Canada Goose Holdings (GOOS) Risk Analysis

We collect, process, disclose, maintain and otherwise use data, including personal information about individuals, including data available to us through online activities and other customer interactions in our business. Our current and future marketing programs may depend on our ability to collect, maintain, disclose and otherwise use this information, and our ability to do so is subject to evolving and increasingly demanding international, U.S., Canadian, Chinese, and European legislation, jurisprudence, and regulatory guidelines such as the European Union's General Data Privacy Regulation, Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and China's Personal Information Protection Law. In Canada and the United States, multiple provinces and states have implemented personal information protection legislation. These information and privacy laws require companies to satisfy new data governance requirements including implementing appropriate security measures to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the personal information and allowing data subjects, depending on the jurisdiction, the right to access, correct or delete such data about themselves. Failure to comply with the data protection regulatory landscape could result in significant penalties. Companies are also facing an increasing number of class actions from consumer groups that claim loss or misuse of their personal information. Although we strive to comply with all applicable laws and other security requirements related to privacy and information security, it is possible that these requirements are inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another. They may conflict with other rules or inadvertently not be reflected by our practices, our employees' behaviour or our agreements with business partners. If so, we may suffer damage to our reputation and be subject to proceedings or actions against us by governmental entities or private parties, including a class of plaintiffs in the event of a class action. Any such proceeding or action could hurt our reputation, force us to spend significant amounts to defend our practices, distract our management or otherwise have an adverse effect on our business. We post our privacy policies and practices concerning the collection, use and disclosure of personal information on our websites. Any failure by us to comply with our posted privacy policies or other privacy-related laws and regulations could result in proceedings which could potentially harm our business. In addition, certain of our marketing practices rely upon the sending of commercial electronic messages, including e-mails, to communicate with consumers. We may face risk if our use of commercial electronic messages is found to violate applicable laws and regulations. As information and privacy laws and anti-spam laws change, we may incur additional costs to ensure we remain in compliance. If information and data privacy laws and anti-spam laws become more restrictive at the international, federal, provincial or state levels, our compliance costs may increase, our ability to effectively engage customers via personalized marketing may decrease, our investment in our e-Commerce platform may not be fully realized, our opportunities for growth may be curtailed by our compliance burden and our potential reputational harm or liability for breaches may increase.

Litigation and other claims may arise in the ordinary course of our business and may include employee and client claims, commercial disputes involving business partners and clients, landlord-tenant disputes, intellectual property disputes, product-oriented allegations and personal injury claims. These claims can raise complex factual and legal issues that are subject to risks and uncertainties and could require significant management time. Moreover, our business requires compliance with many laws and regulations, including labour and employment, sales and other taxes, customs, and consumer protection laws and ordinances that regulate retailers generally and/or govern the importation, promotion and sale of merchandise, and the operation of stores and warehouse facilities. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations could subject us to lawsuits and other proceedings, and could also lead to damage awards, fines and penalties. We have in the past and may become involved in legal proceedings or audits, including commercial, contractual, employment, tort and other litigation, and other government and agency investigations. The outcome of some of these legal proceedings, audits, and other contingencies could require us to take, or refrain from taking, actions that could harm our operations or require us to pay substantial amounts of money, harming our financial condition. Additionally, defending against these lawsuits and proceedings may be necessary, which could result in substantial costs and diversion of management's attention and resources, harming our financial condition. There can be no assurance that any pending or future legal or regulatory proceedings and audits will not harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to income taxes in the jurisdictions in which we operate and, consequently, income tax expense is a function of the allocation of taxable income by jurisdiction and the various activities that impact the timing of taxable events. Legislation implementing the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's model rules outlining a structure for a new 15% global minimum tax regime (the "Pillar Two Rules") has been enacted or substantively enacted locally in a number of jurisdictions in which the Company operates in, where they would be effective for the financial year beginning on April 1, 2024. Based on a preliminary assessment, the Pillar Two Rules effective tax rate in most of the jurisdictions in which the Company operates in, is already above 15%. As a result, any impact of these rules is not expected to be material. However, the Company will continue to monitor and reassess the impact of the Pillar Two Rules and any change may impact our financial condition and operating results. Changes in tax laws in any of the multiple jurisdictions in which we operate, or adverse outcomes from tax audits that we may be subject to in any of the jurisdictions in which we operate, could result in an unfavorable change in our effective tax rate, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our operations are subject to many hazards and operational risks inherent to our business, including: general business risks, product liability, false or misleading advertising claims, product recall and damage to third parties, our infrastructure or properties caused by fires, floods and other natural disasters, power losses, telecommunications failures, terrorist attacks, public health emergencies (including epidemics and pandemics, cybersecurity events, human errors, political instability, social and labour unrest or war and similar events). Our insurance coverage may exclude or may be inadequate to cover our liabilities related to such hazards or operational risks. In addition, we may not be able to maintain adequate insurance in the future at rates we consider reasonable and commercially justifiable, and insurance may not continue to be available on terms as favorable as our current arrangements. The occurrence of a significant uninsured claim, or a claim in excess of the insurance coverage limits maintained by us could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Furthermore, our inability to successfully recover should we experience a disaster or other business continuity problem could cause material financial loss, loss of human capital, regulatory actions, reputational harm, or legal liability.

Our success is substantially dependent on the continued service of our senior management, including Dani Reiss, who is our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. The loss of the services of our senior management could make it more difficult to successfully operate our business and achieve our business goals. We also may be unable to retain existing management, technical, sales and client support personnel that are critical to our success, which could result in harm to our customer and employee relationships, loss of key information, expertise or know-how and unanticipated recruitment and training costs. We have not obtained key man life insurance policies on any members of our senior management team. As a result, we would not be protected against the associated financial loss if we were to lose the services of members of our senior management team.

Our core values, which include developing the highest quality products while operating with integrity, are an important component of our brand image, which makes our reputation sensitive to allegations of unethical or improper business practices, whether real or perceived. We have no or limited control over our suppliers and manufacturers or their business practices. Accordingly, we cannot guarantee their compliance with our guidelines or the law. A lack of compliance could lead to reduced sales or recalls or damage to our brand or cause us to seek alternative suppliers, which could increase our costs and result in delayed delivery of our products, product shortages or other disruptions of our operations. In addition, many of our products include materials that are heavily regulated in many jurisdictions. Certain jurisdictions in which we sell have various regulations related to manufacturing processes and the chemical content of our products, including their component parts. Monitoring compliance by our manufacturers and suppliers is complicated, and we are reliant on their compliance reporting in order to comply with regulations applicable to our products. This is further complicated by the fact that expectations of ethical business practices continually evolve and may be substantially more demanding than applicable legal requirements. Ethical business practices are also driven in part by legal developments and by diverse groups active in publicizing and organizing public responses to perceived ethical shortcomings. Accordingly, we cannot predict how such regulations or expectations might develop in the future and cannot be certain that our guidelines or current practices would satisfy all parties who are active in monitoring our products or other business practices worldwide.

Consumer preferences often change rapidly. Therefore, our business is substantially dependent on our ability to attract customers who are willing to pay a premium for our products. Any future shifts in consumer preferences away from spending for our products would also have a material adverse effect on our results of operations. In addition, we believe that continued increases in sales of outerwear will largely depend on customers continuing to demand technical superiority from their products. If the number of customers demanding outerwear does not continue to increase, or if our customers are not convinced that our products are more functional or stylish than other outerwear alternatives, we may not achieve the level of sales necessary to support new growth platforms and our ability to grow our business will be severely impaired.

For our DTC sales, as well as for sales to certain wholesale partners, we accept a variety of payment methods, including credit cards, debit cards and electronic funds transfers. Accordingly, we are, and will continue to be, subject to significant and evolving regulations and compliance requirements relating to payment card processing. This includes laws governing the collection, processing and storage of sensitive consumer information, as well as industry requirements such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard ("PCI-DSS"). These laws and obligations may require us to implement enhanced authentication and payment processes that could result in increased costs and liability, and reduce the ease of use of certain payment methods. For certain payment methods, including credit and debit cards, we pay interchange and other fees, which may increase over time. We rely on independent service providers for payment processing, including credit and debit cards. If these independent service providers become unwilling or unable to provide these services to us or if the cost of using these providers increases, our business could be harmed. We are also subject to payment card association operating rules and agreements, including PCI-DSS, certification requirements and rules governing electronic funds transfers, which could change or be reinterpreted to make it difficult or impossible for us to comply. If we fail to comply with these rules or requirements, or if our data security systems are breached or compromised, we may be liable for losses incurred by card issuing banks or consumers, subject to fines and higher transaction fees, lose our ability to accept credit or debit card payments from our consumers, or process electronic fund transfers or facilitate other types of payments. Any failure to comply could significantly harm our brand, reputation, business, and results of operations.

The Canada Goose name and brand image are integral to the growth of our business, and to the implementation of our strategies for expanding our business. We believe that the brand image we have developed has significantly contributed to the success of our business and is critical to maintaining and expanding our customer base. Maintaining and enhancing our brand may require us to make substantial investments in areas such as product design, store openings and operations, marketing, e-Commerce, community relations and employee training, and these investments may not be successful. We anticipate that, as our business continues to expand into new markets and new product categories and as the market becomes increasingly competitive, maintaining and enhancing our brand may become difficult and expensive. Consumers in these new markets may be less compelled by our brand image and may not be willing to pay a higher price to purchase our products as compared to traditional outerwear. Conversely, as we penetrate these new markets and our brand becomes more widely available, it could potentially detract from the appeal stemming from the scarcity of our brand. Our brand may also be adversely affected if our public image or reputation is tarnished by negative publicity. In addition, ineffective marketing, product diversion to unauthorized distribution channels, product defects, counterfeit products, unfair labour practices, and failure to protect the intellectual property rights in our brand are some of the potential threats to the strength of our brand, and those and other factors could rapidly and severely diminish consumer confidence in us. Maintaining and enhancing our brand will depend largely on our ability to be a leader in our industry and to continue to offer a range of high-quality products to our customers, which we may not execute successfully. Any of these factors could harm our sales, profitability or financial condition. A key element of our growth strategy is the expansion of our product offerings into new product categories. We may be unsuccessful in designing products that meet our customers' expectations for our brand or that are attractive to new customers. If we are unable to anticipate customer preferences or industry changes, or if we are unable to modify our products on a timely basis or expand effectively into new product categories, we may lose customers or fail to gain new customers.

Our sales are significantly affected by changes in discretionary spending by consumers. Many factors outside of our control influence and affect the level of consumer spending for discretionary items. These factors include actual and perceived economic conditions, the trade environment, stagflation, interest and tax rates, inflation, energy prices, the availability of consumer credit, disposable consumer income, consumer indebtedness level, unemployment and consumer confidence in future economic conditions. Consumer purchases of discretionary items, such as our outerwear, tend to decline during recessionary periods when consumer sentiment and disposable income is lower. During our history, we have experienced recessionary periods, but we cannot predict the effect of future recessionary periods on our sales and profitability. A downturn in the economy in markets in which we sell our products or unfavourable changes related to interest rates, rates of economic growth, fiscal, trade and monetary policies of governments, inflation, deflation, tax rates and policy, unemployment trends, energy prices, and other matters that influence the availability and cost of merchandise, consumer confidence or spending may materially harm our sales, profitability and financial condition. Recent geopolitical events and general economic conditions, such as more elevated inflation and interest rates, has led to a slow-down in certain segments of the global economy and affected the amount of discretionary income available for certain consumers to purchase our products. If global economic and financial market conditions persist, our sales could decrease, and our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected. Unstable political conditions, civil unrest, armed conflicts or events of extreme violence, including the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, and any escalation thereof, and related economic and other retaliatory measures taken by Canada, the United States, the European Union and others, may disrupt commerce globally and could negatively affect our business and results of operations. The risk of recession in one or several of the countries where we operate remains high, notably in light of more elevated inflation and interest rates and the current trade environment, and could further have an adverse impact on our business and results of operations.