Pandora plans a ‘reset’ of its business strategy

Charm-bracelet seller has slumped amid the rise of online shopping

Pandora has come undone again.

The Danish charm bracelet seller plans a “reset” after cutting its outlook and abandoning a long-term sales goal. The company said it’s scaling back acquisitions of franchised stores and focusing new openings on promising markets like China, as it looks for a new CEO.

Since hitting a peak two years ago on the back of a global expansion, Pandora has slumped amid the rise of online shopping and cheap Chinese imitations, wiping almost $12 billion (U.S.) off its market value. The shares recouped early losses of as much as 12 per cent on Tuesday, trading 0.8 per cent lower at 12:05 p.m. in Copenhagen.

As Pandora seeks a new leader, successive profit warnings have undermined investor confidence, prompted hedge-funds to take aim at the stock and fuelled takeover speculation. The company insisted that the absence of a CEO won’t hold it back as it pursues a more modest growth agenda.

Chief financial officer Anders Boyer said the latest results were “unsatisfactory.” Per Hansen, an investment economist at Nordnet in Copenhagen, called them “terrible.”

After at least two years of false starts in which the jeweller has been struggling with an increasingly challenging U.S. retail environment, investors have been losing faith. Pandora’s move to reposition itself in the affordable luxury segment, during which it expanded to more than 2,500 stores in shopping malls worldwide, has fallen flat.