Adidas Sells TaylorMade For $425m

Adidas have sold all three of its golf brands - TaylorMade, Adams Golf and Ashworth - to US private equity firm KPS Capital Partners

Adidas Sells TaylorMade For $425m

Just a day after Rory McIlroy signed with TaylorMade, the brand, along with Adams and Ashworth, were sold by Adidas to the US private equity group KPS Partners.

A sale has been on the cards for a year now, after Adidas put its golf businesses on the market last May.

There have been plenty of rumours on who would buy TaylorMade, including Tiger Woods and Muira, but the New York-based KPS will add TaylorMade, Adams and Ashworth to its portfolio of over $5 billion in assets.

The sale is expected to be completed by the end of 2017 and it is unknown what will happen with the Adams Golf and Ashworth brands.

According to ESPN's Darren Rovell, Adidas golf's revenue has fallen around $1.2 billion since 2012 when it was up to $1.7 billion. That figure had fallen to just over $500 million four years later.

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Adidas have owned TaylorMade since 1997 and will now concentrate on their core apparel and footwear brands of Adidas and Reebok.

They will still make golf apparel and footwear.

The German sporting giant are looking to keep up with Nike, who also left the golf equipment market last August to focus purely on golf footwear and apparel.

David Shapiro, a managing partner of KPS, said, "TaylorMade is one of the preeminent golf equipment brands worldwide, with leading-edge products that consistently provide consumers a distinct performance advantage over the competition.

"The combination of this iconic brand and KPS' track record of working constructively with talented management teams to make businesses better will provide the ideal foundation for TaylorMade's future growth."

TaylorMade signed world number two Rory McIlroy this week to add to their current Tour staff which includes the likes of world number one Dustin Johnson, number three Jason Day, Masters champion Sergio Garcia, Olympic gold medallist Justin Rose and 14-time major winner Tiger Woods.