Wilson tennis racket maker Amer Sports files for U.S. initial public offering

Investing.com -- Athletic apparel retailer Amer Sports has said it has filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.

In a statement on Thursday, the owner of brands like Peak Performance and Salomon noted that the number of shares to be offered and the price range for the listing has not yet been determined. The Helsinki-based company, whose Wilson division has made rackets for tennis greats like Roger Federer, said it had applied to list its ordinary shares under the ticker symbol "AS".

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Financial Times and Bloomberg News have reported that Amer is looking to raise more than $1 billion at a valuation of $10 billion. Amer said it registered revenue of $3.5 billion in 2022.

Originally founded in Finland in 1950, Amer went private in 2019 after it was acquired by a consortium led by China's Anta Sports that valued the company at over $5 billion. According to the FT, the consortium took out a loan worth €1.3 billion to finance the deal.

Goldman Sachs, BofA Securities, J.P.Morgan and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint book-running managers for the proposed IPO.

Amer's announcement comes as investors are searching for signs of life in what has been a recently dormant IPO market. Bolstered by calming capital market activity and easing fears of a U.S. economic recession, cloud security group Rubrik, software startup ServiceTitan, and social media platform Reddit are also expected to go public this year, Reuters has reported.