Oxford Industries (OXM) Risk Analysis

From time to time, we are involved in litigation matters, which may relate to employment practices, consumer protection, intellectual property infringement, product liability and contract disputes, and which may include a class action, and we are subject to various claims and pending or threatened lawsuits in the ordinary course of our business operations. Often, these cases raise complex factual and legal issues and, due to the inherent uncertainties of litigation, we cannot accurately predict the ultimate outcome of any such proceedings. Regardless of the outcome or whether the claims have merit, legal proceedings may be expensive and require significant management time.

As a multi-national apparel company, we are subject to income taxes in the United States and various foreign jurisdictions. We record our income tax liability based on an analysis and interpretation of local tax laws and regulations, which requires a significant amount of judgment and estimation. In addition, we may from time to time modify our operations in an effort to minimize our consolidated income tax expense. Our effective income tax rate in any particular period or in future periods may be affected by a number of factors, including a shift in the mix of revenues, income and/or losses among domestic and international sources during a year or over a period of years; changes in tax laws, regulations or international tax treaties; the outcome of income tax audits; the difference between the income tax deduction and the previously recognized income tax benefit related to the vesting of equity-based compensation awards; and the resolution of uncertain tax positions, any of which could adversely affect our effective income tax rate and profitability. Further, changes to U.S. and foreign tax laws and compliance with new tax laws could have a material adverse effect on our tax expense, cash flows and operations.

We operate in a highly competitive industry in which the principal competitive factors are the reputation, value and image of brand names; design of differentiated, innovative or otherwise compelling product; consumer preference; price; quality; marketing (including through rapidly shifting digital and social media vehicles); product fulfillment capabilities; and customer service. The highly competitive apparel industry is characterized by low barriers to entry, with new competition entering the marketplace regularly. There are numerous domestic and foreign apparel designers, distributors, importers, licensors and retailers. Some of these companies may be significantly larger or more diversified than us and/or have significantly greater financial resources than we do. Competition in the apparel industry is particularly enhanced in the digital marketplace for our rapidly growing e-commerce businesses, where there are new entrants in the market, greater pricing pressure and heightened customer expectations and competitive pressure related to, among other things, customer engagement, delivery speed, shipping charges and return privileges. In addition, fast fashion, value fashion and off-price retailers, as well as the more recent declines in spending within the consumer and retail sector, have contributed to additional promotional pressure. These and other competitive factors within the apparel industry may result in reduced sales, increased costs, lower prices for our products and/or decreased margins.

Our success depends on the reputation and value of our brand names. The value of our brands could be diminished by actions taken by us or by our licensees, wholesale customers or others who have an interest in our brands. Actions that could cause harm to our brands include failing to respond to emerging fashion trends or meet consumer quality expectations; selling products bearing our brands through distribution channels that are inconsistent with customer expectations; becoming overly promotional; or setting up consumer expectations for promotional activity for our products. In addition, social media is a critical marketing and customer acquisition and customer retention strategy in today's technology-driven retail environment, and the value of our brands could be adversely affected if we do not effectively and accurately communicate our brand message through social media vehicles, including with respect to our social responsibility and environmental sustainability initiatives. The concentration in our portfolio heightens the risks we face if one of our larger brands is adversely impacted by actions we or third parties take with respect to that brand. The improper or detrimental actions of a licensee or wholesale customer, including a third party distributor in an international market, or for example, the operator of the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa, which opened in late-2023 and is an unproven concept with previously untested brand and operating standards, could also significantly impact the perception of our brands. While we enter into comprehensive license and similar collaborative agreements with third party licensees covering product design, product quality, brand standards, sourcing, social compliance, distribution, operations, manufacturing and/or marketing requirements and approvals, there can be no guarantee our brands will not be negatively impacted through our association with products or concepts outside of our core apparel products and by the market perception of the third parties with whom we associate. In addition, we cannot always control the marketing and promotion of our products by our wholesale customers, and actions by such parties could diminish the value or reputation of one or more of our brands and have an adverse effect on our sales, gross margins and business operations. The appeal of our brands may also depend on the perceived relevance and success of our initiatives related to corporate responsibility and our commitments to operating our business in a socially responsible fashion. Risks related to corporate responsibility include increased stakeholder focus on social and environmental sustainability matters, including forced labor, chemical use, energy and water use, packaging and waste, animal welfare and land use. We may also be required to incur substantial costs to comply with the amalgamation of differing or conflicting state, federal or international laws or regulations or the rules of government agencies requiring disclosure of risks and initiatives related to corporate responsibility and the collection, certification and disclosure of operational data, and any failure to comply with such requirements could result in fines, penalties or negative public perception of our brands or drive decisions on whether we can continue or expand our business in certain markets. We may also face increased pressure from stakeholders or the public to voluntarily expand our disclosures, make commitments, set targets or establish additional goals and take actions to meet them, which could expose us to market, operational and execution costs or risks. The metrics we disclose may not meet stakeholder expectations and may impact our reputation and the value of our brands, and a failure to achieve progress on our metrics on a timely basis, or at all, could adversely affect our business and financial performance.

We believe that our trademarks and other intellectual property rights have significant value and are important to our continued success and our competitive position due to their recognition by consumers and retailers. Substantially all of our consolidated net sales are attributable to branded products for which we own the trademark. Therefore, our success depends to a significant degree on our ability to protect and preserve our intellectual property. We rely on laws in the United States and other countries to protect our proprietary rights. However, we may not be able to sufficiently prevent third parties from using our intellectual property without our authorization, particularly in those countries where the laws do not protect our proprietary rights as fully as in the United States. We have also experienced challenges with enforcing our intellectual property rights on third party e-commerce websites, especially those based in foreign jurisdictions. The use of our intellectual property or similar intellectual property by others could reduce or eliminate any competitive advantage we have developed, causing us to lose sales or otherwise harm the reputation of our brands. We devote significant resources to the registration and protection of our trademarks and to anti-counterfeiting efforts. Despite these efforts, we regularly discover products that infringe our proprietary rights or that otherwise seek to mimic or leverage our intellectual property. Counterfeiting and other infringing activities typically increase as brand recognition increases, and association of our brands with inferior counterfeit reproductions or third-party labels could adversely affect the integrity and reputation of our brands. Additionally, there can be no assurance that the actions that we have taken will be adequate to prevent others from seeking to block sales of our products as violations of proprietary rights. As we extend our brands into new product categories and new product lines and expand the geographic scope of the sourcing, distribution and marketing of our brands' products, we could become subject to litigation or challenge based on allegations of the infringement of intellectual property rights of third parties, including by various third parties who have acquired or claim ownership rights in some of our trademarks internationally. In the event a claim of infringement against us is successful or would otherwise affect our operations, we may be required to pay damages, royalties, license fees or other costs to continue to use intellectual property rights that we had been using, or we may be unable to obtain necessary licenses from third parties at a reasonable cost or within a reasonable time. Litigation and other legal action of this type, regardless of whether it is successful, could result in substantial costs to us and diversion of the attention of our management and other resources.

Cybersecurity attacks continue to become increasingly sophisticated, and experienced computer programmers and hackers may be able to penetrate our network security and misappropriate or compromise our assets or disrupt our systems. We collect, use, store and transmit sensitive and confidential business information and personal information of our customers, employees, suppliers and others as an ongoing part of our business operations, and we are regularly subject to attempts by attackers to gain unauthorized access to our networks, systems and data, or to obtain, change or destroy confidential information. In addition, customers may use devices or software that are beyond our control environment to purchase our products, which may provide additional avenues for attackers to gain access to confidential information, and our embracing and implementation of remote work arrangements for a substantial portion of our employees may increase our vulnerability to cybersecurity attacks. Additionally, the security systems of businesses that we acquire could pose additional risks to us, such as those related to the collection, use, maintenance and disclosure of data, or present other cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Despite our implementation of security measures, if an actual or perceived data security breach occurs, whether as a result of cybersecurity attacks, computer viruses, vandalism, ransomware, human error or otherwise, or if there are perceived vulnerabilities in our systems, the image of our brands and our reputation and credibility could be damaged, and, in some cases, our continued operations may be impaired or restricted. Ongoing and increasing costs to enhance cybersecurity protection and prevent, eliminate or mitigate vulnerabilities are significant. Although we have business continuity plans and other safeguards in place, our operations may be adversely affected by an actual or perceived data security breach. Costs to resolve any litigation or to investigate and remediate any actual or perceived breach could result in significant financial losses and expenses, as well as lost sales. While we continue to evolve and modify our business continuity plans, there can be no assurance in an escalating threat environment that they will be effective in avoiding disruption and business impacts. In addition, the regulatory environment governing our use of individually identifiable data is complex, and compliance with new and modified state, federal and international privacy and security laws may require us to modify our operations and/or incur costs to make necessary systems changes and implement new administrative processes, which may include deploying additional personnel and protection technologies, training employees and engaging third party experts and consultants. In addition, because we process and transmit payment card information, we are subject to the payment card industry data security standard and card brand operating rules, which provide for a comprehensive set of rules relating to the retention and/or transmission of payment card information. If we do not comply with the applicable standards, we may be subject to fines or restrictions on our ability to accept payment cards, which could have a material adverse effect on our operations. As part of our routine operations, we also contract with third party service providers to store, process and transmit personal information of our customers and employees. Although we may contractually require that these providers implement reasonable security measures, we cannot control third parties and cannot guarantee that a security breach will not occur at their location or within their systems. Privacy breaches of confidential information stored or used by our third party service providers or disruptions in their systems may expose us to the same risks as a breach of our own systems, including negative publicity, potential out-of-pocket costs and adverse effects on our business and customer relationships.

We are a consumer products company and are highly dependent on consumer discretionary spending and retail traffic patterns, particularly in the United States. The demand for apparel products changes as regional, domestic and international economic conditions change and may be significantly impacted by trends in consumer confidence and discretionary consumer spending patterns. These trends may be influenced by employment levels; recessions; inflation and elevated interest rates; fuel and energy costs; tax rates; personal debt levels; savings rates; stock market and housing market volatility; shifting social ideology; concerns about the political and economic climate; and general uncertainty about the future. The factors impacting consumer confidence and discretionary consumer spending patterns are outside of our control and difficult to predict, and, often, the apparel industry experiences longer periods of recession and greater declines than the general economy. Recently, the U.S. economy has been impacted by elevated inflation rates, which has created a complex and challenging retail environment that has affected consumer spending and consumer preferences. In Fiscal 2023 and continuing into Fiscal 2024, the prevailing macroeconomic concerns have led to conservative purchase order decisions for future seasons by many of our wholesale customers. A decline in consumer confidence or change in discretionary consumer spending could reduce our sales, increase our inventory levels, result in more promotional activities and/or lower our gross margins, any or all of which may adversely affect our business and financial condition.

Our operations and retail and restaurant locations are heavily concentrated in the United States and certain geographic areas within the United States, including Florida, California, Texas and Hawaii for our Tommy Bahama operations; Florida for our Lilly Pulitzer operations; California for our Johnny Was operations; and Florida for our Emerging Brands operations. Additionally, the wholesale sales for our businesses are also geographically concentrated, including in geographic areas where we have concentrations of our own retail store and restaurant locations. Due to these concentrations, as well as our brands' association with the resort lifestyle and destinations, we have heightened exposure to factors that impact these regions, including general economic conditions, weather patterns, climate-related conditions, natural disasters, public health crises, changing demographics and other factors.

Our sales volume and operations and the operations of third parties on whom we rely, including our suppliers, vendors, licensees and wholesale customers, may be adversely affected by unseasonable or severe weather conditions or other climate-related events, natural or man-made disasters, hurricanes, public health crises, pandemics, war, terrorist attacks, including heightened security measures and responsive military actions, or other catastrophes which may cause consumers to alter their purchasing habits or result in a disruption to our operations, such as the damage to, and temporary closure of, our Tommy Bahama restaurant and retail store in Naples, Florida due to Hurricane Ian in September 2022 and the destruction of our Tommy Bahama Marlin Bar in Lahaina, Hawaii by wildfires in August 2023. Our business may also be adversely affected by instability, disruption or destruction, regardless of cause. These events may result in closures of our retail stores, restaurants, offices or distribution centers and/or declines in consumer traffic, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition. Because of the seasonality of our business, the concentration of a significant proportion of our retail stores and wholesale customers in certain geographic regions, including a resort and/or coastal focus for most of our lifestyle brands, and the concentration of our sourcing and distribution center operations, the occurrence of such events could disproportionately impact our business, financial condition and operating results. The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas have adversely affected the global economy and resulted in economic sanctions, geopolitical instability and market disruption. Although we do not have operations or generate revenues in the impacted regions, the geopolitical tensions related to the wars could result in broader impacts that expand into other markets, cyberattacks, supply chain and logistics disruptions, including shipping disruptions in the Red Sea region, and lower consumer demand, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and operations.

We are exposed to certain currency exchange risks in conducting business outside of the United States. Substantially all of our product purchases are from foreign vendors and are denominated in U.S. dollars. If the value of the U.S. dollar decreases relative to certain foreign currencies in the future, then the prices that we negotiate for products could increase and we may be unable to pass this increase on to customers, which would negatively impact our margins. However, if the value of the U.S. dollar increases between the time a price is set and payment for a product, the price we pay may be higher than that paid for comparable goods by competitors that pay for goods in local currencies, and these competitors may be able to sell their products at more competitive prices. An increase in the value of the U.S. dollar compared to other currencies in which we have sales could also result in lower levels of sales and earnings reported in our consolidated statements of operations and lower gross margins. Additionally, currency fluctuations could also disrupt the business of our independent manufacturers by making their purchases of raw materials more expensive and difficult to finance.