During Mattel’s most recent earnings call, CEO Bryan Stockton admitted that Barbie was “not out of the woods yet.”
But neither was Stockton, who got the ax Monday for leading Mattel to a down year in an industry that actually grew 4 percent.
“It was the second Christmas season in a row where they lost a lot of market share,” said Linda Weiser, an analyst at B. Riley.
While announcing the departure of Stockton, who ran Mattel for three years, the company issued preliminary results for 2014. Those included a 7 percent decline in sales, to $6.02 billion, and a 45 percent drop in net income, to $499 million.
It also announced that Christopher Sinclair — a Mattel director since 1996 and a former PepsiCo CEO — had assumed interim leadership.
Shares fell 5 percent, or $1.40, to $26.64.
Barbie was not the only misstep leading to Stockton’s ouster. Mattel also had sharp declines in other brands, particularly its Monster High line, Weiser noted.
Yet the loss of Barbie’s longstanding status as the No. 1 gift for girls going into the holiday season — Disney’s “Frozen” franchise emerged on top, according to the National Retail Federation — likely sealed Stockton’s fate.
Not all is lost, however, as Barbie is re-teaming with a long-standing side-kick — not Ken — Richard Dickson.
Dickson, a former Mattel senior VP, oversaw a revitalization of Barbie last decade before becoming Jones Group’s CEO of branded businesses in 2010.
His return to Mattel as chief brands officer in May has led to his being promoted to co-president on Jan. 13 and has some observers bullish on Barbie again.