Anta Sports owns more of your sportswear than you think

You might never have bought anything from Anta. But if you’ve worn Arc’teryx, Salomon, Wilson, Fila or Puma, there’s a good chance some of your money has gone to the same Chinese company. Anta Sports doesn’t own every sportswear brand, but over the past decade, it has quietly built one of the biggest brand portfolios in the business. And in October, it became the largest shareholder in Puma.

The latest move: Puma

Anta Sports has completed the purchase of 29,06% of Puma for 1.505,5 million euros, becoming the largest shareholder of the German brand. It bought the stake from the Pinault family’s investment company, Groupe Artémis, which had held it for years. 

It isn’t a takeover, at least for now. Anta Sports will seek representation on Puma’s supervisory board and has no plans to make a takeover offer for Puma. 

Anta’s chairman was clear about why Puma matters: “Anta lacks a strong football presence, while Puma has deep expertise in football,” Ding said. He added that Puma’s strengths in football, motorsports and running complement Anta’s existing portfolio and fit the group’s long-term globalization strategy. 

What Anta owns: the full portfolio

Anta’s empire works on three levels: brands it owns outright, brands it controls in China, and big stakes in global groups.

Brands Anta owns or controls

• Anta: its namesake, mass-market Chinese brand.

• Fila: owned in mainland China, where Anta built it into a premium sports-fashion brand.

• Descente and Kolon Sport: premium skiwear and “light outdoor” brands for the Chinese market.

• Jack Wolfskin: the German outdoor brand it bought in 2025.

• Maia Active: a women’s athleisure brand, in which Anta Sports had acquired a majority (75.13%) stake in 2023. 

Amer Sports, through its largest stake

Anta is the largest shareholder of Amer Sports, Inc., a global group of iconic sports and outdoor brands, including Arc’teryx, Salomon, Wilson, Peak Performance, and Atomic, whose shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. That gives Anta a direct line into high-end outdoor gear, ski equipment and racket sports. businesswire

Puma, its newest stake
The PUMA Group owns the brands PUMA, Cobra Golf and stichd. Anta is now its biggest shareholder. businesswire

How Anta built it: the playbook

Step 1: Fila. Anta’s first big bet was turning Fila into a premium brand in China. It worked so well that Fila now generates almost as much money as Anta’s own brand. In the first half of 2026, the ANTA brand generated RMB17.77 billion of revenue, FILA generated RMB15.05 billion, and other brands, including DESCENTE, KOLON SPORT, JACK WOLFSKIN and MAIA ACTIVE, rose 44.2% to RMB10.69 billion. 

Step 2: Amer Sports. In 2019, a consortium led by Anta acquired Amer Sports for EUR 4.6 billion (USD 5.4 billion). The same approach followed: Anta’s approach to Amer echoed its earlier playbook with Fila, emphasizing international talent, brand discipline, and direct-to-consumer expansion. Arc’teryx, in particular, became one of the most sought-after outdoor brands in the world. 

Step 3: Fill the gaps. Each new brand covers a different customer. In outdoor alone, Amer anchors the high end, Descente concentrates on premium ski apparel, Kolon Sport caters to light outdoor users, and Jack Wolfskin serves the mass market. Puma adds football, motorsport and running, the areas Anta was missing. 

In our view, it’s a portfolio strategy borrowed from luxury fashion, applied to sport: own a brand for every price point and every sport, rather than betting everything on one name.

Why it matters

It’s changing who controls global sportswear. For decades, the industry was dominated by Nike and Adidas. Anta now has influence across outdoor, skiing, tennis, golf, football and running, through brands that many shoppers think of as European or American.

It’s growing fast, but at a cost. Anta reported record revenue in 2025, though global expansion weighs on profits. Integrating brands like Jack Wolfskin takes time and money, and analysts expect Jack Wolfskin is likely to weigh on near-term profitability. 

Puma is the biggest test yet. It’s the first time Anta has taken a major stake in a mainstream global football and running brand, and one that’s in the middle of a turnaround. Puma is also one of India’s best-known sportswear brands, so Anta’s influence now stretches into markets where it has almost no presence under its own name.

The question that matters

Will Anta become the world’s next sportswear giant without most people ever knowing its name? It doesn’t need you to buy an Anta shoe. It just needs you to keep buying Arc’teryx jackets, Wilson rackets, Salomon trail shoes, and now, perhaps, Puma football boots.

At The Sports Columnist, we cover the deals, the money and the decisions behind sport. Every game has a second scoreboard, and in sportswear, Anta is quietly running up the score.

Sources: Anta Sports and Puma announcements; Anta Sports results; reporting on the Puma transaction, January–October 2026.

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