The business is not growing, however: with revenues of $2.6 billion and a gross margin of 44% in 2022, its business performance is about the same as in 2012.

Operating margins, for their part, are finally recovering after a decade of investment in digital. Online sales accounted for exactly one-fifth of total sales: twice as much as Levi's, but half as much as the Gap.

Guess still maintains a large network of stores, with 1,623 points of sale in 2022 compared to 1,055 ten years ago. A sign of prudence: this expansion of the geographical footprint was entirely self-financed.

The group will generate $1 billion in cumulative profits over the period 2012-2022, on a more or less constant basis. At the same time, it is returning a total of $1.4 billion to its shareholders, half in dividends, the other half in share buybacks - the number of shares outstanding is thus decreasing by a third.

The corresponding gap of $400 million was financed by a comparable increase in debt. Management clearly intends to keep a significant cash position at all times - $416 million at the end of the 2022 fiscal year. Another sign of caution.

At $21 per share, Guess is still valued at x10-x12 its average annual profit over the last decade, a multiple that is typical of a business without growth and potentially subject to temporary fashion effects.

As we said, the brand is used to these fluctuations, because if the last three years show a recovery in sales and profits, the three years before were much more difficult.

On the topic of management, it should be noted that the Marciano brothers, who still hold a third of the capital, have managed to resist the activist push of the Legion Partners fund. However, this was not illegitimate.

The brothers have been implicated in cases of sexual harassment and opaque transactions between Guess and other entities they control - for example, suppliers or the company that operates the group's business jet - and are not exactly in the odor of sanctity everywhere they go.