NIKE Inc. (NYSE:NKE) – New Puma CEO seeks to return company to sporting roots

Germany’s Puma will return to its sporting roots to restore growth to the struggling brand whose profits crashed 70 percent last year, the group’s new chief executive said. Puma ranks a distant third in the sports apparel industry behind Nike and Adidas and CEO Bjoern Gulden’s turnaround plan breaks with the company’s efforts over two decades under former chief Jochen Zeitz to strike a chord with fashion-led consumers. “We are a sports company, not a sports lifestyle company,” Bjoern Gulden told journalists, speaking in public for the first time since taking the helm in July. Gulden wants Puma, which is 84 percent owned by French luxury group Kering, to go back to its roots in football and athletics, sports he thinks it has neglected.

  

Nike, Inc. (NKE), currently valued at $68.12B, began trading this morning at $75.59. Shares have traded today between $75.58 and $76.63 per share with a one year range of $44.83 to $77.66. NKE shares are currently priced at 25.17x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively inexpensive compared to the industry’s 33.79x earnings multiple. Read More : Nike, Inc. (NKE)