(Bloomberg) -- VF Corp., the apparel company that owns the Vans and North Face brands, reported quarterly revenue that beat Wall Street expectations.
Shares jumped as much as 29% on Tuesday in New York trading — the most since at least 1980. The stock had dropped 11% year to date through Monday’s market close.
The Denver-based company reported adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations of 60 cents a share, well above analysts’ expectations for 38 cents. Revenue in the fiscal second quarter ending Sept. 28 sightly topped expectations. Gross margin was 52.2%, above the 51.3% in the same period a year ago.
“VF’s transformation is progressing, as evidenced by moderating sales declines,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Poonam Goyal wrote in a research note.
While sales from its North Face, Vans, Timberland and Dickies brands all fell year over year, the declines were far less than in previous quarters.
The company has been working to turn around its Americas operations. Chief Executive Officer Bracken Darrell, who joined the company in July 2023, has made multiple leadership changes to try to revitalize its brands, which also include Altra, Eastpak, Icebreaker and Jansport.
Net debt at the end of the quarter was $5.7 billion, down about $446 million from the year-ago period. In the statement, Darrell said that following the sale of the Supreme brand earlier this month, the company “delivered on our commitment to pay down VF’s $1 billion term loan due December 2024.”
On its earnings call, Darrell said the company would provide “a deeper look at what our game plans are” at its investor day presentation on Oct. 30.
(Updates share trading. An earlier version of this story corrected the end date of the company’s fiscal second quarter.)
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