Anta's Amber Buy Likely Welcomed By Investors

Best-case scenario for Anta-led (2020) consortium's all-cash EUR4.6 billion buy of Finland's Amer probably a repeat of Fila success. On paper deal makes plenty of sense given Amer's brands highly under-penetrated in China (4.5% of Amber's revenue) thus offering ample room for growth. Also, Anta has solid track record of multi-brand management.

Financially, China's biggest maker of sporting goods has CNY8.9 billion (EUR1.1 billion) of net cash at end-June, will borrow EUR0.8 billion from banks at 2% interest rate (mainland developers would die for such rate, just saying).

On operation front, Anta believes synergies could be achieved for both sourcing and retail distribution, which easy to understand and execute. Anta’s manufacturing know-how and distribution (over 10,000 stores in China) should help cut down Amber's production costs while lifting Amer’s brand awareness in China. Also and perhaps less tangibly, there are some room for imagination given consortium includes Lululemon founder Chip Wilson and omnipresent Tencent (0700), though actualization of any such possible cooperation too early to predict hence unlikely being baked into share prices at present. 

Anta shares plunged 9% September 12 when news of possible Amber bid first surfaced, probably due to fears of fund-raising via equity to fund acquisition. Now that dust has settled, investors may begin to view the deal more favorably.