July 31 (Bloomberg) — Hugo Boss AG, Germany’s largest clothing maker, reported a narrower second-quarter loss after sales rose outside the company’s home market.
The net loss was 6.1 million euros ($9.5 million), or 9 cents a share, compared with 6.2 million euros, or 8 cents, a year earlier, Metzingen, Germany-based Boss said today in an e- mailed statement. This missed the median estimate of 4 analysts compiled by Bloomberg, who expected a loss of 6 million euros.
Sales at Boss, whose new chief executive officer, Claus- Dietrich Lahrs, joins the company tomorrow from Christian Dior SA, rose 9.1 percent to 321.1 million euros in the quarter. Like other luxury stocks, Boss has lost almost a third of its value this year on concern that a slowing world economy will crimp demand for the company’s suits and accessories.
“Although the current retail sentiment in Europe and the U.S. is not positive, we see the stock at the current share price as having an attractive risk-reward ratio,” Volker Bosse, an analyst at UniCredit in Munich with a “buy” rating on the stock, said in a note to investors prior to the report.
The preferred shares added 5 cents, or 0.2 percent, to 23,40 euros at 9:04 a.m. in Frankfurt.
First-half earnings before interest and taxes fell 5 percent to 88 million euros, hurt by payments to departing executives after the acquisition of Boss by London-based buyout firm Permira Advisers LLP.
Chief Financial Officer Joachim Reinhardt, who announced his departure earlier this month, quits today. He follows ex-CEO Bruno Saelzer and two other directors who left this year.
Swarovski Venture
Boss entered the jewelry market during the quarter in a joint venture with Austrian crystal maker Swarovski. The company also benefited from the sale of its former New York flagship store on Fifth Avenue.
Revenue in the first half advanced 5 percent to 830.6 million euros worldwide, while it fell 2 percent in Germany to 173.6 million euros.
Permira, which runs Europe’s biggest buyout fund, owns almost 90 percent of the company. In May, Boss paid out 445 million euros, its biggest-ever dividend, most of which will go to Permira’s funds. The buyout firm took over Boss’s Italian parent, Valentino Fashion Group SpA, last year.
Boss repeated its forecast for record sales and profit this year. Profit may rise 8 percent to 10 percent this year before interest, taxes and one-time costs, while sales will climb 6 percent to 8 percent after adjustment for currency movements.
Revenue from the Americas region rose 3 percent, or 17 percent excluding currency swings, the company said. They advanced 34 percent in Asia in euro terms.
