Adidas to put ice hockey equipment business up for sale - report

BERLIN (Reuters) - German sportswear company Adidas is preparing to sell its ice hockey equipment business as part of a broader drive to simplify its business, the New York Post reported. Citing an unnamed source close to the situation, the newspaper said Adidas could put Reebok-CCM up for sale early next year. Adidas declined to comment. Reebok bought CCM in 2004 and was then itself bought by Adidas in 2006. Reebok-CCM sales rose 4 percent in 2014 to 269 million euros (£190 million). Adidas tried and failed to sell the unit in 2013 for $150 million but has since succeeded in turning the business around. Last month, Adidas hiked its 2015 outlook for the brand, saying it now expects high single-digit sales growth, from a previous mid single-digit rate. Bryan Garnier analyst Cedric Rossi said the business could fetch 160-250 million euros. "Although the size of Reebok-CCM Hockey is limited ... we believe that this possible sale would be positively welcomed by investors since it would confirm that the group continues its refocusing," Rossi wrote in a note. Adidas shares, up 62 percent this year, rose 0.6 percent at 0935 GMT, compared with a flat German blue-chip index. Adidas has been repositioning Reebok away from team sports and back towards the brand's fitness roots, with Adidas taking over the Reebok partnership with North America's National Hockey League (NHL) from 2017. In January, Adidas announced the sale of its non-core Rockport shoe brand, which it had also acquired along with Reebok, and in August said it was considering the sale of its golf equipment unit TaylorMade. Adidas has also faced calls to sell the main Reebok brand, which has seen its sales fall by more than a third since the acquisition. But long-serving Chief Executive Herbert Hainer, the architect of the Reebok deal, has said it would be wrong to sell it given the booming fitness market. (Reporting by Emma Thomasson and Joern Poeltz; Editing by Mark Potter)