Birkenstock officially goes public

Birkenstock has today announced the launch of its initial public offering of 32,258,064 ordinary shares on the New York Stock Exchange, after months of teasing the potential listing.

The company is offering 10,752,688 ordinary shares and the selling shareholder is offering 21,505,376 ordinary shares. In connection with the offering, the selling shareholder has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 4,838,709 ordinary shares to cover over-allotments.

The initial public offering price is currently expected to be between £36.21 ($44) and £40.39 ($49) per ordinary share. Birkenstock has applied to list its ordinary shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "BIRK".

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint lead book-running managers for the proposed offering. The book runners include BofA Securities, Citigroup, Evercore ISI, Jefferies, UBS Investment Bank, BNP PARIBAS, Bernstein, and HSBC.

A registration statement on Form F-1 relating to the proposed offering has been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold, nor may an offer to buy be accepted, prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective.

This comes comes more than two years after L Catterton and the family investment company of billionaire Bernard Arnault acquired a majority stake in Birkenstock, valuing it at about £3.5 billion ($4.3 billion).

The Birkenstock family is still involved in the brand and brothers Christian and Alex Birkenstock still hold shares. The brothers were believed to have netted around £1.3 billion each after the sale to L Catterton and are in for another big payday.