As expected, a consortium headed by Chinese sports equipment manufacturer Anta Sports Products (Jinjiang, Fujian; www.anta.com) has made a binding offer for all outstanding shares of Finnish competitor Amer Sports (Helsinki; www.amersports.com). At a price of EUR 40 per share, the total offer thus amounts to EUR 4.6 bn. The Amer board has already voted unanimously to accept the offer.

The offer period is expected to commence on 20 December 2018, and to run for approximately ten weeks – in other words up to the end of February 2019. The tender offer should be completed during the second quarter of 2019 at the latest. The present management team headed by Amer CEO Heikki Takala will then continue heading the group of companies with brands such as "Wilson", "Salomon" and "Atomic".

Amer has a workforce of around 8,500 and generated sales in 2017 of around EUR 2.7 bn and pre-tax profits of EUR 142m. For the first three quarters of the current fiscal year, pre-tax earnings amounted to EUR 99.1m.