Academic studies prove that following that simple strategy has out-performed the market by a significant margin over the long-term, while taking only 50% of market risk.
The company expects not only to win a bigger share of the German sports-goods market largely by taking over uncompetitive small firms but also to fatten its margins, 2.3% last year, to 6% in 2005.
Mark Hulbert, well-known for his performance-tracking newsletter The Hulbert Financial Digest, has been tracking it since 2002, and has reported of it more than doubling the performance of buy and hold over the long-term while taking only 61% of market risk.