Jun. 8, 2026 "Lululemon shares drop as forecast cut spotlights challenges for incoming CEO": Today I found this article on BNN Bloomberg:
June 5 - Lululemon Athletica shares fell about 8 per cent on Friday after the athleisure wear maker cut its annual profit forecast,
fanning worries over the pace of its turnaround
and shifting focus to the challenges awaiting the incoming CEO.
The selloff highlights growing investor unease over the once high-flying yoga wear brand,
following a proxy battle with founder Chip Wilson
and a series of product missteps
that have dented its image,
ahead of former Nike executive Heidi O’Neill taking over in September.
“Brand momentum is fading,
share losses are building,
and sales per foot are deteriorating ....
The damage under the prior CEO is
significant
and long lasting,”
Jefferies analysts said, adding that the company needs
a full strategic reset
under the new CEO.
Brand pressure, lackluster innovation
In the quarter, Lululemon attributed the sales weakness in part to a spike in
“negative commentary” across media and social platforms,
linked to a months-long proxy fight in which founder Wilson criticized the company’s leadership.
It also blamed product launches that failed to resonate with its core affluent female shopper.
Wilson, who is one of the company’s biggest independent shareholders,
had accused the brand of having lost its “cool” factor,
with leaders keen to “replicate mass-market, lower quality athletic retailers.”
The negative sentiment has been compounded by stumbles in
product innovation,
including complaints that its US$108 “Get Low” leggings were see-through,
alongside earlier issues with fit and design in recent launches.
The Vancouver-based company,
whose leggings cost up to US$178, is in the early stages of a turnaround,
ramping up discounting on older inventory
and revamping marketing as tariffs squeeze margins.
Valuation slides
Its shares fell to an over seven-year low of US$109.36,
adding to a bruising 12-month stretch in which the stock has lost nearly two-thirds of their worth.
The company forecast a drop in second-quarter sales for the first time since the pandemic,
prompting at least nine brokerages to cut their price target on the stock.
The median PT has fallen to US$149 from US$205 three months ago.
Growth has also been stifled by newer, fast-growing players in the space such as
Alo,
Vuori
and Skims in the U.S.,
even as China remains a bright spot for Lululemon.
For the full year,
profit is now expected to slide up to 17 per cent following a 9 per cent drop in 2025
and operating margin is seen contracting 380 basis points to 16.1 per cent, the lowest since 2006, according to brokerage William Blair.
Against this backdrop, attention is turning to incoming CEO O’Neill, with investors closely watching whether she can revive product innovation and restore momentum in the U.S.
The company’s valuation multiple has compressed to around 10 times forward earnings, well below 22.85 for Nike and 15.10 for Adidas , according to LSEG data.
“Now that the CEO transition path is set,
fundamentals come back into view
and they are not good,”
said BNP Paribas analyst Laurent Vasilescu.
(Reporting by Akriti Shah, Kanishka Ajmera and Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Devika Syamnath)
Jun. 16, 2026 "Groupe Dynamite share price sinks 36% despite Q1 profit and revenue up from year ago": Today I found this article by Tara Deschamps on BNN Bloomberg:
Shareholder confidence in Groupe Dynamite Inc. took a hit Tuesday
as the company’s share price plunged almost 36 per cent,
despite the retailer recording a significant jump in profit and revenue during its most recent quarter.
The Montreal-based apparel company’s share price closed the trading day down $26.70 to $47.74,
after it reduced its net new store openings
and missed some analysts’ expectations.
The disappointment didn’t escape CEO Andrew Lutfy.
“I could feel the energy on the line is certainly a little less enthusiastic than prior calls,
but I just want to put it out there
— listen, I mean we’re delivering on the guidance,”
he said as he wrapped a call with analysts.
“As a matter of fact, we’re raising the guidance.”
The outlook he was referring to raised Groupe Dynamite’s expectations for its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization margin to between 38.25 and 39.50 per cent compared with earlier expectations for 37.75 to 39.25 per cent.
But it also dropped the number of net new store openings to between eight and 10,
rather than the previously forecast 10 to 12,
and was coupled with the closure of two more stores.
“Now to be clear, those two stores were profitable.
They simply were not profitable enough to our standards,”
Lutfy said.
“So we’ve decided to do the right thing for our business
and close those two stores a little bit sooner than expected.”
The move will bring the brand’s closures to 16 this year,
which he admitted is “certainty on the high side,”
but he said the number will decline in the next couple of years.
Chris Li, a Desjardins analyst, pointed out the brand had
“modestly lowered” its net new store openings,
but he still considered the company’s financial performance recently “a strong start to the year.”
RBC analyst Irene Nattel also categorized the results as “strong,”
but said they left some wanting more.
“Markets were generally expecting better-than-forecast results, although concern had recently been creeping in around magnitude of better-than-expected results/momentum,” she wrote in a note to investors.
Groupe Dynamite’s first-quarter profit was $51.7 million or 45 cents per diluted share,
up from $27.3 million or 24 cents per diluted share in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, the company earned 50 cents per diluted share in the period ended May 2, up from 25 cents per diluted share a year ago.
Revenue for the quarter totalled $310.6 million, up from $226.7 million in the same prior-year quarter.
The increases came as customers increasingly scooped up dresses and tops from Dynamite
and fleece, activewear, camisoles and bootie shorts from Garage,
president and chief operating officer Stacie Beaver said.
“The only category I would say is soft … is denim and there’s just not much new in that category right now,” she said on the same call as Lutfy.
“Denim shorts is picking up with the weather, but as a trend, we’re not seeing much in long-leg denim right now.”
Despite the softness in denim, average customers are overall pretty resilient, she argued.
“She’s coming back more. She’s spending more. Her lifetime value is more to us,” Beaver said.
The strength of the brand’s customers is showing up at a time when shoppers have every reason to pare back purchases or become more discerning about price.
That’s because many brands are passing on the cost of
U.S. tariffs
and the wars in the Middle East
and Europe
to customers.
Others who haven’t been hit yet are raising prices as they brace for
the free trade agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico
to be renegotiated
or scraped altogether
this summer.
Meanwhile, Groupe Dynamite has been able to make its historically small markdown rate even lower without angering customers.
“There doesn’t seem to be any pushback in terms of
pricing,
supply,
demand,
all that kind of stuff,”
Lutfy said.
The top 20 per cent of his company’s customer base is
“still seemingly in a good place in terms of disposable income”
and the overall shopper is “still in really good shape,”
he said.
---
Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 16, 2026.
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