The sandal manufacturer Birkenstock is holding back on the price of its shares for its IPO in New York, according to a media report. Birkenstock has set the share price at $46 – in the middle of the previously agreed range of $44 to $49, wrote the Wall Street Journal. At this price, the company, headquartered in Linz am Rhein in Rhineland-Palatinate, would be worth around 8.6 billion dollars (around 8.1 billion euros) on the stock exchange.
The main owner L Catterton, who is linked to the luxury group LVMH and its billionaire boss Bernard Arnault, will retain control of Birkenstock after the IPO.
With the plans, Birkenstock is jumping on a wave of activity on the US stock market after more than a year of standstill. In the past few weeks, the chip designer Arm and the delivery service Instacart, among others, went public. They set the issue price at the upper end of the price range. However, the shares were unable to maintain their initial price gains. The Arm share was recently trading well below its current highs, and the Instacart price fell below the issue price.
According to the company, Birkenstock’s origins date back to 1774. Almost 250 years ago, the shoemaker Johannes Birkenstock laid the foundation for “a shoemaking dynasty.” The company describes itself as the “inventor of the footbed”. The sandals have long since broken away from their former eco-slipper image; in recent years they have increasingly developed into a fashion accessory, also through collaborations with high-end brands such as Dior and Manolo Blahnik.
