00:00Let me ask about Lululemon, because this stock has been essentially in free fall.
00:04It's off 60% in the past 12 months.
00:06Now they've made a cooperation pact with former founder Chip Wilson.
00:13That's a diplomatic way of putting it.
00:14Even though they say he has outdated perspectives and serious conflicts of interest.
00:20Yeah, a 79-year-old co-founder who, as you know, was sort of famously pushed out of the company
00:25more than a decade ago.
00:26A lot of people forget this. He really hasn't been associated with this company in any direct way other than
00:30being its largest individual shareholder through his family office.
00:34But look, he had pushed. Remember, a lot of this drama started last year when Calvin McDonald said he was
00:38stepped down.
00:39Elliott Management had taken a big stake in the company.
00:41They pushed to put in a former Ralph Lauren chief operating officer as CEO.
00:45The board said no. They chose Heidi O'Neill from Nike to run this company.
00:50Chip O'Neill wasn't happy with any of this, and he kept agitating, saying there's a big shareholder meeting.
00:54I want three of my own folks to be on this board.
00:57He got two of them on there.
00:58Laura Gentile, who used to run ESPN's, he used to be the marketing officer over at ESPN.
01:03And Mark Maurer, who, of course, used to run On Holding.
01:06He was a co-CEO over there.
01:08He'll probably get a third board seat maybe in October.
01:11So this is a bit of a victory for him, but more importantly, as part of the deal, they basically
01:15said shut up for 18 months.
01:16Don't say anything disparaging about the company.
01:18Just lay low and let us do our thing.
01:20Heidi O'Neill, she takes over in September.
01:22This will give her maybe a little bit of breathing room to try to implement whatever plan she has.
01:26I was going to say, it's very clear what Chip Wilson gets out of this.
01:29So is that just the deal for Lululemon?
01:31Had Chip Wilson being so public about them been so damaging to the brand that this was all necessary?
01:36Yeah, I mean, you've seen some of the stuff.
01:38He did not mince words at all.
01:40And, you know, this is a company, in fairness, that had a lot of own goals with regards to see
01:44-through leggings, inventory that was just way out of control.
01:47They got really caught up with regards to some of the costs.
01:50And then just the whole ethos of the company, right?
01:52Remember, they had it all to them.
01:53I know you're a big Lululemon yoga pants guy.
01:56But, I mean, they kind of set the market for these high-end sort of athelusia wear.
02:00And now everybody's in that space, right?
02:02Nike, Adidas, Aloe, Vori.
02:04You have all these companies now competing with them.
02:06Where do they stand, Matt?
02:07Yeah, they made it acceptable for people to wear these extremely tight spray-on yoga pants in public.
02:12Yeah.
02:13And thank God they did that.
02:15Romaine, thanks so much for joining us.
02:17It depends on who's wearing them, Matt.
02:18Chip Wilson wants me to comment very much like that.
02:22I think it was Stephanie Ruhle on this network.
02:24And that led to him getting pushed out.
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