China's Anta to purchase Finnish Amer Sports

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Anta Sports, one of China's leading manufacturers of sports equipment announced Friday that it has joined other parties to form an investor consortium to acquire all shares of Amer Sports, a Finnish sportswear group.

The announcement said Anta, as well as FountainVest Partners, Tencent and Anamered Investments offered 40 euros (45.5 U.S. dollars) a share for Amer Sports, one of the world's biggest sports equipment firms that owns popular brands such as Wilson, Arc'teryx, Salomon and Atomic.

The total bid will be about 4.6 billion euros. The final pending transaction conditions are waiting to be met.

Amer Sports will still have independent operation and its own independent board of directors. The investor consortium has also invited Heikki Takala, current CEO of Amer Sports, to continue leading the company.

James Zheng, the brand director of Anta Sports, was quoted by Finland's national broadcaster Yle as saying that the purchase will have no "immediate impact" on the current operations or employees of Amer as its main office will remain in Helsinki.

"This is the most epic decision I have made ever since Anta was founded," said Ding Shizhong, chairman of Anta Sports, in an open letter to his colleagues, adding that the acquisition would be an exciting milestone for Anta in its globalization efforts.

Anta Sports was founded in the city of Jinjiang, east China's Fujian Province in 1991. It produced 65 million pairs of footwear and 80 million pieces of sports apparel in 2017.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency