HARD Message Board

The Brand Abercrombie and Fitch disappointed analysts this morning when it reported sales missed already lowered expectations.
The teen retailer said it earned $0.19 a share on sales of $951.4 million as same-store sales tumbled.
"The second quarter results we are reporting today are disappointing and below our expectations coming into the quarter," the company's CEO, Mike Jefferies, said this morning.
Once the darling of the specialty retailer sector, Abercrombie has remained uncompetitive since the recession hit in 2007 and its shares have fallen more than 33 percent this year.
But the financials aren't the only thing that disappoint people about the company.

1. Prior to a legal settlement, Abercrombie UK was allegedly hiring predominantly from white sororities and fraternities

Abercrombie and Fitch has faced a number of lawsuits over discriminatory hiring practices — including recruiting at predominately white sorority and fraternity houses. In 2004, Eduardo Gonzalez, a lead plaintiff said he was urged to apply for an overnight stock position and that the store manager favored two white applicants in a group interview. The company settled and said it would change its recruitment practices.

2. Abercrombie and Fitch Outlet managers reportedly made an employee with a prosthetic limb work in the stockroom

But the lawsuits for Abercrombie do not end at the interview process. The teen retailer also shifted mostly non-white employees and those who were less attractive to the stock room, away from customers. Then, in 2009, the company was rocked by a lawsuit in the U.K. when managers forced a 22 year-old employee with a prosthetic arm (Riam Dean) off the selling floor.