adidas yesterday announced that it has "acquired all outstanding shares" of Austria-based fitness app and wearable activity tracker developer Runtastic in a deal that valued at $239M, according to Gregory Schmidt of the N.Y. TIMES. Runtastic "counts 70 million registered users," and adidas can now "better compete with rivals like Under Armour and Nike, which began offering the popular FuelBand activity tracker" in '12. adidas "bought the privately owned Runtastic from its majority shareholder, the digital publishing house Axel Springer, and other investors, including the founders of Runtastic." Deutsche Bank advised adidas, while Allen & Co. "advised Runtastic" (NYTIMES.com, 8/5). REUTERS' Sean O'Kane noted Runtastic "has spent the last few years making a suite of fitness apps for all sorts of activities like running, mountain biking, push-ups, sit-ups, and tracking sleep." The company also "started making hardware; there's a Runtastic GPS watch, a heart rate monitor, and last summer the company released a fitness tracker called Orbit." adidas has its "own line of fitness hardware called 'micoach,'" (REUTERS, 8/5).
WHERE CAN I FIND IT? WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY’s Joelle Diderich noted Runtastic is "available in 18 languages" and "offers more than 20 apps." Hainer said, "Digital technologies are providing capabilities and insights to help athletes of all levels take control of their sporting destiny -- whether improving their performance, sharing their expectations or creating their own great social moments of sport" (WWD.com, 8/5). Runtastic co-Founder Florian Gschwandtner on a company blog wrote that Runtastic will “remain its ‘own entity’ within the adidas Group, and will continue to operate from its current offices” in Austria and S.F. TECH CRUNCH’s Natasha Lomas noted other acquisitions in the space this year include UA "bagging health and fitness trackers Endomondo and MyFitnessPal," as well as Weight Watchers in May "picking up" fitness app Hot5 (TECHCRUNCH.com, 5/8). CNBC’s Wilfred Frost said adidas released a "decent set of numbers" and noted the acquisition of Runtastic is "not a huge deal for them but it is obviously an interesting change in direction and getting into this quite obsessive market of fitness tech" ("Worldwide Exchange," CNBC, 8/6).
LIKE A ROCK: adidas on Monday also said that it has “formally completed the sale” of Rockport to a “new entity formed” by Boston-based Berkshire Partners and New Balance. WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY’s Diderich noted the transaction, valued at $280M, frees up adidas to “focus on its core athletic business.” As part of the deal, Drydock Footwear, a New Balance affiliate and home to the Cobb Hill, Avaron and Dunham brands, will join Rockport to “form The Rockport Group, a new stand-alone company offering dress and casual footwear” (WWD.com, 8/3).
