Wilsons tennis racket maker Amer Sports aims to price $1 billion US IPO by end of month -sources

By Scott Murdoch

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Wilsons tennis racket maker Amer Sport is planning to price its $1 billion U.S initial public offering (IPO) by the end of January, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, in the first major new share sale in 2024.

Amer Sports, owned by a Chinese-consortium led by Anta Sport that also includes Tencent, made its regulatory filings public earlier this month ahead of the deal launching.

The company is aiming to raise $1 billion to value Amers Sport at $10 billion, according to one of the sources.

The sources could not be named as the information has not yet been made public.

Amer Sports - which owns major brands including Arc'teryx, Salomon, Atomic and Peak Performance - plans to open its books for the IPO and begin trading by the end of the month, the sources added.

Raising $1 billion would make the IPO the largest in the world since Birkenstock raised $1.48 billion in New York in October, according to Dealogic data.

Initial meetings with investors have been underway ahead of the deal's formal roadshow launch, they said.

Amer Sports declined to comment to Reuters on the planned timetable or deal size.

The firm's revenue was $3.05 billion in the nine months ended Sept. 30, compared with $2.35 billion a year earlier, according to its regulatory filings.

China now makes up 19.4% of the company's revenue, in that time period, up from 8.3% in 2020, the filings showed.

Amer Sports went private in 2019, after a consortium led by China's Anta Sports, struck a deal that valued it at more than $5 billion

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney; Editing by Michael Perry)