AS

American Sports, Inc.

A sporting goods group based in Helsinki, Finland, that owns some of the world's best-known equipment and apparel brands — Wilson tennis rackets and basketballs, Salomon skis and trail-running shoes, and Arc'teryx technical outdoor jackets. It began life in 1950 as Amer-Tupakka, a tobacco company founded by four Finnish professional organizations to help rebuild after the war; the "Amer" in its name came from the American-style tobacco blends it made. Over the decades it moved from cigarettes into shipping, publishing, and finally sports gear.