Birkenstock’s road to Wall Street has been a long one — it’s already been 249 years since Johann Adam Birkenstock was listed as “cobbler” in the church archives of Langen-Bergheim.
But it looks like the German sandalmaker, which is backed by private equity giant L Catterton, might have to wait just a little longer.
While a source said the company was on track to make its offering sometime the week of Oct. 9, a government shutdown could delay that.
Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, testified to Congress this week that his active workforce would immediately shrink from 4,600 to about 400 if the government were to shut down.
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“We’d be a skeletal staff,” Gensler said, noting that those who were working would be plugging away without pay.
As the SEC is charged with broad oversight of the financial markets, that would stretch things pretty thin.
“Largely, the initial public offering market would be shut down with the government,” he said.
That will no doubt have Birkenstock chief executive officer Oliver Reichert paying extra close attention come Sunday when — unless there’s a deal or some change of heart by hard-right House Republican holdouts — Washington will kinda, sorta go dark.
It’s a political drama that could tie up a fashion drama.
After a drought in IPO’s last year, the market has started to open up this summer in the worlds of fashion and beauty with offerings from Savers Value Village and Oddity Tech. And in the consumer more broadly, grocery delivery firm Instacart took its bow this month.
But Birkenstock — a stalwart and connected name, growing fast and posting big profits — is seen as the fashion bellwether, the one that could ignite the market for real.
All the companies eyeing their own offering, including Kim Kardashian’s Skims, are just going to have to wait until Washington finds its way to some kind of detente to find out.
This story was reported by WWD and originally appeared on WWD.com.
