The CEO of luxury home furnishings retailer RH unleashed a four-letter expletive during an earnings call as he watched share in the company plunge about 40% during the Wall Street selloff.
Gary Friedman appeared to be caught off guard by the sudden market reaction after glancing at the stock’s performance as he spoke with analysts Wednesday.
“Oh sh–. OK. … I just looked at the screen. I hadn’t looked at it. It got hit when I think the tariffs came out,” Friedman said.
“And everybody can see in our 10-K where we’re sourcing from, so it’s not a secret, and we’re not trying to disguise it by putting everything in an Asia bucket.”
The dramatic selloff came in the wake of a disappointing earnings report and Trump’s decision Wednesday to introduced sweeping tariffs on Asian imports.
The California-based company’s stock closed at $250 a share at 4 p.m., just as Trump began his “Liberation Day” announcement at the White House. But after he unveiled tariffs on global trading partner RH plummeted in after-hours trading, falling to $184.
The stock continued to get pummeled the past two days, closing at $145.66 on Thursday. The company is down 63% for the year.
The tariffs — which included levies of 46% on Vietnamese goods, 32% on imports from Taiwan, and a hike to 54% for Chinese products — reignited fears over rising costs for companies like RH that rely heavily on overseas manufacturing.
“Anybody of scale in the home business has a high percentage of their content coming out of Asia,” Friedman explained.
“Anybody who says they don’t, that would just shock me.”
Adding to the pressure, Friedman painted a grim picture of the broader housing market, which he described as the weakest in decades.
“The fact is we’ve been operating in the worst housing market in almost 50 years,” he told analysts, citing stagnant home sales despite a significant increase in US population since the late 1970s.
Despite those challenges, Friedman said RH had maintained a performance level “most would expect in a robust housing market.”
However, the numbers told a different story. The company missed analyst expectations, posting adjusted earnings of $1.58 per share on $812 million in revenue — short of the $1.92 earnings per share and $830 million forecasted by analysts surveyed by LSEG.
Looking ahead, RH projected first-quarter revenue growth between 12.5% and 13.5%, and full-year growth between 10% and 13% — both underwhelming compared to Wall Street’s expectations.
Still, Friedman struck a defiant tone about the company’s future strategy.
While light on details, he hinted that RH is accelerating a “big and bold” sourcing shift in response to the new trade climate.
“This move is quite stunning,” he said. “It’s going to force everyone to just play a different game.”
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