Hillary Super has had three months as chief executive officer to take a close look at Victoria’s Secret & Co. — and she likes what she sees.
And that enthusiasm was picked up by Wall Street.
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Shares of the lingerie giant jumped 11.6 percent to $48.02 on Friday after the company showed signs of a third-quarter turnaround and Super started to lay out her vision for the future of Victoria’s Secret, which returned to the runway in October.
“Our brand is about sexy, glamorous, accessible luxury,” Super told analysts on a conference call of the firm’s namesake chain. “We were building toward that with the new team that was put in place about 12, 18 months ago. The fashion show really doubled down on that. And when you look at what’s working in the business, it is exactly that. It is sexy, glamorous and accessible luxury.
“The fashion show introduced us to a new generation of consumers,” Super said. “We weren’t on that radar, we hadn’t been in the cultural conversation. And I think we came in and surprised her, and she was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to pay attention to this.’ We are engaging with an entirely new generation of young women who are saying to us, ‘We want big hair. We want more glamor. We want more shine. We want more of it. We want all of it.’ And that’s exciting because we know how to do that.”
The company — which in addition to its namesake chain owns Pink and Adore Me — narrowed its third-quarter net losses to $56.2 million from $71.2 million a year earlier while adjusted losses per share of 50 cents came in 12 cents ahead of analysts projections.
Sales rose 7 percent to $1.3 billion.
“Our strong [third-quarter] performance indicates we’ve reached an important milestone in that transformation. In short, it’s working, and we’re starting to see the results. These results were powered by emotional product she loves and clear elevated brand storytelling,” the CEO said.
Both Victoria’s Secret and Pink logged sales growth in North America for the quarter, when third-party data showed that the overall intimates market was down by low-single digits, she said.
Victoria’s Secret made its name with a certain va-va-voom approach to sexiness that was seen as too interested in male gaze and out of step with consumers.