In short: The show's only complete exit: Bill Baruch is out, and he still likes the company. What he keeps liking: "the brands that it holds — we see secular bull trends: Wilson for pickleball and golf and tennis, Arc'teryx, Salomon both on the ski and hiking." What broke: "we were long at $19 and we saw the consumer in China continuing to grow and being targeted by the government with stimulus targeted at consumption. That was a big tailwind. A lot of that has been eaten away from tariffs, which has also compressed margins.… The stock had been consolidating nicely above 30 bucks and it has really started to break down." Wapner presses the contradiction — these are top-of-the-K brands, "you're selling $300 tennis rackets" — and Baruch concedes it and points at margin instead: "it's at the high end, but look at the margin story… the big tailwind that took this stock above 20 and through 30 was thematic… it did not play through with the tariffs in 2025." The discipline: "I don't want to hold on to Amer Sports and see that continue to deteriorate. I'm going to step aside here. I love the name. I love the portfolio of brands. It just may not be the right time to hold this name." (Down 20% on the year, 15% in three months, 18½% in a month.)
Amer Sports owns Wilson, Arc'teryx and Salomon. Baruch sold the entire position, and the striking thing is that he still likes every part of the business — this is a sell that contains no criticism of the company.
What broke was the reason he bought it. The position worked because Chinese consumer stimulus was driving demand for premium brands; tariffs then ate the benefit and squeezed margins on top. When the thesis that justified a position stops being true, the position is unjustified regardless of how good the brands are.
Wapner presses the obvious objection: these are luxury brands sold to the top of a two-tier economy, so why should a weak consumer matter? Baruch concedes the point and redirects it to margins — the tailwind that took the stock from $20 through $30 was a theme, and the theme is gone. Note the mechanics he actually acted on: he waited through the most recent results, saw a good report, watched the stock go down anyway over the following fortnight, and only then stepped aside on a $19 cost basis. "I don't want to hold on and see that continue to deteriorate."
In short: Wilson joins in — the third engine finally fires. Q2 revenue surged 32% Y/Y to $1.63B ($90M beat) with adjusted EPS of $0.22 more than doubling expectations, and all three segments grew above 20% as Arc'teryx, Salomon Softgoods and Wilson Tennis 360 "increasingly operate as parallel growth engines." Outdoor Performance +37% led by Salomon Softgoods (after 42% in Q1); Arc'teryx Technical Apparel +32% with omni-comp sales +17%; and most notably Ball & Racquet accelerated to 24% from 13% in Q1 as the Wilson Tennis 360 strategy gained traction. Profitability improved materially "although the headline numbers need context": adjusted operating margin jumped 730 bps to 12.8%, but 390 bps came from tariff refunds — even excluding that windfall, group operating margin expanded more than three points. Ball & Racquet margin of 17.2% included a 970 bps tariff benefit, "meaning its underlying margin still improved substantially after the Q1 compression," and inventory grew just 19% against 32% revenue growth. Guidance was raised again to ~24% FY26 revenue growth (from 20%–22%) with operating margin 14.2%–14.5%; Outdoor Performance lifted to 27%–28% and Ball & Racquet to ~14%. Bottom Line: "Salomon remains exceptionally strong, Arc'teryx continues compounding, and Wilson is now accelerating alongside them… Amer is increasingly proving that its growth story is bigger than any single brand."
Amer Sports owns three sporting-goods brands: Arc'teryx (premium outdoor clothing), Salomon (trail running and outdoor footwear) and Wilson (tennis and team-sport equipment). For most of its life as a public company the bull case was really just Arc'teryx, with the worry that one hot brand cooling off would end the story.
This quarter answered that. Revenue grew 32% and all three segments grew more than 20%. The notable one is Wilson — the slowest of the three — which accelerated from 13% growth to 24% as its "Tennis 360" strategy (selling racquets, strings, balls, apparel and coaching as one connected offer rather than as separate products) started working. Three brands growing together is a fundamentally different, more durable business than one brand carrying two.
The profit numbers needed an adjustment before they could be trusted. Reported operating margin leapt 7.3 percentage points, but 3.9 of those came from tariff refunds — money returned on import duties previously paid. That is a one-time windfall, not a better business, and it will not repeat. The right question is what is left after removing it, and the answer is that margin still expanded more than three points. The same test applied to the Wilson segment, where the refund was worth a huge 9.7 points, still leaves a real underlying improvement.
One more check that the growth is genuine: inventory grew 19% while revenue grew 32%. If a company's warehouses fill faster than its sales, the "growth" is often product pushed into shops that hasn't sold to actual people yet. Here it is the reverse. Guidance was raised again, to about 24% growth for the year. The author's verdict: "Amer is increasingly proving that its growth story is bigger than any single brand." Analysis, not a recommendation.
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