PER, EPS, PBR and BPS are calculated in-house from the last 4 quarters (2025Q3–2026Q2) · Dividend yield is based on ₩0 per share · Prices as of the 2026-10-02 close
SJ Group returned to a small operating and net profit in Q2 2026 after five consecutive quarters of losses, though revenue remains in a year-over-year decline.
2025 revenue came to KRW 163.4bn (down 10.1% YoY) with an operating loss of KRW 15.9bn, marking a second consecutive annual loss following 2024.
After losses persisted through Q1 2026, Q2 2026 posted revenue of KRW 38.5bn with a small operating profit of KRW 0.29bn and owner net profit of KRW 0.05bn.
In January 2025 the company signed a Kangol bag global license, a hat sub-license, and an exclusive import deal for Alexandre de Paris, diversifying its business structure.
The stock trades at a multiple below net asset value on a price-to-book basis, and no dividend was paid for the most recent fiscal year.
Repositioning Helen Kaminski as a full-line fashion brand and running LCDC showrooms in Paris and Shanghai were flagged as key rebuilding tasks for the second half.
Founded in 2008, SJ Group is a brand-license-based total fashion company that manufactures and sells hats, bags, and apparel.
Its core brands are the street-casual label Kangol, the children's line Kangol Kids, and the premium hat brand Helen Kaminski, sold mainly through department stores, shopping malls, and duty-free channels.
The apparel industry has estimated that Kangol and Kangol Kids account for a large share of total revenue, though the company has stopped disclosing brand-level figures separately in recent periods.
The portfolio also includes the in-house brand LCDC (Le Conte des Contes), the airline-heritage lifestyle brand PanAm, ECCO Golf apparel, a beauty business, and the newly introduced French hair-accessory brand Alexandre de Paris, added via an exclusive import deal in January 2025.
In the same month, the company signed a global license for the Kangol bag category and a sub-license for hats, moving beyond its previous domestic-only license structure.
As of the end of the third quarter of 2025, the design institute employed 51 people, 15.94% of the total headcount of 320, preserving in-house design and planning capability. The company holds 80 intellectual property rights in total, comprising 5 designs, 72 trademarks, and 3 copyrights.
In terms of competitive positioning, license-based peers commonly cited for comparison include F&F, which operates MLB and Discovery, and The Nature Holdings, which runs National Geographic, with SJ Group generally seen as more domestically concentrated relative to these peers.
| Quarter | Revenue | Operating profit | Op. margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025Q2 | ₩44.6B | -₩3.6B | −8.1% |
| 2025Q3 | ₩34.8B | -₩3.9B | −11.3% |
| 2025Q4 | ₩39.8B | -₩5.2B | −13.2% |
| 2026Q1 | ₩36.9B | -₩3.9B | −10.4% |
| 2026Q2 | ₩38.5B | ₩300M | 0.7% |
| Year | Revenue | Operating profit | Net income (parent) | Op. margin | ROE | Debt-to-equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | ₩197.9B | ₩35.8B | ₩29.1B | 18.1% | 22.7% | 53.6% |
| 2023 | ₩203.7B | ₩15.4B | ₩13.1B | 7.6% | 9.6% | 50.1% |
| 2024 | ₩181.8B | -₩3.2B | -₩2.8B | −1.8% | −2.1% | 70.3% |
| 2025 | ₩163.4B | -₩15.9B | -₩9B | −9.7% | −7.4% | 80.9% |
Consolidated basis (financial statements including subsidiaries) · Final figures from DART filings · Net income attributable to owners of the parent · Data as of 2026-08-23
On an annual basis, revenue peaked in 2022 at KRW 197.9bn with an operating profit of KRW 35.8bn (18.1% operating margin) before turning downward. In 2023, revenue rose to KRW 203.7bn but operating profit fell to KRW 15.4bn (7.6% margin), a sharp margin compression despite higher sales.
Revenue declined to KRW 181.8bn in 2024 and the company swung to an operating loss of KRW 3.2bn. In 2025, revenue fell further to KRW 163.4bn and the operating loss widened to KRW 15.9bn, with an owner net loss of KRW 9.0bn.
Quarterly, losses persisted through 2025: revenue of KRW 44.6bn and an operating loss of KRW 3.6bn in Q2, KRW 34.8bn revenue and a KRW 3.9bn operating loss in Q3, and KRW 39.8bn revenue with a KRW 5.2bn operating loss in Q4.
Q1 2026 revenue was KRW 36.9bn with an operating loss of KRW 3.9bn, but the owner net loss of KRW 5.7bn was considerably larger than the operating loss, suggesting a meaningful impact from non-operating items.
In Q2 2026, revenue reached KRW 38.5bn alongside an operating profit of KRW 0.29bn and an owner net profit of KRW 0.05bn, marking the first simultaneous operating and net profit in five quarters.
That said, the scale of this quarter's profit is very small compared with the double-digit operating margins seen in 2022-2023, and it was achieved on revenue still below the KRW 44.6bn level of Q2 2025.
Total equity declined from KRW 127.9bn in 2022 to KRW 119.1bn in 2025, while the debt ratio rose from 53.6% to 80.9% over the same period, indicating somewhat reduced financial cushioning.
Regulatory filings on preliminary earnings have repeatedly cited weak domestic consumption and unusual weather patterns as recurring drags on the Korean fashion sector's revenue and profit structure in recent years.
Hats and bags are categories especially sensitive to season and weather, so temperature swings in summer and winter directly affect sales.
As a license-based fashion business, SJ Group is often compared with F&F, which operates MLB and Discovery, and The Nature Holdings, which runs National Geographic; these peers have built up a substantial overseas, particularly Chinese, revenue base, while SJ Group has remained more domestically concentrated.
Export exposure was estimated at around 3% of sales in 2024, a level that has drawn criticism for lagging in globalization relative to peers.
The Kangol brand had long been managed through separate regional licensees around the world, but license agreements with existing operators in markets such as China have expired over the past year or two, creating an opening for SJ Group to acquire a global license for the bag category.
Industry observers see whether this deal marks a turning point away from a purely domestic business model as a key point to watch going forward.
Since the second half of 2025, the company has positioned 'license brand rebuilding' as its core strategy. For Kangol, it is pursuing a 'Multi Voice, One Identity' approach, arranging product lines by store concept and strengthening visual merchandising to boost offline foot traffic.
Helen Kaminski is being repositioned from a hat-centric label into a full-line fashion brand by expanding its apparel offering.
The Kangol bag global license signed in January 2025 was internally expected to start showing results from early 2026, though the actual scale of royalty and revenue contribution needs to be confirmed through upcoming quarterly results.
Alexandre de Paris, introduced in 2025, moved from department-store pop-up testing—where repeat purchases and gift demand were confirmed—into a formal brand rollout.
The in-house brand LCDC has run consecutive showrooms in Paris in June 2026 and planned for Shanghai in October 2026 as part of its global expansion effort. The company has stated it intends to pursue rebuilding of its core licensed brands and growth of its self-developed brands simultaneously in the second half.
Since profitability turned negative in recent years without yet showing a full recovery, earnings-based valuation metrics carry limited interpretive value at this stage.
On a price-to-book basis the stock trades at a discounted multiple relative to net asset value, which may reflect a cautious market view on the path to earnings recovery.
With no dividend paid for the most recent fiscal year, the brand rebuilding effort and the trajectory of earnings recovery, rather than dividend appeal, remain the key valuation variables.
In early 2026 the stock saw a short-lived sharp price swing tied to political-theme speculation, which some observers characterized as a supply-demand factor unrelated to fundamental change.
Whether the shift from operating losses to a small profit proves durable is likely to be a key factor shaping how the market assesses valuation going forward.
PER, EPS, PBR and BPS are all calculated in-house (the same method as Naver and Toss) · Dividend yield = cash dividend per share from DART filings (supplemented by KRX) ÷ current price · As of 2026-08-23
Q2 2026 saw both operating profit and owner net profit turn positive simultaneously, halting the string of losses that had continued since Q2 2025. Revenue remains below prior-quarter levels, but cost control or a shift in sales mix may have contributed to the improvement in profitability.
Whether this trend continues into subsequent quarters will be a key gauge of the durability of the earnings recovery.
The January 2025 Kangol bag global license and hat sub-license open up the possibility of overseas royalty and sales generation beyond the previous domestic-only structure.
The exclusive Alexandre de Paris import deal and the effort to reposition Helen Kaminski as a full-line brand are additional pillars of portfolio diversification. However, the actual revenue contribution from these new initiatives has not yet been clearly confirmed in quarterly results.
The current share price trades at a discount to the company's net asset value, which can be viewed as offering relative asset-value cushion. Given the double-digit operating margins achieved in 2022-2023, there is a view that profit structure improvement is possible if the brand rebuilding effort succeeds. This reflects potential for improvement in business metrics rather than a judgment on share price direction.
Revenue fell 10.1% year-over-year in 2025, and H1 2025 revenue also declined 11.6% year-over-year to KRW 88.8bn. H1 2026 revenue, combining Q1 and Q2, also remained below the equivalent period a year earlier, indicating the top-line contraction has not fully stopped.
If the return to profit was driven mainly by cost factors rather than a revenue recovery, questions about its durability could remain.
The operating margin deteriorated steadily from 18.1% in 2022 to 7.6% in 2023, then to -1.8% in 2024 and -9.7% in 2025. Current profitability is substantially lower than the double-digit margins recorded in prior years.
Whether the small Q2 2026 profit signals a reversal of this structural decline or merely a temporary rebound requires confirmation over additional quarters.
With low export exposure, results are heavily dependent on domestic consumption trends and local retail channel dynamics. A high weighting toward seasonally sensitive categories such as hats and bags also exposes the company to revenue volatility from unusual weather.
The company itself has repeatedly cited domestic consumption slowdown and abnormal weather as key drivers of sales and profit fluctuations in its preliminary earnings disclosures.
Hats and bags are sensitive to seasonal and temperature shifts, so continued abnormal weather could directly hurt sales. The company has repeatedly cited domestic consumption weakness and unusual weather as causes of earnings volatility in its preliminary disclosures. A delayed recovery in consumer sentiment could offset the intended effects of the brand rebuilding effort.
Core revenue sources including Kangol, Helen Kaminski, and PanAm are all based on external brand license agreements, so changes in renewal terms or royalty burdens could directly affect profitability.
Recent expansion of the license structure, including the Kangol bag global license and hat sub-license, has widened the scope for such changes. Failure to renew a key license or unfavorable changes to its terms could undermine the business foundation.
The debt ratio rose from 53.6% in 2022 to 80.9% in 2025 alongside a decline in equity, indicating somewhat reduced financial cushioning.
In addition, the stock experienced a sharp short-term price swing tied to political-theme speculation in early 2026, showing exposure to supply-demand volatility unrelated to fundamentals. Such trading dynamics can affect the share price independently of underlying results.
The Q3 2026 quarterly report is due around this time. Check whether the Q2 return to profit continues and whether the revenue decline trend eases.
The in-house brand LCDC's Shanghai showroom is scheduled to take place. This is a point to check for signs of global expansion traction and any overseas revenue contribution.
Check whether the actual sales and royalty contribution from the Kangol bag global license and hat sub-license begin to show up in quarterly results.
The annual audit report and preliminary results for fiscal year 2026 are expected around this time, allowing final confirmation of whether the Q2 profit turn translated into full-year improvement.
SJ Group grew on the back of licensed brands such as Kangol and Helen Kaminski, but entered a period of earnings deterioration marked by revenue decline and operating losses starting in 2024. In 2025, revenue fell to KRW 163.4bn and the operating loss widened to KRW 15.9bn, with losses continuing through Q1 2026.
However, Q2 2026 brought a simultaneous small return to operating and owner net profit, the first sign of earnings improvement in five quarters.
The Kangol bag global license, hat sub-license, and Alexandre de Paris exclusive import deal signed in January 2025 represent potential platforms for diversification and overseas expansion, but their actual revenue contribution has not yet been clearly confirmed in quarterly results.
On valuation, the stock trades at a discount to net asset value and pays no dividend, leaving the durability of the earnings recovery as the key variable for future assessment.
A business structure heavily reliant on domestic and seasonal demand, along with dependence on external brand licenses, remain structural risks worth noting. It will be important to monitor both upcoming quarterly results and the revenue contribution from the new license and brand initiatives going forward.
Report written 2026-09-05 · Data as of 2026-09-04
This content is AI analysis of market data and web search results, provided for information only. It is not a solicitation or recommendation to invest. Investment decisions and their consequences are the investor's own responsibility. Data may be delayed or contain errors.