Shortly after taking office, the new Puma boss Arthur Hoeld took a blow to investors: the most recent hope for a business recovery.
“In view of the ongoing, geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties, Puma assumes that both industry -wide and company -specific challenges will continue to significantly impair business development in 2025,” said the company surprisingly in Herzogenaurach on Thursday evening. The Adidas rival has said goodbye to the prospect of achieving a increase in sales in the current year. The proceeds are likely to fall much more. Puma shares lost a fifth of their value in the first minutes of retail.
Heavy heritage for the new CEO
Hoeld only took the helm with the Herzogenauracher this July, after Puma separated from Arne Freundt in early April after a disappointing business development. The new CEO, who was responsible for global sales until October 2024 as a board member of Adidas, is a serious heritage. The international trade voltages and cautious consumers have been piling up for a long time, unsold goods are increasingly filling the warehouses. In such a difficult, difficult environment, however, new bosses often rely on “making” big “big”, i.e. to put everything negative on the table.
The weaker sales development of the second quarter should continue for the rest of the year and lead to higher inventory, it was also said by the company on Thursday evening. Puma not only suffers from the consequences of US customs policy. So let the brand dynamics afterwards; In addition, there would be changes in the sales channel mix and in sales quality.
Key markets with weak development
Especially the business development in the key markets of North America, Europe and Großchina was recently weaker. Group sales fell by 2.0 percent to a good 1.94 billion euros in the second annual quarter. Without taking currency influences into account, the minus was even 8.3 percent. In addition, there was a loss of 13.2 million euros from interest and tax even without one -time costs.
Against this background, the corporate management for 2025 is now expecting a decrease in currency -adjusted sales in the low double -digit percentage range. So far, growth in the low to medium single -digit percentage range had been on schedule. In addition, a loss of interest and taxes (EBIT) should occur after 445 to 525 million euros have been targeted. The US tariff alone is likely to burden the 2025 operating result with around 80 million euros.
In view of the poor prospects, the company cuts its investment plans. With 250 million euros, 50 million euros less are now to be spent than originally planned. According to analyst Robert Krankowski from Bank UBS, the current news underlines the difficulties in increasingly intensive competition.
On the stock exchange, the cloudy outlook provided a shock. The price of the share collapsed by almost 20 percent to 20.09 euros in the first minutes of retail. However, the papers kept themselves from April when the customs announcements of the new US government had chased shock waves through many industries. Previously, the share price had already broken out of a quarter in March after a warning before a decline in profits. The decline had left a notched notch in the spa chart to this day.
Note d. Red.: This article was updated on July 25, 2025 at 10.05 a.m.