At the sports goods manufacturer Puma, the recent takeover fantasy cooled down a bit on Thursday.
With a minus of 4.3 percent to EUR 22.28, the shares were one of the largest MDAX losers around noon after they had jumped up by almost 17 percent to 23.28 euros in the middle of the week. A month ago, they had marked a low since 2016 at 17.045 euros. The minus in the current year still amounts to almost 50 percent, with Puma the last place in the MDAX.
On Wednesday, an article in the “Manager Magazin” had proven to be a spa driver about the plans of the Grand shareholder family Pinault, which was linked to other media reports. As a result, two interested parties are already getting warm with the financial investor CVC and the US brand management company Authentic Brands Group (ABG). For this purpose, there had recently had speculation about a possible takeover by the domestic competitor Adidas-also because of the statement by the Pinault family that she no longer pursued a strategic interest with her participation in Puma.
Analyst: On the inside, on Thursday, the speculation was rather critical. After a closer look at the information available so far, she stated that she would be unlikely to take on a takeover of Puma, wrote Wendy Liu from the US bank JPmorgan. In this respect, she does not see a clear catalyst for a price increase based on Puma as an independent company. Liu continues to classify the share with “Underweight” and a price target of 16 euros, which is 28 percent below the current rating.
Adam Cochrane from Deutsche Bank Research also has doubts about the resilience of the latest takeover fantasy. ABG does not seem to be a credible candidate for taking over the company with more than 50 brands, the expert emphasized. Since Puma, under the new boss, wanted to announce the new strategy together with the quarterly figures at the end of October, it could also make sense to strive for a transaction before a possible change in the strategic orientation. Cochrane continues to evaluate Puma with “Hold” and a price target of 20 euros.