The ugly shoe that felt great to wear gave the three friends an opportunity to improve upon the running shoe offerings from Nike, Adidas, Puma and New Balance, and to build a business. The three men cofounded On Holding AG in Zurich in January 2010 and quickly won over a core customer base of joggers happy to pay around $180 a pair for superior running shoes. Based on Thursday’s close, Olivier Bernhard’s stake in the business is worth $623 million, while David Allemann and Caspar Coppetti hold stakes worth $567 million and $579 million, respectively. Not bad for a shoe that started life, as Bernhard claims, from “pieces of garden hose” he had “glued” under an old pair of competition running shoes. They really listen and they want to get as close to perfect as possible.”For Federer, developing tennis shoe technology was a great way to spend his pandemic lockdown.

Source: Forbes September 17, 2021 09:58 UTC