BIRKENSTOCK is a revered global brand rooted in function, quality and tradition dating back to 1774. We are guided by a simple, yet fundamental insight: human beings are intended to walk barefoot on natural, yielding ground, a concept we refer to as “Naturgewolltes Gehen.” Our purpose is to empower all people to walk as intended by nature. The legendary BIRKENSTOCK footbed represents the best alternative to walking barefoot, encouraging proper foot health by evenly distributing weight and reducing pressure points and friction. We believe our function-first approach is universally relevant; all humans — anywhere and everywhere — deserve to walk in our footbed.

From this insight, we have developed a broad, unisex portfolio of footbed-based products, anchored by our iconic Core Silhouettes, the Madrid, Arizona, Boston, Gizeh and Mayari. While these silhouettes drive consistent, high-visibility revenues and represent a significant portion of our overall business, we also continuously expand our extensive archive of over 700 silhouettes by extending our existing silhouettes and launching new styles. This expands our reach across price points, usage occasions and product categories. We incorporate distinctive design elements and develop new materials to create newness while staying true to our heritage and uncompromising quality standards.

We are German made. Our production capabilities reflect centuries-old traditions of craftsmanship and commitment to using only the highest quality materials. To ensure each product meets our rigorous quality standards, we operate a vertically integrated manufacturing base and produce all our footbeds in Germany. In addition, we assemble over 95% of our products in Germany and produce the remainder elsewhere in the EU. We maintain strict control over our entire supply chain, responsibly sourcing materials that originate mainly from Europe.

As described by our Chief Executive Officer, Oliver Reichert, “Consumers buy our products for a thousand wrong reasons, but they all come back for the same reason:” for our functional proposition, enduring commitment to quality and the rich tradition of our Company which enables us to establish meaningful emotional connections with our consumers. The deep trust we create allows us to enjoy long-lasting relationships with our consumers — oftentimes spanning decades — as evidenced by findings from the Consumer Survey that revealed the average BIRKENSTOCK consumer in the U.S. owns 3.6 pairs today. Through the strong reputation and universal appeal of our brand — enabling extensive word-of-mouth exposure and outsized earned media value — we have efficiently built a growing global fanbase of millions of consumers that uniquely transcends geography, gender, age and income.

We reach these consumers around the world through a multi-channel “engineered distribution” model, which balances the growing demand for our products and our constrained supply capacity to create scarcity in the market. We strategically allocate our products between our wholesale partners in the B2B channel, which we have been optimizing in recent years, and our rapidly growing DTC channel. As a result, we drive consistently robust revenue growth and operating margins, achieve excellent sell-through rates and deepen our direct connections with our consumers. In fiscal 2022, we generated revenues of €1,242.8 million, gross profit margin of 60%, Adjusted gross profit margin of 62%, net profit of €187.1 million, Adjusted EBITDA of €434.6 million and Adjusted EBITDA margin of 35%, while selling approximately 30 million units.

*Note: Revenue and net income are in U.S. dollars (converted from euros) for the 12 months that ended March 31, 2023.

(Birkenstock Holding plc priced its IPO at $46.00 – just below the mid-point of its range – on 32.26 million shares (32,258,064 shares) – the same number  in the prospectus – to raise $1.5 billion ($1,483.96 million) on Oct. 10, 2023. The stock is expected to start trading Wednesday, Oct. 11, on the New York Stock Exchange.)