Kering: an ugly duckling or is there value there?This analysis is provided by Eden Bradfeld at BlackBull Research.
Kering is trading under the 200 EUR mark, at 190 EUR per share. That’s roughly 1.57x price/book and 1.4x price/sales.
Remember — Kering not only owns Gucci, but also Bottega, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, McQueen, Brioni, Boucheron, etc. It is not a one trick pony. Mr. Market hated Demna’s appointment to Gucci, which I think is a little bit misguided — Demna’s couture at Balenciaga was top-notch and I think it’s a mistake to think of him as only a ‘street style’ guy.
But let’s talk numbers, provided by Eden GPT — if you project out earnings to FY27 and assume Gucci grows at ~10% and other houses at ~5% (very conservative, btw, considering how much Gucci has already pulled back in terms of growth and how Bottega, Saint Laurent continue to either grow or sit relatively flat).
Anyway, let’s also assume the company continues to trade at a fwd discount to peers. That implies a +146% upside at 15x earnings to the current stock price. There’s a lot of rope to be wrong there — even a 50% re-rating is quite lovely, and doesn’t take any kind of “moonshot” to find yourself there.
Now, you need to remember that fashion isn’t about yesterday, it’s about the now, and the market is at a perpetual disadvantage to fashion because they are looking at yesterday’s numbers. In other words, fashion is like an even more bipolar version of Mr. Market — today’s trend is today’s price; unfortunately tomorrow’s trend is never priced in.
Now, I don’t have to do a lot of heavy lifting to remember that all of Kering’s houses have been fairly fashionable throughout time. Nor do I have to do much heavy lifting to remember that Gucci did incredibly well and then it did less well (a trend throughout Gucci’s history). Gucci is cyclical, and tends to go from terrible designer to great designer. The trend infers a “great designer”, given Sabato’s underperformance. Demna already quadrupled Balenciaga’s sales. It doesn’t take a great leap of faith to think he’ll do well at Gucci — the cynicism is overblown.
Point is, if you assume — even at limited growth — that Kering and its houses continue to grow modestly, then you are looking at a company that trades at a severe discount to peers. No, Harry Styles isn’t wearing Gucci — but remember that Styles and co aren’t the primary drivers of growth, it’s much bigger than that. And remember that Pinault’s family office, Artemis, owns CAA, one of the big two talent agencies — it will be no surprise that Zoe Kravitz wore Saint Laurent at the Vanity Fair Oscar’s party, and that Kravitz is represented by CAA.
In other words, there’s a clear symbiosis between Kering owning these houses and the Pinault family office owning CAA. Expect to see more Kering houses on the red carpet, in magazines, etc. That’s a lot of free publicity.
Bottom line — there’s a lot of overblown fear here (and yes, those Trump tariffs aren’t helping). With so much potential upside, it’s hard to not see Kering as “value”.
