Can Arc’teryx’s owner revive Chinese IPOs in America?

Foreign acquisitionsHNAIPO by Chinese buyers have a lousy reputation. The takeover of PizzaExpress, a British restaurant chain, by Hony Capital, a Chinese private-equity firm, ended up in restructuring. Financial collapse forced , a Chinese conglomerate, to sell its stake in Hilton Worldwide, an American hotel chain, not long after buying it. Sanpower, a Chinese mall operator that bought House of Fraser, a British department store, succumbed to similar pressures.An exception is the €5.6bn ($6.3bn) purchase in 2019 of Amer, the Finnish owner of brands such as Arc’teryx, Salomon and Wilson, by a consortium led by Anta Sports, a Chinese rival to Adidas and Nike. The year before, stiffening competition in sports goods all but wiped out Amer’s revenue growth. In the first nine months of 2023 sales swelled by nearly 30% year on year; a fifth came from China. Bankers hope that having scored a win for Chinese foreign buyouts, Amer can do the same for Chinese foreign listings. On January 4th Amer filed for an initial public offering () on the New York Stock Exchange.