Victoria’s Secret in ‘Recovery Phase’ After Cyber Incident

Hillary Super has been keeping busy at Victoria’s Secret & Co.

Super — the former Savage x Fenty executive who took the reins at the lingerie giant last year — was already sharpening the focus at Pink, rearranging management and putting together her plan to grow the company.

But lately she’s also been dealing with cyber criminals and investor-agitators.

The cyber troubles at least seem to be in the past.

Super told analysts on a conference call for first-quarter results that the company was now “well into the recovery phase” and finalizing its investigation into the cyber incident that caused it to close down its website over four days last month.

The CEO declined to provide further details while its work is ongoing.

Super also did not weigh in directly on Brett Blundy’s BBRC International, which has a 12.9 percent stake in Victoria’s Secret and asked openly that the company reply to its questions on the conference call.

BBRC, for instance, had asked: “What specific metrics convince the board that it possesses the competence to turn around what appears to be systematic value destruction — and why shouldn’t stockholders demand an immediate reconstitution of the board?”

Unsurprisingly, Super instead zeroed in on the results, which were telegraphed earlier as the cyber incident delayed results.

First-quarter sales were flat at $1.4 billion while comparable sales slipped 1 percent. Operating income fell to $20 million from $26 million a year earlier.

Super said the business is growing more agile by the day and responded quickly when the economy started to cool in February.

“We increased our percentage of newness by pulling forward March and April floor sets in VS, chasing into exciting fashion apparel for Pink and accelerating our new mist collection launch for beauty,” Super said.

“We reshot portions of our creative content with an eye toward sexier and more joyful brand expression and worked across channels to highlight it,” she said.

Victoria’s Secret is sticking by its annual sales forecast calling for a top line of $6.2 billion to $6.3 billion, but cut its operating income projection to $270 million to $320 million, down from the $300 million to $350 million previously forecast.

The revision adds in a roughly $50 million impact from the trade war tariffs.