When Tommy Hilfiger goes public again, its shares won’t necessarily be listed in Amsterdam, the company’s CEO told The Post.
The Amsterdam-based fashion house, owned by private-equity firm Apax Partners, had previously planned an initial public offering on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange. But it shelved those plans in January amid turmoil in the global credit markets.
Once the markets recover – likely late 2009 or later – it’s “not set in stone” that Hilfiger will make its IPO “in Amsterdam and not New York,” CEO Fred Gehring said in an interview.
Gehring noted that previously “it made the most sense to do [the IPO] in Amsterdam because the European markets were particularly good.”
But as it looks for signs of a global recovery, Hilfiger also will consider exchanges in the US and even Asia, although its headquarters will remain in Amsterdam, he said.
Before it was taken private for $1.6 billion in early 2006, Hilfiger was based in Hong Kong and its shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
Hilfiger, which said yesterday that sales and profits for the fiscal year just ended surged on solid demand worldwide, will begin distributing its fashions in the US this fall exclusively with Macy’s, having exited other department stores over the past two years.
But the revamped Hilfiger collections, which will be more upscale than before, will only be sold at 500 of Macy’s 810 stores. While Macy’s is remodeling stores for the Hilfiger launch, critics charge that some Macy’s locations are too much in need of renovations or too downmarket for the new Hilfiger line.
On the higher end, Gehring said Hilfiger is mulling a “purple-label equivalent, non-logo” collection, referring to Ralph Lauren’s pricier merchandise, for fall 2009.
While the designs would be “first and foremost” for Hilfiger’s specialty stores, Gehring won’t “rule out we could sell it at other upscale wholesale locations” in fall 2010.
Hilfiger will open a 22,000-square-foot “global flagship” on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue in November.