{"id":1441090,"date":"2025-08-27T07:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T05:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/news\/puma-leap-into-the-unknown"},"modified":"2025-08-27T17:02:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T15:02:55","slug":"puma-leap-into-the-unknown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/news\/puma-leap-into-the-unknown","title":{"rendered":"Puma: Leap into the unknown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The typical characteristics of a Puma, with its remarkable jumping and climbing abilities, are currently nowhere to be seen in the shares of the German sporting goods manufacturer of the same name. On the contrary: the company has lost around 58% of its market value this year. The crash of the once hyped mid-cap is accompanied by weak operating results. In the second quarter, sales fell by 2% to EUR 1.94 billion and the loss before interest, taxes and one-off costs piled up to EUR 13.2 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personnel carousel<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This development reflects a restructuring phase that has so far failed to provide a comprehensive growth outlook. It was primarily the departure of former CEO Bj\u00f8rn Gulden, who will join Adidas<\/strong><\/a> who left a management gap that has not yet been completely filled. His successor Arne Freundt, who was at the helm for two and a half years, has now had to step down. Arthur H\u00f6ld has been on the throne since July 1. He must now show whether he can turn the tide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to stem the losses, the 55-year-old has already announced a stricter austerity program. Investments are to be reduced by EUR 50 million to EUR 250 million. This also applies against the background that the situation will not improve in the second half of the year. Packed warehouses are forcing Puma<\/a> to sell shoes and textiles at reduced prices. On top of this come customs duties, which are likely to cost the company around EUR 80 million. The new CEO has therefore drastically lowered the previous sales and profit forecasts for the current year. Instead of a profit of up to EUR 525 million before interest and taxes, a loss is now expected. Sales are not expected to expand by 1% to 5%, but to fall by at least a tenth. This was the third profit warning this year and shows just how tense the situation is at the sporting goods group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Future plans…<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

“We will take bold steps,” announced the CEO at the presentation of the financial statements, without revealing any details. However, far-reaching changes are planned for the number three in the sporting goods market. The new growth plans for 2026 and the following years as well as the strategy are to be presented at the end of October. “2025 is a year of new beginnings, and 2026 will be a year of transition,” says H\u00f6ld. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and takeover speculation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While all this is still a long way off, takeover speculation is currently causing movement in the share price. On August 25, Bloomberg reported that the Pinault family would like to sell its 29% stake. Possible interested parties could be large Chinese groups such as Anta Sport and Li Ning. The rumors caused the share price to jump by around a fifth. Should a sale actually take place, the premium could be significantly higher. Prices of around EUR 25 are being bandied about on the market and could even rise to EUR 29 in the event of a complete takeover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investment solutions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Puma is at a crossroads: the restructuring should pay off in the long term and the realignment of the brand offers potential. However, the fundamentals remain fragile. Should a new major shareholder come on board, this could provide the urgently needed boost – both operationally and on the stock market. With the Mini Future Long IPUL9Z<\/a><\/strong> from ZKB can be used to make a long bet. The leverage is currently 4.0, the knock-out at EUR 16.0918 is around 24% away. The call warrant has a little more pizzazz PUMPRZ<\/a><\/strong> with a multiplier of 4.7. The strike is at EUR 25, meaning that the warrant is still “out of the money”. The share has until June 2026 to reach this value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the event that the takeover fantasies vanish into thin air and H\u00f6ld’s strategic plan does not work, the short mini future IPUMDZ<\/a><\/strong> would be the right product. This turns price losses with a factor of 3.7 into disproportionately high profits. The stop-loss level is EUR 25.5649, one-fifth of the current level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Puma is in crisis mode, but takeover speculation is now causing the share price to turn around. We show how sustainable this could be and which products could now be worthwhile. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1441090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trading-desk-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1441090"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1441100,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441090\/revisions\/1441100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1441090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1441090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1441090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}