illycaffè considers IPO as future growth option, Andrea Illy says not imminent

illycaffè has put an IPO in the conversation, but Andrea Illy made one thing clear in Trento on May 27: there is no date, no rush, and any stock market listing remains only "a possibility." For a Trieste coffee company that has built its reputation on a nine-variety pure Arabica blend, that matters as much as the financing angle. The question is not just whether illycaffè can float. It is whether it can do so without sanding off the slow, quality-led identity that has always set it apart.

That identity is deeply family-driven. Francesco Illy founded the business in Trieste in 1933, and the company says it is now led by the third generation of the family, with Andrea Illy as chair, Cristina Scocchia as chief executive and Anna Rossi Illy as honorary president and chief ethical officer. Alongside coffee, illycaffè sells machines and designer cups through the illy Art Collection, and it has run the Università del Caffè since 1999, a sign that the brand has long treated education and positioning as part of the product, not just marketing garnish.

The company has also spent years building the kind of governance and reporting framework public investors now expect. illycaffè became a Benefit Corporation in 2019 and said it had used an integrated reporting model voluntarily since 2021. In its 2024 annual report, it said it was already anticipating the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the related ESRS framework, while also publishing the impact reporting required for benefit corporations. That is not window dressing. It is the kind of paperwork that usually appears when a company is preparing for bigger scrutiny, or at least keeping that door open.

The numbers give Andrea Illy room to think. illycaffè reported record 2024 revenue of about €630 million, up 6 percent, EBITDA of €110 million, up 19 percent, and net profit of €33 million, up 42 percent. The company also said it would award €1 million in bonuses to more than 1,000 employees worldwide. But Illy said 2025 has been a year of transition, marked by geopolitical uncertainty and higher raw-material costs, and that the company raised prices by less than its costs increased.

That tension between growth and discipline is exactly why the IPO question matters. In a May 9, 2025 interview, Andrea Illy said the company was reducing profitability in 2025 so it could resume growth in 2026, with plans to double production capacity and launch new products, including a recyclable capsule. He also said coffee prices should ease over the next 18 months as harvests recover in Brazil and Vietnam. After June 2025, when Daria Illy exited the family coffee business and sold her 19 percent stake to Gruppo Illy Spa, control rested with Andrea and Anna Illy. An IPO would open a new chapter, but for illycaffè the harder part may be preserving the cadence that made the brand special in the first place.