Sporting goods
Puma gets in difficult fairway
With Adidas and Puma, two of the three world’s largest sporting goods groups come from the Franconian Herzogenaurach. While the shop is running again at Adidas, the smaller competitor has to struggle.
Difficult times at Puma: The Franconian sporting goods manufacturer lags behind its local rival Adidas and had to accept a decline in profits last year. The share price collapsed over 20 percent on Wednesday, and corporate management announces a job reduction. Puma is the global number three in the industry behind the US leader Nike and Adidas.
Clear decline in profits
The bottom line was a surplus of 282 million euros last year, a decline of 7.6 percent compared to the previous year, as Puma announced. Sales rose by 2.5 percent (currency -adjusted 4.4 percent) to around 8.8 billion euros. The much larger competitor Adidas had only submitted significantly better figures a week ago.
“We are clearly not satisfied that we could not translate our growth into additional profitability,” said CEO Arne Freundt. For the current year, too, Puma expects only moderate updates because of the political framework and currency uncertainties – combined with uncertainty among consumers. The turnover of the turnover in the low to medium single-digit percentage range should increase in sales in 2025, the MDAX group said in Herzogenaurach.
In the case of special effects adjusted before interest and taxes (EBIT), the board is adjusted to a decline to 520 to 600 million euros. In 2024 there were still 622 million. The forecast is therefore below the expectations that had been set up a year ago. The share price lost almost 50 percent within a year.
The company alone wants to spend 75 million euros in order to become more efficient – for example due to the closure, not profitable, self -operated retail stores or through optimizations, for example when shopping and warehousing. This should trigger an EBIT contribution of around 100 million euros.
500 jobs fall away
The cost reduction program also includes the reduction of 500 of the around 22,000 jobs worldwide, including 170 in Herzogenaurach. Already last November after Donald Trump’s election as the US President, they were prepared for new customs policy and the production for the important US market moved away from China and towards the manufacturer countries Vietnam and Indonesia, Freundt said.
The retro trend should continue to have a positive effect on sales – at Puma, especially with models such as Suede, Palermo and Speedcat. The successful running shoe division around the nitro is to be expanded. With a brand offensive that started last year, Puma wants to increase its level of awareness all over the world and win market shares.
dpa
Source: Stern
