Companies and Brands

Lululemon Pants Recall -- from Bad to Worse

Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) already had a rough Monday, but things are going from bad to worse after it disclosed a shortage of its Luon pants and cropped pants due to “quality issues” in the material for the pants. The real problem was that people thought they were Superman with X-ray vision because they were seeing through the pants in many cases.

We now have seen many analysts cut numbers and some downgrades based on the guidance. These are the research calls we have seen:

  • BofA/Merrill Lynch maintained an Underperform rating with a $60 price target.
  • Credit Suisse maintained its Neutral rating and $79 target.
  • Janney cut to the target to $71 from $80.
  • Stifel Nicolaus trimmed its target by $8 down to $75.
  • Stern Agee cut the rating to Neutral from Buy.

As far as the financial impact, the yoga-themed retailer expects first quarter same-store sales growth of 5% to 8% versus its prior forecast of 11% and revenue in a range of $333 million to $343 million versus its prior range of $350 million to $355 million.

Lululemon saw shares fall 3.75% on Monday to $65.90, and the drop so far on Tuesday is almost 5% down to $62.75. Its 52-week trading range is $52.20 to $81.09. The consensus from Thomson Reuters has Lululemon trading at 28-times forward 2013 (2014) earnings.

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