New Ralph Lauren CEO shakes up brands faster than expected

Stefan Larsson, the new chief executive at Ralph Lauren Corp., was expected to fashion a new business plan for the struggling apparel designer by May.

But the apparel veteran appears to be tipping his hand early.

Within the last two weeks, Larsson has eliminated a senior position at the global fashion house and, The Post has learned, backed out of at least two pricey store leases for its underperforming Club Monaco brand.

The position eliminated is the global head of brands now occupied by Christopher Peterson — who said he would leave the company in May.

As a result, the company’s brands — including Polo, Club Monaco, Chaps and Ralph Lauren Home — will report directly to Larsson.

Larsson, who was tapped to spearhead a turnaround of the venerable company, has also turned his attention to the 76 company-owned Club Monaco stores.

The two Manhattan leases nixed by Larsson came at the 11th hour.

Founded 31 years ago, Club Monaco, an upscale $200 million specialty retailer, had suddenly grown to a 90-store chain two years ago after operating about 60 stores during the previous four years.

The chain, which retail analysts feel has never reached its potential, suddenly shrank to 64 company-owned stores in the fiscal year ended March 2015, regulatory filings show.

“It’s done fairly well but has never grown to the size it should grow to,” Macquarie Securities analyst Laurent Vasilescu said.

A Club Monaco at 121 Prince St. was set to relocate to 62 Spring St. when the company pulled the plug on the deal in the final hour, according to Jeffrey Roseman, executive vice president of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Retail.

“They’d been negotiating for the past six months,” Roseman said. “We all sort of scratched our heads because they’d given no hint that they would pull out.”

Around the same time, Ralph Lauren pulled out of another advanced negotiation in Rockefeller Center, where the company was arranging to move into 636 Fifth Avenue, a space occupied by Faccionable located across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

A spokesman for Ralph Lauren declined to comment on the real estate decisions other than to attribute them to “a shift in Club Monaco’s retail strategy.”

But both deals would have been signed on the heels of a quarter in which the company’s revenue declined 4 percent to $1.9 billion.

The company, led by its namesake legendary 76-year-old founder and chairman, had estimated revenue would grow by as much as 2 percent in the quarter ended Dec. 26.

Larsson, who came to Ralph Lauren after turning around the Gap’s Old Navy chain, vowed last fall to turn things around and said he was undertaking a “comprehensive assessment,” the results of which would be unveiled in May.

Inking a deal on Fifth Avenue is an enormous financial commitment for a company that may be retrenching.

Ralph Lauren shares fell 1.2 percent on Friday, to $90.85, and are down 35 percent over the past year.