Amer Sports, owner of Wilson and Salomon brands, mulls raising up to US$1.8 billion in US IPO, sources say

Amer Sports, the maker of Wilson tennis racquets and Salomon ski boots, is seeking to raise as much as US$1.8 billion in a US initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company could market about 100 million shares in a range of US$16 to US$18 each, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Terms of the potential offering may be announced as soon as in the coming days, the people said.

Details of the share sale including size and timing may change, the people said. A representative for Amer Sports could not immediately comment.

The listing would be the biggest in the US since a crop of IPOs led by semiconductor designer Arm Holdings’ US$5.23 billion offering in September failed to deliver a hoped-for rebound in the market.

While Arm’s shares have since gained 54 per cent from the offer price, Birkenstock Holding had gained less than 1 per cent as of Friday, while Instacart and Klaviyo remained well below their offer prices.

The largest IPO since Birkenstock’s US$1.48 billion listing in October was Thursday’s US$1 billion offering of American depositary shares by investors in Kazakhstan mobile app company Kaspi.kz. Also this month, Smith Douglas Homes raised about US$162 million.