Levi Strauss Reported to be Planning an IPO
Levi Strauss & Co., the 145-year-old blue jeans maker in San Francisco, is headed to the stock market to raise between $600 million and $800 million with an IPO next year.
The initial public offering to sell stock in the company is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2019, according to news reports from CNBC.
The IPO is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase.
A spokeswoman for Levi Strauss said the company does not comment on marketplace rumors or speculation.
This is not the company’s first trip to the stock market. In 1971, the company became a publicly traded entity, raising $50 million by selling stock. Three years later it moved its headquarters to towering commercial buildings at the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco.
But after years of having its stock traded, Levi Strauss returned to the private sector in 1985 by completing one of the largest leveraged buyouts of the time, which was valued at $1.1 billion.
For fiscal 2017, Levi’s revenues were $4.9 billion with $281 million in net income. The company employs 13,800 people around the world, including 6,700 in the Americas, 4,000 in Europe and 3,100 in Asia.
The company was founded in 1873 by Levi Strauss, a German immigrant who first came to San Francisco in 1853 to run a West Coast outpost of his family’s wholesale dry goods business.
Over the years, grew to one of the largest blue jeans companies in the United States. In 1986 it introduced a khaki-pant label known as Dockers and later expanded its bargain-priced labels with brands such as Signature by Levi Strauss & Co. and Denizen brands.
Chip Bergh, the company’s chief executive officer, came on board in 2011 after working for 20 years at Procter & Gamble and has guided the company to profitability.
