$4 Billion Activewear Unicorn Said to Eye 2024 IPO
Is Vuori on the hunt for an investment banker to take itself public sometime next year?
The Lululemon competitor is already in talks with potential investment bankers and could make a decision in the coming weeks. Those talks were first reported by Bloomberg on Friday, which said Vuori has finalized any public offering plans.
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A representatives for Vuori declined to comment. But the company might have been preparing for an IPO for at least a year now.
In March 2022, the company hired Libby Stockstill as its first chief legal officer and corporate secretary. She previously was vice president and global general counsel at Vans, the VF skate shoe brand. Bryan Muehlberger was named chief information officer in August last year. Jennifer Frisch came aboard as chief people officer this year and Hugh Garrity filled the chief operating officer role. Filling out the C-suite is a common move when a company is preparing for the IPO roadshow. These new executives join chief financial officer Desiree Swanson—she joined in January 2020 and was the former CFO at Volcom—and founder Joe Kudla on the senior leadership team of the eight-year-old California label.
“We are excited to announce the hire of these executives as we continue to expand the Vuori brand and support our global growth,” Kudla said in April.
Noting that Vuori’s “strong growth in the last few years,” former NPD analyst and current Spurwink River head Matt Powell said the brand offers “unique and differentiated” product.
“Vuori has done a lot with woven fabrics, where others have focused on knits,” he said. “Vuori has more of a men’s focus as well.”
Yoga-inspired Lululemon, on the other hand, built a business around women interested in athletic apparel. The brand founded in 1998 by Chip Wilson didn’t enter the men’s market until 2014.
Powell thinks the IPO market is starting to heat up again and has a lot of money waiting on the sidelines for the right offering to come alone. And while he doesn’t see a “robust” activewear and athleisure market next year, “brands that stand out can thrive,” Powell said.
Birkenstock Holding Ltd. is looking to get out of the gate. The German clog and sandals maker and its controlling shareholder L Catterton are looking to raise as much as $1.6 billion from an IPO that could value the firm at $9.2 billion.
The footwear maker is offering 10.75 million new shares at between $44 to $49 each, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. L Catterton is selling 21.5 million shares. The filing also said that Financière Agache, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault’s family holding company, is interested in buying up to $325 million in shares, with Arnault’s son Alexandre joining Birkenstock’s board of directors after the offering.
Vuori attracted a $45 million investment from Norwest Venture Partners in 2019, followed by a $400 million investment from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in 2021 that valued the clothing company at $4 billion.
The California-based active lifestyle brand improved its sustainability profile by eliminating 80 percent of plastics, including 3 million polybags, from its shipping and supply chain operations. It has expanded internationally, primarily through e-commerce sites.
An IPO would give it the financial punch to expand in a big way by opening more retail stores and possibly distribution centers. Vuori has said it wants to open 100 new stores in the U.S. in the next four years. It currently operates 40 U.S. doors, including one in New York that opened last year. Overseas, the brand is sold through wholesale partners. It has a store in London’s Covent Garden and a popup in Shanghai. Last year the company said it plans to open a distribution center in the U.K. and an innovation center in Taiwan.
Vuori said it has been profitable since 2017, a feat not many startups can lay claim to, and not even by some targeting an IPO.