Amer Sports, Inc. (AS): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $29.53, Amer Sports, Inc. (AS) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~10.1 years. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-25.

Generated: 2026-09-07 · Exported: 2026-09-09 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/AS

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 6: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 12.3% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling.

How unusual the bet is: elevated (limited comparison data)

Valuation X-Ray

Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.3%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=16)

Solvency

Bullet Takeaways

• Amer Sports is run as three separate brand clusters rather than one label, and the FY2025 20-F is blunt about it: "Each segment is led by one of our core brands: Arc'teryx, Salomon and Wilson.", with Technical Apparel supplying 43% of revenue and Ball & Racquet Sports 20%.
• The price works out to roughly 31 times operating income, which needs the current growth pace to hold for about 12.4 years, and only about 14% of companies that have grown this fast kept it up for a decade.
• Revenue rose 32% to 1.945 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2026 and management lifted full-year revenue growth guidance to a range of 20% to 22%, so the next print is where the durability question gets its next data point.

Bull Case

Start with the number that does not fit the story. Amer Sports sells Arc'teryx shells and Salomon trail shoes at prices that make shoppers pause, and it converts that pricing into an operating margin of 11.2% on trailing figures. LULU, selling technical apparel through a comparable direct channel, runs 18.3%. DECK runs 23.1%. The company with arguably the strongest premium brand in the group is the least profitable of the three. That gap is the bull case, because it is a spending gap rather than a pricing gap.

Arc'teryx is being built out storefront by storefront. In Greater China and North America the brand "operates 79 and 73 owned retail stores, including 19 and 7 factory outlets, respectively", and the 20-F frames the plan as leaning on "the intrinsic strengths of our brands and the synergistic benefits of our platform" to push further into Europe and Asia Pacific. A store carries rent, staff and inventory from the day it opens and reaches its mature productivity years later. Build enough of them quickly enough and the reported margin understates what the existing base already earns. That is a very different problem from a brand that cannot charge more.

The growth is also not one brand carrying the other two. First-quarter 2026 revenue rose 32%, with Technical Apparel up 33% to 885 million dollars and Outdoor Performance up 42% to 713.6 million dollars on Salomon footwear demand. More useful than the revenue line is the profit line underneath it: the 20-F reports that segment adjusted operating profit in Technical Apparel "increased by 34.0% for the year ended December 31, 2025", running slightly ahead of that segment's own revenue. Leverage that turns up in the segment disclosure is harder to argue with than leverage promised on a call.

Wilson does something structurally different, and that matters more than its growth rate suggests. Ball and Racquet Sports is a fifth of revenue selling racquets, balls and equipment on replacement demand rather than on whether shells are in fashion this autumn. Atomic sits inside Outdoor Performance on similar footing, with the filing pointing to "the use of Atomic equipment by some of the world's best alpine athletes, including Mikaela Shiffrin" as the basis for taking winter-hardware share. Neither line is the engine. Both are reasons a bad season in one category does not become a bad year for the company.

The build is being funded without strain. The FY2025 20-F puts principal borrowings outstanding at 942.8 million dollars as of December 31, 2025, against operating profit that covers the interest bill 5.3 times over, and the business generates cash rather than consuming it. Companies expanding this fast usually reach a point where the store plan and the credit agreement start arguing with each other. That argument has not started here, which means the expansion can be paced by what the brands can absorb rather than by what the lenders will tolerate.

Bear Case

The methods used to triangulate this company do not merely disagree; they disagree by a factor of four. Book value plus profitability puts the price roughly 4.4 times above where the asset-value approaches land. The price sits about 4.1 times above the earnings-power approaches, which value the profit stream exactly as it exists today. Peer multiples are the closest of the conservative frames and still leave the price about 1.4 times above them. One family reaches the price: forward growth. How it gets there is the whole question.

It reaches by projecting today's economics forward without decay. One cash-flow model compounds free cash flow at 25% a year through its whole forecast window before settling to a 4% terminal rate. Another simply holds today's EV/EBITDA level flat to the end of the projection, which amounts to assuming buyers well into the next decade pay what buyers pay this morning. Both are legitimate constructions. Neither is evidence. The conservative frames are conservative precisely because they count only what has already happened, and what has already happened is an 11.2% operating margin on about 6.6 billion dollars of trailing revenue.

Stated arithmetically, roughly 31 times operating income requires the current pace to persist about 12.4 years, and every percentage point of growth the company gives up shortens the required horizon by about 2.2 years. Against its own record the near-term rate is not the stretch. The duration is. Against the peer group the multiple sits at the very top of the distribution, well past the upper quartile, and only about 14% of comparably fast growers held their pace for a decade. If growth settles toward what the peer-multiple frame already reflects, the compression comes out of the multiple rather than out of earnings, and multiple compression is the part shareholders feel immediately.

The reasons the pace might not hold are written into the risk section by the company itself. Distribution is not contracted: "We generally do not have long-term contracts with our wholesale partners". Demand planning is the hinge, since the company and its partners "forecast inventory demand, which is subject to many factors, including seasonal and quarterly variations". In premium outdoor gear a forecasting miss becomes markdowns, and markdowns land squarely on the gross margin the entire growth story rests on. The bull answer, that the margin gap is spending rather than pricing, holds only while the spending keeps producing this growth rate.

Competition is not the boutique kind either. The filing concedes rivals with "greater brand recognition, and greater financial, research and development, store development, marketing, distribution, and other resources than we do". NKE books 46.5 billion dollars of trailing revenue against Amer Sports' 6.6 billion, and although NKE's own revenue slipped 2.7% over the last year, a competitor of that size can fund a technical push without the cost showing up anywhere a shareholder would notice.

Then there is the matter of who actually controls the company. ANTA Sports supplies shared functions in Greater China under a business services agreement, and the 20-F warns that "Potential conflicts of interest could also arise if we enter into commercial arrangements with ANTA Sports in the future" and that the company may as a result be "precluded from pursuing certain growth initiatives". The filing separately lists the "ability to obtain approvals from PRC authorities to remain listed on the U.S. exchanges" among the risks its forward-looking statements depend on. For a stock priced on more than a decade of uninterrupted execution, a structure that can quietly veto growth initiatives is not a footnote.

Valuation

Today's price values the operating business at about 31 times its operating income. Worked backwards, that embeds a fairly specific commitment: growth at close to the fastest pace the business can fund out of its own profits, sustained for roughly 12.4 years. The rate is not exotic for this company. The calendar is.

That duration is where the demand actually sits. Measured against its own record, the recent pace is ordinary for Amer Sports. Measured against its peer group, the multiple sits at the very top of the distribution, well past the upper quartile. Measured against the historical record of fast growers, only about 14% sustained this level for a decade. One relationship is worth carrying away: each percentage point of growth given up moves the required horizon by about 2.2 years, which means the assumption is far more sensitive to a modest deceleration than to a single bad quarter.

The valuation approaches split cleanly. The price sits about 4.4 times above the asset-value approaches and about 4.1 times above the earnings-power approaches, and even peer multiples, the most generous of the conservative frames, leave it about 1.4 times above where they land. Only the forward-growth methods reach it, and they reach it by projecting rather than observing: one compounds free cash flow at 25% a year across its forecast, another simply keeps today's EV/EBITDA level in place through to the end of the projection. When the single frame that reaches the price is the one crediting the future, what is being bought is durability rather than earnings.

Against the cohort the picture is mixed rather than damning. Trailing revenue of about 6.6 billion dollars grew far faster than anything else in the group: LULU grew 4.2%, DECK 9.8%, LEVI 7.3%, COLM 0.6%, and UAA shrank 3.8% while running an operating loss. On profitability the ranking inverts, with Amer Sports earning 11.2% at the operating line against LULU's 18.3% and DECK's 23.1%. Fastest growth paired with middling margins is exactly the profile that peer multiples struggle to price, because the multiple has to be justified by a margin that has not arrived yet. The segment disclosure is where that argument gets settled; management itself measures the business that way, evaluating performance "based on segment revenue and Segment Adjusted Operating Profit".

The balance sheet neither adds to the risk nor rescues it. The FY2025 20-F puts principal borrowings outstanding at 942.8 million dollars as of December 31, 2025; net of liquid assets, net debt runs about 0.43 times operating profit and operating income covers interest 5.3 times over, on the funded-borrowings basis the filing reports. The share count has risen since the 2024 listing, which is the arithmetic of going public rather than a habit of paying for operations with equity. What the balance sheet cannot do is buy time. The price is not underwriting solvency; it is underwriting well over a decade of compounding, and borrowings this modest will neither cause that to fail nor soften it if it does.

Catalysts

The most recent full disclosure is the first quarter of 2026, reported on May 19. Revenue rose 32% to 1.945 billion dollars, roughly 120 million dollars ahead of what analysts had modelled, with Technical Apparel up 33% and Outdoor Performance up 42% on Salomon footwear demand. Every region posted double-digit growth, which is unusual in a year when several of its larger competitors were shrinking.

Management responded by raising the outlook rather than banking the beat. Full-year 2026 revenue growth guidance moved from a range of 16% to 18% to a range of 20% to 22%, adjusted operating margin guidance to a range of 13.4% to 13.7%, and adjusted diluted earnings guidance to a range of $1.18 to $1.23 from $1.10 to $1.15. Those adjusted measures are the company's own definitions and sit above the 11.2% operating margin the statutory trailing accounts show, so the distance between guided and reported profitability is itself the thing to follow.

The next quarterly report is the checkpoint that matters, and two questions resolve there. Whether Salomon's softgoods acceleration was a season or a trend is the first. Whether the raised margin guidance survives the second half, when winter hardware and the heavier wholesale shipping season arrive together, is the second. A growth rate the price needs to hold for well over a decade gets re-underwritten four separate occasions a year, and this is one of them.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Core business (reported)

• LULU (lululemon athletica inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …our technical product innovation. We also believe our ability to introduce new product innovations, combine function and fashion, and connect through in-store, online, and community experiences sets us apart from our competition. In addition, we believe our vertical retail distribution strategy and community-based…
• FY2025 10-K: …athletic apparel, including large, diversified apparel companies with substantial market share, and established companies expanding their production and marketing of technical athletic apparel, as well as against smaller retailers and those specifically focused on women's athletic apparel. We also face competition…
• COLM (COLUMBIA SPORTSWEAR COMPANY)
• FY2025 10-K: …("EMEA"), and Canada. The following tables disaggregate the Company's reportable segment Net sales by product category and channel, which the Company believes provides a meaningful depiction of how the nature, timing and uncertainty of Net sales are affected by economic factors: Year Ended December 31, 2025 (in…
• FY2025 10-K: , especially during periods of heightened economic uncertainty in our key markets. • Highly Competitive Markets. In each of our geographic markets, we face significant competition from global and regional branded apparel, footwear, accessories, and equipment companies. More recently this competition has extended to…
• UAA (UNDER ARMOUR, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …of operations. We operate in highly competitive markets and the size and resources of some of our competitors may allow them to compete more effectively than we can, resulting in a loss of our market share and a decrease in our net revenues and gross profit. The market for performance apparel, footwear and…
• FY2025 10-K: …in innovations around sustainability; and greater economies of scale. In addition, some of our competitors have long-term relationships with our key retail customers that are potentially more important to those customers because of the significantly larger volume and product mix that our competitors sell to them. As…
• NKE (NIKE, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …due to strategic pricing actions, partially offset by higher discounts. Reported EBIT decreased 19% reflecting lower revenues and the following: • Gross margin contraction of approximately 190 basis points primarily due to unfavorable changes in standard foreign currency exchange rates, lower ASP and higher…
• FY2025 10-K: …13% on a currency-neutral basis. Unit sales of footwear decreased 11%, while lower ASP per pair reduced footwear revenues by approximately 2 percentage points. Lower ASP per pair was primarily due to higher discounts and changes in channel mix, partially offset by strategic pricing actions. • Apparel revenues…
• DECK (DECKERS OUTDOOR CORP)
• FY2025 10-K: …in response to the success of our brands, and other competitors may do so in the future, particularly as access to offshore manufacturing and changes in technology make it easier and more cost effective to compete. A number of our larger competitors have significantly greater financial, technological, engineering,…
• FY2025 10-K: …enterprise costs which include centralized commercial operations, IT, finance, human resources, legal, supply chain, and corporate executives. Reportable operating segment information, with a reconciliation to the consolidated statements of comprehensive income, was as follows: Year Ended March 31, 2025 UGG HOKA…
• ONON (On Holding AG)
• FY2025 20-F: …our information systems; and IV. incorporation of novel materials or features into our footwear, apparel and accessories may not be accepted by our customers or may be considered inferior to similar products offered by our competitors. Moreover, our ability to successfully carry out our plans to expand our product…
• FY2025 20-F: …other things: • economic downturns in a particular area; • competition from nearby retailers selling athletic apparel; • changing consumer demographics in a particular market; Ta ble of Co nt en t s • changing lifestyle choices of consumers in a particular market; and • the closing or decline in popularity of other…
• LEVI (LEVI STRAUSS & CO)
• FY2025 10-K: …supply chain. Logistics . During fiscal year 2024 and as part of Project Fuel, the Company changed its distribution strategy from an owned and operated model to a mix of owned and third-party operated distribution centers used to warehouse and ship products to our wholesale customers, retail stores and e-commerce…
• FY2025 10-K: …or non-compliance can raise reputational challenges with our consumers and other stakeholders for various reasons, including the inability to sufficiently verify the origins for the material used in the products we sell. The global apparel industry is subject to intense competition and cost and pricing pressure. The…
• CRI (Carter's, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …comfort and fit, quality, pricing, style, selection, convenience, and breadth of distribution. Both national brand and private label manufacturers, as well as specialty apparel brands and retailers, aggressively compete in the baby and young children's apparel market. Our primary competitors include (in alphabetical…
• FY2025 10-K: …recruiting costs, and other related costs. Amounts are reflected within Selling, general, and administrative expenses in our consolidated statement of operations. (4) Related to a non-cash impairment charge on the OshKosh indefinite-lived tradename asset in fiscal 2024. U.S. Retail U.S. Retail segment net sales…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.