Sportswear maker Under Armour Inc. on Aug. 1 cut its full-year operating profit outlook by half and lowered its range for full-year revenue as its board approved a restructuring plan.
The Baltimore-based company said it now expects to book an operating profit of between $160 million and $180 million for full 2017, compared with $320 million it called for in January. Excluding the impact of restructuring costs, operating profit should come in between $280 million and $300 million, the company said.
The company also released its first full-year EPS guidance. It is said it expects full-year diluted EPS of between 18 cents and 21 cents, or between 37 cents and 40 cents on an adjusted basis, excluding the impact of its restructuring. Diluted EPS came in at 58 cents in 2016.
The maker of running, basketball and yoga gear also lowered its full-year 2017 revenue expectations, due to a slowdown in North American sales. The company now expects topline growth of between 9% and 11%, compared with its January guidance of between 11% and 12%.
Under Armour said its board of directors had approved a restructuring plan aimed at boosting efficiency and aligning its offerings with fast-changing consumer demand. During the year, the company expects to book pretax restructuring and related charges of between $110 million and $130 million.
"We've identified a number of areas to enhance our operational capabilities, drive process improvement and gain greater efficiencies," said Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank. "We remain steadfast in driving and building our brand while shifting our operational focus to become more return-on-investment and cost of capital centric — institutionalizing discipline to deliver more consistent, long-term shareholder value."
The restructuring cost breaks down to $25 million in facility and lease terminations, $15 million in employee severance and benefits, $30 million in contract terminations and other restructuring outlays, $20 million in inventory-related charges, and $40 million in impairments of intangibles and other assets.
Under Armour also provided a detailed outlook for gross margin, saying it now expects it to drop around 160 basis points from 46.4% in 2016. In January, the company said it expected the margin "to be down slightly." Benefits from product costs and sales mix will likely be wiped out by drags from restructuring, currency exchange effects and inventory management, Under Armour said. Excluding restructuring, gross margin will likely be down 120 basis points from 46.4% in 2016, the company said.
"More than doubling our business over the last three years has required significant investments and resources to build our brand," Plank said in the statement. "We are utilizing 2017 to ensure that operations across our diverse portfolio of sport categories, distribution channels and geographies are optimized as we are building a stronger, faster and smarter company."
For the three months ended June 30, the net loss available to shareholders narrowed to $12.3 million from a loss of $52.7 million a year earlier. Diluted earnings per share came to a loss of 3 cents.
Meanwhile, revenue advanced 8.7% to $1.09 billion from $1.0 billion, beating analyst expectations of $1.08 billion, according to S&P Capital IQ. Gross margin dropped to 45.8% from 47.7%.