[Abridged] lululemon athletica (LULU): An Ode to Bad Management & The Politics of Skin-Tight Leggings
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Potentially, never have shareholders suffered so long through so many own goals.
There were the “Who is John Galt” shopping bags in 2011, which ticked off their customer base of liberal 25-45 year-old women.
In 2013, the flagship skin-tight yoga pants were found to be transparent – a wholly undesirable trait for pants, especially in the seat thereof.
A few months later, in a Forbes interview, Chip again planted his foot in his mouth, saying “you don’t want certain customers coming in.”
LULU’s customers balked. LULU’s gross margins cratered from nearly 56% to just ~48%, tanking LULU shares.
There was much more, as this event map shows.
On top of this, Trump I signed a law that cost the company 250 basis points of gross margin due to its overseas operations.
Fortunately, after an ugly 5 years and a series of executive changes, Calvin McDonald took the CEO position.
Within a year, gross margins, which had fallen dramatically earlier in the decade, were back to all-time highs above 58%.
By September 2018, LULU common stock hit $160, quadrupling its 2014 low.
Today’s turmoil mirrors that of the 2010s. That is a good thing.