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Levi Strauss has a simple strategy to deal with US tariffs: stop offering less-popular styles during the holiday shopping season so they can avoid having to offer discounts to move inventory.

The leading maker of jeans and other denim clothes on Thursday lifted its annual profit and revenue forecast, projecting strong demand for new styles and collections including dresses, skirts and wide-legged jeans even as shoppers are economising due to the climbing prices of most goods.

“We are taking a hard look at productivity in our assortments,” Levi Strauss’ Chief Financial Officer Harmit Singh told Reuters, cutting styles and colors that are not selling, and making way for new product. “And so, we’re reducing our markdowns.”

Other companies including toymaker Hasbro are also cutting less-popular lines. That approach has been used before in difficult times such as the pandemic, by Nike for instance.

Levi Strauss is focusing on a “common assortment” of products, meaning it is producing similar or identical merchandise in various markets, Singh said. This gives Levi Strauss the “flexibility and the agility to move product around the world,” he said.

US president Donald Trump’s tariffs on countries including China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangladesh have forced companies to rethink supply chains and import strategies as goods are often subject to layered tariffs. It could cost tens of thousands of dollars more to clear a shipping container of jeans at customs. This will boost retail prices for shoppers, especially during the crucial holiday shopping period.

Levi’s operating margin for the latest quarter rose 7.5 percent from 1.5 percent a year earlier. Analysts cheered the company’s decision to tightly control stock-keeping units, or SKUs, an industry term for inventory.

“Levi’s move to reduce non-productive SKUs is a smart and sustainable strategy,” said Angeli Gianchandani, adjunct instructor at New York University’s School of Professional Studies. “Nike pursued a similar strategy through its “fewer, bigger, bolder” approach, which helped simplify assortments … Brands like Coach and Uniqlo have also benefited from editing down to focus on hero products.”

Hasbro said in April that the toymaker was doing a “significant amount of SKU reduction” and importing fewer items from China as a defence against tariffs. Hasbro CEO Christian Cocks said: “We are changing what the SKU mix looks like inside of the aisles for the US so that we can favour India-based SKUs, which maybe are older SKUs but are tried and true.”

Smaller vendors who sell on Amazon are cutting SKUs to offset the impact of paying tariffs and commission fees, and offering sales on discounting events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, analysts said.

E-commerce marketing consultancy Front Row, which works with beauty and haircare brands including Unilever’s Tatcha and Procter & Gamble’s Ouai, said some of its clients reduced the number of products offered for Amazon’s 98-hour Prime Day.

US retailers drove $7.9 billion during July 8, making the first 24 hours of Prime Day the highest e-commerce shopping day so far this year, according to Adobe Analytics.

“A lot of our brands are considering less SKUs,” Front Row senior vice president of commercial operations Alexandra Carmody said. “They’re trying to figure out how to optimise the 20 percent of their assortments that make up 80 percent of their sales.”

Bogg Bag, which sells $80 plastic totes at Dick’s Sporting Goods and on Amazon, is rolling back the number of items that will be on physical and virtual shelves this US holiday shopping season to focus on the best-selling items, chief executive Kim Vaccarella said.

By Arriana McLymore, Anuja Bharat Mistry; Editors: Sayantani Ghosh, David Gregorio

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On Friday, OCBC announced that Tan Teck Long, its current head of wholesale banking, will take over as CEO on Jan. 1, 2026, replacing Helen Wong.  “After a rigorous global search, the Board unanimously agreed that Teck Long was the best candidate to take the helm,” said OCBC chair Andrew Lee in a statement. “There will be no disruption to OCBC’s corporate strategic direction of becoming an integrated financial services powerhouse,” he added.

OCBC, No. 13 on Fortune’s Southeast Asia 500, wants to leverage financial flows between Southeast Asia and China, which are expected to grow as the world’s second-largest economy looks for new trading partners. While all three of Singapore’s major banks—DBS, OCBC and UOB—have a presence in China, OCBC under current CEO Wong is perhaps most focused on tying together its China and ASEAN businesses. 

Chinese companies are investing heavily in Southeast Asia, both as a way to diversify their supply chains and find new markets for their goods and services. China and ASEAN are now each other’s largest trading partners. 

OCBC’s CEO-to-be comes with a wealth of China experience, including a five-year stint leading DBS’s institutional banking business in China. He also currently serves as a board director at two OCBC-affiliated financial institutions in mainland China, the Bank of Ningbo and Maxwealth Fund Management Company.

OCBC’s shares rose by 0.7% on Monday, the first trading day since the bank announced Tan’s appointment as CEO. 

Who is Tan Teck Long?

Tan joined OCBC in 2022, just a year after his soon-to-be former boss took over the CEO role. He currently leads its global wholesale banking business, which contributed the largest share of OCBC’s income last year, at 42%.

He jumped ship after nearly three decades at rival bank DBS, where he most recently served as its chief risk officer. 

OCBC’s global wholesale banking revenue grew by 35% under Tan’s tenure. OCBC also reported a nearly 30% year-on-year rise in new customers that were Chinese companies hoping to enter the ASEAN market, according to its latest annual report.

Helen Wong’s legacy

Helen Wong became the first woman to lead one of Singapore’s major banks upon her appointment as CEO in 2021. Under her tenure, OCBC reported record profits for three consecutive years, with strong growth across its banking, wealth management, and insurance businesses.

Wong first worked for OCBC as a management trainee in 1981. She then moved to HSBC, eventually rising to become the UK bank’s Greater China CEO in 2015. She returned to OCBC to serve as its head of global wholesale banking, the role her successor now holds. 

During her tenure, she also tried to take Great Eastern Holdings, Singapore’s largest life insurance provider, private. OCBC currently has a 94% stake in the company, yet Great Eastern’s remaining shareholders rejected a take-private plan last week. 

Wong “sharpened OCBC’s competitive edge as an integrated financial services group by ushering in a well-defined corporate strategy,” OCBC chair Lee said in his statement. 

OCBC’s shares have risen over 40% since Wong’s appointment as CEO, with much of the improvement happening in the past year. Yet OCBC’s shares have lagged rival DBS, whose shares rose over 70% over the same period. 

Wong has cited family reasons for her retirement, but will continue to serve as chair of OCBC China and a board director of OCBC Hong Kong.