Dear Shareholders,
Dear Readers,

For HUGO BOSS, 2022 proved to be an extremely successful year. Our strong comeback is clear testament to the power and strength of our “CLAIM 5” strategy, introduced in August 2021. In particular, our bold branding refresh impressively fueled the power of BOSS and HUGO, enabling both our brands to successfully expand market shares around the globe. This led to record sales for our Company of EUR 3.7 billion. More importantly, our momentum was broad based across both brands, all regions, and all consumer touchpoints – and it was accompanied by significant bottom-line improvements, with EBIT mounting up to EUR 335 million. Together, we managed to exceed our full-year sales and earnings targets, which we had revised upwards twice during the year.

With “CLAIM 5”, we have introduced the right strategy at the right time. A strategy that enables us to unlock the full potential of HUGO BOSS. Thanks to its powerful and rigorous execution, we have made a kickstart and achieved significant progress in numerous important brand, product, and sales initiatives within a short period of time. In doing so, 2022 marks the first important milestone on our 2025 growth journey. However, our ambition has not changed: We want to become one of the top 100 global brands, and turn consumers from all over the world into true fans of BOSS and HUGO.

“CLAIM 5” is all about the consumer. To anchor our position in the consumers’ minds and significantly enhance brand relevance, in 2022, we ushered in a whole new era with our highly successful branding refresh. In particular, the spectacular launch of our record-breaking campaigns quickly and strongly boosted brand power for BOSS and HUGO, putting our brands into the spotlight more than ever before. Thanks to our brands’ new image and numerous spectacular fashion events, we kept up the pace and further increased brand heat as the year progressed, attracting consumers from all over the world. Be it through our unique fashion events in the Dubai desert, at Milan Fashion Week, and in Palm Springs, or through our comeback to Formula 1 and on the slopes of the legendary Hahnenkamm Races. All of this led to staggering brand momentum, with more than 50 billion views, around 2 billion interactions, and a significant uplift in global demand for our collections.

Our bold branding refresh impressively fueled brand power of BOSS and HUGO.

Speaking about our collections: our products are at the heart of everything we do and an essential part of our branding refresh. Only recently, we celebrated the launch of our new Spring/Summer 2023 collections – once more fully embodying our new and unique “look and feel” as well as our superior price-value proposition. The overwhelmingly positive response to our new brand identity has led to strong full-price sales in 2022 and ongoing high demand from wholesale partners and customers alike. Most importantly, through our strong and diverse product mix, today we live up to our promise to dress our customers from head to toe, and for every occasion 24/7. The successful relaunch of our brand lines BOSS Black, BOSS Orange, and BOSS Green and the introduction of the exclusive BOSS Camel line were particular highlights in this regard. HUGO, the first touchpoint for younger consumers, will seamlessly follow on, as we will continue to grasp growth opportunities across various important product categories, including denim, jersey, and outerwear.

Powerful Brands

We ushered in a whole new era with our highly successful branding refresh - new products, record-breaking campaigns and spectacular events have impressively fueled the power of BOSS and HUGO.

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Today’s world is led by digital. In line with our vision of being the leading premium tech-driven fashion platform worldwide, we remain fully dedicated to “Lead in Digital” and to maximize our digital opportunities. For us, this means continuing to digitalize our business activities along the entire value chain and maintaining a strong focus on leveraging the power of data. Our HUGO BOSS Digital Campus is at the core of our digital journey. Building on the successful global relaunch of hugoboss.com in early 2022, one of its top priorities going forward will be the maximized use of data analytics aimed at reducing complexity and further enhancing efficiency across our business activities. On that, we will also link digital and physical commerce even more closely in the years to come to offer our customers a best-in-class omnichannel experience. This also includes a firm commitment to metaverse, which we entered with a bang last year, as HUGO launched its first set of NFTs that sold out within seconds.

Whether in the virtual or real world, we always pursue one goal as part of our omnichannel strategy: transferring our regained brand power to all consumer touchpoints. On that note, we have made substantial progress in 2022. In particular, we pushed ahead with the upgrade of our global retail network as customers can meanwhile experience our branding refresh together with our innovative retail concepts in over 200 points of sale worldwide. Our new BOSS flagship store on London’s vibrant Oxford Street is a clear standout in this regard. We have taken the retail experience to the next level and created a blueprint for the future of our physical store network: brand-led, consumer-focused, and digitally oriented – all in one. But the story does not end here: We are blending in-store shopping experience with our digital touchpoints to live up to our promise to move to where consumers expect us to be. In this context, I am all the more encouraged that our digital business continued its double-digit growth trajectory in 2022, fueled above all by record sales of our refreshed digital flagship hugoboss.com. At the same time, we also celebrated an extremely successful comeback in brick-and-mortar wholesale. Thanks to our 24/7 lifestyle positioning and continued robust demand from wholesale partners in 2022, we significantly increased the visibility and market presence of our brands, enabling us to achieve strong double-digit growth.

Powerful People

Meet the powerhouse people behind “CLAIM 5," with their exceptional commitment and great dedication to our Company and our two strong brands, BOSS and HUGO.

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With a firm commitment to our fifth strategic claim “Organize for Growth,” we have not only embraced a powerhouse organizational setup, but are also establishing a flexible operations platform to ensure our Company’s success well into the future. Regarding the latter, we are making great strides in transforming our supply chain into a full “digital twin” – a tech-driven, cutting-edge platform for speed and growth and a key enabler to best meet consumer demand. At the same time, we ensure that we have a robust supply chain in place – one that actively supports our strong sales momentum and guarantees product availability anytime, anywhere. Our biggest production site in Turkey is at the forefront of all our efforts. In 2022, we successfully expanded its capacity by opening a fourth plant on-site dedicated exclusively to the production of casualwear. This has brought us even closer to our largest sales region, EMEA, and enables us to respond even better and faster to our customers’ needs.

At the heart of “CLAIM 5” also lies our unwavering commitment to sustainability – a cause that is essential to our corporate responsibility. We will not rest, but continue to drive innovation and sustainability across our brands’ offerings to deliver measurable impact for our industry, the environment, and society alike. We have set ourselves ambitious goals, such as decreasing our CO₂ emissions by at least 50% until 2030 and aiming for a “net zero” footprint by 2050. Promoting and implementing a circular business model is of particular importance in this regard, as we are committed to using high-quality, recyclable materials, thereby extending product life cycles and minimizing waste in the years to come. Only recently, we successfully launched the first BOSS polo shirt largely made from the highly innovative and fully recyclable AeoniQ yarn. And while this is just one example of how we aim to lead change in the fashion industry, it clearly shows where we are headed for a better future.

We remain fully committed to continue with the rigorous execution of CLAIM 5.

Dear readers, 2022 was without doubt a huge success for HUGO BOSS in many respects. Despite all these strong achievements, we must not forget that the past year was anything but normal and has significantly changed the lives of many people around the globe. In particular, the devastating war in Ukraine has led to immense hardship for many, while also the ongoing implications of the pandemic, as well as high global inflation, have challenged people’s lives and companies alike. Given these challenges, our strong operational and financial performance in 2022 is all the more remarkable. And while macroeconomic uncertainty is expected to remain elevated also this year, we are committed to making further progress towards our 2025 financial ambition. The determined and rigorous execution of “CLAIM 5” will therefore take center stage also in 2023. This includes, above all, building on the strong brand power gained in the wake of our comprehensive branding refresh and maintaining the robust top-line momentum. Against the backdrop of the ongoing macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties, we expect Group sales in 2023 to grow at a mid-single-digit percentage rate, and EBIT to increase to a level of between EUR 350 million and EUR 375 million.

Dear shareholders, it is and remains of great importance to us that you participate in the success of “CLAIM 5”. In this context, we are particularly pleased that the successful execution of our strategy has also been well received on the stock market, as reflected in the strong outperformance of our shares against nearly all competitors as well as major indices in 2022. And of course we also want you to participate in the success of HUGO BOSS through an attractive dividend. In view of our outstanding operational performance, our very robust financial stance, and our confidence in the continued success of “CLAIM 5”, we therefore propose a dividend of EUR 1.00 per share for fiscal year 2022.

Allow me to conclude on a personal note. What impressed me most in 2022 was the outstanding motivation and strong team mentality of our almost 17,000 employees, who are relentlessly executing “CLAIM 5” with great passion to make HUGO BOSS stronger, more sustainable, and more resilient than ever before. Our people and teams are the backbone of our Company and impressively demonstrate day by day that we can accomplish anything if we trust and support each other. I therefore extend my gratitude to all our employees for their exceptional commitment and great dedication to our Company and our two strong brands, BOSS and HUGO. Together as a team, we will continue with all our power and all our passion towards our ambition to ultimately become one of the top 100 global brands. Thanks to our excellent team and our winning formula “CLAIM 5”, I have every confidence that 2023 will be another successful year for HUGO BOSS.

Thank you for your ongoing support!

Sincerely yours,