Often discussed in these columns, the Denver-based group is a real fallen angel of the US stockmarket. Its stock was one of the best performers in the SP500 for a long time, before the usual ingredients that result in disaster—mismanagement, overpaid acquisitions, margin compression, unreasonable increases in debt to finance capital distributions to shareholders, ill-advised share buybacks, etc.—deteriorated its situation and caused its market value to crumble sixfold.

With the arrival of an extremely talented new CEO — Bracken Darrell, a defector from Logitech — hope was reborn. Except that the resurrection is taking a long time. FY 2025 results, published yesterday, show no sign of a turnaround. On the contrary, revenue is down 4.2% and free cash flow is still half what it was in the previous year, which was already poor.

The North Face and Timberland brands both posted sluggish growth of 1% and 3%, while Vans and Dickies plunged 16% and 12%. Geographically, the decline is most pronounced in North America, with sales down 7%. In Europe and the Middle East, sales fell 3%. Only the Chinese market appears to be saving the day, where sales rose 3%.

Faced with this freefall, debt reduction is now a matter of urgency. If V.F. manages to repay $1.8bn this year, it will be thanks to the providential $1.5bn obtained through the sale of Supreme—which V.F. paid $2.1bn for in 2020—to EssilorLuxottica, and the sale of real estate assets for $88m.

But it still has $3.4bn in long-term debt, without even counting operating leases. Unless it can turn its operations around very quickly, V.F. risks insolvency, unless it decides to part with its crown jewel — The North Face brand — in which case the value would be irretrievably lost to shareholders.

Dividends and share buybacks are, of course, on hold. This explains the further fall in the share price in recent months. In October, Zonebourse warned of this scenario in V.F. Corporation: Curious optimism.