Adidas is ready to part ways with Reebok.
The German athletic powerhouse announced today that it has finished its “assessment of strategic alternatives for Reebok” and has decided to begin a formal process to sell the company.
“The long-term growth opportunities in our industry are highly attractive, particularly for iconic sports brands,” Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted said in a statement. “After careful consideration, we have come to the conclusion that Reebok and Adidas will be able to significantly better realize their growth potential independently of each other. We will work diligently in the coming months to ensure a successful future for the Reebok brand and the team behind it.”
Adidas said it will report Reebok as discontinued operations starting with Q1 2021.
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The German powerhouse acquired Reebok in 2006 and implemented its “Muscle Up” turnaround plan for the company in 2016. With the plan, Adidas said it was able to significantly improve the growth and profitability prospects of the Boston-based heritage athletic company, “laying the foundation to unleash its full potential in the highly attractive global sporting goods market.”
Adidas’ announcement today comes two months after it revealed it would begin to assess strategic alternatives for the Reebok brand in a December 2020 statement, confirming months of chatter of a potential sale.
Talk of the sale started in October 2020 after a Bloomberg report emerged stating Adidas AG was looking to sell Reebok, and revealed an internal review was in its early stages. What’s more, Germany’s Manager Magazin stated Adidas planned to complete the sale by March 2021. Companies interested in acquiring Reebok, according to the Manager Magazin report, include VF Corp. in the U.S. and China-based Anta International Group Holdings Ltd.
Since Adidas confirmed its plans to entertain a sale of Reebok, several other interested suitors have emerged, including rap mogul Percy “Master P” Miller and retired NBA star Baron Davis.
Reports surfaced in late December that Miller and Davis were in negotiations to acquire Reebok. “These companies have been benefiting off us, this could be history for this company going Black-owned,” Miller told ESPN. The pair’s interest in acquiring Reebok was first reported by ESPN NBA reporter Eric Woodyard on Twitter. According to a Forbes report at the time, the sale of Reebok could come with a $2.4 billion price tag.
