Shoe retailer Birkenstock Holding Plc used proceeds from its IPO in mid-October to pay off debt early.
On Thursday, the group announced that it had used the equivalent of over 520 million euros in the past few weeks to partially repay two current loans. Through the early repayment, the company reduced its total debt from around 1.840 billion euros to around 1.314 billion euros, according to a statement. The plan is to further reduce the debt ratio in the coming months.
Oliver Reichert, CEO of the Birkenstock Group, explained the background to the strategy. “It’s simple: We don’t like being in debt, and we don’t need to be because we run a profitable, financially strong company,” he said in a statement. “This important step of early repayment underlines our commitment to reducing debt, which we set out in our IPO prospectus.” The early repayment will also “lead to a gradual reduction in interest payments by more than 40 million euros per year,” emphasized Reichert .