The last fiscal year - marking PUMA’s 60th anniversary - embodied the very best of one of the world’s most desirable sportlifestyle brands. Through our athletes’ impressive achievements at the Africa Cup of Nations, the EURO 2008, the Olympic Games in Beijing and the Volvo Ocean Race and our innovative product and marketing concepts that accompanied these events, we successfully underpinned our credibility as one of the leading sportlifestyle brands. Our strategy to invest in last year’s sports events in order to further increase brand desirability has paid off. Despite a very difficult economic environment in connection with the global financial crisis, PUMA posted a sales growth for the 14th year in a row and our industry-leading margins set new benchmarks in the sector. We will continue to consistently strengthen our long-term growth potential of the brand.

 

Let me look back on the sports highlights of the fiscal year: We successfully kicked off the year with the African Cup of Nations, where PUMA was the most prominent brand throughout the tournament with 9 out of 16 teams and captured the title for the sixth time when Egypt won the tournament. A few months later at the EURO 2008, we once again achieved strong visibility and a solid boost to our football business with a portfolio of five national teams, including World Champion Italy.

 

When the Summer Games began in Beijing in August, we were excited about the prospects of our sponsored athletes and 16 National Teams. But we couldn’t have possibly envisioned what would take place over the next 3 weeks. We watched in awe alongside the rest of the world as Usain Bolt led a dominant Jamaican athletics team by turning in one of the most electrifying Olympic performances of all time in winning three gold medals and smashing three world records. The iconic images of Usain dancing across the finish line and into history - while wearing his gold PUMA Theseus II spikes - has become the enduring memory of the Beijing Olympics for more than a billion of spectators.

 

Starting in October, and with hardly any time to catch our breath after Beijing, our boat “il mostro” cast off in the world’s toughest sailing competition, the Volvo Ocean Race, providing us with a truly unique opportunity to enhance our credibility as a performance brand.

 

By using the dynamic and dramatic sport of Ocean Sailing as a new platform for our brand message of sportlifestyle, we will diversify our product line, reach new target consumers and create more growth potential for PUMA. In the Summer 2009, our “il mostro” sailing crew will cross the finish line of their around-the-world journey in St. Petersburg. Shortly afterwards, Usain Bolt will once again be the center of attention at the Track & Field World Championship 2009 in Berlin. Last but not least, our successful Motorsport category will celebrate its 10th anniversary accompanied by the launches of innovative performance and lifestyle collections worthy of this milestone.

 

Africa plays a special role for us, as the build-up for the 2010 Football World Cup, which will be hosted in our home-away-from-home, is already in full swing. With a portfolio of 10 African national teams, PUMA has not only been the leading sponsor on the continent, but also uses Africa for launching its most innovative products. PUMA shares the African values of spirit, aesthetics, passion and culture. The World Cup in South Africa provides us with a tremendous platform for our deep and long-standing association with African football.

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Throughout our 60-year history, we have constantly set new standards in sports and style through our creativity and innovations.

Our partnerships with federations such as Jamaica, Italy and in Africa provided us with the opportunity to lead the way in creative and innovative global sports marketing. Milestones in PUMA’s sports history were the development of the first football boot with screw-in studs in 1952 by the company’s founder Rudolf Dassler, the legendary “two-stripe” jersey of Johan Cruyff at the world championship in 1974, the PUMA contact lenses of Linford Christie in 1996, the skin-tight Catsuit tennis dress of Serena Williams at the US Open 2002, the revolutionary one-piece Cameroon football shirt in 2004, the Italian national team winning the World Cup in 2006 and Ferrari with its seven-times world champion, most successful Formula 1 pilot and PUMA partner Michael Schumacher. PUMA was not only able to strengthen its positioning as a sportlifestyle brand, but created a whole new market by establishing the segment sportlifestyle.

 

Despite the financial background and economic focus of last year, I do not want to leave unmentioned that PUMA pursues its goal to become the most desirable sportlifestyle company by adhering to corporate social responsibility principles on top of economic criteria. We are committed to working in ways that contribute to the world by supporting creativity, sustainability through our S.A.F.E. concept and Peace and by staying true to the values of being Fair, Honest, Positive and Creative in decisions made and actions taken. The foundation for our activities is PUMAVision – a concept that we intend to guide our work with its three core programs PUMA.CREATIVE, PUMA.SAFE and PUMA.PEACE.

 

With these three programs in place and our commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility – which I think should better be changed into Corporate Social Opportunity – PUMA ensures that the company continues to forge ahead by taking innovative and sustainable directions in a world that everyone is responsible for. Despite of all our achieved successes in the last year, we are facing challenging times: The slowdown of the global economy has intensified since last year and many high-income countries struggle with recessions. Retail sales growth has already experienced a considerable softening and consumer confidence has worsened. Our industry, of course, is not immune to these difficulties. Like for the teams at the Volvo Ocean Race, the months ahead will be similarly choppy for PUMA and the sportlifestyle industry. However, as one of the most desirable brands we have the strength to persevere and realize significant gains once the storm settles down. PUMA has taken measures to tackle the effects of the continuous difficult market environment starting in the fourth quarter 2008.

 

PUMA will continue to use the opportunities of the sportlifestyle market to strengthen its position as one of the few multi-category brands in the future. Our goal is to become the most desirable sportlifestyle company based on expansion of product categories, regional expansion and non-PUMA brand expansion. For us, the current difficult market environment is discerning, but it also provides a chance to attain a sustainable increase in value.

 

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our PUMA crew – the customers, committed employees and shareholders – whose strong support has been instrumental in enabling us to reach our goals.

 

Best regards,

Jochen Zeitz