He began with Ralph Lauren, which reported an acceleration in North American sales and raised its full-year forecast on top of its estimate beat. CEO Patrice Louvet, who joined the company in 2017, has a five-year plan to reinvigorate the business by leveraging digital outlets and social media to market and sell products directly to consumers.
“Unlike some other five-year plans I could mention — Stalin’s, Mao’s — this one actually seems to be resonating with the consumer,” Cramer said. “During the quarter, the company boosted its marketing investments by 18 percent, an ever-larger portion, of course, of that money going to the web where it can do the most good. And it’s working.”
The “Mad Money” host noted that a third of the people who bought products from Ralph Lauren’s holiday gift campaign were new customers, many of whom were under the age of 35 — a key demographic for the old-line brand.
“Not only is Ralph Lauren putting up awesome numbers, they’re doing it in places where you might have expected business to be, let’s say, soft,” Cramer added, noting that the “quintessentially American brand” had nearly 40 percent sales growth, on a constant currency basis, in mainland China.
“I think Patrice Louvet’s doing a great job. Ralph Lauren himself still has a tremendous amount of cache,” he said. “The two are working together and the stock is a buy.”
Capri Holdings, the company formerly known as Michael Kors that now houses shoemaker Jimmy Choo and luxe brand Versace, also had a turn of fate, reporting much better-than-expected results for its most recent quarter.
“At these levels, Capri[‘s stock] trades at just nine times this year’s earnings, and that’s a steal,” Cramer said. “The company’s holding its annual investor day this summer and I expect [CEO John] Idol will tell a fabulous story about the future — I recommend picking some up before then.”
Columbia Sportswear “knocked it out of the park” with its results, too, with revenues up 16 percent since this quarter last year. Cramer liked the company’s focus on selling its utilitarian products directly to consumers and getting endorsements from key influencers.
“While the stock isn’t exactly cheap here, … I think it’s a buy into any weakness,” he said.
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