Dr Martens is an “iconic” brand of “rebellious self-expression”, its promoters told us endlessly when the bootmaker came to the stock market. Now it’s an icon of something else: the mass delusion of City investors in early 2021. In a rush of optimism when Covid vaccines had just arrived, they fooled themselves into thinking every consumer-related arrival on the stock market was headed to the moon.
The title of worst float of that brief era will forever be held by made.com, which managed to go bust before 2022 was out. But Dr Martens, after its fourth profit warning, is now a remarkable 75% down on its debut price. That outdoes even Deliveroo, which, after bouncing off its lows this year, has lost “only” 63% of its buyers’ investment.
