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Business

Abercrombie’s holiday comps rise for the first time in 5 years

By
Lisa Fickenscher
Published March 7, 2018
Updated March 7, 2018, 9:40 p.m. ET

What a difference a year — and a new CEO — makes.

Last February, teen apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch was headed down a bad path — losing customers, closing stores and falling out of fashion and favor with its customers.

Shoppers were rejecting its overly sexualized marketing and corporate arrogance. Its shares sat in the mid-$11 range, down from $54 in May 2013.

“The history of this company is that it was an exclusive brand,” said Citi analyst Paul Lejuez. “They didn’t want everyone shopping there,” only the beautiful people.

Enter Fran Horowitz.

The 53-year-old executive was named CEO of the New Albany, Oh., company in February 2017 after a successful stint at the company’s red-hot Hollister nameplate.

On Wednesday, just 13 months after taking over the struggling company, Horowitz announced the A&F chain saw same-store sales grow 5 percent in the fourth quarter — the struggling chain’s first quarterly comp-store sales gain in 23 quarters, stretching back to 2011.

Investors greeted the encouraging news by pushing company shares up nearly 12 percent, to $23.89, after hitting a 52-week high earlier in the session.

Total sales gained 15 percent in the period, ended Jan. 28, to $1.2 billion — led by Hollister’s 11 percent same-store gain.

Once struggling Hollister began a turnaround in late 2015 — less than a year after Horowitz was tapped to head up the 538-store chain.

The former Ann Taylor Loft president is using her savvy to turn around A&F’s 330 stores.

“Hollister started its journey a little earlier and now Abercrombie is following the same playbook,” Horowitz told The Post.

Horowitz is pushing forward with a marketing strategy that seems like the opposite of the one used by Mike Jeffries, who preceded her as CEO. Jeffries was responsible for the sexualized image of the company, including raunchy ads featuring beefy, shirtless men and a quarterly magazine that some considered soft-porn.

Under Horowitz, A&F’s Web site on Wednesday featured no bare chests on its models and PG-rated photos.

The stores have also been revamped.

“The sensory experience is vastly different,” noted Instinet-Nomura analyst Simeon Siegel, pointing to the brighter lighting, lower-decibel music and softer scent.

The newish CEO recently launched a gender-neutral line for its kids stores.

“She is the catalyst to the turnaround,” said Craig Johnson, chief executive of Customer Growth Partners, adding that the company got the A&F brand out of underperforming B and C malls.

“In 2017, we reached a point that we were more productive in our current stores than we had been in years,” Horowitz told The Post.

Last year, the company closed just 39 stores — fewer than the 60 it had expected to shutter.

Consumers’ perceptions of Abercrombie “have gone from negative to positive for the first time in several years,” Horowitz said on the earnings call.