PVH - NYSE

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's PVH Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please note this call may be recorded. [Operator Instructions]. It is now my pleasure to turn today's program over to Sheryl Freeman, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the PVH Corp. Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Leading the call today will be Stefan Larsson, Chief Executive Officer; and

Thank you, Sheryl, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I want to start by thanking our Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and PVH teams around the world for your hard work this quarter as we continue to make important progress on our multiyear journey to build Calvin and Tommy into 2 of the most desirable lifestyle brands in the world. For the third quarter, we exceeded our guidance across reported revenue, operating profit and EPS, and we delivered constant currency revenues in line with our guidance. Total revenue for the company was $2.3 billion, down less than 1% in constant currency and in line with our expectations. Third quarter direct-to-consumer revenue was also down 1% in constant currency, partially offset by 1% growth in our wholesale revenue. For the full year, we are reaffirming our constant currency revenue and operating margin outlook and narrowing our reported revenue and non-GAAP EPS outlook to the high end of our previous ranges, reflecting our confidence in our brands and execution despite the continued uneven global consumer backdrop and the impact of tariffs in North America, which

Thanks, Stefan, and good morning. First, on a personal note, as this marks my last earnings call at PVH, I want to thank the PVH team as well as our customers and shareholders. I am truly grateful for the time that I have spent at PVH, working closely with Stefan and all our colleagues around the globe to help drive our two iconic brands forward through the execution of the PVH+ Plan. My comments are based on non-GAAP results and are reconciled in our press release. As Stefan discussed, this quarter, we continue to make progress on our multiyear journey to build Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger into the most desirable lifestyle brands in the world, delivering or exceeding expectations across nearly all key financial metrics for third quarter, maintaining our strong cost discipline to offset a slightly higher-than-anticipated tariff headwind in the quarter. We delivered our overall revenue plan and a sequential improvement in operating margin despite some choppiness in the quarter and an uneven global consumer backdrop. As a result, our EPS was better than expected. Looking forward, following our third quarter results and on-plan start to holiday, we are reaffirming our full year constant currency revenue and operating margin guidance and narrowing our reported revenue and EPS guidance to the high end of the previous ranges. Importantly, we also ended the quarter with inventory up 3% compared to third quarter last year, including a 2% increase due to tariffs. This reflects a significant improvement as compared to the increase in the second quarter of 2025, as we continue to tightly manage inventories. Our inventory is fresh and current and well positioned headed into holiday, and we remain on track to land the year with inventory aligned to our sales plan, excluding tariffs. I will now discuss our third quarter results in more detail and then move on to our outlook. Revenue for the third quarter was up 2% on a reported basis and down less than 1% on a constant currency basis, in line with our guidance. Starting from a regional perspective, our EMEA business was up 4% on a reported basis and down 2% in constant currency for the quarter. As Stefan discussed, sales were on track through August, but coming into September, we saw a tougher start to the fall season. The lower trend continued through the balance of the quarter with the overall result for the quarter being sales in the direct-to-consumer business down mid-single digits in constant currency. Our wholesale business was down less than 1% in constant currency as positive fall order book growth was offset by lower-than-planned in-season replenishment. As Stefan discussed, EMEA results reflected a combination of factors, including muted consumer activity driven by a tougher backdrop in Europe, lower cold weather outerwear performance, and delays related to the transitory Calvin global product challenges. In our Americas business, revenue was up 2%, driven by mid-single-digit growth in wholesale due to the impact of Calvin Klein women's sportswear and jeans wholesale transition in-house. Excluding this impact, wholesale shipments were lower than last year as expected due to a more balanced timing of first half, second half shipments versus last year when shipments were more heavily weighted to the back half. On a normalized basis, wholesale sales, excluding the impact of licensing transitions, are planned up low single digits for the second half. Direct-to-consumer revenue in the Americas business was down low single digits. While we exited Q2 with modest sales growth in stores, the consumer backdrop in the third quarter remained choppy with store revenue down low single digits for the quarter. This was partially offset by robust performance in both our Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein digital commerce businesses, which in total delivered another quarter of double-digit growth. This marked our fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, fueled by the investments we've made to elevate the online consumer experience. In our Asia Pacific business, we delivered revenue better than planned and flat on a constant currency basis, showing the strength of our Asia Pacific business and marking another quarter of sequential improvement in the region. Notably, direct-to-consumer revenue grew low single digits in constant currency in both brands with a return to growth in our retail store business and continued growth in our digital commerce business. Direct to consumer revenue also grew mid-single digits in China, driven by strength in digital commerce. Higher DTC revenue for the region was offset by lower wholesale revenue. Revenue for our Asia Pacific business was down 1% on a reported basis. In our licensing business, revenue was down 11% versus last year, primarily due to the previously mentioned transition of Calvin Klein women's sportswear and jeans in-house. Turning to our global brands. Tommy Hilfiger revenues were up 1% as reported and down 2% in constant currency. Calvin Klein revenues were up 2% as reported and flat in constant currency. The decrease in revenue on a constant currency basis in EMEA weighed more heavily on our Tommy Hilfiger business, as Stefan discussed. From an overall PVH channel perspective, our direct-to-consumer revenue was flat as reported and down 1% in constant currency. Sales in our retail stores were flat as reported and down 2% in constant currency, as modest growth in APAC was more than offset by low single-digit declines in Americas and EMEA. Sales in our owned and operated e-commerce business were up 1% as reported and flat in constant currency as strong growth in APAC and Americas was offset by a decline in EMEA. Total wholesale revenue was up 4% as reported and up 1% in constant currency, which reflects the previously mentioned transition of Calvin Klein women's sportswear and jeans in-house, partially offset by the decreases in EMEA and APAC. In the third quarter, our gross margin was 56.3%, a decrease of 210 basis points compared to last year. Progress on working through the Calvin Klein operational challenges continued, but our third quarter gross margin was lower than planned due to the unfavorable impact of timing and mix of the new higher tariffs. In third quarter, gross margin reflected approximately 110 basis points due to the unmitigated impact of tariffs. And as we have previously discussed, approximately 50 basis points of the decrease in gross margin was the impact of our North American license transitions. The remaining 50 basis point decrease was primarily due to higher promotions and the impact of Calvin Klein product shipment delays, which included a shorter full price fall selling season in Europe, as Stefan discussed. SG&A spending was down in constant currency and SG&A as a percent of revenue was lower than planned, improving 40 basis points versus last year to 47.5%, reflecting both our Growth Driver 5 Actions and a favorable impact from the timing of expenses. As we discussed last quarter, we will invest more into marketing in the second half of this year to capitalize on key consumer moments and to support our brand building cut-through campaigns amplified by mega talent. Marketing was up in third quarter versus last year, but lower than we initially planned as we decided to shift some of the spending into fourth quarter to maximize our holiday impact and build positive momentum into 2026. EBIT for the quarter was $202 million and operating margin was 8.8%. Earnings per share was $2.83, reflecting a negative impact of $0.37 related to tariffs and a positive impact of $0.14 related to exchange. Interest expense was $21 million, and our tax rate for the quarter was 25.5%. Additionally, during the quarter, we were pleased to complete our previously announced accelerated share repurchase program, reducing our share count by 2.3 million additional shares and bringing the total amount of shares purchased under the agreement to 6.9 million and bringing our year-to-date total, including open market purchases, to 7.7 million shares. And now moving on to our outlook. Starting with the fourth quarter, we are projecting revenue to be up slightly to up low single digits on a reported basis and down slightly on a constant currency basis compared to the prior year, in line with Q3 trends. Overall, for the Americas, we are planning fourth quarter revenue up mid-single digits with growth in wholesale, partially offset by low single-digit decline in DTC sales. In EMEA, we expect third quarter trends in constant currency to continue into fourth quarter. And in Asia Pacific, we expect revenue to be down slightly in constant currency. While underlying DTC trends are expected to remain positive, growth is muted by an unfavorable impact due to the timing of Lunar New Year compared to last year. We are expecting fourth quarter gross margin to decline approximately 200 basis points versus the prior year, including an unmitigated tariff impact of approximately 150 basis points, partially offset by the impact of planned mitigation actions. As we discussed last quarter, the impact of tariffs will be felt much more heavily in the fourth quarter than the third quarter as more inventory sells through at the new higher rate. We expect SG&A as a percentage of revenue to be down 50 basis points compared to last year, reflecting the increased marketing investments I spoke of earlier more than offset by our Growth Driver 5 Actions, which will continue to deliver efficiencies. Overall, we are projecting our fourth quarter operating margin to be approximately 9%, down approximately 100 basis points compared to last year. Earnings per share is expected to be in the range of $3.20 to $3.35. Our tax rate for the third quarter is estimated at approximately 22%, in line with our tax projection for the full year, and interest expense is projected to be approximately $20 million. And now moving on to the full year. We continue to operate in an uneven global consumer backdrop. As such, we are reaffirming our constant currency revenue and operating margin guidance and narrowing the range of our reported revenue and EPS guidance to the high end of the previous ranges. On the top line, we are narrowing our reported revenue outlook to up low single digits compared to increase slightly to low single digits previously. We continue to project revenue to be flat to increased slightly in constant currency. We are reaffirming our operating margin outlook of approximately 8.5% and narrowing our EPS outlook to a range of $10.85 to $11 compared to $10.75 to $11 previously. We continue to expect the tariffs currently in place to have an overall net negative impact on our earnings in 2025, including an approximately $65 million unmitigated impact to EBIT or approximately $1.05 per share compared to previous guidance of $70 million and $1.15 per share. We have begun to mitigate some of these costs through strategic actions this year and expect to fully mitigate the impact over time. But for this year, some we will need to absorb. The net impact of the tariffs and these mitigation actions are embedded within our guidance. Regionally, our revenue outlook remains unchanged for Americas and APAC. In the Americas, we are planning revenue up mid-single digits, including the positive impact of the Calvin Klein women's sportswear and jeans wholesale transition in-house. And in Asia Pacific, revenue is planned down mid-single digits in constant currency. In EMEA, we expect the lower third quarter trends to continue in the fourth quarter and, as a result, we are now planning full year revenue and constant currency to be down slightly compared to last year. We continue to expect gross margin to decrease approximately 250 basis points versus last year. On SG&A, we continue to expect expense to be lower in constant currency in 2025 compared to 2024 and our SG&A expenses as a percentage of revenue to decrease approximately 100 basis points, reflecting significant cost savings connected to our Growth Driver 5 Actions. Our interest expense projection is unchanged at approximately $80 million, and our tax rate for 2025 continues to be estimated at approximately 22%. Before we open up for questions, I just want to conclude by saying that while we are navigating a dynamic and uneven global consumer backdrop, within that, we continue to focus on taking proactive actions within our control and making progress across all dimensions of the business through execution of the PVH+ Plan, building momentum into 2026 to deliver sustainable and increasingly profitable growth for the long term. And with that, operator, we would like to open it up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Bob Drbul with BTIG.

Thanks, Bob.

I guess -- I was wondering, I think, Stefan, just when you look at the geographic performance of the business this quarter, can you just spend a few more minutes and just unpack a bit more sort of the dynamics that you're seeing across the Americas, across Europe and APAC and, I guess, just how you think about it a little bit more into '26?

Absolutely, Bob, and thank you for your question. You're right. Each region this quarter had its own dynamics. So starting with Europe, as I mentioned in my remarks, we started off the quarter on plan. September, we saw a more muted consumer backdrop. And then internally, we worked through our Calvin transitory challenges that was related to setting up the Calvin Klein product capability. And we worked through those as planned, but they had an effect in the quarter. So we had strain on the DC, all expected, but that cut some full price selling a few weeks. Those were the main drivers and then critically coming into the fourth quarter and the start of the holiday season. And looking at Europe now, Black Friday, Thanksgiving week is as important as it is in the U.S. as an indicator for holiday. So we had an on-plan start there. So the consumer came back for the start of the holiday. Switching to the Americas, revenue grew 2%. E-com was the big driver there. So we drew e-commerce double digits. Strong conversion, strong consumer recruitment. Americas also had an on-plan Black Friday and Thanksgiving week. Then switching into APAC. That's a really great story because we saw this quarter again that we exceeded our plan performance-wise. Notable improvements in China, Japan and Australia. And what we saw during the quarter was D2C returned to positive growth, driven by digital. Both Calvin and Tommy had very strong Double-11 activations, up 15% versus last year. And we keep seeing Calvin and Tommy at the top of the ranking in Tmall during the big weekend. So very strong execution by our APAC and China team.

Yes. And Bob, just to add some financials to Stefan's comments, when you bring all of that together from a total PVH perspective, our third quarter operating margin ex tariffs was almost 10%. And in our guidance as well for 4Q, our operating margin is 10% ex tariffs as well. And so if you compare that to approximately 8% in the first half, the financials are also following those sequential improvements that Stefan has talked about.

We'll take our next question from Jay Sole with UBS.

Great. Two-part question for me. First, Stefan, can you talk about marketing a little bit more and the impact you're seeing from the stepped-up spending that you've done in marketing? And then maybe,

Thanks, Jay. Starting with your marketing question, so we are very disciplined in how we approach marketing and where we put additional investments, because every season we invite the consumer into the aspirational world of Calvin and Tommy at the top of the funnel. And we do that connected to our key growth categories and increasingly connected when we expand our innovation into our key product franchises, we build the marketing around that. So in Calvin, we have done this now for a number of quarters where we lean into underwear and denim. And if you look at underwear, you will hear me talk a lot about underwear and denim in Calvin. But if you look at the world of underwear and world of denim together, it's more than 2/3 of Calvin Klein. So when we do these marketing campaigns cut-through at the top of the funnel, this season with Rosalia introducing our newest innovation in our biggest product franchise in women's, then we see a double-digit growth. And then the good news as well is looking at men's. So we had Bad Bunny introduce our innovation in our biggest product franchise in men's underwear previous quarter, in the second quarter. In the third quarter, we continued to bring that product franchise to line with NBA Star, Jalen Green, with European footballer Trent Alexander-Arnold, and we saw the 20% growth in that product franchise. And overall underwear is now up mid-single digit. And similar in denim, so worked with Jung Kook, one of the biggest, if not the biggest K-pop star in the world. And he anchored our denim lifestyle campaign. And we saw it going viral with billions of impact in social within 24 hours. And then we see it driven down to sales increase in our fashion denim. So you will see, both from a Calvin and a Tommy perspective, every season the continued innovation, because part of it is the discipline of driving the brand awareness and consideration into culture and into the front of the eye of the consumer, and then in the middle of the funnel, recruit that consumer with very strong product storytelling and then lower funnel conversion and then building the consumer base, building our target consumer base. And we are starting to build that flywheel and having some real proof points across both Calvin and Tommy.

And Jay, on your second question, we feel great about where inventory is. We ended Q3 up 3% compared to last year, and that includes 2% impact of tariffs, so effectively flat to last year. We've also spent a lot of time on our inventory purchases over the next couple of seasons. And so we're confident that, that metric will stay a great place well into 2026. And as that translates to cash flow, we expect to have another strong free cash flow year this year. And we'll enter 2026 with a lot of cash, which we think that gives us optionality as we plan to build on the strength Stefan talked about into 2026 as well.

We'll move to our next question from Michael Binetti with Evercore.

Let me add my congrats to

Thanks, Michael. We're trying to keep track of the 3 parts of that question. Let me start on the product. The first season product capability build-out effects, the challenges that we have had to go through when we set up the global product capabilities in New York. So as you mentioned, yes, we are on track, both from on-time delivery coming into spring '26 and the margin recapture that we set out to take back. So on both fronts, we are on track, which is really good. And why we need it? Because when we ran into these initial transitory challenges for the team to learn, to get it going, I mentioned that it's painful now, but we had to do it, because in order to build premium products, differentiated product franchises with innovation, we need the global capability to do that. And now we have it for both Calvin and Tommy, so do our -- all of our best competitors in the premium space also have it. But we had to build that. And now you start to see it. Where do we start to see it, back to your question? We see it in underwear. And I was -- just yesterday and the day before, I was with the Calvin product team, David and the Calvin product team, and they took me through how they, in a very strategic way, build out new expanded product franchises around the product franchises that we already have. And then -- so think about it as the 2 big product franchises that we put innovation into, and think about it season by season, how we will expand that into new and neighboring product franchises that are hyper relevant to the customer. And then we bring that to market with the cut-through marketing and the product storytelling, and then in the marketplace. So what David and our regional leaders are doing now is -- and Lea as well on the Tommy side, working very strategic with here is how we are driving product strength, and then all the way into the shop-in-shops and our stores. And one highlight this quarter for me being out in all these key markets we have is, beyond engaging with our great team and our partners, is to seeing the new shop-in-shops coming into play. So it's a 360. And in order to drive that 360 consistently, and that will drive revenue growth that we see in both underwear and denim. And we see it in style icons and key categories in Tommy like sweaters, cable-knit franchise, very successful. But in order to build that 360, we need that strong global product capability. So yes, very promising what I see from the teams on how they are leveraging the strength now of having 2 global product capabilities.

Yes. And I think, Michael, if we think about gross margin, I think it's actually worth looking at 3Q. We know we've got improvements ready for coming in spring '26. But if we take a look at third quarter, margin was down 210 basis points versus last year. 110 basis points of that is tariffs, 50 basis points is the women's sportswear license take-back, and then 50 basis points of headwind of those other performance drivers. As you look ahead at 4Q, the guidance here 200 basis points down. That's 150 basis points of tariffs and 50 of the women's take-back. And so really 0 other performance drivers. And I want to sort of put that in context. If we look at the first half, gross margin was down 260 basis points. 60 basis points was tariff and women's take-back, 200 basis points was those other elements of performance. And so we've gone from down 200 basis points of performance in first half to 50 in third quarter to now flat to last year in the fourth quarter. So we've talked earlier this year about that steady sequential improvement. So yes, we'll see it in spring '26. We're absolutely seeing it already this year.

Sorry. Go ahead, Michael.

Just the last question. I was just wondering if the weather in Europe improving is helping at all in the fourth quarter?

Yes. So yes, clearly, and I saw it when I was traveling in Europe a few weeks ago that the weather has changed. And that's sounding like we use the farmer's almanac here, but it's, of course, helping, when it gets cold, to sell cold weather categories. But I believe the most important learning for us and what we see with the consumer is that the consumer is shopping more and more transitional products, outerwear, very prominently in outerwear as well. And we switched more into transitional outerwear and had good performance, but we see the consumer shifting even more.

We'll move next to Dana Telsey with TAG Advisors.

Stefan, and also

Thanks, Dana. Yes. So if I look at Black Friday, and I started Black Friday this year being out at 6:00 a.m., not a lot of traffic going out of New York at 6:00 a.m. on Black Friday, but shopping center almost full parking lots before 7:00 a.m. And walking around in the centers, walking around seeing the consumer, it's really exciting to see that both our brands have a consumer base of wide range in incomes, wide range in generation, but really seeing the Gen-

And we'll take our next question from Matthew Boss with JPMorgan.

So Stefan, maybe on the Calvin brand, beyond the operational issues and the time line that you've laid out, could you speak to the pace of underlying improvement for the brand, new customer acquisition metrics, and just performance KPIs or target opportunities you see from enhanced marketing over time at Calvin? And then,

Yes. Thanks, Matt, and thanks for your question. So yes, so starting on Calvin and the brand desirability that we are building quarter-by-quarter. From a consumer recruiting perspective, you see -- in e-commerce it's the easiest to see and the first to see that we build the consumer base in e-commerce. And you see that growth in both North America and APAC. And then on the slower moving metrics, you see us moving on the strength of awareness, consideration, and then you build that consumer base. And where we see the strength is coming back to the key categories. And again, I speak a lot about underwear and denim, but those 2 worlds are, again, over 2/3 of Calvin Klein. And we see the progress both in terms of consumer acquisition, how we get that consumer to want to engage in the mid-funnel product storytelling, and we also improve that product storytelling, and then we see it in the conversion and the sales. And so you'll see us consistently build that target consumer base and then engage that base through the funnel. And then you will see us build out strength. Right now, you see it in the world of underwear and the world of denim. And in Tommy, you'll see it in key growth categories for Tommy, key categories for Tommy and key style icons. And you see that across sweaters, you see it in shirts, you see it in pants, and you see it in especially transitional outerwear out of the outerwear category. But that's how we build the relevance full funnel and then engage the consumer. And in Calvin, last quarter, one thing we did as well was that we refreshed our loyalty program so that we are getting better at taking care of that consumer that we already have.

Yes. And Matt, thanks for the question on cost. I think middle of last year, we announced the PVH+ Value Driver 5 initiative, which was meant to drive 200 to 300 basis points of improvement in SG&A. And I think we're happy to say we've already confirmed greater than 200 basis points of that by the end of 2025. And so that will flow through into 2026, and there'll be more to come next year on that. So a lot of progress on the teams around the world around those initiatives. And for the rest of 2026, we'll have more to talk about, obviously, at the fourth quarter earnings call.

Thank you. This concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. I'll now turn the call back over to Stefan Larsson for any additional or closing remarks.

Again, I just want to thank