Arcteryx: Amer Sports IPO

Amer Sports maker of Arcteryx, Solomon, Atomic and other brands is going public.  

My wife and I have had very good experiences with Arcteryx products.  

I had no idea the brand is owned by a Chinese private equity investor until I saw the news it planning to list.  Vaguely, I believed the company is Canadian.  Arcteryx is being tauted as the rare successful Chinese buy-out which our experience and revenue details seem to support.

https://thedaily.outdoorretailer.com/news/brands-and-retailers/arcteryx-stands-out-as-revenue-leader-in-amer-sports-ipo-filing/

I hope the brand continues to deliver.  I never minded paying up for quality and design.  I also am very wary of newly public companies delivering to customers when challenged to make quarterly earning projections.  

Another reason to buy PataGucci. 

I think there's been some small, but significant declines since the acquisition. I often point to the Dually belay parka as the kind of thing that only the dead bird would deliver. It's a special jacket--first in using the superior continuous filament climashield synthetic insulation (which will insulate better and hold up to stuffing much better than the more common short staple pimaloft), but there's other 5oz climashield alpha jackets out there (mostly from boutique makers tho.) They went further, and used two 2.5oz insulation layers with a windproof membrane in between. Also the front pockets were sewn between the two insulation layers. It is, in my mind, the perfect belay parka and there hasn't ever been another thing like it. Alas, it was cut from the lineup once production in Canada stopped. For me arcteryx is kind of just another premium gear brand with a bit of a markup based on rep. Still good, but no longer builds the kinds of special pieces dreamed up by alpinists for alpinists.

But yeah... PE ruins everything and somehow publicly traded "growth at any cost" is even worse. Hopefully they can retain some of the quality manufacturing practices (solomon XC race skis are very, very good)

Once Arc’Teryx sold out and entered the hypebeast world doing collabs with Beams and other designers their quality has not improved at the same rate as their price tags. So probably a good company to invest in lol 

With that said, I still love my atom lt 

Arc'teryx has had pretty large decline, far more fashion oriented, and cost have definitely risen considerably, they were never cheap but they have gone up by aleast 25% relative to their competitors. 

The lack of innovation has also been quite apparent, as well as significantly changing core products like the squamish, dropping the alpha fl, and practically stopping their harness manufacturing. Sticking so aggressively with goretex is a lame move as business, gore is another company lacking innovation. 

Once they dropped the Alpha FL and didn't offer an equal or greater replacement, I knew it was over. 

They priced me out of their clothing long ago. I am disappointed though, that it seems almost impossible to get a harness from them now--and that innovation on that front also seems to have stalled a while back.

Live Perched wrote:

Amer Sports maker of Arcteryx, Solomon, Atomic and other brands is going public.  

I had no idea the brand is owned by a Chinese private equity investor until I saw the news it planning to list. Vaguely, I believed the company is Canadian.

If you're looking for some light bed-time reading, the full IPO prospectus (300+ pages) is available here: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1988894/000110465924001168/tm2322981-10_f1.htm..

A bit of background:

• Amer (at the time a Finnish company) acquired Arc'teryx and Salomon in 2005. They've owned Wilson (tennis rackets, basketball etc.) since 1989.
• They also used to own Suunto, but they sold them in 2022
• Amer was acquired by a Chinese consortium in 2019, but their main corporate office is still in Finland.
• "Outdoor technical apparel" (mostly Arc'teryx) makes up about one-third of their total revenue.