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By Bloomberg

Adidas AG said it will sell the Rockport shoe business to a company formed jointly by competitor New Balance Athletic Shoe Inc. as it takes the first steps toward a revival.

New Balance has teamed up with private-equity firm Berkshire Partners LLC to acquire the footwear maker for $280 million, Adidas said today in a statement. Rockport will become part of a new company, which will also include New Balance’s Drydock business.

Adidas also confirmed that it reached reduced sales and profit targets for 2014, sending its shares up as much as 4.5 percent. Chief Executive Officer Herbert Hainer is under pressure to effect a turnaround after last year scrapping sales and profit targets for 2015 because of slumping demand for golf supplies in North America and turmoil in Russia.

“It’s absolutely the first step in the right direction for Adidas to focus more on its core competencies,” Volker Bosse, an analyst at Baader Bank near Munich, said by phone. “Rockport certainly wasn’t a very meaningful asset.”

Adidas shares traded 4 percent higher at 60.58 euros as of 11:15 a.m. in Frankfurt.

Reebok Speculation

The disposal of Rockport, is likely to focus attention on whether Adidas may seek to sell the Reebok athletic-shoe business, which it has owned since 2006. Last year, a Hong Kong- based private-equity investor was said by people familiar with the matter to be preparing an offer for the brand.

“For those who think something similar might happen with Reebok, they might be disappointed,” Bosse said. “I think it will continue to be an important pillar in their growth plan.”

Hainer provided no indication today that Reebok isn’t strategic, saying that the disposal of Rockport “will allow us to reduce complexity and pursue our target consumer more aggressively with the Adidas, Reebok and TaylorMade brands.”

Adidas said net income in 2014 reached its target of 650 million euros ($734 million), excluding goodwill impairment losses and the impact of the Rockport sale. The company reduced the forecast in July, before which it had projected a figure between 830 million euros and 930 million euros.

’Sales Momentum’

Sales rose 2 percent to 14.8 billion euros, or 6 percent on a currency-neutral basis, Adidas said.

“Our strong sales momentum for Adidas and Reebok continued through the fourth quarter, with the group recording double- digit growth in western Europe, greater China, European emerging markets and Latin America,” Hainer said.

The sale of Rockport will reduce 2014 earnings by a “double-digit” million-euro amount, to be listed under discontinued operations, according to Adidas, which inherited the brand as part of its acquisition of Reebok.

Rockport was founded in 1971 when father and son Saul and Bruce Katz began selling shoes out of the trunk of their car in New England. It’s based in Canton, Massachusetts and the new merged company will be based in the greater Boston area, Berkshire said in a statement.

Berkshire Partners isn’t affiliated with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska.

Guggenheim Securities LLC was Adidas’s financial adviser in the transaction, while Ropes & Gray LLP gave legal counsel. Goodwin Procter LLP was the legal adviser for Berkshire and New Balance.