Hugo Boss: Reassuring Q4 organic growth at the expense of margins

Last Friday Hugo Boss announced its preliminary FY15 results ahead of schedule. Investors preferred to see the glass half full (i.e. Q4 FX-n growth of 5% vs. BG and CS at ~3%) instead of retaining the margin miss (Q4 adj. EBITDA of EUR171 => ~8% below BG ests). Hugo Boss posted reassuring top line trends thanks to a robust performance in Europe (+10% FX-n), helped by more promotions though, while Americas and Asia-Pacific were less weak than in Q3. Following Burberry’s trading statement last Thursday, this publication also shows that fears about the mild winter and travel cancellations were somewhat over-exagerrated. Ahead of the FY16 outlook which should be delivered on 10th  March, we have notched down our FY16-17 adj. EBITDA assumptions by 3% on average, leading to our FV of EUR103 vs. EUR107.

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