANTA Group, relying on Puma's channel foundation in mature European and American markets, top-tier competitive sports resources, and trend brand influence, will accelerate the pace of its global penetration. Ding Shizhong, Chairman of the Board of ANTA Group, particularly emphasized that ANTA Group is a multi-brand enabling enterprise, and the value of its multi-brand strategy lies in activating the value and potential of these excellent brands through group empowerment. Puma's brand heritage and value are highly attractive, and ANTA Group is full of confidence in Puma's management team and supports its ongoing strategic transformation plan. As a long-term investor, ANTA Group will empower the Puma brand with its retail and operational expertise, fully unlocking its brand value and development potential to create long-term value for consumers worldwide. Globalization "Trilogy" Advances Step by Step, Consolidating the Foundation for Multi-Brand Empowerment As a multi-brand sports group with a top-three global market capitalization and more than ten international brands, ANTA Group's confidence in ramping up its global expansion is rooted in its continuously improving operating performance. Multi-brand matrix under ANTA Group and Amer Sports Group (excluding Puma) In the first half of 2026, ANTA Group achieved revenue of 43.51 billion yuan (RMB, same below), a year-on-year increase of 12.9%. Despite its massive scale, its revenue growth rate still leads the industry, with revenue scale approximately 2.2 times that of Nike China and 2.7 times that of Adidas China. During the same period, the group's operating profit margin rose 0.7 percentage points to 27%, a new high in nearly seven years; free cash inflow exceeded 11.63 billion yuan, and net cash reached 39.1 billion yuan. It is worth noting that in the first half of 2026, ANTA Group and Amer Sports Group together achieved revenue of approximately 67.98 billion yuan. It has been noted that ANTA Group's operating performance continues to lead the industry, and the driving force of its globalization strategy is growing stronger. This systematic layout, repeatedly tested by the market, follows a three-step path of "doing a good job with international brands in China, going global to operate global brands, and taking Chinese brands to the world," gradually completing its transformation from a local brand operator to a global industrial resource integrator. The first step is to do a good job with international brands in China and hone global operational capabilities. In 2009, ANTA Group acquired the FILA Greater China trademark rights and operating rights for 332 million yuan, opening the prelude to its multi-brand strategy. In the first half of 2026, FILA's revenue exceeded 15 billion yuan, accounting for more than 30% of the group's revenue. At the same time, overseas brands such as Descente and Kolon have entered a strong growth cycle in the Chinese market, driving the other brands segment to achieve revenue of 10.69 billion yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 44.2%, with revenue scale exceeding the full year of 2024. The second step is to go global and operate global brands, marking globalization entering deep waters. In 2019, ANTA Group led a consortium to acquire Finland's Amer Sports for 4.66 billion euros, bringing top international brands such as Arc'teryx, Salomon, and Wilson under its umbrella and becoming Amer Sports' largest global shareholder. Facing the complex challenges of cross-cultural management and multi-brand synergy, ANTA Group adopted an integration strategy of "consensus over control," fully empowering Amer Sports' original management team while injecting the efficiency advantages and strategic planning capabilities of a Chinese enterprise. By formulating a "five 1-billion-euro" global strategy and focusing on three core markets and main brands, Amer Sports went from low single-digit growth before the acquisition to revenue of 6.566 billion US dollars in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 27%, with full-year revenue in Greater China growing by as much as 43.4% year-on-year, completing its strategic targets two years ahead of schedule overall. The third step is to take China's ANTA brand global and make it a world ANTA, which is the ultimate vision of the globalization strategy. After the release of its new ten-year strategy in 2021, the ANTA main brand accelerated its overseas expansion. In Southeast Asia, a "thousand-store plan" was launched in 2025, with plans to open 1,000 retail outlets over the next three years, opening up a growth curve through a dual layout of physical stores and e-commerce platforms; its first North American flagship store settled in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, entering a mature market with a premium positioning; in the Middle East, it successfully entered countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, completing multi-point breakthroughs in emerging markets. Unlike traditional brand product exports, the ANTA main brand's overseas expansion carries a proven business model and operational capability. Multi-Brand Collaborative Evolution Experience Brings Imaginative Space for Puma Cooperation Brand is the core key to ANTA Group's steady and long-term globalization. As Chairman Ding Shizhong said in the "Chairman's Message" of the group's 2026 interim report: "Brand is ANTA Sports' most important asset." In Ding Shizhong's business philosophy, having only a high-quality brand foundation is far from enough. Global strategic M&A must not only "buy well," but also "manage well" and "synergize well" to enhance market competitiveness. To manage a complex multi-brand system, ANTA Group has built three core pillars: "multi-brand collaborative management capability," "multi-brand retail operational capability," and "global resource integration capability," achieving M&A results of "acquire one, succeed with one." Multi-brand collaborative management capability has helped ANTA Group break the path dependence of traditional sports giants on a "single brand, multiple categories" model and build a clearly differentiated brand matrix. The ANTA main brand focuses on mass professional sports, FILA focuses on high-end fashion sports, Descente specializes in high-quality professional sports, Kolon deeply cultivates outdoor scenarios, MAIA ACTIVE focuses on women's sports, and Jack Wolfskin covers the mass outdoor market. Puma is positioned in professional sports and fashion crossover, focusing on Gen Z youth and street culture enthusiasts, with a German street mix-and-match tone and deep heritage in professional categories such as football, basketball, running, and motorsports. Under the multi-brand operating model, each brand operates independently and maintains cultural tension, while sharing several middle- and back-office resources such as GTI HLDGS innovation, digitalization, supply chain, and logistics, forming an ecosystem of independent positioning and shared infrastructure that avoids internal competition while achieving economies of scale. Starting with FILA, the group established a "brand + retail" direct-operated model, achieving deep control over the brand by controlling the end point. The advantages of this model have become increasingly prominent in the digital era. The DTC model allows brands to reach consumers directly, and accumulated user data feeds back into product development and marketing decisions; fully direct-operated management enables brands such as FILA to respond quickly to the market, with inventory turnover efficiency leading the industry. Puma's DTC business has already been highly effective, with sales in fiscal year 2024 growing 16.6% after currency adjustment to 2.425 billion euros, accounting for 27.5% of total sales. In the future, the two sides can learn from each other in direct-operated operations and digital transformation. ANTA Group can share its mature DTC experience with Puma to help it unlock potential in China and Asian markets, while also absorbing Puma's retail experience in mature global markets to feed back into its own brands' overseas expansion. Global resource integration capability has achieved deep integration of global resources. Puma's distinctive brand DNA and value, its global sports resources, technical accumulation, and brand influence will further enrich the group's global resource pool. Puma forms complementary advantages with ANTA's brands in professional sports fields such as football, basketball, track and field, and motorsports. ANTA Group can benefit from Puma's enormous brand influence in North American and European markets, and is also expected to share its mature European and American channels to accelerate its global layout, while exporting China's flexible supply chain and localized operational capabilities to help Puma optimize efficiency. The capital market generally believes that this equity acquisition brings enormous imaginative space for future cooperation between the two sides. "Ecosystem Going Global" Defines a New Paradigm of Globalization The deeper value of ANTA Group's globalization lies in pioneering a new paradigm of "ecosystem going global," achieving all-round export of business models, management experience, and cultural concepts, and providing new inspiration for Chinese enterprises' globalization. Ecosystem going global is embodied in the export of transferable capabilities. ANTA Group will systematically replicate to overseas brand operations the closed-loop capabilities in brand revitalization, DTC operations, and middle-platform empowerment that have been successfully proven in the local market. This cooperation with Puma is an advanced form of capability export. ANTA Group will share its growth experience in Asian markets to help Puma expand in emerging markets such as China, while Puma's global brand operation experience and mature channels will also provide reference for the overseas expansion of ANTA Group's other brands. Through a model of capability transfer and local adaptation, ANTA's globalization is not simple copy-and-paste, but value creation tailored to local conditions, forming a virtuous cycle of "cooperationempowermentgrowthfeedback." The core of ecosystem going global is a cross-cultural management philosophy that emphasizes both respect and empowerment. ANTA Group has always practiced the integration approach of "consensus over control," insisting on empowerment without control and delegation without absence. In global M&A and cooperation, the group respects each brand's independent cultural DNA and governance system, retains the original core management team, and coordinates the overall situation through strategic consensus. This results-focused, well-calibrated "loosened control" model fully unleashes each brand's innovative vitality while ensuring overall strategic synergy across the group, forming a mature governance paradigm suited to global multi-brand operations. The far-reaching impact of ecosystem going global is reflected in the reshaping of the global sporting goods industry landscape. The rise of ANTA Group has challenged the long-standing global sporting goods duopoly dominated by Nike and Adidas, and this partnership with Puma is expected to further change the industry's competitive landscape. This also confirms Chinese enterprises' ability to create global value. In addition to traditional manufacturing advantages, Chinese enterprises have built core capabilities in high-value-added areas such as brand operations, cross-border M&A, and cross-cultural management. "Chinese operations" are gradually gaining recognition from international brands, reversing the stereotype that Chinese brands are only good at manufacturing. Conclusion From FILA's rebirth to Amer Sports' magnificent transformation, from the ANTA brand's thousand-store layout in Southeast Asia to its premium breakthrough in the North American market, and now to joining hands with Puma to achieve global resource integration, ANTA Group's globalization journey is an evolutionary history of a Chinese enterprise moving from "integrating into the world" to "empowering the world." As globalization deepens step by step, ANTA Group's long-term investment logic is gradually shifting from the growth dividend of local brands to the ecological compound interest of a multi-brand matrix. Each of the group's acquisitions is not a simple addition of scale, but a value amplification through capability reuseusing a set of middle-platform capabilities, retail experience, and governance philosophy proven over time in the market to activate the growth potential of different brands and different regional markets, transcend industry cycles, and give back to the capital market. Viewed within the broader coordinate system of global industry, ANTA Group joining hands with Puma is more like a dividing point of an era. Over the past few decades, the global sporting goods industry was dominated by European and American giants, following a one-way logic of brand value export from West to East. Through "ecosystem going global," ANTA Group is bringing operational efficiency, digital capabilities, and Eastern management wisdom tempered in the Chinese market, integrating into core global markets as an equal industrial integrator, driving the industry toward a new pattern of multipolar symbiosis and opening the curtain on a new round of value growth cycles.