Tim Brown ex-All White and founder of Allbirds talks business.
Allbirds, the sneaker and activewear maker co-founded by ex-All White Tim Brown that uses NZ Merino wool in many of its products, has revealed its IPO target.
It has also revealed a wider loss for its latest quarter, issued a revised prospectus that walks back some of its "sustainability principlesand objectives framework", and outlined the size of the payday ahead for Brown.
The firm will seek a US$2 billion ($2.8b) valuation when it lists on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol BIRD.
Tim Brown being carded during a Phoenix game in 2011. The hard-grafting, box-to-box midfielder (now 40) retired soon after due to complications from a fractured humerus. If it hits its marks, the IPO will value his Allbirds shares at $300 million. Photo / Getty Images
A date has yet to be set for the listing which, like the recent Rocket Lab listing, has seen Kiwis line up to participate. But unlike Rocket Lab, Hatch has NZ exclusive rights to the Allbirds listing. Hatch says it has 11,000 on its Allbirds waitlist.
Allbirds will seek to raise up to US$269m with the listing as it issues 19.2m new shares.
The firm also revealed overnight that losses mounted in the latest quarter due to higher expenses. It said it expects to book a net loss of between US$15m and $18m for the three months to September 30, compared with a loss of US$7 million for the year-ago quarter.
Revenue for the September quarter will be between US$61m and US$62.5m, compared with US$47.2m a year earlier. More people are returning to its brick-and-mortar retail stores, and average order values are growing, the company said.
Tim Brown (right) chats to Northburn Station manager and Merino grower Bevan McKnight. Photo / Vaughan Brookfield
Allbirds was founded in 2016 by Brown and Joey Zwillinger - a renewables engineer who Brown met in San Francisco, where the company is now based.
An SEC filing says that Brown (now 40) and his co-CEO Zwillinger will each hold Class B shares with 10:1 voting rights over Class A shares post IPO.
Both will retain all of their Class B shares, according to an SEC filing, meaning ex Wellington Phoenix midfielder Brown will hold at least 15.3m shares worth US$214m ($300m) if Allbirds hits its target US$2b valuation and Zwillinger just under 13m shares.
Allbirds has always had sustainability principles at the heart of its operation - an approach that's helped to win fans and high-profile backers including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher, Barack Obama, and Google co-founder Larry Page.
And in August when it launched its prospectus, it billed its upcoming listing as the first "sustainable initial public offering".
The company - which sources Merino wool in NZ for textile mills in Italy that feed manufacturing facilities in South Korea and the US - pledged to adhere to a "sustainability principles and objectives framework" (SPO), which was developed with a consultancy group advised by academics, rating agencies and charities.
obama wearing a bomber jacket and allbirds to the duke-unc game is the level i want to be at pic.twitter.com/PbZojgnTvW
But a Financial Times analysis of a revised prospectus, released earlier this month, found that mentions of the SPO framework had been more than halved, from 65 to 33, compared to the original document.
In the revised prospectus, Allbirds removed the claim that it is "conducting this offering while following the SPO framework".
It also deleted a warning that doing so could increase the cost of the IPO.
The firm has faced broader questions over the genuine sustainability of its business, recently. Its sneakers are made from naturally-derived materials and the company claims the carbon impact of making each pair is about 30 per cent less than that of its rivals.
However, it does not include the impact of shipping in the carbon footprint calculation, despite transporting materials around the world several times during the manufacturing process.
Allbirds faces a civil class-action lawsuit in the New York Southern District Court that alleges the brand has misled consumers with its sustainability claims. It has filed a motion to dismiss the suit.
