It was a moment most business executives would pause to savor: late last year, German spor
ting goods pioneer Adidas learned that after years of declining market share, the company had sprinted past U. S. Reebok International to take second place behind Nike in the race for worldwide sales. But Robert Louis-Dreyfus, the rumpled Frenchman who now runs Adidas, didn't even stop for one of his trade mark Havana cigars in celebration, worried that the company would grow complacent. Instead, he and a group of friends bought French soccer club Olympique de Marseille "Now that's something I have dreamed about since I was a kid, ' Louis-Dreyfus says with an adolescent grin.
A sports addict who claims he hasn't missed attending a soccer World Cup final since the 1970s or the Olympic Games since 1968, the 50-year-old Louis-Dreyfus now is eminently well placed to live out many of his boyhood fantasies. Not only has he turned Adidas into a global company with market capitalization of $ 4 billion (he owns stock worth $ 250 million), but he also has endorsement contracts with a host of sports heroes from tennis great Steffi Graf to track's Donovan Bailey, and considers it part of the job to watch his star athletes per form. on the field, "There are very few chances in life to have such fun," he says.
With sales in the first three quarters of 1996 at $ 2.5 billion, up a blistering 30.7% over 1995, it's hard to recall the dismal shape Adidas was in when Louis-Dreyfus took over as chairman in April 1993. Founded in 1920 by Adi Dassler, the inventor of the first shoes de signed especially for sports, the company enjoyed a near monopoly in athletic shoes until an upstart called Nike appeared in the 1970s and rode the running fad to riches. By the early 1990s Adidas had come under the control of French businessman Bernard Tapie, who was later jailed for bribing three French soccer players. Al though the company tried to spruce up its staid image with a team of American designers, Adidas lost more than $100 million in 1992, prompting the French banks that had acquired control of the company from Tapie to begin a desperate search for a new owner.
Louis-Dreyfus, scion of a prominent French trading dynasty with an M. B. A. from Harvard, earned a reputation as a doctor to sick companies after turning around London-based market research firm IMS--a feat that brought him more than $10 million when the company was eventually sold. He later served as chairman of Saatchi ~ Saatchi, then the world's largest ad agency, which called him in when rapid growth sent profits into a tailspin. With no other company or entrepreneur willing to gamble on Adidas, Louis-Dreyfus got an incredible bargain from the banks., he and a group of friends from his days at IMS contributed just $10, 000 each in cash and signed up for $100 million in loans for 15% of the company, with an option to buy the remainder at a fixed price 18 months later.
The poker-loving Louis-Dreyfus knew he had been dealt a winning hand. Following the lead set by Nike in the 1970s, he moved production to low-wage factories in China, Indonesia and Thailand and sold Adidas' European factories for a token one Deutsche mark apiece. He hired Peter Moore, a former product designer at Nike, as creative director, and set up studios in Germany for the European market and in Portland, Oregon, for the U. S. He then risked everything by doubling his advertising budget. "We went from a manufacturing company to a marketing company, "says Louis-Dreyfus. "It didn't take a genius--you just had to look at what Nike and Reebok were doing. It was easier for someone coming from the outside, with no baggage, to do it, than for somebody from inside the company."
Just as the transition was taking place, Adidas had a run of good luck. The fickle fashion trendsetters decided in early 1993 that they wanted the "retro look, "
A．Y
B．N
C．NG
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