Estée Lauder faces its next fraught rendezvous with Wall Street on Tuesday, when the struggling Fortune 500 beauty giant reports its latest quarterly earnings. But if its executives, including its brand-new CEO, are nervous, they can take solace in one thing: This week’s report almost certainly can’t be as bad as their last one.
Back in October, while releasing a particularly dismal earnings statement, Estée Lauder—whose globe-spanning luxury brands include MAC, Aveda, Le Labo, and Clinique—shocked shareholders by slashing its dividend by nearly half to preserve cash. Not only did the company fail to put any upbeat lipstick on that pig, it withdrew its financial forecasts, the kind of action that is very triggering for investors. Shares fell 21% that November day, the biggest one-day drop ever for the 79-year-old company.
