Losses continue to mount at Sequential Brands Group

By

Robin Driver

Published
Mar 14, 2020

As recently appointed CEO David Conn sets about writing a new chapter for the New York-based brand management company, Sequential Brands Group, Inc. announced declining sales and widening losses in both the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2019 on Friday.
 

For the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2019, the company, which owns the Jessica Simpson, Gaiam, Avia and William Rast brands, among others, announced revenue from continuing operations of $24.2 million, down 31% from $35.2 million in the prior-year period.
 
Quarterly loss from continuing operations totaled $7.9 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, widening from a loss of $5.7 million, or $0.09 per diluted share in Q4 2018.

For the full year 2019, Sequential Brands Group’s revenue from continuing operations totaled $101.6 million, down 20% from $127.3 million in fiscal 2018.
 
The company’s annual loss from continuing operations totaled $34.3 million, or $0.53 per diluted share, compared to a loss of $17.5 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, in the previous year.
 
“A transformation is underway at Sequential Brands Group,” commented Conn in a release. “We successfully simplified our business with the divestiture of our home division, significantly reduced our overhead to drive meaningful margin improvement, and amended our lending agreements to improve our liquidity and cash flow.”
 
Conn joined Sequential Brands from ThreeSixty Group in January of this year, succeeding Karen Murray, whose departure from the company was announced at the end of 2019, just over two years after she stepped into the CEO role.
 
Having sold its Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse brands earlier in the year, in October 2019 Sequential Brands announced that it was beginning a strategic review process considering the possibility of divesting further parts of its business.
 
Concluding his comments on the company’s financial results, Conn made it clear that, moving forward, this process is one of the group’s top priorities.
 
“As we look ahead, we are focused on completing the previously announced strategic review process and best positioning our portfolio of brands for long-term growth,” he said.