‘We are beyond fashion’: How Birkenstock got back in step post-IPO

It was the worst IPO the US market had seen in two years. But the thing about legacy brands? They know how to weather a storm.

Birkenstock CEO Oliver Reichert says that going public was the company’s second best option. The first would have been to keep the brand growing in a “peaceful, positive family atmosphere”, but decades of “complex” dynamics led Reichert (the first person outside of the Birkenstock family to run the company) into the arms of the New York Stock Exchange. He rang the bell alongside Alexandre Arnault, who has been a board member since 2023 (L Catterton, the LVMH investment vehicle, took a minority stake in the brand in 2021). It was a symbolic moment of Birkenstock’s position as a fashion-meets-function heritage brand.