5. NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 75
NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) is one of the most well-known apparel retailers in the world. However, the firm has faced nothing but struggles recently as its shares are down by 28% year-to-date. NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE)’s operations have been beset with troubles throughout 2024. These troubles have come on the back of under-performing products that have suffered from competition from shoes with thick foam soles. In response, NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE), under its new CEO Elliot Hill, has embarked on a turnaround strategy. This strategy aims to bring the firm back to its high-quality sports business and improve ties with retailers after an ill-fated push to direct-to-consumer. Cramer commented on all these factors:
“It was down, it was up five, and down five, people couldn’t make up their mind but I have.” “How much value did John Donahue truly destroy in four years? I mean that was the underlying notion of the whole conference call. This going of he belongs in the CEO wall of shame, this move to go towards direct-to-consumer eviscerated the long term partners of Nike who were mentioned one after another. And the company got away from away. I thought this was music. What do you think they got away from? Sports.
“I don’t know but this is like when Stark Industries, the defense company, got out of the munitions business. Really rather extraordinary.
“I was there, I took it to a Sell. Now the good news is that this company now realizes that it’s in the sports business. I’m not quite sure what business they were in, but in the meantime, on hokah, these took the share in these great places like Footlocker where Mary Dillon was getting second rate Nike, now she’s getting first rate. This man is doing everything right in terms of restoring, but there’s like a Starbucks situation where you get Brian Niccol and he’s trying to deal with all the different things now we get the union strike but I think Nike’s going to go in the right direction, but they have everything that could go wrong, from inventory, to slighting their partners, getting away from sports.
“This was a devastating conference call. People remember the Mark Parkley calls. I used to talk about how they were orchestrated because the business was so strong. And Donahue just basically, uh, made it into tool and dye machine.
“No, these guys took themselves out of the running, it’s really rather remarkable and sad. Because this is a great company. Now I think this guy is terrific. And he said all the right things. But what he basically also said was listen, there’s no quick turnaround here because we really screwed up. We’ve lost our mission, we’re moving back to our mission. . .Donahue comes from . . . .people who are from consulting firms. Who don’t have the heart and soul of what this company was about. And I think we’re gonna get away from that. I think we’re gonna get back to the idea of picking the best person internally, like Costco.”