Can Puma, An Undervalued Sports Brand, Seize The Opportunity?

Since its establishment in Germany in 1948, Puma, the famous sports brand with "jumping cat" logo, has achieved great success. In many major sporting events, such as the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, the brand has successfully won a place, and dares to be like Nike.

Such a bigger competitor contends.

Its recent success has been the establishment of a partnership with Arsenal Football Club, and is at the center of public concern in the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Over the years, the brand has included many sports idols, including Bailey, Cruyff, sprinter, Chris, Usai Bolt, Boris Becker and William Williams, and even pop singers like Madonna are all wrapped up in their brand charms.

Despite its surface glory, the $2 billion company has struggled over the years to try to save sales from falling.

In 2007, a French

Brand holding group Kering SA, which owns Gucci and Saint Laurent, has decided to buy 86% of Puma's stake. The acquisition has renewed the brand's vitality and brought us $97 million investment.

It is unclear whether Puma's efforts will make the company lose its profits again, making it match its expectations.

In December last year, it was reported that the Kering group, which is headquartered in France, is in touch with potential buyers, including Asia and the Middle East.

This decision is surprising, not only because of its investment decision, because last autumn, Puma also announced the new advertising campaign "Forever Faster", and a few months ago, Kering Group Chairman Francois-Henri Pinault also claimed that the group wanted to set up sports and lifestyle fashion products department, which will eventually include more than one brand: "our sports brand portfolio has not yet been completed, we have started, but before Puma is on the right track, we will not undertake any mergers and acquisitions.

Let's make a hypothesis. Maybe 2 or 3 years later, we will find ways to strengthen investment in this area. "

So far, however, no agreement has been reached except for some sales explorations.

according to

CEO Gulden said: "Puma lacks clear brand positioning and brand selling points."

In his annual report letter to shareholders, he said with great seriousness:

"Consumers do not know what the meaning of Puma brand representatives is, we need to be more clear and visible, to tell the story of Puma brand, so that consumers can understand and discover brand relevance.

And we need further commercialization of our products, which is not meant to be cheap, but to create products that retailers and consumers are willing to buy.

We must strengthen our competitiveness and provide consumers with cost-effective products.

The third point is that Puma should make full use of the distribution channels, and we have not yet put our products in the right channels.

TrefisTeam, a securities research team based on engineers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Wall Street analysts, said the global sportswear market in 2012 was on the scale of $135 billion.

The team predicted that the composite annual growth rate of the market will be 4% from 2012 to 2019, and the market will grow to $178 billion by 2019.

The scale of market growth will be mainly due to the following four points: the improvement of national fitness awareness, the improvement of the per capita income level of the world, the increase of women's interest in sports activities, and the trend that casual wear will continue to be replaced by sportswear.

They believe that the growing demand in the Asia Pacific region and Latin America and the trend towards healthy living are the key catalysts.

The market for Puma products is expanding, which is very important because it relieves some of the pressure of weak sales performance.

With this strong market drive, the brand should be able to get out of the woods more easily and increase its profits again.

We will not be puzzled by the fact that Puma will succeed in saving the interest of sportswear consumers.

After all, fashion is always changing. What brands need is an advertising campaign that really resonates with consumers.

Judging from the following traditional assessment criteria, Puma has some comparison with its competitors.

By studying the earnings of the past 10 years, we can clearly know the value of the brand.

In 2004, its total income was only $1 billion 770 million, which is quite different from the current US $3 billion 440 million.

In the 2011, 2012 and 2013 fiscal year, Puma's revenue was record breaking, its free cash flow was less than $100 million, and the company's average annual free cash flow was $247 million.

Whether its free cash flow can return to the average level is not necessarily, but its CEO has been conscious of changing the brand.

On the one hand, the brand is now taking some credible measures to revitalize its brand.

On the other hand, by 2019, the expected compound annual growth rate of the sports clothing market will be expanded to 4.2%. With the east wind of the whole market, the prospect of Puma is worth looking forward to, and its share price should reach $200 per share.