Shareholding drastically reduced: Kering sells more Puma shares

The French luxury goods group Kering wants to bolster its finances. The stake in the sporting goods manufacturer Puma will be scaled down significantly, also in order to concentrate on the high-price segment in the future.

The French luxury group Kering is selling a package worth a good 650 million euros in shares in its former subsidiary Puma. The owner of brands such as "Gucci" and "Yves Saint Laurent" threw around 8.8 million shares of the Franconian sporting goods company on the market on Monday evening, as he announced in Paris.

puma 75.90

With the overnight placement, Kering is reducing its stake in Puma to 9.8 from 15.7 percent. One of the banks involved informed the investors that the Puma shares would probably be sold for 74.50 euros each. That would be a discount of 4.6 percent on the Xetra closing price of EUR 78.10. This would bring Kering around 656 million euros.

Puma shares have almost completely made up for their drop in price from the Corona crisis. At that time, most of the sporting goods stores around the world had closed for weeks. The manufacturers remained seated on the goods, Puma and its larger competitor Adidas obtained billion-dollar aid loans from the state. The price of the Puma share in the MDax small cap index has almost doubled since mid-March. Kering had reduced its stake in Puma to just under 16 from 86 percent in 2018. The largest shareholder in the Herzogenaurach-based company is Kering's major shareholder Pinault with 28.5 percent.

. (tagsToTranslate) economy (t) Puma (t) Kering (PPR) (t) sporting goods industry