Companies and Brands

Why Lululemon Investors Should Cheer Founder Wilson's Stock Sale

Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) shares were trading lower after an SEC filing showed that founder Chip Wilson has registered his remaining 14.22% stake in Lululemon for sale. While this will increase the free float after the sales occur, and while this removes the ties to the company’s launch, investors in this yoga-themed apparel maker should consider what this really means for the company. The end game verdict: this will ultimately be good news for investors!

There is just one problem here with cheering the news too much. Wilson’s spokesperson issued a press release saying that the prospectus supplement that was filed simply enables Wilson to sell his shares in the future if he chooses to do so. That is because some news outlets reported that Wilson had sold his entire remaining Lululemon stake.

With Wilson being able to sell just over 20 million shares, this will give shareholders an ability to have 100% control of the direction and governance of the company after the sale takes place. There has been enough infighting inside of Lululemon and negative press coverage of the company that the turnaround might have been delayed from the product quality control issues and the off-the-cuff remarks after the news brought.

What matters here is that the filing for a sale came after Lululemon shares had recovered some $30 from the 52-week low of $36.26. The 52-week high of $70.00 got Lululemon shares within almost $10 of all-time highs from back in the first half of 2013.

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The actual filing showed that the total shares being registered for potential sale is 20,109,131 and the price used in the filing was $60.95 per share — for a total value at the time of $1,225,651,534. That dollar amount would be even higher now as Lululemon shares are closer to $65.00.

Wilson had already unloaded roughly half of his remaining shares prior to this filing, and he had already resigned as chairman. By the view of 24/7 Wall St., all this does is set the company free for whatever path it wants to go on ahead.

Does a doubling of the latest profits count as a successful turnaround? Sure, it was coming off of weak data this time last year, but it is an impressive 10% sales gain – even if the same-store sales may have slipped 1% in the quarter. What stands out here, and what makes up for the same-store sales, is that direct-to-consumer sales rose to 19.7% of sales, versus 17.4% in the comparable period the year before.

Another issue to consider is that Lululemon repurchased 300,000 shares of stock in its first quarter, at an average cost of $66.51 per share and with a total of about $20 million.

The SEC filing stated:

The selling stockholders identified in this prospectus supplement are offering up to 20,109,131 shares of our common stock, par value $0.005 per share. Some of these shares of common stock have been issued or are issuable to selling stockholders upon exchange of an equivalent number of the exchangeable shares of Lulu Canadian Holding, Inc. (an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of ours that we refer to as Lulu Canada in this prospectus supplement). We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares being sold by the selling stockholders.

The selling stockholders may sell the shares of common stock from time to time in the open market, on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, in privately negotiated transactions or a combination of these methods, at market prices prevailing at the time of sale, at prices related to the prevailing market prices, at negotiated prices, or otherwise as described under the section of this prospectus supplement.

Lululemon shares were down 2.1% at $65.28 on just 1.5 million shares after almost an hour of trading on Thursday. Its 52-week range is $36.26 to $70.00 and its consensus analyst price target is now $69.61.

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