Nike shares drop as investors fret over murky turnaround timeline

By Ananya Mariam Rajesh

(Reuters) -Nike shares closed nearly 7% lower on Wednesday after the sportswear giant withdrew its annual revenue target, leaving investors guessing on the timeline for a turnaround under incoming CEO Elliott Hill.

The company on Tuesday also called off its investor day set for Nov. 19, while CFO Matthew Friend said pulling the outlook would give Hill "much-needed flexibility to evaluate Nike's strategies and business trends".

"Just how quickly a turnaround can happen is up in the air ... There's not anything really that I could say at this point gives us a definite timeline or early hints to what is in store for the future," said Jessica Ramirez, senior analyst at Jane Hali & Associates.

Last month, Nike named veteran executive Hill as CEO in place of John Donahoe as demand dropped and rivals such as On Holding and Hoka gained market share, especially in high performance and innovative running shoes categories.

The company's forward price-to-earnings ratio for the next 12 months, a benchmark for valuing stocks, was 27.98, compared with 27.08 for Deckers and 35.14 for Adidas.

Hill is set to take over on Oct. 14 and investors were pinning their hopes on the analyst day for clarity on Nike's strategy until it canceled the event. Nike did not provide a fresh date.

"These next few months as we go into year end, (Nike is) going to leave investors with a lot more questions than answers and we didn't get any answers," said Jay Woods, chief global strategist at investment banking firm Freedom Capital Markets.

Nike on Tuesday signaled a bleak holiday quarter and said it had to offer higher promotions to help drive demand after recording weak digital sales in the first quarter.

Visits to Nike's website fell 10.1% to 127.2 million between July and September, compared with 141.5 million visits in the prior quarter. For the same period, Adidas' website visits increased 6.3% to 28.6 million and On saw a nearly 30% jump to 9.4 million visits, according to Similarweb, a firm that analyzes website visits and traffic.

"Nike is deep in the abyss of the turnaround," Bernstein Societe Generale analysts wrote in a note. "Early signs of market traction look positive, but can't translate into hard numbers yet while markdown actions drag down sales and margins."

Its shares were trading at $82 and had recouped 10% since Sept. 19, when Nike announced Hill's appointment.

Regarding Hill, Britain's JD Sports CEO said earlier in the day it was "good to have someone from the industry, someone who knows Nike and who knows all the products".

Shares of peers Under Armour and Lululemon closed more than 2% lower each, while retailer Foot Locker dropped 3%.

(Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh and Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru; Writing by Aishwarya Venugopal; Editing by Maju Samuel and Arun Koyyur)