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Adidas is a German sports apparel corporation. The company is named after its founder, Adolf (Adi) Dassler, who started producing shoes in the 1920s in Herzogenaurach near Nuremberg. Many erroneously believe that Adidas is an acronym for All Day I Dream About Sports.

Rudolf Dassler, Adi's brother, founded a rival company, Puma, in 1948.

The chief competitors of Adidas are Reebok, Puma and Nike.

The history of the company, as presented by its official web site, is incomplete, maybe because it is indirectly linked to financial scandals.

After a period of serious trouble following the death of Adolf Dassler's son Horst Dassler in 1987, the company was bought in 1990 by Bernard Tapie, for 1.6 billion French francs ($320 million), which Tapie borrowed. Tapie was at the time a famous specialist of rescuing bankrupt companies, a business on which he built his fortune.

Tapie decided to move production offshore, to AsiaThe continent of Asia is defined by subtracting Europe and Africa from the great land mass of Africa-Eurasia. The boundaries are vague, especially between Asia and Europe: Asia and Africa meet somewhere near the Suez Canal. The boundary between Asia and E. He also hired MadonnaMadonna Louise Veronica Ciccone (born August 16, 1958), simply known by the stage name Madonna is a pop singer considered by many to be the queen of popular music. She has had a long career that has been marked by success and controversy. Biography Born M for promotion.

In 19921992 is a leap year starting on Wednesday. Events January January The Internet Society is formed. January 1 Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General January 1 George H. Bush becomes the fi, Tapie was unable to pay interest of his loan. He asked the Crédit LyonnaisCredit Lyonnais is a French bank. It used to be the largest French bank, and it was state-owned. History During the 1990s it has been the subject of financial scandals, and created a huge debt of about 150 billion French francs by exaggerate investing, bu bankThe essential function of a bank is to provide services related to the storing of value and the extending of credit. The evolution of banking dates back to the earliest writing, and continues in the present where a bank is a financial institution that pro to sell Adidas, and the bank bought it for itself, which is normally forbidden under French law. Apparently, the state-owned bank tried to do a favor to Tapie, to get him out of trouble, because Tapie was a ministerA minister is a politician who heads a government ministry or department (e. education, finance, health, state, war etc. Senior ministers are members of the cabinet, usually led by a prime minister or president. The term "minister" comes from a Latin word of Urban Affairs (ministre de la Ville) in the French government at the time. Forgetting why the bank actually bought Adidas, Tapie later sued it, because he felt spoiled by the sale.

In February 1993, Crédit Lyonnais sold Adidas to Robert Louis-Dreyfus , a friend of Bernard Tapie (and cousin of Julia Louis-Dreyfus from the Seinfeld TV series). Robert Louis-Dreyfus became the new CEO of the company. He is also the president of the Olympique de Marseille football team, to which Tapie is closely linked.

Tapie went bankrupt himself in 1994. He was the object of several lawsuits, notably related to match fixing at the football club. He spent 6 months in La Santé prison in Paris in 1997 after being sentenced to 18.

Robert Louis-Dreyfus has been highly successful with managing the company until 2001. His self-admitted secret was simply copying what Nike and Reebok did.