As bras go, wireless is winning.
In an email to Fortune, the lingerie company said: “The board has full confidence in Hillary’s vision, leadership, and her ability to unlock the potential of our iconic brands.”
Super has laid out a turnaround strategy that includes reasserting the brand’s authority in bras, and growing categories like youth-focused PINK, beauty, and sport, while reimagining the company’s marketing and sales strategy to better suit the way customers are shopping now.
But after a rollercoaster few years, Victoria’s Secret finds itself once again at a critical inflection point as it tries to reestablish its place in the wallets and boudoirs of American consumers.
By that time, Victoria’s Secret’s entire ethos had largely fallen out of favor. L Brands decided to spin off the company, which it did in 2021, separating it from its former sister company, Bath & Body Works. (L Brands has since rebranded as Bath & Body Works.)
Super is now tasked with finding ways to thread the needle between Victoria’s Secret’s past and future. On the recent earnings call, the CEO said that she felt the company’s marketing had become “too serious” in recent seasons.
“We have an opportunity to have a more energetic, more joyful expression of VS,” she said.
But activists may put a dent in Super’s plans.
Given that Victoria’s Secret is one of the world’s most iconic brands, the letter said, “the company should be creating significant long-term value for its shareholders.”
“Victoria’s Secret has meaningfully underperformed its peers and the market as a whole since becoming an independent company,” the activist argued, pointing to lackluster growth. He also said Super lacked CEO experience, since her stint at Savage X Fenty only lasted for one year.
But Barington’s harshest criticisms were for the board and its chair, Donna James, a longtime director at Victoria’s Secret. The hedge fund believes the board has the wrong skill sets and needs refreshing. “Of the current nine directors,” it noted, “six have presided over the company’s decline since its public listing.”
Victoria’s Secret is pushing back against the activist’s claims, pointing to Super’s focus on bras, and steady improvements at the company, with momentum growing in its Pink brand, as well as its healthy and beauty division.
“Now Hillary Super is at the helm and is starting to reinvent things. She has been in post for less than a year and has to be given a chance to put her vision into practice. But the carping from activist investors has already begun,” he continued. “Activist investors are also mostly men. I honestly think that sometimes these finance men should sit down and take a seat, because they don’t really understand the women’s fashion business.”
Together, the squad will have to move as quickly as possible.
