The story
Founded by Rudolf Dassler on Oct 1, 1948, in Herzogenaurach.1
Background
Christoph Dassler was a worker in a shoe factory, while his wife Pauline ran a small laundry in the Franconian town of Herzogenaurach, 20 km (12.4 mi) 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.
Split and creation of Puma
After increasingly different views of how to run the business, the brothers split the business in 1948. Rudolf moved to the other side of the Aurach River to start his own company. Adolf started his own company using a name he formed using his nickname—Adi—and the first three letters of his last name—Das—to establish Adidas. Rudolf created a new firm that he called "Ruda", from "Ru" in Rudolf and "Da" in Dassler. A few months later, Rudolf's company changed its name to Puma Schuhfabrik Rudolf Dassler.
Puma and Adidas entered a fierce and bitter rivalry. The town of Herzogenaurach was divided on the issue, leading to the nickname "the town of bent necks"—people looked down to see which shoes strangers wore.
In the first football match after World War II in 1948, several members of the West Germany national football team wore Puma boots, including the scorer of West Germany's first post-war goal, Herbert Burdenski. 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
At the 1952 Summer Olympics, 1500 metres runner Josy Barthel of Luxembourg won Puma's first Olympic gold in Helsinki, Finland.
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At the 1960 Summer Olympics, Puma paid German sprinter Armin Hary to wear Pumas in the 100-metre sprint final. Hary had previously worn Adidas products and approached Adolf for compensation. However, Adidas declined the request. Despite winning a gold medal in Pumas, Hary chose to wear Adidas during the medals ceremony, surprising the two Dassler brothers. Hary seemingly aimed to benefit financially from both brands, but Adolf was infuriated to the extent of banning the Olympic champion.
During the 1968 Olympics Black Power Salute, Puma-sponsored African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, after having won gold and bronze in the 200 meters, respectively, took to the podium with their Puma Suede shoes in hand and bowed their heads and raised their black-gloved fists in silent protest during the playing of the national anthem, as a show of their support for human rights and to stand up for black Americans.
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.
In addition to paying Pelé a proportion of Puma King boot sales, Puma paid him $120,000 ($2.85 million in 2022) to tie his laces prior to Brazil's quarter-final game against Peru to advertise their boots. 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.
The most notable event in the Dassler brothers feud, the breaking of the "Pelé Pact" outraged Horst, and future peace agreements were called off. The Puma deal for Pelé was praised as a shrewd marketing move, and many business experts credit the rivalry and competition between the two companies for transforming sports apparel into a highly lucrative industry.
During the 1972 Summer Olympics, Puma provided shoes for the Ugandan 400 metres hurdles champion, John Akii-Bua. After Akii-Bua was forced out of Uganda by its military government, Puma employed him in Germany. Eventually, Akii-Bua returned to Uganda.
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 Aktiengesellschaft (German public limited company) to a Societas Europaea, the European Union-wide equivalent, changing its name from Puma AG Rudolf Dassler Sport to Puma SE. At the same time, Franz Koch 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.
From Wikipedia’s article on Puma (brand), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3