Piper's Murphy Lifts Ralph Lauren Target To $88 Following Investor Day

Piper Jaffray analysts Erinn Murphy, Christof Fischer and James House, have boosted their price target on Ralph Lauren Corp (NYSE: RL) shares to $88 from $81. The analysts have not changed their rating of Neutral.

Piper Jaffray said Ralph Lauren CEO, Stefan Larsson, spoke to the following operational changes he's making: 1) removing three layers of management, i.e. six from nine, and 8 percent work force reduction; 3) six-month reduction of product lead times; and 4) closing of ~50 doors of the 493 global doors.

The company Indicated that from a restructuring perspective, it would be taking up to $400 million of charges. This included $150 million inventory write-off.

Going forward, the brokerage expects cost savings should be between $180M-$220 million per year and SG&A as a rate of sales should decrease in each year of the plan. The company stated that from an EPS cadence perspective, FY17 was below expectations and FY18 is "stabilization" year, "we see accelerating EPS growth in FY19/FY20 to arrive at our $8.50 EPS power by 2020."

The brokerage believes the tone of the Analyst Day was about shrinking the company towards enhanced profitability. Therefore, there were still several details that still need to be ironed out.