Luxury Giant Aims to Take Puma Higher

John Horan vividly remembers the time, just seven years ago, when German sportswear maker Puma, was "pretty much a dead brand." It was during the dot-com boom and Horan, the publisher of industry newsletter , was running a conference for financial analysts. Presenting in one room was MVP.com, a hot online sporting-goods startup backed by the likes of John Elway, Wayne Gretzky, and Michael Jordan. "The analysts were hanging from the rafters," Horan recalls.

Right next door, Jochen Zeitz, then the newly appointed chief executive officer of Puma, was presenting his strategic plan to a nearly empty hall. Horan felt so bad for the guy that he sat in the audience to provide company. How things have changed since then. MVP.com was gone a year later, a victim of the dot-com bust. And Puma? Its market capitalization has increased more than tenfold, as Zeitz's turnaround plan bore fruit.