Mr. Zeitz: The roots of the company go back to 1924, to the days when Adidas and PUMA still were one company. It was then called the Dassler Shoe Company, and the two brothers basically became one of the founders of the modern sporting goods industry. In 1948 the two brothers separated; one founded Adidas, the other one founded PUMA. Since then the two companies have gone their own ways to become competitors. PUMA is a sporting goods company that is active in selling footwear, apparel and accessories. We are not involved in selling any kind of hard goods or equipment, except the accessory business, which is primarily soccer equipment and bags. I started working for the company in January 1990 as a Business Manager, and then six months later became Marketing Director, a year later Vice President of Marketing and Sales, and in May 1993 was appointed CEO at the age of 30, which made me the youngest CEO of a public German company ever. In Phase I, we turned the company around; it had been through some difficult times between 1986 and 1993. Together with my management team, we managed to turn the business from a loss- making company - which lost money for seven consecutive years - into a profit-making company. Between 1994 and 1997 we had three years of consecutive record earnings, and in 1997, when the company was fully restructured and highly profitable, we decided to start Phase II, which meant heavy investments in product development and marketing in order to close the gap between us and the leading competitors. And in the years 1998, 1999, 2000 we increased our marketing expenditures from 9% to 15% of sales, and our R&D expenditures from 2% to close to 5% of sales, and that has helped to fuel growth from single digit growth, which we had between 1994 and 1997, to now double digit growth with rising profits again. Obviously, in the first years of investment our bottom line was affected, but now those investments are starting to pay off.
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