INTERNATIONAL - Pandora A/S cut its outlook again, abandoned its long-term revenue goal and said it’s still looking for a chief executive officer as it published a report that analysts characterized as “terrible.”
Chief Financial Officer Anders Boyer said the results were “ unsatisfactory.” The shares plunged 12 percent at the open in Copenhagen, their worst performance since early August and bringing this year’s decline to 47 percent.
Pandora now intends to “launch a forceful program with the aim to materially reduce costs across the company to free up resources to invest in sustainable like-for-like growth,” he said in the statement.
The Copenhagen-based jewelry maker said it will now try to “re-set” the business through 2019 after years of false starts in which a challenging U.S. retail market, cheaper imports from competitors in China and an assault by hedge funds speculating against battered its stock.
At RBC, analysts said Pandora “is facing an increasing number of issues which we now determine to be more structural than cyclical,” according to a pre-market note to clients. “And we do not see any immediate fixes to improve investor sentiment.”
Aside from cutting its outlook, Pandora also delivered profit last quarter that fell short of analyst estimates. Per Hansen, an investment economist at Nordnet in Copenhagen, described the results as “terrible.” For investors and analysts, Hansen said “it’s hard to know which numbers to put in their models.”
Key Insights
Pandora cut its full-year outlook and now sees revenue growth in constant currencies of 2 percent to 4 percent, compared with 4 percent to 7 percent previously; it also abandoned its long-term revenue goal and said it is reviewing its EBITDA margin target. That follows a decision to slash the outlook in August, which led to the dismissal of CEO Anders Colding Friis. CFO Boyer and Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Schwartz have jointly taken on the work of the CEO until a permanent replacement for Friis is found.
Market Reaction
Pandora is on track for its worst annual performance since 2011. Its shares plunged almost 8 percent late on Monday as investors started losing their nerve ahead of earnings.