Levi Moving Ahead With Stock Buyback

Levi Strauss & Co., the world’s largest brand name apparel maker, is moving ahead with a stock buyback program that would value the company at $14 billion and ensure that it remains in family hands.

The jeans maker is offering $265 per share to employees and some members of the family that owns the maker of Levi’s jeans, Dockers brand clothing and Brittania Sportswear, company spokesman Sean Fitzgerald said Friday.

That is 32 percent higher than the $180 valuation Morgan Stanley & Co. gave it last November. The stock was worth $50 per share in 1985 when the company went private in a leveraged buyout.

The deal would “allow the company to remain private and family owned for years to come,” Chief Executive Officer Bob Haas wrote in special announcement to employees in January - the first disclosure of a possible buyback.