Salomon Celebrates 60th Birthday
Written by Dan Morgan, Monday, 26 November 2007From humble beginnings the behemoth has was, or is Salomon celebrates 60 years in the ski market.
François Salomon and son George began making ski edges 60 years ago and their efforts soon developed into cable bindings and automate processes for edge manufacture.
Innovation continued and by 1972 Salomon was number one binding manufacturer in the world. Ski boots were added to the product range in 1970 and the first monocoque ski, the S9000, arrived from Salomon in 1990. More success followed with the ubiquitous X-Scream and Teneighty.
1998 saw the business sold to Adidas for a 8,000,000,000 French francs (that’s 8 billion). The new millennium saw Salomon fall out of favour and Amer sold the ailing business for €485 million in 2005 to Amer Sports who’s portfolio includes ski brand Atomic.