From a Reuters article on June 18, 2013:
But beyond the name change and new logo featuring an owl, Pinault gave few answers to shareholders about the future of Puma or Fnac, the group’s CD and book business, which will list on the stock market on Thursday.
Pinault called on shareholders to hold on to Fnac shares they will receive when the business floats, valuing Fnac at 400 million euros ($533.90 million), significantly below the 1 billion euro mark some analysts had forecast two years ago.
[…]
Puma has lost its competitive edge and credibility in key areas such as the running shoe segment, allowing rivals such as Asics and New Balance to gain market share and bigger competitors such as Adidas and Nike to consolidate their lead.
Puma has made a number of mis-steps, including opening shops in the wrong places, poorly integrating licence businesses and back-office operations and spending money on sponsorships in sailing and rugby not closely linked to the brand. It suffered a 70 percent drop in net profit last year.
“I have the feeling that PPR took a long time to get into the business of Puma and really understand what was going on,” said Thomas Chauvet, luxury goods analyst at Citi.
