Gap Inc.’s (NYSE: GPS) President and CEO Art Peck is stepping down immediately, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
What Happened
Peck’s resignation comes at a time when the San Francisco-based retailer is struggling to maintain its sales numbers. The company’s earnings fell 42% in the second quarter, to 44 cents per share from 76 cents in 2018.
Its performance in the first quarter of 2019 was even worse, with net income falling to 24 cents from 42 cents a year earlier.
Gap said it expects adjusted earnings per share between 50 and 52 cents for the third quarter.
The company also updated its adjusted EPS expectations for the whole year to be lower, between $1.70 to $1.75, down from an earlier $2.05 to $2.15.
“This was a challenging quarter, as macro impacts and slower traffic further pressured results that have been hampered by product and operating challenges across key brands,” Teri List-Stoll, Gap’s chief financial officer, said about the third-quarter performance.
What’s Next
Robert J. Fisher, the company’s non-executive chairman and a member of the Gap’s founding family, will take over as interim CEO until a suitable replacement is found, the company said.
“As the Board evaluates potential successors, our focus will be on strong leadership candidates with operational excellence to drive greater efficiency, speed and profitability,” Fisher said in a statement.
Price Action
Gap’s shares closed at $18.06 on Thursday but fell to $17.02 in after-hours trading at press time.
Icahn dump one-third of his shares, or 10 million, leaving Icahn with 23 million shares valued at $900 million. As of May, Icahn held $1.6 billion in Occidental, or 4.4% of the company.
But Icahn has spoken out over Occidental’s $38 billion purchase of Anadarko in August—a purchase that was made without shareholder approval. In the days that followed, Icahn tried to unseat 4 members of Oxy’s board, saying they had made errors in how it purchased Anadarko and how much it paid for it.
“The Icahn Participants believe that the Company’s current directors have made a number of mistakes in how and at what cost they pursued the Anadarko transaction. In addition to agreeing to expensive financing, the Company also structured the Anadarko transaction in a manner that deprived the stockholders of the Company of the right to vote on the transformational Anadarko transaction,” Icahn said in the filing to the SEC, adding that the deal was high-risk.
“In my opinion, Oxy’s acquisition of Anadarko is nothing more than a massive $57 billion levered bet on the price of oil – and the bet is failing.” Icahn’s letter to investors read in part.
Icahn has accused certain members of the board of purchasing Anadarko for the sole purpose of protecting Occidental from being a takeover target. Icahn has vowed to launch a proxy fight against Occidental’s board sometime in 2020.
Occidental’s share price has lost a lot of ground this year, reaching a 14-year low on Thursday, but ticked up on Friday on news of Icahn’s stock purge. No mention was made as to how much Icahn lost on his divestment.