Coach's Former CFO Assumes Her Role At Ralph Lauren

Macquarie maintains its Outperform rating on
Ralph Lauren CorpRL
after the company named former
Coach Inc COH
Chief Financial Officer Jane Nielsen as Ralph Lauren's new CFO.

The appointment is said to be a good move, as both companies are global in nature and are undergoing turnarounds.

Meanwhile, Ralph Lauren's adjusted first-quarter gross margin of 61.1 percent surpassed consensus of 59.0 percent. The brokerage said there is upside to gross margin versus expectations for FY17, driven by continued sales mix shift benefit between geographies and channels.

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Analyst Laurent Vasilescu sees Ralph Lauren's FY17 gross margin at 57.9 percent versus consensus of 56.5 percent. Vasilescu projects estimate 40bps gross margin improvement from mix shift and 70bps improvement from improved gross margins in Europe and Asia retail/wholesale.

The analyst also raised FY17 EPS view to $5.60 from $5.33 and FY18 EPS forecast to $5.62 from $5.61. Vasilescu also increased the target price to $121 from $119 while maintaining 22x FY17 PE multiple.

At time of writing, shares of Ralph Lauren were up 1.02 percent at $97.76.

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Posted In: Analyst ColorLong IdeasNewsPrice TargetReiterationManagementAnalyst RatingsTrading IdeasLaurent VasilescuMacquarie
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