2020 — ANTA Sports Products Ltd

ANTA Sports Products Limited (2020.HK) — deep-value analysis

Date: 2026-09-01 · Price: HKD … · Market cap: HKD 217.07 bn (CNY 185.9 bn) · Reporting currency: CNY, trading currency: HKD (FX 0.8566 CNY/HKD)

Primary sources: 2025 annual report (HKEX, 03/25/2026, audited by KPMG), 2026 interim report (HKEX, 08/26/2026, reviewed by KPMG), PUMA SE major transaction announcement (01/26/2026), 2029 convertible bond conversion-price adjustment announcement (08/26/2026), the automated data pack, yfinance.

Method note: I could not use vault_semantic_search — the vault tool isn’t exposed in this subagent session, so the “what has already been done” check was done directly on disk (rapoarte/), where I found the GBL analysis from 08/28/2026 and the triangulated DCF from the same day. Stating this explicitly, per the CLAUDE.md rule. There is no SEC filing: ANTA is an HKEX issuer, it doesn’t file with EDGAR — step 2 of the procedure doesn’t apply and was replaced by HKEX filings downloaded directly from the issuer.

Executive summary (1 page: thesis, estimated value, verdict)

ANTA is China’s largest sportswear company and the world’s third by revenue, with CNY 80.2 bn in sales in 2025 (…) and CNY 43.5 bn in H1 2026 (…). The thesis, though, isn’t “cheap Chinese growth” but something stranger and more interesting: at today’s price, approximately 42% of market cap is covered by assets that have nothing to do with running stores — CNY 39.1 bn net cash, a 37.63% stake in Amer Sports (NYSE: AS) valued at CNY 43.5 bn at market but carried at CNY 17.7 bn on the balance sheet, and a CNY 12.3 bn commitment for 29.06% of PUMA SE. The rest — the actual operating business — is priced at roughly 9.5× the cash flow reaching the shareholder, for a business with a 63.9% gross margin, a 27.0% operating margin (a seven-year high) and a 21.3% ROE.

The analysis’s central figure, though, isn’t a multiple — it’s the FCF bridge. ANTA reports under IFRS 16, so lease payments — CNY … mn over the last four quarters, for a retail network with CNY 10.2 bn of right-of-use assets — appear in FINANCING, not operating. “Free cash flow” in the company’s press release means CFO − capex = CNY 20,200 mn TTM. The flow that actually reaches the ANTA shareholder, after rent, after interest paid, and after dividends to Descente (46%) and KOLON (50%) minorities, is CNY … mn — 29.3% lower. Whoever values ANTA on the published 10.9% FCF yield is working with a base inflated by nearly a third; the real yield is 7.7%.

Triangulated valuation across five models gives a wide range, from … (EPV Greenwald, no growth) to … (DCF bull), with a median of …. Monte Carlo over 20,000 scenarios, started from owner earnings of CNY … mn (base FCFE, excluding interest income, which is valued separately as cash), 8% growth, …% discount rate and … terminal growth, gives a median intrinsic value of HKD … and an undervaluation probability of …%. The pessimistic end (P5) is …: the distribution is skewed right because the financial assets set a floor under value. The 30-analyst consensus is at HKD 104.27, so my figure isn’t an outlier — it’s 6% above the market, which is exactly the external check required at step 4.

Verdict: BUY, normal-sized position, not oversized. The case for buying is quality (rising margins, net-cash balance sheet, a founder holding 53% of the equity, 18 years of dividends) plus a price that pays nothing for Amer Sports. The case against a large size is that roughly 40% of my estimated value is itself a two-stock listed portfolio (Amer on the NYSE, PUMA on XETRA) — not cash — and the PUMA deal is already 30% underwater before it has even closed. What I’m watching at the March 2027 report: days of inventory (137 in 2025, 130 in H1 2026) and the advertising ratio (6.6% of revenue, flat).