Puma SE, branded as Puma, is a German multinational corporation that designs and manufactures athletic and casual footwear, apparel and accessories, which is headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. Puma is the third largest sportswear manufacturer in the world.[4] The company was founded in 1948 by Rudolf Dassler. In 1924, Rudolf and his brother Adolf "Adi" Dassler had jointly formed the company Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory). The relationship between the two brothers deteriorated until the two agreed to split in 1948, forming two separate entities, Adidas and Puma. Both companies are currently based in Herzogenaurach, Germany.
Puma has been a public company since 1986, listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. French luxury group Kering (formerly known as Pinault-Printemps-Redoute or PPR) holds 16%, Kering's largest shareholder Artemis SA owns 29% of the share capital.[5] Since 1 July 2013, the company has been led by former football professional Bjørn Gulden (chief executive officer).
As of 2017, Puma SE employs more than 13,000 people worldwide and distributes its products in more than 120 countries.[6][7]
Following the split from his brother, Rudolf originally registered the newly established company as Ruda (derived from Rudolf Dassler, as Adidas was based on Adi Dassler), but later changed the name to Puma.[8] Puma's earliest logo consisted of a square and beast jumping through a D, which was registered, along with the company's name, in 1948. Puma's shoe and clothing designs feature the Puma logo and the distinctive "Formstrip" which was introduced in 1958.[9]
Sponsorships
Puma offers products for Basketball, Football, Running, Training and Fitness, Golf, Motorsports and Sportstyle. It has sponsored a number of legendary athletes, including Pelé, Eusébio, Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona, Lothar Matthaus, Clyde Frazier, Jim Hines, Boris Becker, Martina Navratilova, Tommie Smith, Joe Namath, Linford Christie, Colin Jackson, Heike Drechsler and Michael Schumacher among others.
Currently, international footballers, including Neymar,Gianluigi Buffon, Sergio Agüero, Antoine Griezmann, Marco Reus, Romelu Lukaku, Luis Suárez, David Silva, Vincent Kompany, Christian Pulisic and many more are sporting Puma football boots.[10]
In terms of football clubs, Puma sponsors Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City F.C., Olympique de Marseille, Fenerbahçe S.K., Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Crystal Palace F.C., Newcastle United F.C., Valencia CF, AC Milan, US Sassuolo, Club de Fútbol Monterrey, Bengaluru FC, Mumbai City FC and many others. National football teams include Italy, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria, Morocco, Egypt and Uruguay.[11]
In athletics (track and field), Puma sponsors several athletic associations such as the Jamaica, Cuba, Bahamas, Grenada, Trinidad & Tobago, Dominican, Barbados, Portugal, Switzerland and Norway. It also has the world's fastest man and Jamaican track athlete Usain Bolt under contract along with other track and field athletes like Andre Degrasse, Karsten Warholm and Gianmarco Tamberi. Over the past decades, several world records were achieved by athletes wearing Puma shoes, such as Heinz Futterer (1954), Armin Hary (1960), Jim Hines (1976), Tommie Smith (1968), Asafa Powell (2005), and Usain Bolt (2009).[12][13]
In 2018 Puma announced its entrance back into basketball after a break of almost 20 years. The brand appointed Jay-Z as creative director of Puma basketball.[14] Marvin Bagley, Deandre Ayton, Zhaire Smith, and Michael Porter Jr. are the first players to join Puma's basketball roster and play in performance Puma basketball shoes.[15][16]
Also, Puma made its partnership with Netball after 28 years by sponsoring the Melbourne Vixens, the only netball team to be partnered with the global firm[17]
From 2018 Puma became the official apparel sponsor of New Zealand's national netball team, the Silver Ferns.
The firm sponsors Indian cricketer Virat Kohli the captain of the India cricket team. Golfers such as Rickie Fowler, Bryson DeChambeau and Lexi Thompson are equipped by Puma's golf brand Cobra Puma Golf.[18][19][20]
In Formula 1, Puma equips the teams of Mercedes AMG Petronas, Scuderia Ferrari and Red Bull Racing.[21] In addition, Puma also sponsors BMW and Porsche in all of their Motorsports activities.[22] In NASCAR Puma equips Team Penske with fire suits, gloves, and shoes.
In order to support its women's business, Puma endorses supermodel Cara Delevingne and Adriana Lima as well as actress/singer Selena Gomez.[23][24]
Puma is the main sponsor of the Israel Football Association (IFA), which includes six football teams based in Israel’s settlements in the West Bank. It is the only major international company to sponsor the IFA. In July 2021 there were anti-sponsorshop protests outside Puma’s offices in Manchester, UK, as well as at 30 UK Puma stores. Liverpool and Chester football clubs chose not to renew their sponsorship contracts with Puma.[25][26]
Locations
The company has a few dozen small corporate offices around the world, and four "international hubs": Boston, Massachusetts (moving to Assembly Row, Somerville, Massachusetts[27]); Hong Kong; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and global headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany.[28]
History
Background
Christoph von Wilhelm Dassler was a worker in a shoe factory, while his wife Pauline ran a small laundry in the Franconian town of Herzogenaurach, 20 km (12.4 mi) from the city of Nuremberg. After leaving school, their son, Rudolf Dassler, joined his father at the shoe factory. When he returned from fighting in World War I, Rudolf was trained as a salesman at a porcelain factory, and later in a leather trading business in Nuremberg.
In 1924, Rudolf and his younger brother, Adolf, nicknamed "Adi", founded a shoe factory. They named the new business "Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik" (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory) which was the only business at the time that manufactured sports shoes. The pair started their venture in their mother's laundry. At the time, electricity supplies in the town were unreliable, and the brothers sometimes had to use pedal power from a stationary bicycle to run their equipment.[29] In 1927, they moved into a separate building.
The brothers drove from Bavaria to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin with a suitcase full of spikes and persuaded United States sprinter Jesse Owens to use them, the first sponsorship for an African American. Owens won four gold medals. Business boomed; the Dasslers were selling 200,000 pairs of shoes annually before World War II.[30]
Both brothers joined the Nazi Party, but Rudolf was slightly closer to the party. A growing rift between the brothers reached a breaking point during a 1943 Allied bomb attack. Adi and his wife climbed into a bomb shelter that Rudolf and his family were already in. "Here are the bloody bastards again," Adi remarked, apparently referring to the Allied war planes, but Rudolf, due to his apparent insecurity, was convinced his brother meant him and his family.[31] When Rudolf was later picked up by American soldiers and accused of being a member of the Waffen SS, he was convinced that his brother had turned him in.[29]
1948
After increasingly different views of how to run the business, the brothers split the business in 1948. Rudolf moved to the other side of the Aurach River to start his own company. Adolf started his own company using a name he formed using his nickname—Adi—and the first three letters of his last name—Das—to establish Adidas. Rudolf created a new firm that he called "Ruda", from "Ru" in Rudolf and "Da" in Dassler. A few months later, Rudolf's company changed its name to Puma Schuhfabrik Rudolf Dassler in 1948.[32]
Puma and Adidas entered a fierce and bitter rivalry after the split. The town of Herzogenaurach was divided on the issue, leading to the nickname "the town of bent necks"—people looked down to see which shoes strangers wore.[33]
In 1948, the first football match after World War II, several members of the West German national football team wore Puma boots, including the scorer of West Germany's first post-war goal, Herbert Burdenski.[citation needed]
1952
Rudolf developed a football boot with screw-in studs, called the "Super Atom" in collaboration with people, such as West Germany's national coach Sepp Herberger.[citation needed]
At the 1952 Summer Olympics, 1500 metres runner Josy Barthel of Luxembourg won Puma's first Olympic gold in Helsinki, Finland.[citation needed]
1960
At the 1960 Summer Olympics Puma paid German sprinter Armin Hary to wear Pumas in the 100-metre sprint final. Hary had worn Adidas before and asked Adolf for payment, but Adidas rejected this request. The German won gold in Pumas but then laced up Adidas for the medals ceremony, to the shock of the two Dassler brothers. Hary hoped to cash in from both, but Adi was so enraged he banned the Olympic champion.[30]
During the 1968 Olympics Black Power Salute, Puma sponsored African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, after having won gold and bronze in the 200 meters respectively, took to the podium with their Puma Suedes in hand and bowed their heads and raised their black-gloved fists in silent protest during the playing of the national anthem, an act meant to stand up for human rights and to stand up for black Americans.[34]
1986
Puma became a public company in 1986,[35] and thereafter was listed on the Börse München and Frankfurt Stock Exchange.[36] It also introduced the RS Computer shoe, with "RS" standing for "running system," an integrated device that measured runner's speed, pace, and caloric use. It sold poorly.[37]
1989
In May 1989, Rudolf's sons Armin and Gerd Dassler agreed to sell their 72 percent stake in Puma to Swiss business Cosa Liebermann SA.[38]
2003
For the fiscal year 2003, the company had revenue of €1.274 billion. Puma was the commercial sponsor for the 2002 anime series Hungry Heart: Wild Striker, with the jerseys and clothing sporting the Puma brand. Puma ranks as one of the top shoe brands with Adidas and Nike.[33]
2007
In February 2007 Puma reported that its profits had fallen by 26% to €32.8 million ($43 million; £22 million) during the final three months of 2006. Most of the decline in profits was due to higher costs linked to its expansion; sales rose by more than a third to €480.6 million.[39]
In early April 2007 Puma's shares rose €29.25 per share, or about 10.2%, to €315.24 per share.[40]
On 10 April 2007 French retailer and owner of Gucci brand Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR) announced that it had bought a 27% stake in Puma, clearing the way for a full takeover. The deal valued Puma at €5.3 billion. PPR said that it would launch a "friendly" takeover for Puma, worth €330 a share, once the acquisition of the smaller stake was completed. The board of Puma welcomed the move, saying it was fair and in the firm's best interests.[41]
As of July 2007, PPR owned over 60% of Puma stock.
2011
In July 2011 the company completed a conversion from an Aktiengesellschaft (German public limited company) to a Societas Europaea, the European Union-wide equivalent, changing its name from Puma AG Rudolf Dassler Sport to Puma SE.[42] At the same time, Franz Koch replaced the long-serving Jochen Zeitz as the firm's chief executive officer, with Zeitz becoming chairman.[43]
Since 2012
Puma holds a 5% stake at German sports club Borussia Dortmund, whose supplier has been the company since 2012.
The company has been led by former football professional Bjørn Gulden (chief executive officer) since 1 July 2013.
Puma is the main producer of enthusiast driving shoes and race suits. They are the primary producer for Formula One and NASCAR clothing. They won the rights to sponsor the 2006 FIFA World Cup champions, the Italian national football team, making and sponsoring the clothing worn by the team. They entered a partnership with BMW, Ducati and Ferrari to make Puma-Ferrari, Puma-Ducati and Puma-BMW shoes.
Rihanna was named creative director of Puma overseeing direction of the womenswear line in December 2014.[44]
In 2014, Puma and Arsenal Football Club entered a 5-year merchandising partnership. The commercial partnership represents the biggest deal in Puma and Arsenal's history.[45] The partnership ended in 2019.
In March 2018, Puma launched its venture with its ambassador Selena Gomez called "Phenom Lux''.[46] In 2018, Puma re-entered the basketball sneaker market for the first time in 20 years and announced Jay-Z will be the creative director for Puma Basketball. Puma last sponsored Vince Carter in 1998. They signed young basketball players Marvin Bagley III and Deandre Ayton, both of whom became the Top 2 picks of the 2018 NBA Draft.[47]
In December 2018, Puma reintroduced the RS Computer, with "RS" standing for "running system." The shoe contains technologies such as an accelerometer and Bluetooth.
In September 2020, Puma signed with Brazilian football superstar Neymar.[48]
In July 2021, Puma signed with 18 athletes in India to represent the country in national and international events across sports such as hockey, shooting etc
No comments: