Sandals are displayed at a Birkenstock store. AFP

Birkenstock shares are stumbling in their debut on the stock market as Wall Street trades in its wingtips for sandals for a day.

The 249-year-old German maker of upmarket sandals set a price of $46 per share for its initial public offering of stock, valuing the company at $8.64 billion. The stock opened for trade at $41, which was below the range of $44 to $49 it had been expected to price just a week ago.

Birkenstock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the "BIRK” ticker symbol. Birkenstock Holding Ltd. sold about 10.8 million shares in the offering, raising about $495 million. Its shareholders sold an additional 21.5 million shares.

 Customers shop at a Birkenstock store. 

The company’s footwear was first cobbled together by Johann Adam Birkenstock in Germany in 1774. The sandals have long been derided as the antithesis of high fashion but have a cult following and this year got a plug in the blockbuster film "Barbie.”

"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 fan base of millions of consumers that uniquely transcends geography, gender, age and income,” Birkenstock said in a recent regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 Pairs of shoes are pictured in a window. Reuters

Birkenstock’s formula for success began with a view that humans are intended to walk barefoot. The company said in its filing that its footbed, which was developed in 1902, "represents the best alternative to walking barefoot, encouraging proper foot health by evenly distributing weight and reducing pressure points and friction.”

Birkenstock makes all of its footbeds in Germany and assembles more than 95% of its products there. The remaining products are made elsewhere in the European Union.

The company’s revenue has increased from 727.9 million euros ($771.7 million) in fiscal 2020 to 1.24 billion euros ($1.32 billion) in fiscal 2022.

Birkenstock’s IPO will be the fourth to launch in the U.S. in the past month, following Arm Holdings, Klaviyo and Instacart. There were just 71 IPOs in the U.S. last year, the lowest number since 2009, according to Renaissance Capital.

Agence France-Presse