(News Bulletin 247) – An investment fund established by Catterton, LVMH and Groupe Arnault is studying its strategic options for the famous brand of sandals, including a potential IPO, reports Bloomberg.

Will investors soon be able to buy Birkenstock shares? According to Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, private equity fund L Catterton, which owns the famous German sandal brand, is evaluating its strategic options on the company, which include an IPO.

This last possibility would value the German group at more than 6 billion dollars, according to the sources of the American agency. L Catterton would work with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan as advisory banks, and the IPO could take place this year or next year in the United States, continues Bloomberg.

Deliberations are ongoing and L. Catterton may decide not to complete a transaction, added people familiar with the matter polled by the agency.

Contacted by Bloomberg, L Catterton, Birkenstock, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs did not comment.

A fund supported by LVMH

L Catterton is a fund focused on consumer goods, the result of the union between the investment company Catterton, the luxury group LVMH and Groupe Arnault, the holding company of Bernard Arnault, CEO and main shareholder of LVMH via his family.

L Catterton had, with the support of Financière Agache, an investment company of the Arnault family, bought Birkenstock in 2021 by acquiring a majority stake. The price was not communicated at the time, but Bloomberg mentions a business valuation of $4.9 billion. The Birkenstock brothers have retained a stake in the company, according to the agency.

L Catterton currently manages around $33 billion in stakes and recently sold his stake in Pinarello, an Italian premium bicycle brand.

In February 2022, the wall street journal reported that L Catterton was planning to go public on its own in the summer of that year. And as early as July 2021, Reuters reported information along these lines, explaining that L Catterton was considering listing or merging with a SPAC, a company without operational activity which raises funds on the stock market with the sole objective of buying one or more several companies.

This information of press occurred whereas the market had enormous appetite on the Stock Exchange for the companies of private equity. The success of the IPO in September 2021 in Paris of Antin Infrastructure Partners, specializing in infrastructure, had perfectly illustrated this. Since then, Antin’s share price has suffered, with a drop of more than 40% over one year.