Levi Strauss & Co. has revealed a few more details of its upcoming initial stock offering as it inches closer to becoming a publicly traded company.
In a filing today with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Levi Strauss & Co. said it plans to offer 36.7 million shares when it begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange, pricing them between $14 and $16. At the high end of that valuation, that would raise nearly $587 million.
An initial public offering date for the San Francisco-based blue jeans giant hasn’t been set, but the company will trade under the symbol LEVI. The public offering is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Morgan Stanley.
News of a pending Levi’s IPO surfaced last November and last month plans were put into motion. The 166-year old company has traded publicly before, but went private 34 years ago.
Just a few years ago Levi’s future was cloudy. The company was overwhelmed by debt and trying to reinvent itself in a crowded field by being less dependent on retail stores.
When CEO Chip Bergh took the company’s helm in 2011 things began to turn around with repeated quarters of double-digit growth. Bergh also has made Levi’s a values-driven company, by lending vocal corporate support to issues such as gun violence prevention, voter turnout, and climate change prevention.
