Background Christoph Dassler was a worker in a
shoe factory, while his wife Pauline ran a small laundry in the
Franconian town of Herzogenaurach, from the city of
Nuremberg. After leaving school, their son,
Rudolf Dassler, joined his father at the shoe factory. When he returned from fighting in
World War I, Rudolf was trained as a salesman at a
porcelain factory, and later in a leather trading business in Nuremberg. In July 1924, Rudolf and his younger brother,
Adolf, nicknamed "Adi", founded a shoe factory. They named the new business "Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik" (
Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory) which was the only business at the time that manufactured sports shoes. The pair started their venture in their mother's laundry. At the time, electricity supplies in the town were unreliable, and the brothers sometimes had to use pedal power from a stationary bicycle to run their equipment. In 1927, they moved into a separate building. The brothers drove from Bavaria to the
1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin with a suitcase full of spikes and persuaded United States sprinter
Jesse Owens to use them, the first sponsorship for an African American. Owens won four gold medals. Business boomed; the Dasslers were selling 200,000 pairs of shoes annually before World War II. Both brothers joined the
Nazi Party, but Rudolf was a keen Nazi, who applied to join, and was accepted into the
Gestapo; they produced boots for the
Wehrmacht. A growing rift between the brothers reached a breaking point during a 1943 Allied bomb attack. Adi and his wife climbed into a bomb shelter that Rudolf and his family were already in. "Here are the bloody bastards again," Adi remarked, apparently referring to the Allied warplanes, but Rudolf, due to his apparent insecurity, was convinced his brother meant him and his family. When Rudolf was later picked up by American soldiers and accused of being a member of the
Waffen SS, he was convinced that his brother had turned him in. Rudolf developed a
football boot with screw-in studs, called the "Super Atom" in collaboration with people such as West Germany's national coach
Sepp Herberger.
Olympic presence, World Cup, and the Pelé Pact (center) and bronze medalist
John Carlos (right) showing the
raised fist at the
1968 Summer Olympics At the
1952 Summer Olympics,
1500 metres runner
Josy Barthel of
Luxembourg won Puma's first Olympic gold in
Helsinki, Finland. A few months before the
1970 FIFA World Cup,
Armin Dassler (Rudolf's son) of Puma and his cousin
Horst Dassler (Adi's son) of Adidas signed "the Pelé Pact", an agreement that neither company would contract with
Pelé, the world's most famous athlete. The companies reasoned that a bidding war for Pelé would be too expensive. Puma soon broke the pact and signed him. An idea conceived by Puma's representative Hans Henningsen, Pelé stopped the referee from starting the game with a last-second request to tie his shoelaces, and with the camera panning in on Pelé, the Puma King boots were broadcast to a global audience, generating enormous publicity for the brand. Puma launched the
Puma Clyde in 1973, a basketball shoe based on the Suede. Designed for basketball player
Walt "Clyde" Frazier, it gained wide popularity and became significant in the
old school hip hop and
skate punk subcultures.
Going public Puma became a public company in 1986, and thereafter was listed on the
Börse München and
Frankfurt Stock Exchange; its first profit since the
IPO was registered in 1994. In May 1989, Rudolf's sons Armin and Gerd Dassler sold their 72% stake in Puma to Swiss business
Cosa Liebermann SA. In 2001, Puma bought Scandinavian Tretorn Group, and in 2015 sold it to
Authentic Brands Group. For the fiscal year 2003, the company had revenue of €1.274 billion, and majority shareholder Monarchy/Regency sold its shareholdings to a broad base of institutional investors. In February 2007, Puma reported that its profits had fallen by 26% to €32.8 million ($43 million; £22 million) during the final three months of 2006. Most of the decline was due to higher costs linked to its expansion; sales rose by more than a third to €480.6 million. In early April, Puma's share price rose by €29.25, or about 10.2%, to €315.24 per share. On 10 April, the French conglomerate PPR (which became
Kering in 2013) announced that it had bought a 27% stake in Puma, clearing the way for a full takeover. The deal valued Puma at €5.3 billion. PPR said that it would launch a friendly takeover, worth €330 per share, once the acquisition of the smaller stake was completed. The board of Puma welcomed the move, saying it was fair and in the firm's best interests. As of July 2007, PPR owned over 60% of Puma stock. In 2008,
Melody Harris-Jensbach was appointed deputy chief executive officer; designer and artist
Hussein Chalayan became creative director, and Puma acquired a majority stake in Chalayan's fashion business.
2010 onward In 2010, Puma bought
Cobra Golf, and in 2010 bought bodywear and socks company Dobotex. In July 2011, the company completed a conversion from an (German
public limited company) to a , the
European Union-wide equivalent, changing its name from
Puma AG Rudolf Dassler Sport to
Puma SE. At the same time, replaced the long-serving
Jochen Zeitz as the firm's
chief executive officer (CEO), with Zeitz becoming chairman. Starting in July 2013, the company was led by former football professional Bjørn Gulden. In 2022 Arne Freundt was appointed CEO . In April 2025, Puma announced that CEO Arne Freundt would step down due to differing views on strategy with the supervisory board. He is to be succeeded by Arthur Hoeld, a former
Adidas executive, effective 1 July 2025. In January 2026, the Chinese sports equipment multinational corporation
Anta Sports agreed to acquire a 29.06 % stake in Puma SE for approximately €1.5 billion, becoming the German sportswear company's largest shareholder. On 5 March 2026,
Frasers Group took an almost 6% stake in Puma, becoming its second-largest shareholder. == Finances ==