Legacy Brands Outperform as Yeti Cuts Guidance

Old-line consumer brands spent the last few years losing shelf space to newer names. This earnings week flipped part of that script. Fossil GroupFOSL lifted its full-year outlook the same week Yeti HoldingsYETI cut its own.

Yeti still grew, with third-quarter net sales of $509.4M, up 4%. The cooler maker trimmed its 2026 adjusted sales growth forecast to ~6% from 7% to 8%, and cut adjusted earnings guidance to $2.90 to $2.95, citing cautious consumer spending. Its longer-term targets have their own story. Meanwhile, three brands written off years ago raised their numbers.

A fifth straight quarter of growth

BurberryBBRYF posted comparable retail sales growth of 4.0% in the first half and the second quarter, its fifth straight quarter of growth. Revenue rose to £1.10B in the 26 weeks ended Sept. 26.

Adjusted operating profit more than tripled to £62M from £19M, beating the £44M company-compiled consensus. The adjusted operating margin, meaning profbutit before one-offs relative to sales, improved to 5.7% from 1.9%.

The gains came from selling more coats and bags, not from accounting. Outerwear sales grew at a double-digit rate, e-commerce rose by a mid-teens percentage, and wholesale revenue climbed 17%.

Regional results split sharply. Comparable sales rose 12% in the Americas and 7% in Greater China, while Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa fell 2% on weaker tourist traffic.

Watches sell again after 2022

Fossil returned to sales growth, according to CNBC. The gain snapped a long dry spell: the watchmaker had not posted a year-over-year sales increase since the first fiscal quarter of 2022.

Profit swung harder. Operating income hit $25.3M against a $21.7M loss a year earlier, and net income reached $11.7M versus a $39.9M loss.

Operating expenses fell 11.1% to $137M. The namesake Fossil brand grew 14%, and traditional watches, roughly 86% of sales, rose 6.4%. Smartwatch sales came in under $1M, a category the company stopped chasing.

Management now guides to full-year net sales of $980M to $990M, up from a prior forecast of a 3% to 5% decline. On the earnings call, finance chief Randy Greben raised the adjusted operating margin range to 5.5% to 6.5% and confirmed no tariff refunds landed in the quarter. Fogliato says the turnaround is running a year and a half ahead of plan.

A tariff refund flatters the footwear beat

Wolverine World WideWWW reported revenue of $505.4M, up 7.5%, with adjusted diluted earnings of $0.79 against a $0.46 consensus. Net earnings rose to $65.8M from $25.1M.

Part of that came from a refund. The company received $35.3M, including interest, for tariffs paid under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The refund lifted gross and operating margins by roughly 640 basis points each and added about $0.31 to adjusted diluted earnings.

Gross margin reached 54.6% against 47.5% a year earlier, with the tariff refund behind most of that improvement.

The underlying brands still moved. The Active Group grew 9.9% to $387.8M, Merrell revenue rose 6.5%, and Sweaty Betty declined 7.0%. Chief executive Chris Hufnagel called it the eighth consecutive quarter of growth.

Full-year guidance moved to revenue of $2.00B to $2.01B. About $0.32 of the raised earnings range comes from the refunds.

Full-price sales mark the divide

The three recoveries are not equally real. Burberry's is the cleanest: comparable sales rose 4.0%, and shoppers paid full price, with three of its four regions growing. Fossil's leans more on cost cuts, with operating expenses down 11.1%. Wolverine's leans on a one-time tariff refund rather than selling. Yeti's cut shows the consumer backdrop stayed uneven across the same quarter.

Burberry issues its third-quarter trading update on 21 January, with a capital markets day in London scheduled for March. Wolverine’s fourth-quarter results are expected around Thursday, Feb. 25. Fossil's next report is expected around March 10, 2027.