ally Finnish company was acquired back in 2019 by a consortium led by Chinese sportswear giant Anta and has since doubled the size of its business. It filed for IPO only a few weeks ago in January and despite the share price not meeting expectations, Amer Sports remains confident in its current economic standing and forecasted growth. “We’ve built up a very solid foundation in the past four years. Internally, our company has still got very high confidence to continue to grow the company. And the price point I’d say is a bit frustrating as a starting point. But I think it’s just a short-term view on this,” Amer Sports CEO, James Zheng, told Bloomberg following the opening. Investors cautious about growing pains  Amer Sports’ stock market debut signals that it has no plans of slowing down and is in fact looking to accelerate its growth. Stuart Haselden, Arc’teryx CEO, told Retail Dive that the IPO was “really important in terms of just access to capital”. “This will help us reset the capital structure of the company. It’ll free up more financial resources for us to put into our growth strategy […] And I think it will naturally also just elevate the company and all of its brands as we compete for talent, as we compete for resources,” Haselden added. While the IPO was intended to assist in the conglomerate’s capital structure and fund its growth strategy, analysts and shareholders proved to be sceptical of its valuation even at the discounted share price. Retail consultant and CEO of Retail Doctor, Brian Walker told Inside Retail that “while it has good brands and it has got a nice unique positioning […] it ultimately still remains unprofitable. Its revenue line is strong, over US$4 billion, but it’s losing money”. The hype around Amer Sports’ plans for growth appeared to be lost on analysts and prospective shareholders, who seemed more concerned with the current state of the sportswear conglomerate’s finances. “Essentially the prospective shareholders looked at [Amer Sports] and said its balance sheet wasn’t strong enough, in other words, its underlying capital to continue to reinvest and build a prevailing business with the level of return required wasn’t quite strong enough,” added Walker. Other retail IPOs that are still to come in 2024, such as Shein, could fare better; since Amer Sports derives 70 per cent of its revenue from wholesale, not DTC purchases, it may not be indicative of a wider trend.  Sportswear becomes fashion-forward Amer Sports has been quick to capitalise on the post-pandemic sportswear boom and has plans to diversify its wholesale model by increasing the DTC operations of its brands. Despite Salomon and Arc’teryx being primarily outdoor-performance brands, the fashion industry has welcomed them with open arms as serious apparel designers. Traditional outdoor-wear and footwear brands are having a moment in retail as the “gorp-core” aesthetic, where consumers wear performance clothes casually, continues to trend.   This collision between performance brands and utility-focused fashion presents a huge growth opportunity for brands to expand into new markets and demographics.  According to resale platform StockX, Salomon is within its top five most sought-after sneaker brands, proving that the hiking shoe is a hot fashion commodity. However, the transition from sporting and lifestyle brands into the wider world of fashion will not be seamless. Anta is backing Amer Sports and in particular, the Arc’teryx and Salomon brands to create apparel and build more autonomous DTC brands that can stand alone. But scaling these brands to a wider consumer base beyond their respective ski and rock climbing niches will be a challenge and require capital – hence, Amer Sports IPO.