Burberry Group (BRBY.L) - Company Research

Last Updated: 18 September 2026

Burberry Group plc is Britain's only genuinely global luxury house, built on a single product category — the gabardine trench coat — that it invented in the 1870s and still sells today. The investment question in September 2026 is narrower than it has been for years. Under chief executive Joshua Schulman, the FY2026 results published on 14 May 2026 showed the turnaround is real at the operating level: gross margin recovered 540 basis points to 67.9%, adjusted operating profit went from £26m to £160m, and comparable store sales returned to growth in every quarter after Q1. What has not recovered is the top line, which fell another 2% to £2,420m, or the capital return, which remains zero for a second consecutive year. The shares set a new 52-week low of 953.40p on 16 September 2026, two days before this report, and trade roughly 31% below their January high. This report sets out what the filings actually say, with no analyst price targets and no third-party ratings. For live price action see our Live Charts.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Legal name	Burberry Group plc
Listing	London Stock Exchange, ticker BRBY (BRBY.L), quoted in pence (GBX). ISIN GB0031743007. Unsponsored ADR trades OTC as BURBY
Index membership	FTSE 100 constituent. Demoted to the FTSE 250 in September 2024, re-promoted to the FTSE 100 effective 22 September 2025. Unaffected by the September 2026 FTSE Russell quarterly review
Market cap	£3.64bn at 1,016.50p (LSE data, 17–18 September 2026, 358.21m shares). On the 361.01m total voting rights confirmed in Burberry's RNS of 1 September 2026, £3.67bn
Revenue (FY2026, 52 weeks to 28 March 2026)	£2,420m, down 2% at reported rates and flat at constant exchange rates
Adjusted operating profit (FY2026)	£160m, margin 6.6%, up from £26m and 1.0% in FY2025
Reported operating profit (FY2026)	£115m, margin 4.8%, against a £3m loss in FY2025
Attributable profit (FY2026)	£21m, against a £75m loss in FY2025
CEO / Leadership	Joshua Schulman, Chief Executive Officer since 17 July 2024. CFO Catherine "Kate" Ferry. Chair Gerry Murphy, retiring with effect from the interim results on 12 November 2026; William Jackson, a non-executive director since 1 July 2026, succeeds him. Chief Creative Officer Daniel Lee
Employees	7,613 average full-time equivalent in FY2026, down 13% from 8,701 in FY2025. EMEIA 3,774; Greater China 1,600; Americas 1,194; Asia Pacific 1,045
Store estate	410 directly operated stores at 28 March 2026 (222 retail, 134 concessions, 54 outlets) plus 27 franchise. 413 directly operated plus 27 franchise at 27 June 2026
Dividend	Nil for FY2026 and nil for FY2025. Directors elected not to declare an interim or final dividend. No share buyback programme was undertaken in either year
Fiscal year end	Late March or early April. FY2026 was the 52 weeks to 28 March 2026. FY2022 was a 53-week year
Registered office	Horseferry House, Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2AW. Registered number 03458224

Every figure above is taken from Burberry's own FY2026 preliminary results press release of 14 May 2026, the Annual Report 2025/26 published 28 May 2026, the Q1 FY2027 trading update of 17 July 2026, or London Stock Exchange market data. No aggregator has been used as a primary source for any financial figure.

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• The margin recovery is documented, not promised: gross margin went from 62.5% to 67.9% in a single year, and adjusted operating profit multiplied roughly sixfold from £26m to £160m. That came from mix and inventory discipline rather than price inflation, and £80m of the £100m annualised cost savings target was already banked in FY2026.
• Comparable sales have turned and kept turning: group comparable store sales ran minus 1%, plus 2%, plus 3% then plus 5% through the four quarters of FY2026, and plus 5% again in Q1 FY2027. Greater China moved from a 2025 collapse to plus 9% in the June 2026 quarter and the Americas to plus 12%.
• Balance sheet is stronger than the headline suggests: the £852m net debt figure is almost entirely IFRS 16 lease liabilities of £955m. Strip leases out and Burberry holds net cash of roughly £103m, with the £300m sustainability bond repaid in September 2025 and leverage down from 2.3x to 1.6x adjusted EBITDA.
• Insiders are buying with their own money: the chief executive and chief financial officer bought roughly £969,000 of shares between them on the same day, 25 June 2026, at 1,089.1083p. There was no discretionary insider selling anywhere in calendar 2026.
• Category authority is being rebuilt from the strongest position: outerwear outperformed in every region in FY2026 and scarves outperformed all year, both up double digit in the second half. Product architecture is following, with 200 scarf bars in FY2026 and 97 polo galleries live by Father's Day 2026.

Bear Case

• Revenue is still shrinking: FY2026 revenue of £2,420m is 22% below the £3,094m peak of FY2023 and fell again year on year. Two of the four product divisions, Menswear and Childrenswear, declined at constant currency. A margin story without a revenue story eventually runs out of cost to cut.
• Nothing is being returned to shareholders: two consecutive years of zero dividend and zero buyback, against £959m of buybacks across FY2022 to FY2024 and 61.0p per share of dividends in both FY2023 and FY2024. Capital is going to deleveraging and reinvestment, and management has set no date for resumption.
• The valuation already discounts a recovery that has not arrived: at 1,016.50p the shares sit on 172x trailing GAAP earnings and roughly 67x trailing adjusted earnings. Even on the company's own compiled consensus for FY2027 the multiple is about 26x, which is a growth multiple on a business with flat revenue.
• Scale disadvantage against the sector is structural: at £3.64bn Burberry is roughly one fifty-fifth the size of LVMH and one eighth the size of Kering. It lacks a jewellery or hard-luxury engine of the kind carrying Richemont, and cannot spread marketing, retail and sourcing costs over a comparable revenue base.
• Demand backdrop is softening again: Bain and Altagamma put personal luxury goods at €358bn in 2025, down from €364bn in 2024, with a 2026 base case of only plus 2% to plus 4%. LVMH's market capitalisation fell out of Europe's top ten most valuable stocks in September 2026 for the first time since 2017, and Japan turned negative for Burberry in Q1 FY2027 as inbound Chinese tourism declined.

3. Revenue Segments

Burberry reports two operating segments, Retail and Wholesale combined, and Licensing. Within the retail and wholesale segment it discloses four product divisions and four geographic regions. The table below uses the channel split as a share of total group revenue of £2,420m in FY2026.

Segment / category	% of revenue	What it is
Retail	85.0% (£2,056m)	Directly operated stores, concessions, outlets and e-commerce. Down 1% reported and up 1% at constant currency, with comparable store sales up 2% and space down 1%. E-commerce sales grew high teens in FY2026
Wholesale	12.5% (£303m)	Sales to department stores, specialist retailers, franchise partners and travel retail. Down 5% reported and 4% at constant currency for the year, but the second half returned to growth of 3% at constant currency
Licensing	2.5% (£61m)	Royalties from eyewear, fragrance and beauty licensees, and the Japanese licence. Adjusted operating profit of £57m on £61m of revenue, a 93.2% operating margin, so this tiny line delivers more profit than the entire retail and wholesale business

Revenue by product division, as a share of the £2,359m retail and wholesale total:

Product division	FY2026 revenue	% of retail/wholesale	Change at constant currency
Accessories	£837m	35.5%	Up 2%
Womenswear	£728m	30.9%	Up 4%
Menswear	£701m	29.7%	Down 2%
Childrenswear and other	£93m	3.9%	Down 7%

Burberry does not disclose footwear as a separate division, and does not split ready-to-wear out of Womenswear or Menswear. Revenue by region, again as a share of the £2,359m retail and wholesale total:

Region	FY2026 revenue	% of retail/wholesale	Change at constant currency
EMEIA	£821m	34.8%	Down 4%
Greater China	£670m	28.4%	Up 5%
Americas	£505m	21.4%	Up 4%
Asia Pacific	£363m	15.4%	Flat

From 30 March 2025 the former Asia Pacific region was split into Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan Area) and Asia Pacific (the rest of Asia including Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand). Comparatives have been restated, so regional figures before FY2025 are not directly comparable to older filings.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Burberry designs, sources and sells luxury apparel and accessories, and takes the retail margin itself on 85% of revenue through 410 directly operated stores and its own e-commerce. It manufactures its trench coats in Castleford, Yorkshire, and licenses its name to third parties for eyewear, fragrance and beauty, collecting royalty income at a 93.2% operating margin. The economics are therefore those of a vertically integrated specialty retailer with a licensing annuity bolted on, not those of a wholesale brand.

Unit economics. Gross margin of 67.9% in FY2026 means roughly 68 pence of every pound of revenue is available to cover operating costs. Adjusted net operating expenses of £1,483m consumed 61.3% of sales, leaving a 6.6% adjusted operating margin. The gap between those two numbers is the whole investment case: operating costs are largely fixed store rents, store payroll and marketing, so each incremental pound of comparable sales drops through at a high rate, and each pound lost does the reverse. That is why revenue fell 17% in FY2025 and adjusted operating profit fell 94%.

The moat, such as it is. Burberry's durable asset is category ownership rather than scale. It invented gabardine and the trench coat, holds the check as a registered trademark, and in outerwear and scarves it has genuine pricing authority that survived the brand's repositioning wobble. The 2026 financial year marked the company's 170th anniversary, and the Victoria and Albert Museum is mounting a free display devoted to the trench coat from 21 September 2026. That heritage is not replicable by a competitor with more money.

Where the moat is thin. Outside outerwear and scarves, Burberry competes in leather goods and ready-to-wear against houses with several times its marketing budget, and its attempt to push price architecture upward under the previous management destroyed roughly a fifth of its revenue base. The current strategy explicitly retreats from that: management describes the product and pricing approach as "delivering value for money in a luxury context" across good, better and best price tiers. That is a sounder commercial position but a weaker moat, because it puts Burberry closer to the accessible-luxury field where Tapestry and Capri operate.

Capital allocation. Cash is going to the balance sheet and to reinvestment, not to shareholders. FY2026 capital expenditure was £113m with roughly £120m guided for FY2027, restructuring cost £45m, and the £300m sustainability-linked bond was repaid in full on 22 September 2025. Adjusted group return on invested capital recovered to 5.5% from 1.0%, but remains far below the 24.6% to 28.6% achieved in FY2022 and FY2023.

5. Financial Health

All figures below come from Burberry's own audited five-year financial summary, its FY2026 preliminary results press release and its FY2026 interim results press release. Burberry reports half-years rather than quarters; the Q1 and Q3 trading updates disclose retail revenue only, with no profit or wholesale figures.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022	£2,826m	n/m †	97.7p	94.0p	47.0p	£298m
FY2023	£3,094m	+9.5%	126.3p	122.5p	61.0p	£298m
FY2024	£2,968m	-4.1%	73.9p	73.9p	61.0p	£299m
FY2025	£2,461m	-17.1%	(20.9)p	(14.8)p	Nil	£738m
FY2026	£2,420m	-1.7%	5.9p	15.2p	Nil	£511m

† FY2022 was a 53-week year and Burberry's five-year summary does not carry the FY2021 revenue comparative, so a like-for-like reported growth rate for FY2022 is not stated here rather than estimated. Burberry's own constant-currency total revenue growth key performance indicator for the same five years was plus 23%, plus 5%, flat, minus 15% and flat. EPS figures are diluted. The long-term debt column is year-end borrowings and excludes IFRS 16 lease liabilities, which were £1,058m, £1,123m, £1,188m, £1,081m and £955m across the same five years. The FY2025 spike to £738m reflects £438m of non-current borrowings plus the £300m sustainability-linked bond then sitting in current liabilities; that bond was repaid on 22 September 2025, leaving £511m all non-current at FY2026.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q1 FY2027 (13 weeks to 27 June 2026)	£455m retail revenue only	Not disclosed in trading updates	Not disclosed in trading updates
H2 FY2026 (26 weeks to 28 March 2026)	£1,388m ‡	14.6p ‡	13.0p ‡
H1 FY2026 (26 weeks to 27 September 2025)	£1,032m	0.6p	(7.1)p
FY2026 total (52 weeks to 28 March 2026)	£2,420m	15.2p	5.9p

‡ The second-half row is derived by subtracting the reported first half from the reported full year, because Burberry publishes half-year and full-year statements but not a standalone second-half statement. H1 FY2026 revenue of £1,032m was down 5% and carried an adjusted operating profit of £19m at a 1.9% margin, against a £41m loss a year earlier. The implied second half therefore produced £141m of the full year's £160m adjusted operating profit on £1,388m of revenue, a 10.2% margin. Q1 FY2027 retail revenue of £455m was up 5% reported and 4% at constant currency, with comparable retail sales up 5%.

Cash flow and balance sheet at 28 March 2026. Cash generated from operating activities was £582m, up from £526m. Capital expenditure was £113m, down from £151m. Depreciation and amortisation was £375m, heavily inflated by IFRS 16 lease depreciation against right-of-use assets of £748m. Burberry's own free cash flow measure, which additionally deducts £230m of lease principal payments, £53m of interest and £45m of tax, was £141m against £65m. Cash and cash equivalents were £671m with £57m of bank overdrafts, giving £614m net of overdrafts. Borrowings were £511m, all non-current, comprising the 5.75% £450m bond maturing June 2030 at a £436m carrying value plus £75m drawn on a revolving credit facility maturing March 2028; a separate £300m revolving facility is undrawn. Total lease liabilities were £955m. Management reports net debt of £852m including leases, down from £1,111m, or 1.6x adjusted EBITDA from 2.3x. Excluding leases the company holds net cash of roughly £103m. Total equity was £946m and inventories £401m, with gross finished-goods inventory down 13%.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	£3.64bn at 1,016.50p on 358.21m shares per London Stock Exchange data, 17–18 September 2026. On the 361,010,620 total voting rights confirmed in Burberry's RNS of 1 September 2026 the figure is £3.67bn
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	172.3x on FY2026 reported diluted EPS of 5.9p, as published by the London Stock Exchange. On FY2026 adjusted diluted EPS of 15.2p the same price gives 66.9x. The GAAP multiple is close to meaningless because attributable profit of £21m was almost entirely absorbed by a 58.5% reported effective tax rate and £45m of restructuring charges
P/E (forward)	26.5x, calculated as 1,016.5p divided by FY2027 adjusted diluted EPS of 38.4p from Burberry's own company-compiled analyst consensus dated 10 July 2026 (19 estimates, high 45.7p, low 32.3p). That consensus also carries FY2027 revenue of £2,544m and adjusted operating profit of £246m
P/S (TTM)	1.50x (market cap £3,640m / FY2026 revenue £2,420m)
Enterprise value	£4.49bn (market cap £3.64bn + borrowings £0.51bn + lease liabilities £0.96bn − cash net of overdrafts £0.61bn, per the 28 March 2026 balance sheet). Excluding IFRS 16 lease liabilities the equivalent figure is £3.54bn, because Burberry is in a net cash position on a pre-lease basis
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	9.2x (EV £4,492m / reported EBITDA £490m, where EBITDA = reported operating profit £115m + depreciation and amortisation £375m from the FY2026 cash flow statement). On Burberry's own adjusted EBITDA of £549m, which excludes the £45m restructuring charge, the multiple is 8.2x. Both figures are flattered by IFRS 16, under which store rent appears as lease depreciation and interest rather than as an operating cost
P/FCF	7.8x on the standard formula (market cap £3,640m / FCF £469m, where FCF = cash generated from operating activities £582m − capital expenditure £113m per the FY2026 cash flow statement). On Burberry's own definition of free cash flow, which also deducts £230m of lease principal, £53m of interest and £45m of tax to reach £141m, the multiple is 25.8x. For a retailer with £955m of lease liabilities the second figure is the more economically honest of the two
Price/book	3.85x (market cap £3,640m / total equity £946m at 28 March 2026)
52-week high	1,376.50p, set on 6 January 2026
52-week low	953.40p, set on 16 September 2026, two days before the date of this report. MarketBeat separately recorded a 52-week low of 977.60p on 15 September 2026; the London Stock Exchange figure is both later and lower
Dividend yield	0.00%. No dividend was declared for FY2025 or FY2026, and no buyback was undertaken in either year
Net debt / adjusted EBITDA	1.6x including lease liabilities, down from 2.3x at FY2025
Short interest (% of float)	3.48% of issued share capital in disclosed open short positions per London Stock Exchange data: Kintbury Capital 1.44% (last changed 14 April 2026), Citadel Advisors LLC 0.69% (6 July 2026), D. E. Shaw 0.69% (30 June 2026) and Citadel Advisors Europe 0.66% (7 July 2026). Three of the four have been reducing, and Marshall Wace exited the disclosed list in July 2026. The UK regime only captures positions above 0.5%, so 3.48% is a floor, not the total
Days to cover	Not published for UK-listed lines. Neither the FCA short-selling register nor the London Stock Exchange discloses borrow volumes or a short-interest ratio for UK shares; only percentage of issued share capital is published. The 0.3-day figure carried by US data vendors relates to the thinly traded OTC ADR and is not comparable. Verify at fca.org.uk/markets/short-selling

7. What Are They Building

Burberry Forward is the transformation programme Joshua Schulman initiated in FY2025, and FY2026 was its first year of visible output. The cost element is nearly finished: £80m of annualised operating expense savings landed in FY2026 against a £100m target by FY2027, and the restructuring charge is guided to fall from £45m to roughly £5m in FY2027. Average full-time-equivalent headcount fell 13% to 7,613. Balance-sheet restructuring provisions fell to £19m from £27m. In other words the reorganisation is essentially complete and FY2027 earnings should no longer carry a material adjusting charge.

The commercial build is where the remaining work sits. Management's stated approach is to assert authority in the categories Burberry demonstrably owns and then extend outward. Outerwear and scarves were both up double digit in the second half of FY2026, and the company is converting that into physical retail architecture: 200 scarf bars were installed in FY2026, and polo galleries and dedicated trench destinations are rolling out in FY2027, with 97 polo galleries live by Father's Day 2026. The store estate stopped shrinking in the June 2026 quarter, moving from 410 directly operated stores at year end to 413.

Digital and customer recruitment are the second workstream. E-commerce grew high teens in FY2026 and mid-teens in Q1 FY2027 on an improved site experience. Gen-Z customers grew double digit in the June quarter, and the "Portraits of an Icon" campaign drove a 19% increase in new rainwear customers. Q1 FY2027 was the first quarter in three years with simultaneous growth across womenswear, menswear, accessories and childrenswear, which is the clearest single indicator that the repositioning has stopped alienating the existing customer base.

Brand investment is being timed around the 170th anniversary. The autumn 2026 campaign, "Heads Back to the City", is built around the London commute and narrated by a real transport announcer. The Victoria and Albert Museum opens a free trench-coat display on 21 September 2026 running to 3 January 2027, and Daniel Lee shows the Spring/Summer 2027 collection on the closing evening of London Fashion Week on the same date. One item to note on the sustainability side: Burberry approved its first Climate Transition Plan during FY2026 but extended its net zero target from FY2039/40 to FY2049/50, a material softening.

8. Competitive Landscape

Reporting periods across the luxury sector are not aligned, so absolute revenue figures are not comparable without normalising. LVMH, Kering, Prada, Moncler and Hugo Boss report calendar half-years; Richemont and Capri report a single quarter to 30 June 2026; Tapestry reports a full year to 27 June 2026; Burberry's FY2026 ended 28 March 2026. Market capitalisations below were re-checked in mid-September 2026.

Peer	Market cap (September 2026)	Key 2025/2026 metric
LVMH (EPA: MC)	€203.2bn / US$232.5bn	H1 2026 revenue €38.6bn with profit from recurring operations of €8.7bn at a 22.5% margin; Q2 organic revenue up 3% but Fashion & Leather Goods down 1% organic at €18.1bn. Bloomberg reported on 15 September 2026 that LVMH had dropped out of Europe's ten most valuable stocks for the first time since 2017
Richemont (SWX: CFR)	Approximately CHF 110bn / US$122bn. Sources differ by roughly 8% depending on the treatment of the dual A/B share structure, with one giving CHF 101.7bn at 14 September 2026	Q1 FY2027, the three months to 30 June 2026, sales of €6.329bn, up 20% at constant rates. Jewellery Maisons up 24% at constant rates, a seventh consecutive double-digit quarter; Specialist Watchmakers up 8%
Kering (EPA: KER)	€29.4bn / US$33.7bn	H1 2026 revenue €7.2bn, up 1% comparable and down 3% reported, with recurring operating income of €921m at a 12.8% margin. This was the first return to comparable growth after twelve consecutive declining quarters
Tapestry (NYSE: TPR)	US$23.1bn	Fiscal 2026 to 27 June 2026: record revenue of US$8.0bn, up 14%, with direct-to-consumer up 16%, roughly 11.0m new customers of whom about 35% were Gen Z, and US$1.7bn returned to shareholders
Prada (HKG: 1913)	HK$99.4bn / US$12.7bn	H1 2026 net revenues €3.04bn, up 16% reported but only 5% organic at constant currency, with EBIT of €523m down from €607m. The reported-versus-organic gap is the Versace acquisition from Capri for €1.25bn, completed December 2025
Moncler (BIT: MONC)	Approximately €12.0bn	H1 2026 revenues €1,289.9m, up 9% at constant currency, with EBIT of €245.4m at a 19.0% margin and net profit of €164.7m. Shares hit a three-year low of €43.46 in mid-September 2026
Hugo Boss (ETR: BOSS)	€2.62bn, pinned near the offer price rather than standalone fundamentals	Being taken over by Frasers Group, which launched a €38.00 per share cash offer on 10 June 2026 for the shares it did not already own, valuing them at €1.978bn; the offer became unconditional after European Commission clearance in late July 2026. H1 2026 EBIT €94m at a 5.2% margin, with group sales down 8% currency-adjusted. Frasers Group is separately a Burberry shareholder
Capri Holdings (NYSE: CPRI)	US$1.5bn to US$1.7bn, the smallest of the set after selling Versace to Prada	Q1 fiscal 2027, the quarter to late June 2026: revenue US$769m, down 3.5%, with income from operations of US$17m at a 2.2% margin and adjusted EPS of US$0.67. Gross margin improved 200 basis points to 65.0%

Bain and Altagamma, presenting in Milan on 25 June 2026, put total global luxury spending at €1,443bn in 2025 with a 2026 forecast of flat to plus 2% at constant rates. The personal luxury goods segment that matters to Burberry was €358bn in 2025, down from €364bn in 2024, with a 2026 base case of plus 2% to plus 4% to reach €365bn to €373bn. Under-35 consumers are spending roughly four percentage points faster than older cohorts. Burberry does not appear in Modaes' June 2026 ranking of the ten largest luxury groups by FY2025 revenue, which runs LVMH, Richemont, Chanel, Hermès, Kering, Chow Tai Fook, Ralph Lauren, Tapestry, Prada and Hugo Boss. Company-level market share percentages for 2026 are not published by Bain or Altagamma and are not estimated here.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Joshua Schulman has been chief executive since 17 July 2024, on a service agreement dated 14 July 2024 with twelve months' notice. Catherine "Kate" Ferry is chief financial officer and Daniel Lee is chief creative officer. Gerry Murphy, who joined the board in May 2018, will retire as chair with effect from the interim results on 12 November 2026, near the end of his nine-year tenure; William Jackson, founder and former chief executive and chair of Bridgepoint Group and previously chair of Pret a Manger and MotoGP, joined the board as a non-executive director on 1 July 2026 and stood for election at the annual general meeting on 15 July 2026. Orna NiChionna is senior independent director and led the chair succession search. Alexander Lacik, the former Pandora chief executive, joined as an independent non-executive director on 1 September 2026.

Calendar 2026 director dealings are dominated by open-market buying rather than selling. The only disposal was a mandatory sale to fund tax on a vesting award.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Joshua Schulman, Chief Executive Officer	25 Jun 2026	Open-market purchase	56,936	1,089.1083p	£620,094.70	Own funds, no plan
Catherine Ferry, Chief Financial Officer	25 Jun 2026	Open-market purchase	32,026	1,089.1083p	£348,797.82	Own funds, no plan
Stella King, Non-Executive Director	20 Mar 2026	Open-market purchase	608	1,024.357p	£6,228.09	Own funds, no plan
Catherine Ferry, Chief Financial Officer	27 Jul 2026	Acquisition on vesting	39,198	Nil cost	Nil	Burberry Share Plan 2020, conditional award granted 27 Jul 2023; committee scaled vesting back by 20% and the unvested portion lapsed
Catherine Ferry, Chief Financial Officer	27 Jul 2026	Sale to fund tax and fees	18,479	1,090.25p	£201,467.80	Mandatory tax sale on vesting; 20,719 shares retained under a two-year holding period
Joshua Schulman, Chief Executive Officer	30 Jul 2026	Grant of conditional awards	488,035 (325,357 PSP + 162,678 RSP)	Nil cost, reference price 1,139.67p	Nil paid	Burberry Share Plan 2020 under the remuneration policy approved 15 Jul 2026; vests 30 Jul 2029 then a two-year holding period
Catherine Ferry, Chief Financial Officer	30 Jul 2026	Grant of conditional awards	198,263 (106,757 PSP + 91,506 RSP)	Nil cost, reference price 1,139.67p	Nil paid	Burberry Share Plan 2020; vests 30 Jul 2029 then a two-year holding period

Performance share plan awards are measured one third each on revenue, group return on invested capital and relative total shareholder return over FY2026/27 to FY2028/29. Burberry also operates an all-employee Sharesave scheme in seventeen countries, a Free Share Plan and a UK Share Incentive Plan. There has been no director or PDMR dealing announcement since 30 July 2026. On ownership, BlackRock fell below the 5% notification threshold on 27 August 2026, reporting total exposure of 18,025,307 shares and instruments, of which 16,677,771 were voting rights in shares equal to 4.61%. Frasers Group had built exposure to 4.16% as at 28 July 2026, up from 3.05% four days earlier, largely through sold put options rather than shares; press reports around 14 to 15 September 2026 attributed part of the share price fall to Frasers trimming that position, but no notification confirming a reduction has been filed, so that remains reported rather than verified.

10. Key Risks

• Revenue stabilisation risk: FY2026 revenue was flat at constant currency and still 22% below the FY2023 peak. The company's own compiled consensus requires 5% constant-currency revenue growth in FY2027 to deliver the £246m adjusted operating profit the share price appears to assume. Comparable sales momentum has been positive for five consecutive quarters, but the Q1 FY2027 print was exactly in line rather than ahead.
• Greater China concentration: Greater China is 28.4% of retail and wholesale revenue and the region that swung most violently, from a collapse in FY2025 to plus 9% comparable in Q1 FY2027. Business of Fashion coverage in September 2026 flagged a renewed slowdown in Chinese luxury spending and the risk of "another false dawn". A second China downturn would hit Burberry harder than more diversified peers.
• Operating leverage cuts both ways: with 67.9% gross margin and 61.3% of sales absorbed by largely fixed operating costs, small revenue moves produce large profit moves. FY2025 demonstrated the downside: a 17% revenue decline took adjusted operating profit down 94%. The cost programme has removed £80m of the £100m target, so there is limited further cushion.
• No capital return and no stated timetable: two consecutive years of zero dividend and zero buyback, with the FY2026 annual report confirming no buyback programme was undertaken and capital directed to deleveraging. Income and index funds that require a distribution cannot hold the stock, and management has given no condition or date for resumption.
• Tourism and currency exposure: Japan turned negative in Q1 FY2027 specifically because inbound Chinese tourism declined, and EMEIA fell 3% with the Middle East the only support. Currency moved from a guided headwind to a roughly £20m revenue tailwind between 1 May and 26 June 2026 spot rates, which illustrates how much of the reported result is translation rather than trading. FX was a £6m headwind to FY2026 adjusted operating profit.
• Brand and creative execution: the current strategy deliberately repositions Burberry toward value for money across good, better and best price tiers, which is commercially sensible but narrows the gap to accessible-luxury competitors. Daniel Lee's Spring/Summer 2027 collection had not been shown at the date of this report. A poorly received collection or a second repositioning would reset the recovery.
• Tax and adjusting-item noise: the FY2026 reported effective tax rate was 58.5% and the adjusted rate 42.5%, against FY2027 guidance of 27% to 30%. Reported profit of £21m is small enough that modest movements in restructuring charges or tax outcomes swing GAAP earnings by large percentages, which is why the trailing GAAP multiple of 172x carries little information.

11. Recent Developments

• 16 Sep 2026 — Shares set a new 52-week low of 953.40p. The low came two days after the stock closed at £9.98 on 14 September. Press reports attributed part of the decline to Frasers Group trimming its Burberry position, though no notification confirming a reduction has been filed. Shares recovered roughly 3.2% over 16 and 17 September as European equities rallied, closing at 1,016.50p.
• 1 Sep 2026 — Alexander Lacik joined the board as an independent non-executive director. The former Pandora chief executive also joined the nomination committee. The appointment had been announced on 30 July 2026.
• 1 Sep 2026 — Total voting rights confirmed at 361,010,620. Burberry reported 363,849,840 ordinary shares of 0.05p in issue at 31 August 2026, of which 2,839,220 were held in treasury. This is the most recent Burberry regulatory announcement of any kind.
• 28 Aug 2026 — BlackRock fell below the 5% notification threshold. The threshold was crossed on 27 August. BlackRock reported 16,677,771 voting rights in shares equal to 4.61%, plus 0.09% via instruments and 0.27% via cash-settled contracts for difference, for total exposure of 18,025,307.
• Aug 2026 — Autumn campaign and Burberry Beauty expansion. The "Heads Back to the City" campaign launched around 4 August, built on the London commute and trench-led. Burberry Beauty opened a standalone fragrance and make-up destination inside Shinsegae South City in Seoul.
• 30 Jul 2026 — Performance and restricted share awards granted to the chief executive and chief financial officer. Joshua Schulman received 488,035 conditional shares and Kate Ferry 198,263, at nil cost against a reference price of 1,139.67p, under the remuneration policy approved at the 15 July 2026 annual general meeting. Awards vest on 30 July 2029.
• 17 Jul 2026 — Q1 FY2027 trading update beat on breadth rather than magnitude. Retail revenue of £455m was up 5% reported and comparable retail sales up 5%. The Americas grew 12% and Greater China 9%, while EMEIA fell 3% and Japan fell 2%. It was the first quarter in three years with growth across womenswear, menswear, accessories and childrenswear simultaneously, and wholesale guidance for the first half was raised from mid-single-digit to high-single-digit growth.
• 14 May 2026 — FY2026 preliminary results and chair succession. Revenue of £2,420m with adjusted operating profit up from £26m to £160m, free cash flow up 120% to £141m, and no dividend for a second year. Alongside the results the company announced that Gerry Murphy would retire as chair from the November 2026 interim results.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 21 Sep 2026 — Daniel Lee shows the Spring/Summer 2027 collection at 7:00pm on the closing day of London Fashion Week
• 21 Sep 2026 — "The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon" opens as a free display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, running to 3 January 2027 and marking the company's 170th anniversary
• 12 Nov 2026 — H1 FY2027 interim results at 07:00 UK time, covering the 26 weeks ending 26 September 2026. Gerry Murphy retires as chair with effect from this date and William Jackson succeeds him
• Expected Jan 2027 — Q3 FY2027 trading update. Burberry has historically reported the third quarter in mid-to-late January but has not yet published the date; only 12 November 2026 currently appears on its financial calendar
• Expected May 2027 — FY2027 preliminary results, historically mid-May. Date not yet published
• TBC — Any resumption of the dividend or a buyback. No dividend has been declared for FY2025 or FY2026, there are no ex-dividend or payment dates in the calendar, and management has set no condition or timetable for restarting distributions

Macro releases that move the luxury sector, principally Chinese retail sales and European consumer confidence, are tracked on our Economic Calendar. Discussion of this report and other UK large-caps is open on the ChartsView Forum.

---

Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.