California Apparel News

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 is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2019, according to news reports.

The IPO is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.

A spokesperson 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, Levi’s grew to be 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 labels with the 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.

On Nov. 15, Levi’s opened its largest flagship store in New York’s Times Square with a huge celebration filled with celebrities, fashion icons, musicians and shoppers.

The 17,000-square-foot outpost at 1535 Broadway replaces the Levi’s store at 1501 Broadway, which opened in 2008.

The new emporium has a tailor shop in the back with four on-site tailors, redesigned dressing rooms with wooden doors for a Western feel and T-shirt-printing capabilities for a personal touch.

The investment in a new, larger-format store in Times Square reinforces the company’s confidence in its direct-to-consumer business, which now represents nearly one-third of Levi’s total global business.

“With this store, we are focused on bringing the flexibility and ease of omni-channel to the in-store environment while also giving the consumer a unique and highly personalized experience they can’t get anywhere else,” said Carrie Ask, executive vice president and president of global retail for Levi’s.