Birkenstock has filed for an preliminary public providing, in one other signal of the attract US fairness markets maintain for European companies in search of a valuation uplift.
The German footwear maker, whose iconic sandals are worn by hippies and preppies alike, will proceed to be managed by non-public fairness agency L Catterton, in keeping with a submitting on Tuesday. The corporate will disclose the proposed phrases of the share sale in a later submitting with the US Securities and Alternate Fee.
The IPO might worth Birkenstock at greater than $8 billion, Bloomberg Information reported beforehand. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley are main the providing, which comes greater than two years after L Catterton and the household funding firm of billionaire Bernard Arnault acquired a majority stake in Birkenstock, valuing it at about €4 billion ($4.3 billion).
Listings Increase
The US marketplace for IPOs seems prefer it’s lastly coming again to life after 18 months within the doldrums. Birkenstock’s IPO submitting comes sizzling the heels of others from SoftBank Group Corp.’s semiconductor designer Arm, grocery supply agency Instacart Inc. and advertising and marketing and knowledge automation supplier Klaviyo Inc.
Based almost 250 years in the past, Birkenstock developed a contoured insole for larger consolation. The fashionable, cork-lined sandals took maintain within the Seventies, as customers from the US Southwest to Europe grew to become enamored with the comfortable type. Birkenstock has since develop into a high-fashion model, launching collaborations with luxurious names equivalent to Dior, Manolo Blahnik and Valentino, and spawning variants from labels together with Celine and Givenchy.
Greater than half — 54% — of the corporate’s clients are within the Americas with Europe accounting for 36%, in keeping with Tuesday’s submitting. Whereas ladies make up 72% of Birkenstock clients, the footwear has broad cross-generational attraction, led by millennials with 31% of gross sales, adopted by child boomers with 30%, Gen X with 27% and Gen Z with 12%.
An inventory would cap off a profitable run for the corporate, whose household heirs stepped again from administration duties a few decade in the past. Since then, it’s streamlined technique, launched high-profile collaborations and skilled explosive progress in demand.
‘Oldest Startup’
“We see ourselves because the oldest startup on earth,” Chief Govt Officer Oliver Reichert mentioned in a letter to buyers included within the submitting. “We’re a model backed by a household custom of 1 / 4 of a millennium with the resilience, timeless relevance, and credibility of a multi-generational enterprise.”
Gross sales have been boosted of late by the blockbuster Barbie film, whose star Margot Robbie sports activities a pair of pink Birkenstocks in a single scene.
For the six months ended March 31, the corporate had a internet revenue of €40 million on income of €644 million, in keeping with the submitting. That compares with €73 million on income of €543 million throughout the identical interval a 12 months in the past.
Birkenstock has additionally been investing closely in constructing out its manufacturing websites in Germany, together with a brand new €120 million manufacturing unit in Pasewalk, a city north of Berlin.
The corporate, which is able to develop into Birkenstock Holding Ltd., plans to checklist its shares on the New York Inventory Alternate below the image BIRK.
