Australian fashion and footwear conglomerate Accent Group has confirmed it is in the throes of an ASIC investigation in an ASX announcement this morning.
The corporate watchdog is trawling through the company’s books over suspected Corporations Act breaches involving trades in Accent Group's securities over a critical three-week window: May 23 to June 10, 2025.
The section 19(2) notice is an information-gathering and assistance notice, and requires Accent to take preservation steps in relation to communications and electronic storage devices from January 1, 2025, concerning Accent CEO Daniel Agostinelli, non-executive director Michael Hapgood and another senior employee of Accent.
No charges have been laid against any person, and there are no allegations against the company. Accent Group – which manages over 30 brands, including Hoka, The Athlete’s Foot and Hype DC – added that it has cooperated with ASIC and intends to continue to do so.
According to Accent Group, Agostinelli’s on-market share sales were pre-approved by the former chair of Accent, David Gordon, during the three-week window, within which Gordon also announced his retirement. The current board added it fully supports Agostinelli in his ongoing role as CEO.
Hapgood, meanwhile, has advised the board that he did not trade in the securities of the company between May 23 and June 10, 2025.
ASX filings show Agostinelli sold 800,712 Accent shares via his 2Como Trust within the three-week period last year — netting approximately $1.49 million — at prices between $1.8535 and $1.867 per share.
The same ASX filing also disclosed that Agostinelli's previous notice on April 28, 2025 contained inaccuracies — misclassifying direct vs indirect holdings and misstating share counts by 795,031 shares. The filing stresses this didn't affect his overall interest.
Accent Group also shared a trading update in its announcement this morning, noting that total owned sales for the first 18 weeks of the second half of FY26 (December 19, 2025 to May 3, 2026) increased by 7.1 per cent compared with the prior corresponding period.
Over the same period, like-for-like retail sales were 1 per cent lower.
Gross margin for the continuing business was 54.2 per cent, 80 basis points lower than the prior corresponding period.
While trading to the end of March was in line with its prior guidance, Accent Group noted that the escalation in geopolitical tensions since late March has contributed to higher fuel prices and a significant deterioration in consumer confidence, impacting sales and gross margin in April.
Alongside its belief that conditions are unlikely to abate in the short term, Accent Group has trimmed its EBIT guidance for the second half of FY26 to now be in the range of $23 million and $28 million. This is doesn from $30 million to $35 million that was projected on February 25 this year.
This range includes approximately $2 million of restructuring costs expected to be incurred by the company from April to June FY26 as part of a new cost-out program to be announced by the company next week on May 13.
The company now expects EBIT for FY26 to be in the range of $79.5 million to $84.5 million.