Adidas

Adidas AG (ISIN: DE0005003404) is a German sports apparel manufacturer, part of the Adidas Group, which is the second largest sportswear manufacturer worldwide. more...

Home
Fragrances for Men
Abercrombie & Fitch
Adidas
Alfred Dunhill
Alfred Sung
Aramis
Armani
Avon
Azzaro
Boucheron
Burberry
Bvlgari
Calvin Klein
Carolina Herrera
Cartier
Chanel
Christian Dior
Coty
Creed
Davidoff
Diesel
DKNY
Dolce & Gabbana
Escada
Estée Lauder
Ferrari
Gap
Gianni Versace
Giorgio Beverly Hills
Givenchy
Gucci
Guerlain
Guy Laroche
Halston
Hermes
Hugo Boss
Hummer
Issey Miyake
Jean Paul Gaultier
Joop
Jordache
Karl Lagerfeld
Kenneth Cole
Kenzo
Lacoste
Liz Claiborne
Lucky
Mary Kay
Nautica
Other Brands
Paco Rabanne
Paul Sebastian
Perry Ellis
Pheromones
Ralph Lauren
Salvatore Ferragamo
Sean John
Swiss Army
Thierry Mugler
Tommy Hilfiger
Victoria's Secret
Yves Saint Laurent
Fragrances for Women
Makeup

The company was named after its founder, Adolf (Adi) Dassler, who started producing shoes in the 1920s in Herzogenaurach near Nuremberg with the help of his brother Rudolf Dassler who later formed rival shoe company PUMA AG. It registered as Adidas AG on 18 August 1949 (with lower-case lettering: "adidas"). The company's clothing and shoe designs typically include three parallel stripes of the same color, and the same motif is incorporated into Adidas's official logos. The company revenue for 2005 was listed at 6.6 billion euro, or about 8.4 billion U.S. dollars.

Adidas perfumery and personal care products are manufactured by Coty, Inc. under license worldwide.

Corporate history

The Tapie affair

The history of the company as presented by its official web site is incomplete, perhaps because it is indirectly linked to financial scandals.

After a period of serious trouble following the death of Adolf Dassler's son Horst Dassler in 1987, the company was bought in 1990 by Bernard Tapie, for 1.6 billion French francs (now €243.918 million), which Tapie borrowed. Tapie was at the time a famous specialist of rescuing bankrupt companies, a business on which he built his fortune.

Tapie decided to move production offshore to Asia. He also hired Madonna for promotion.

In 1992, Tapie was unable to pay the interest from his loan. He mandated the Crédit Lyonnais bank to sell Adidas, and the bank subsequently converted the outstanding debt owed into equity of the enterprise, which was unusual for then-current French banking practice. Apparently, the state-owned bank had tried to get Tapie out of dire financial straits as a personal favour to Tapie, reportedly because Tapie was a minister of Urban Affairs (ministre de la Ville) in the French government at the time.

In February 1993, Crédit Lyonnais sold Adidas to Robert Louis-Dreyfus, a friend of Bernard Tapie (and cousin of Julia Louis-Dreyfus from the Seinfeld TV series), for a much higher amount of money than what Tapie owed, 4.485 billion (€683.514 million) francs rather than 2.85 billion (€434.479 million). Tapie later sued the bank, because he felt "spoiled" by the indirect sale.

Robert Louis-Dreyfus became the new CEO of the company. He is also the president of the Olympique de Marseille football team, a team Tapie owned until 1993. Tapie filed for personal bankruptcy in 1994. He was the object of several lawsuits, notably related to match fixing at the football club. He spent 6 months in La Santé prison in Paris in 1997 after being sentenced to 18.

Read more at Wikipedia.org