The North Face was clearly the star of VF’s solid fiscal fourth-quarter performance that delivered the company’s first positive year of growth in three years as the brand did its part by delivering another quarter of double-digit growth in the Americas region. Still, the eyes of Wall Street remain hyper-fixated on any perceived shortcomings at the company’s Vans brand, which saw a strong performance – and clear progress – in the Americas go under-appreciated as strong direct-to-consumer (DTC) momentum in the region was overshadowed by continued weakness in the brand’s Wholesale channel and across its International regions.
VFC shares were down ~4 percent in late-afternoon trading Wednesday, May 20, despite the company seeing both quarterly earnings and sales top guidance. Top-line growth – driven by TNF – marked the company’ strongest quarterly revenue performance in three years on a constant-currency (cc) basis, excluding the divestiture of Dickie’s.
VF Corp. also reinstated annual guidance, estimating Adjusted operating profits will expand 8 percent in the current fiscal year, with sales up 1 percent to 2 percent.
Vans Brand
Vans sales in the fiscal fourth quarter ended March 31 reached $486.6 million, down 1 percent (-5 percent cc) year-over-year (y/y), which was said to be in line with expectations. The brand performance matched the percentage decline seen in its third quarter. The growth was said to include ~2 percent benefit from a forward shift in Wholesale orders.
By region, the Americas led the way for Vans, with sales up 5 percent (+5 percent cc) year-over-year. Vans sales were down 20 percent (-13 percent cc) y/y in EMEA and down 1 percent (-2 percent cc) y/y in the APAC region.
The Americas region’s Q4 performance marked significant improvement following an 8 percent constant-currency decline in the fiscal year’s third quarter. EMEA matched the brand’s third-quarter performance in Q4, while APAC was slightly worse in Q4 after showing a constant-currency decline of 20 percent in the third quarter.
Looking ahead, VF estimated that Vans sales for the 2027 fiscal year will decline in mid-single digits, improving from an 11-percent decline seen in the just-completed 2026 fiscal year and a 15-percent decline posted in fiscal 2025. Improving trends in the second half are expected to offset weaker sales trends in the first half. Vans sales in the fiscal first quarter are expected to come in worse than the fourth quarter due to another shift forward in Wholesale orders.
On a quarterly conference call with analysts, VF Corp. President and CEO Bracken Darrell noted that Vans showed a return to growth in the Americas DTC channel for the first time in over four years and insisted the Americas momentum will eventually spread to other regions.
“The Americas is the foundation for the brand’s energy,” Darrell commented on the Wednesday call. “This is where we said the recovery would start, and as the Americas DTC continues to grow, its brand heat will start to show up elsewhere. These tangible green shoots are a result of our focus on product and brand energy at Vans.”
Americas is clearly the Vans brand’s most important region, with the Americas DTC making up approximately 40 percent of its global business. The Americas DTC gain of 5 percent was driven by online growth. The region already saw its e-commerce business return to growth in the fiscal third quarter, rising 4 percent y/y.
Darrell said the Vans brand’s DTC performance in the Americas continued to benefit from investments in speed-to-market that is bringing fresh product to the marketplace, especially within online offerings.
“Newness continues to build across the assortment as we re-energize our core icons, one silhouette at a time,” said Darrell. “As an example, the Pearlized drops (pictured right) are having [a] great consumer response and driving improving results within the Old Skool franchise. Another icon, the Authentic, delivered outstanding growth in the quarter, up 80 percent versus last year. Slip-ons returned to growth, too. Apparel also returned to growth in Q4.”
Elaborating on speed-to-market initiatives, VF Corp. EVP/COO Abhishek Dalmia said on the call that Vans pulled forward products originally planned for season fall 2026 to fall 2025 and delivered them in less than six months, roughly a third of the time a standard cycle takes. He said, “We did that by working more closely with our vendors, being more precise in our product briefs, and making sharper decisions with creative confidence in design.”
He said the moves enabled the Vans team to test new silhouettes on smaller scale, read consumer responses, and make better decisions about what to scale, refine, or discontinue. Said Dalmia, “This kind of speed enables improved Vans performance in [the] Americas DTC.”
At the same time, Vans reportedly continued to generate buzz via social-first content-led model, with online sales benefiting from the ability of new launches to drive traffic.
“Targeted product and content drops with artists including Curtis, SZA, Hayley Williams, Travis Barker, are helping reconnect the brand with culture and drive consumer engagement. These efforts are becoming visible in the marketplace,” said Dalmia. “It is early, and we are clear about the work ahead at Vans. This combination of speed, product newness, and sharper marketing will be the building blocks we continue to execute into the next year and beyond. That’s the growth engine we are building across VF brands.”
Darrell noted that during our fourth quarter, Vans launched its Off The Wall campaign anchored around the Authentic model, helping drive improved search and engagement trends in key markets. Darrell said, “Our strategic investments in design, brand energy, and demand creation have been instrumental in driving improved performance for the brand. We are excited about the progress at Vans.”
On the downside, Darrell noted that the Vans Wholesale sell-out is “not as strong” as Americas DTC because it hasn’t yet received Vans’ newer product, which is particularly helping drive e-commerce sales.
“Our DTC is a good harbinger of what’s going to come, because the products that we have in our DTC are coming,” said Darrell. “One by one, they’ll come into the Wholesale network, both online and offline. You’ll see a stronger and stronger set of products in the portfolio. I think we view that as a really clear harbinger of what’s to come.”
Analysts were seeking assurances that the Americas DTC momentum would extend to Wholesale as well as the EMEA and APAC regions.
Darrell declined to provide Wholesale ordering trends as a signal of its confidence in the brand’s sales recovery this year. He said, “We normally don’t talk about order books. Our confidence is really built on everything we can see internally, especially the DTC sell-out. Just looks really, really strong.
He added that Vans’ Wholesale distribution “looks pretty good” with the brand clearing inventories and exiting some accounts to elevate distribution over the last year.
“We’re going to continue to edit that,” said Darrell. “You’ll remember we took down the value channel pretty significantly over the last year. We’ve done some editing. We may have over-corrected there a little bit, so we’re going a little bit back into that, but not dramatically. Overall, though, I think our distribution looks about right in Wholesale. It’s really more about just continuing to follow the DTC performance, make sure that our Wholesale partners really get to see that, and they have, and then have the orders that come behind it. It’s really much more of a follow the leader mode now, rather than add on to the number of players in the market.”
VF Corp.’s Consolidated Q4 Performance
The continued concerns about Vans’ growth arrived as VF Corp.’s overall reported consolidated fourth-quarter results ahead of guidance, supported by The North Face’s strong performance that drove the company’s strongest revenue performance in three years. Darrell noted that 70 percent of VF’s business is now growing, up from 43 percent in 2024, when he first took over as CEO.
Fiscal Q4 Reportable Segment Information – Constant Currency Basis
(Unaudited – in thousands, except per share amounts)
Operating margins rose to 7 percent in fiscal year 2026, an expansion of 220 basis points the 4.8 percent in fiscal 2024, including the Dickies that has been sold. VF also over the last three years paid off over half of its net debt, excluding lease liabilities, with its leverage dropping from 5.1x to 2x
“A lot of strong progress on growth, on cost, and on the balance sheet,” said Darrell. “We’ve strengthened our financial position while we’ve increased our investment in brand building, product creation, and ultimately in growth, which is what it’s all about.”
In the quarter, revenues were $2.17 billion, up 3 percent on a cc basis excluding the divesture of Dickies, topping guidance calling for a flat to 2 percent growth. Analysts’ consensus target had been $2.13 billion. On a reported basis, sales excluding Dickies were up 8 percent.
On a reported basis, including Dickie’s, sales were up 1 percent to $2.17 billion while declining 4 percent on a cc basis.
The 3 percent cc growth was boosted by The North Face, which grew 7 percent y/y, led by another quarter of double-digit growth in the Americas. Timberland grew 2 percent on a constant-currency basis, its sixth consecutive quarter of growth.
By region, the Americas grew 10 percent in the quarter and was up 3 percent for the full year, reflecting the continued progress in VF’s largest region. EMEA was down 5 percent, attributed to “macro headwinds” in the region. APAC was up 1 percent, driven by demand across The North Face and Timberland. By channel, DTC delivered another quarter of growth at up 2 percent, and wholesale was up 3 percent, aided by higher-than-expected demand.
Profitability & Expenses
Gross margin for the fourth quarter was up 240 basis points versus the prior-year fourth quarter to 56.4 percent of sales, assisted by a roughly $50 million net benefit from the tariff receivable and offsetting charges. Following the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling in February related to certain tariff refunds, company CFO Paul Vogel said VF Corp. recognized a net benefit to its gross margin during Q4 and also accelerated select restructuring costs in the quarter, which drove a higher SG&A rate and partially offset the gross margin benefit. On a normalized basis, excluding these items, operating income would have come in at the midpoint of its guidance range.
Normalized gross margin was roughly flat versus last year, driven by the benefits from targeted price actions offset by mix and FX fluctuations.
SG&A as a percentage of revenue was up 70 basis points y/y, but down slightly excluding the accelerated restructuring costs. VF Corp.’s operating margin for the quarter was 2.5 percent of sales, up 170 basis points y/y.
On a reported basis, VF Corp.’s net loss totaled $119.3 million, or 30 cents a share, in the fiscal fourth quarter, against a loss of $150.8 million, or 39 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share was break even versus a loss of 14 cents per share in the year-ago fourth quarter and was just ahead of analysts’ consensus target calling for a loss of 1 cent per share for the period.
Fiscal Full Year Reportable Segment Information – Constant Currency Basis
(Unaudited – in thousands, except per share amounts)
Images, data and tables courtesy Vans and VF Corporation
