Adidas Group has assumed full ownership of its brand adidas subsidiary in Korea, adidas Korea Ltd, by purchasing the remaining 49 percent of shares from its joint venture partner. Both parties have agreed to maintain confidentiality with respect to the purchase price paid.
This move underscores the adidas Group s strategy to support its brands with wholly-owned subsidiaries in key markets. The Group is convinced that this step will further strengthen its leading position in Asia.
Buying out distributors and joint venture partners has proven to be very successful for the Group in recent years. The adidas business in Italy, for example, has more than doubled since the buyout in 2002 and there have been sizable gains in Turkey, Denmark and Portugal where buyouts also occurred in the last five years.
Most importantly, in Japan, the Group s buyout of a distributor in 1999 allowed the adidas team to more proactively control the brand and take over market leadership in the world s second largest sporting goods market.
The adidas Group is one of the global leaders in the sporting goods industry, offering a wide range of products around the three core segments adidas, Reebok and TaylorMade-adidas Golf. Headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, the Group has more than 25,000 employees worldwide and sales of around 9.5 billion.
