Abercrombie & Fitch joined other U.S. retailers in forecasting weak annual sales growth and warned of softer demand heading into spring for its namesake brand, sending its shares down 14% on Wednesday.
Abercrombie & Fitch
The apparel maker said margins would take a hit from higher freight costs and more promotions at the start of the year to clear excess inventory. It also flagged a $5 million impact from U.S. tariffs.
The transition into spring demand was “more normalized” this year, including a drop in sales for the A&F label, CEO Fran Horowitz said during a post-earnings call, echoing big-box retailer Target‘s comments on weak apparel sales in February.
“The initial print does not sow confidence,” William Blair analyst Dylan Carden said, adding that A&F brand sales, which rose 2% in the holiday quarter, could be headed for a drop in the future, putting Abercrombie’s full-year target at risk.
The company expects annual net sales growth of 3% to 5%, below expectations for a 6.77% rise, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Retailers from Walmart, opens new tab to Home Depot, opens new tab have set their annual targets with caution as still-high inflation forces Americans to spend less on apparel, home furnishing and electronics. Uncertainty around the potential fallout from President Donald Trump‘s tariffs on goods imported into the U.S is also keeping shoppers on the back foot.
Abercrombie expects fiscal 2025 operating margin of 14% to 15%, including the impact from tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico. In comparison, operating margin was 15% for the year ended February 1.
The company imports about 5% to 6% of its goods from China and exposure to Mexico is “immaterial”, company executives had said in November.
It imports 34% of its merchandise from Vietnam, with Cambodia and India rounding off the top three supplier countries, according to Abercrombie’s 2023 annual report.
For the holiday quarter, the company’s net sales of $1.58 billion edged past market expectations thanks to a 16% rise in sales at its teen-focused Hollister brand.
Its adjusted profit per share of $3.57 beat estimates of $3.54, while its annual target of $10.40 to $11.40 was slightly above estimates.
The Ohio-based company also announced a new $1.3 billion stock buyback program.
Salvatore Ferragamo on Thursday reported that its adjusted operating profit had more than halved last year, as the Italian luxury leather goods group seeks a new boss to replace departing chief executive Marco Gobbetti.
The company cited a slowdown in Asian markets, with a particularly difficult environment in China, and a challenging global wholesale environment in its earnings statement.
“Considering the uncertainties over demand by luxury consumers, we remain cautious on short-term expectations,” it said, indicating there would be no immediate turnaround.
As announced last month, the company said that its CEO Gobbetti had stepped down on Thursday after little over three years in charge, during which time the former Burberry chief failed to stem a slide in sales at the Florentine brand.
Chairman Leonardo Ferragamo told financial analysts that designer Maximilian Davis had his full support. Davis was hired as creative director in 2022 shortly after Gobbetti took charge of the company.
The chairman also said the family of late founder Salvatore Ferragamo remained committed to the company.
Adjusted earning before interest and taxes (EBIT) dropped to 35 million euros, better than a LSEG analysts consensus, after the company last year warned it expected EBIT of around 30 million euros. The comparable figure in 2023 was 79 million euros.
The group reported a net loss of 68 million euros in 2024 from a profit of 26 million euros a year earlier.
Ferragamo’s revenues declined 4% at constant currencies in the fourth quarter. In January the group flagged “encouraging results” from its direct-to-consumer sales which were overall flat in the last three months of the year.
Italian footwear brand Geox has reported a revenue of €664 million for fiscal 2024, equivalent to a 7.8% downturn compared to 2023 (and a 7.1% drop at constant exchange rates). The result was chiefly caused by Geox’s sub-par performance in multibrand retail and franchised stores.
Geox
The group recorded a loss of €17.3 million, greater than the €6.5 million loss posted in 2023. EBITDA was €76.3 million (equivalent to 11.5% of revenue), compared to €89 million the previous year. Geox’s adjusted net income was €8.8 million, down from the €15.6 million generated in 2023.
The forecast for 2025 is a low-single-digit revenue drop and an operating margin decline of approximately 80 basis points. Geox stated in a press release that the forecast is subject to “a high degree of uncertainty, given the current macroeconomic and geopolitical context.”
In Q4 2024, Geox performed slightly better than the previous year, recording a revenue of €138 million (up 0.5% at current exchange rates).
“2024 proved to be a complex year for the group, marked by the persistence of tough market conditions which have affected company performance and sales volumes,” said CEO Enrico Mistron.
Geox’s new 2025-2029 business plan is a “crucial step, as it sets out the growth guidelines for the next five years. Our strategy is based on three mainstays: Innovation, style and sustainability,” concluded Mistron.
Italian jewellery brand Pomellato has released the eighth edition of its campaign celebrating International Women’s Day. The initiative, bringing together influential names like Jane Fonda, America Ferrera and Mariska Hargitay, to name a few, highlights a tragic reality: one in three women is a victim of domestic violence.
Pomellato
Pomellato’s video and print campaign calls for a switch from passive observation to active intervention, transforming the celebrities who joined the campaign into “social sentinels”. “Just look around you,” urges Fonda in the black and white video. “One in three women is a victim of domestic violence,” adds Hargitay, drawing on her decades of work on behalf of survivors. Ferrera emphasises this harsh reality, underlining “One in three”.
Besides Academy Award winner and activist Fonda, Ferrera, and Hargitay, actress and founder of NGO The Joyful Heart Foundation, the campaign is fronted by actress Laura Harrier, Italian Olympic athlete Mattia Furlani, and Professor Gianvito Martino, neuroscientist at the San Raffaele Vita-Salute University in Milan. They join Sabina Belli, CEO of Pomellato and founder of the #PomellatoForWomen platform, in challenging collective complicity in what is a genuine societal emergency.
“Domestic violence is a collective wound that scars society as a whole. As a maison standing alongside women since 1967, we believe that the transformation begins when we all accept our role as social sentinels. It means we must be vigilant and have the courage to act. It means understanding that silence doesn’t mean neutrality, it means complicity. We need to shift from awareness to action, from empathy to systemic change,” said Belli.