Abercrombie & Fitch (Hollister)

Back in 2012 A&F had 946 U.S. stores.  They ended the most recent quarter with 684 (plus 195 international stores).  In the immortal words of Gary Schoenfeld in his first earnings conference call as CEO of Pac Sun however many years ago it was, “Nobody needs 900 Pac Sun stores.” Nobody needed 946 A&F stores […]

A&F (owner of the Hollister brand) had a pretty good quarter. I’m thrilled that their sales fell a bit and want to start by reminding you why I’d think like that (though they tell us it was mostly caused by exchange rates). Here we sit over retailed as an industry and a country with a

It was last December when A&F’s long time CEO was “resigned” by its board of directors. I posted a link last winter to an article about how that came to happen. Here’s that link. That’s not to say he had complete responsibility for what went wrong at A&F. But, as the article made clear, it’s

I guess what I’d like to do is start with the list from their 10-Q of where the company will be focusing their turnaround efforts. “• Putting the customer at the center of everything we do Defining a clear positioning for our brands in a rapidly changing and highly competitive marketplace Delivering a compelling and

Well, as you know, A&F is having some troubles. You may recall that they fired their long time CEO late last year and have retained seven new board of director members and two new brand presidents, all with significant retail experience. They are in the process of finding a new CEO. If you want to

You have heard me say from time to time that companies get into trouble due to denial and perseverance in a period of change. I’ve also noted that it’s typically not the founder or executive who’s been in charge for a long time who can fix the problems. Their perception of the organization, relationships with

When CEO Michael Jeffries is on the conference call on December 3rd, then “retires” on December 8th, you kind of figure out there are issues. The 10-Q can be viewed here. On page 24 you can read some of the details of his retirement, though not the reason for it. The recent financial performance of

As I just noted in my last post on Tilly’s and expect to note as I get to other retailers, the teen market is sort of lousy right now. People seem a bit perplexed as to why it’s fallen so hard, but I believe it’s as simple as a lack of money and jobs for teens.

Consistent with other retailers, A&F’s numbers for their August 3 quarter were not so good. Let’s look at those numbers and then talk about the general trends I think are impacting most retailers in our space. The Numbers   Net sales fell about 1% from $951 to $946 million. U.S. sales were down 8% compared to last