Asics Stock Catches Fire Along With Its Dad Sneakers

The running-shoe maker’s stock price has quadrupled in total return terms over the past two years. Its financial performance is strong: Revenue in its last reported quarter grew 14% from a year earlier while its operating profit surged 53%.

Asics has long been a well-loved brand among the running community. Around a quarter of 54,000 runners who finished the Paris Marathon sported a pair of Asics, including both winners in the men’s and women’s races, according to the company.

In fact, even Nike can trace its roots back to the Japanese company. Nike began its business in the 1960s by importing and distributing shoes from Asics, then known as Onitsuka, in the U.S. Onitsuka Tiger remains a high-end fashion brand within Asics.

Asics has benefited from the Covid-19 pandemic: More people picked up running as a hobby when they had nothing else to do. At the same time, people working from home began giving priority to comfort in their footwear—discovering that lightweight shoes with cushioned soles designed for running are pretty comfortable for walking around in, too. Running-shoe upstarts such as Hoka and On Holding have also seen explosive growth in the past few years. Hoka’s sales in the quarter ended in March surged 34% from a year earlier, pushing shares of its owner , Deckers Outdoor , to record highs.

The performance running shoes segment is Asics’ largest by revenue, and it has tried to maintain a close-knit community of runners. Asics acquired Runkeeper, a popular fitness-tracking app among runners, in 2016. In recent years, it has been acquiring race-registration companies, including Njuko Sas in Europe and Register Now in Australia. Its loyalty program has nearly 15 million members globally.

But outside of runners and Onitsuka Tiger, Asics was perhaps best known for “dad sneakers” —a style of shoes that are picked more for practicality than aesthetics. Lately, however, some old Asics designs have become unlikely fashion symbols. Youngsters have apparently eschewed conventional beauty standards and embraced the uncool: Crocs and Hoka are some other examples of “ugly shoes” that have seen an explosion in popularity .

Asics has done its fair bit, too. Its collaboration with designers from Vivienne Westwood to Cecilie Bahnsen have generated lots of buzz on social media. For example, its redesign of its 2008 Gel-Kayano 14 sneaker with Canadian design studio JJJJound has been a smash hit . The shoe can sell for more than $1,000 on online marketplace StockX. Asics was the fifth most-traded brand on StockX last year, rising from No. 10 the year before. Revenue for the company’s more fashion-minded SportStyle division grew 52% year over year in the last reported quarter.

Even better news for investors is that the company has been more profitable, too. Operating margin in its quarter ended in March was 19.4%, compared with 9.5% two years earlier. Partly that is because the company has shifted its product mix to more premium products. It has also been selling more directly to customers than through wholesalers. Around 64% of its sales were through wholesale in the first quarter, down from 74% three years earlier. E-commerce sales have risen from 13% to 17% of sales.

Asics trades at 34 times forward earnings, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. That is a similar multiple as Deckers Outdoor but higher than bigger peer Nike, which trades at 25 times. The premium could be justified if Asics could keep growing its sales with better margins.

Asics is sprinting ahead. It still has room to run.

The number of U.S. billionaires in the world reached 870 in mid-January, outpacing the number in China for the first time in 10 years, according to a snapshot of the wealthiest in the world by the Hurun Report.

The U.S. gained 70 billionaires since last year, powered by a rising stock market, a strong dollar, and the insatiable appetite for all things AI, according to the 14th annual Hurun Global Rich List . China gained nine billionaires overall for a total of 823. Hurun is a China-based research, media, and investment group.

“It’s been a good year for AI, money managers, entertainment, and crypto,” Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report, said in a news release. “It’s been a tough year for luxury, telecommunications, and real estate in China.”

Overall, the Hurun list—which reflects a snapshot of global wealth based on calculations made Jan. 15—counted 3,442 billionaires in the world, up 5%, or 163, from a year ago. Their total wealth rose 13% to just under $17 trillion.

In November, New York research firm Altrata reported that the billionaire population rose 4% in 2023 to 3,323 individuals and their wealth rose 9% to $12.1 trillion.

Elon Musk, CEO of electric-car maker Tesla and right-hand advisor to President Donald Trump, topped the list for the fourth time in five years, with recorded wealth of $420 billion as of mid-January as Tesla stock soared in the aftermath of the U.S. election, according to Hurun’s calculations.

The firm noted that Musk’s wealth has since nosedived about $100 billion, falling along with shares of Tesla although the EV car maker is benefiting on Thursday from Trump’s 25% tariff on cars made outside the U.S.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk’s wealth stood at about $336 billion as of the market’s close on Wednesday, although measuring his exact wealth —including stakes in his privately held companies and the undiscounted value of his Tesla shares—is difficult to precisely determine.

The overall list this year contained 387 new billionaires, while 177 dropped off the list—more than 80 of which were from China, Hurun said. “China’s economy is continuing to restructure, with the drop-offs coming from a weeding out of healthcare and new energy and traditional manufacturing, as well as real estate,” Hoogewerf said in the release.

Among those who wealth sank was Colin Huang, the founder of PDD Holdings —the parent company of e-commerce platforms Temu and Pinduoduo—who lost $17 billion.

Also, Zhong Shanshan, the founder and chair of the Nongfu Spring beverage company and the majority owner of Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise , lost $8 billion from “intensifying competition” in the market for bottled water. The loss knocked Zhong from his top rank in China, which is now held by Zhang Yiming founder of Tik-Tok owner Bytedance. Zhang is ranked No. 22 overall.

Hurun’s top 10 billionaires is a familiar group of largely U.S. individuals including Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison. The list has France’s LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault in seventh place, three notches down from his fourth ranked spot on the Bloomberg list, reflecting a slump in luxury products last year.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is ranked No. 11 on Hurun’s list as his wealth nearly tripled to $128 billion through Jan. 15. Other AI billionaires found lower down on the list include Liang Wenfeng, 40, founder and CEO of DeepSeek, with wealth of $4.5 billion and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, with $1.8 billion.

Also making the list were musicians Jay-Z ($2.7 billion), Rihanna ($1.7 billion), Taylor Swift ($1.6 billion), and Paul McCartney ($1 billion). Sports stars included Michael Jordan ($3.3 billion), Tiger Woods ($1.7 billion), Floyd Mayweather ($1.3 billion), and LeBron James ($1.3 billion).

Wealth continues to surge across the globe, but Hoogewerf noted those amassing it aren’t overly generous.

“We only managed to find three individuals in the past year who donated more than $1 billion,” he said. Warren Buffet gave $5.3 billion, mainly to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, while Michael Bloomberg —ranked No. 19 with wealth of $92 billion—gave $3.7 billion to various causes. Netflix founder Reed Hastings, ranked No. 474 with wealth of $6.2 billion, donated $1.1 billion.

Asics Stock Catches Fire Along With Its Dad Sneakers

Shares in the Japanese running-shoe maker have just about quadrupled

The U.S. now has more billionaires than China for the first time in a decade, driven by AI and a booming stock market.