Levi Strauss Readies for Prime Time in the Public Markets

Bart Sights, head of the Eureka Lab, compares the markings and damage on jeans that he guesses are close to 30 years old, left, to jeans made within a few hours of this photograph at Levi's innovation lab in San Francisco, California, on March 21, 2019. Jeff Chiu/AP Photo

NEW YORK—Levi Strauss & Co., which gave America its first pair of blue jeans, is going public for the second time.

The 166-year-old company, which owns the Dockers and Denizen brands, previously went public in 1971, but the namesake founder’s descendants took it private again in 1985.