The takeover of Amer Sports by the Mascot Bidco consortium headed up by Anta Sports Products is making progress. Mascot Bidco has struck a seven-year inter-company financing agreement for €1,236 million involving a term loan of about €921 million for the refinancing of existing debts and a revolving credit facility of up to €315 million for general corporate purposes. Meanwhile, as expected, an extraordinary general meeting of Amer elected a completely new board of directors headed up by Shizhong Ding, chairman and chief executive of Anta, as the new chairman of the Finnish-based group (see our previous issue), following Mascot Bidco's successful tender offer at €40 per share. On the other hand, top executives of Amer have reaped seven-figure payouts by selling their shares in the company to Mascot Bidco. The company's chief executive, Heikki Takala, sold his shares for €8,636,800 and the chief financial officer, Jussi Siitonen, received €3,431,440, while Michael White, chief commercial officer, got €2,794,000. Jean-Marc Pambet, business unit president for footwear, Michael Schineis, BU president for winter sports equipment, Michael Dowse, BU president for ball sports, and Robert Barker, BU president for fitness, collected €3,184,720, €2,822,800, €1,731,040 and €1,415,313, respectively. Bruno Salzer, the former chairman of the board, will receive €3,214,600, and a long-time director of the group, Hannu Ryöpönen, €1,188,880. Ikka Brotherus, vice chairman of the group and one of the main shareholders with 2.7 million shares, will cash in €107,831,080.

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