Industries
Athletic Footwear & Apparel
All research in Athletic Footwear & Apparel — 8 reports.
37/100
74Buffett
JD Sports Fashion plc: Cheap Cash Flow, Falling Like-for-Like Sales, and the Cost of Control
JD Sports Fashion is a global multi-brand sports-fashion retailer that resells branded footwear and apparel through 4,811 stores in 36 countries, and FY26 showed how much of its growth now comes from buying rather than selling: reported revenue rose 10.5% to GBP 12.662bn while like-for-like sales fell 2.1% and adjusted pre-tax profit fell 7.7% to GBP 852m. Trading has worsened since, with Q2 FY27 group like-for-like down 3.1% and North America, the largest market, down 6.8%, prompting a cut to FY27 profit guidance even as free-cash-flow guidance held at GBP 460m to 520m. Rating Watch: at GBP 0.8398 the shares trade on about 7.2 times adjusted earnings with an 11.5% free-cash-flow yield, but sit roughly 12% above the GBP 0.75 conservative value, so the margin-of-safety verdict is none until they approach the GBP 0.55 to 0.60 ideal buy range.
44/100
78Buffett
Shenzhou International: 22.6% H1 Gross Margin and 75.9% Customer Concentration Leave No Conservative Margin of Safety at HK$36.58
Shenzhou International is a vertically integrated knitwear manufacturer producing fabric and garments across China, Vietnam and Cambodia, with sportswear at 63.8% of H1 2026 revenue. H1 revenue fell 5.3%, gross margin dropped to 22.6% and attributable profit declined 40.0%, while the top three customers supplied 75.9% of sales and new overseas capacity raised fixed-cost risk. Rating Hold: HK$36.58 sits near the low end of the HK$36–49 acceptable-hold band but above the HK$20–23.5 ideal-buy zone, leaving no conservative margin of safety.
44/100
55Buffett
adidas AG: Record Revenue, Record Doubt, and the Economics of a World Cup
adidas AG is the world's number-two athletic footwear and apparel brand, selling product design and sports marketing through a wholesale-plus-DTC network that produced EUR 24.81bn of 2025 revenue. Second-quarter 2026 delivered record currency-neutral growth of 14% and a 52.5% gross margin, yet operating profit of EUR 574m missed consensus by EUR 49m as marketing and point-of-sale expense rose EUR 212m to EUR 924m, and management raised revenue guidance while leaving full-year EBIT at about EUR 2.3bn. Rating Hold: the demand recovery is proven, but at EUR 164.05 the price sits 13% to 26% above the EUR 130 to EUR 145 conservative value and the ideal buy zone is EUR 105 to EUR 115.
35/100
PUMA SE: A Fixable Brand, but the Price Already Pays for Part of the Fix
PUMA SE is the world's number-three athletic footwear and apparel brand, selling through wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels, with 2025 continuing-operations sales of EUR 7.30bn and a EUR 357.2m reported operating loss. Second-quarter 2026 showed a genuine reset, with inventory down 15.3%, gross margin up 180 basis points to 48.0% and EUR 328.8m of free cash flow, yet currency-adjusted sales still fell 9.4% while adidas grew 14% in the same quarter and the same categories. Rating Hold: the brand is probably fixable, but at EUR 27.11 the price already sits two-thirds of the way from the EUR 18.3 conservative value to the EUR 31.1 base value, and the ideal buy zone is EUR 14.0 to EUR 14.5.
52/100
Amer Sports: The Brand Transformation Is Real, but Has the Price Already Bought All of It?
Amer Sports owns Arc’teryx, Salomon and Wilson, and has converted a leveraged sporting-goods conglomerate into a premium, increasingly direct-to-consumer softgoods group whose economics are set by two of its three segments. First-quarter 2026 revenue grew 32% with a 60.0% adjusted gross margin, but Greater China is now 33.1% of sales and full-year guidance implies second-half growth slowing to roughly 14% to 18%. Rating Hold: the transformation is real, yet at 30.6 times guided 2026 adjusted earnings the price already sits above the report's US$28.7 to US$33.1 conservative value and leaves no margin of safety.
43/100
75Buffett
Li Ning Company: 11 Times Trailing Earnings and Almost RMB20 Billion of Net Cash, Against a Q2 2026 Sell-Through Reversal
Li Ning monetises a single national sportswear brand through franchised distributors, directly operated stores and e-commerce, with FY2025 revenue of RMB29.6 billion. Revenue grew 3.2% but attributable profit fell 2.6%, return on equity has slid from 26.9% in 2021 to 10.9%, and Q2 2026 retail sell-through reversed from first-quarter growth into a low-single-digit decline. Rating Hold: almost RMB20 billion of cash and deposits and about 11 times trailing earnings protect the downside, yet at HK$14.54 the shares sit above the roughly HK$11.8 conservative value with no margin of safety.
55/100
92Buffett
ANTA Sports: Other Brands Grew 59.2% While the Core Brand Managed 3.7%, and at HKD 74.50 the Shares Already Sit Above the HKD 68 Conservative Sum-of-the-Parts
ANTA is two assets on one share certificate: a controlled multi-brand sportswear group that earned RMB 80.22 billion of FY2025 revenue, and a 37.77% equity-accounted stake in New York-listed Amer Sports worth far more in the market than on the balance sheet. The mix has shifted underneath the headline: the ANTA core brand grew 3.7% and FILA 6.9% in FY2025 while the other-brand group grew 59.2% to 21.2% of revenue, and second-quarter 2026 retail sales repeated the pattern with low-single-digit core growth against 25 to 30% elsewhere. Rating Hold: cash conversion of 1.49 times over five years and RMB 31.7 billion of net cash are genuine, but the Puma stake was contracted 62% above the unaffected price and at HKD 74.50 the shares sit above the HKD 68 conservative sum-of-the-parts, leaving no margin of safety.
52/100
48Buffett
On Holding: Premium Growth, Priced for Perfection
On Holding is a Swiss premium performance-sportswear brand built on running footwear, monetizing a proprietary-technology product system through a fast-rising direct-to-consumer channel alongside selective wholesale. The bull-bear core is a rare combination of scale growth and margin expansion: fiscal 2025 net sales of CHF 3.014 billion, up 30.0% reported and 35.6% constant-currency, with gross margin climbing to 62.8% and DTC mix at 41.8%, set against a stock that at roughly 3.1x trailing sales and a trailing P/E near the high-40s already prices in continued near-flawless execution amid Vietnam-tariff and footwear-concentration risk. Rating Hold: premium growth and margin expansion are real, but today's price already demands sustained near-perfect execution, leaving no conservative-entry margin of safety.