hugo boss ag -ord (BOSS) Snapshot

Taiwanese-Canadian designer Jason Wu has been appointed artistic director for womenswear at Hugo Boss. Wu, famous for his slick, highly urbane womenswear is to take over design duties at Hugo Boss. Wu is set to take care of all the women's ready-to-wear, shoes and accessories, and his first work for Hugo Boss will appear in the pre-fall 2014 looks. Hugo Boss is set to open a new design studio in the Big Apple to work in parallel with the label's teams in Metzingen, Germany.

Hugo Boss AG at its Annual Shareholders' Meeting held on May 16, 2013, approved a dividend of EUR 3.12 per share for the financial year 2012, a increase of 8% compared with the year before.

Hugo Boss AG reported group earnings results for the first quarter ended March 2013. The company reported Group sales declined 2% on the previous year's level and reached EUR 593 million in the first quarter of 2013. Currency effects only had a marginally negative effect. EBITDA before special items was declined by 11% year-on-year to EUR 133 million. Group EBIT decreased by 14% to EUR 111 million, negatively affected by higher depreciation expenditures. The group's net financial loss declined to EUR 5 million, owing to the lower interest rate environment affecting the return on short-term deposits. The company reported net income attributable to shareholders was 13% below the prior year level at EUR 82 million, translating into earnings per share of EUR 1.18. Capital expenditures were more than doubled to EUR 31 million in the quarter. EUR 11 million of this were related to the distribution center. Despite of the increase of investments and lower group operating profit, free cash flow declined only marginally. This was due to significantly lower working capital-related cash outflows. As a result, the company reduced net debt to EUR 124 million at the end of the period. The company's financial expectations for the year remain unchanged. The company continues to expect sales and EBITDA before special items to increase at a high-single-digit rate. And the company expects that this trend will be confirmed in the development in the second, third or fourth quarter. In China, the company is going to open 2 major stores in Shanghai around the middle of this year. The company will have 2 major stores at the beginning of next year in Hong Kong in order to make sure that the Mainland Chinese traveling to Hong Kong for most are able to experience the brand as strong as it would like to see it.