Dorel Industries Inc. ($DIIB)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Dorel Industries' First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Before turning the meeting to management, please be advised that this conference call will contain statements that are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded today, May 8, 2026. I'd now like to turn the floor over to Martin Schwartz, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Dorel's first quarter earnings call for the period ended March 31, 2026. With me today are Jeffrey Schwartz, CFO; and Jayson Kwasnik, Vice President of Finance. We'll take your questions following our comments. Please note that all figures mentioned during this call are in U.S. dollars. Dorel Juvenile delivered a solid first quarter, demonstrating resilience in a volatile global environment marked by geopolitical uncertainty, foreign exchange headwinds and rising input costs. Strong growth and improving profitability across Europe and international markets, including export, Australia and Latin America, helped offset softness in the U.S. business. Disciplined cost management supported performance despite margin pressure from currency movements, while continued investment in innovations and strong global customer engagement reinforced the strengths of Dorel's Juvenile diversified portfolio and is positioning for substantial growth. Dorel Home results improved meaningfully compared to both prior year and last year's fourth quarter, but this was due only to substantial reductions in overhead and operating expenses. Sales were disappointing due to the lack of success in certain traditional furniture categories. As evidenced by the recent announced closure of 3 competing Canadian-based furniture manufacturers, the furniture industry remains very difficult. This is forcing us to be even more focused on exiting categories and channels where our competitive advantage is limited, and continue with the product line that minimizes our overhead. This will allow us to return to profitability and provide a clearer foundation for future success as the year progresses. As always, Jeffrey will walk you through our results. But first, I want to add some color to our press release, starting with the Juvenile segment. The Juvenile segment delivered another quarter of improved earnings, with markets outside of the U.S. leading the way. This was the case through most of 2025 as well, despite all markets facing challenges brought on by various geopolitical events. These conditions were generally made worse in the first quarter with the heightened tension in the Middle East at the end of February. There is no question that when costs rise for consumers, as they have around the world with the surge in oil prices, and the general uncertainty brought on by recent events, it impacts consumer behavior. This impact was most acute in the U.S. market, and the positive momentum we saw in the fourth quarter last year slowed down, reflecting continued softness in the Juvenile category following tariff-related disruptions, heightened promotional pressure and cautious consumer spending. We have responded by aligning the cost structure to a lower demand environment. While the U.S. market remains challenging, we continue to focus on targeted innovation, portfolio optimization and selective customer programs to support longer-term recovery. This is evidenced by recognition from several industry organizations. Namely, Forbes recognized Maxi-Cosi Cassia as the Best Smart Baby Swing. Wired featured Maxi-Cosi Kani 4-in-1 Car Seat as Best Baby Gear, and consumer reports recognizing the See Pro 360 Baby Monitor, the Starling Bassinet and the Iora Bedside Bassinet as category leaders. Recognition like these while satisfying does not always lead to higher sales. But fortunately, in this case, it only reinforces that our teams are doing a great job with our Maxi-Cosi brand and is leading to positive financial results. This is our flagship brand around the world with a growing presence in North America. And in the quarter, sales were up over 20% versus prior year and now represents over 40% of the Juvenile segment sales. Outside of the U.S., the picture is very positive. The strength of our various divisions has allowed us to overcome many of the same challenges in the United States. In Europe, Dorel Juvenile delivered a strong quarter with organic revenue increasing, driven primarily by robust demand for Maxi-Cosi car seats across specialty retail, mass merchants and e-commerce platforms. Notably, in Portugal, Maxi-Cosi received the 2026 Consumer Choice Award in both the Baby Stroller and Car Seat categories. This marks the brand's first win since entering the Portuguese market 4 years ago, demonstrating successful market penetration and growing consumer trust in a competitive European market. Other standouts in our international markets include Australia, New Zealand, which delivered robust double-digit revenue growth, and in export markets like China, Turkey and South Korea, supported by continued leadership in rotating car seat technology and strong customer execution. Latin America markets continue to execute structural improvements. In Chile, the company advanced its deliberate shift towards higher-margin digital and distribution channels, while rationalizing its physical retail footprint. Peru delivered strong revenue growth supported by direct-to-consumer performance, while Mexico recorded significant year-over-year growth across all major customers and product categories. Brazil remains a consistent contributor to revenues and earnings as they continue to lead the local market in innovation and design. And finally, in March, Dorel Juvenile hosted its annual Global Customer Conference in Portugal, bringing together more than 240 customers from around the world. The event highlighted the company's parent-centric design philosophy and showcased major product innovations, including the launch of the new Maxi-Cosi Coral GO as well as new collections in the proprietary SLIDETECH 2 technology. Interactive product hubs encourage hands-on engagement and real-time feedback, reinforcing strong customer confidence and generating positive commercial momentum, particularly within the nursery furniture portfolio. And now for Dorel Home. As we discussed in detail in our year-end conference call in March, we concluded 2025 with the majority of our restructuring complete, with certain legacy costs being targeted for elimination in 2026. These last steps were identified as critical to us returning to profitability by the end of '26, and they remain so. However, the slow starts in the year has forced us to reexamine our business model, and we expect further changes to be successful and profitable again. Our core Cosco business remains strong, but getting certain traditional everyday living furniture categories back to the sales level that we expected is not working. Therefore, beyond the need and elimination of our legacy costs, we will now focus on less categories and work with our long-term retail partners on known winning product categories. We will focus on items and channels with the quickest return and the lowest cash requirements. As of now, our teams continue to work on what that will look like. And it is expected that by the end of the second quarter, we will have a clearer picture of what the future looks like. I'll now ask Jeffrey to review the financials.

Thank you, Martin. For the first quarter, Dorel's revenue decreased by $52 million or 16.4%. The revenue decline was all in Home, partially offset by revenue improvements on the Juvenile side. In the Juvenile, the improvement in revenue was in all regions except for the United States. The operating loss in the quarter for the first quarter for the company was $6.2 million, compared to $14 million in 2025. If we exclude restructuring costs, the operating loss decreased by $8.9 million from last year to $3.6 million this year. I just want to point out on financing expenses that if we look at the cash interest payments this year, they rose from $7.4 million last year to $9 million this year. There are obviously other charges, but the rest of the charges are noncash for the quarter. If we go into the Juvenile business a little bit more, the first quarter revenue was $223 million, up just over 3% from last year. The revenue, as we talked about, the revenue was in all the regions except the U.S. So we were very, very satisfied with the operations happening in Europe, in Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and we also have a very fast-growing export division which covers all of the markets that we don't have a physical presence in. All of that is going extremely well, at least at plan, if not better. The only area in Q1 that was below plan was in the United States. And that was really affected by a general weakness in the U.S. consumer hard goods market caused by all the things that I'm sure everybody knows about, high prices on oil and gas and consumer confidence and all of those things, which are leading to that. In addition to that, during the quarter, we did have significant price discounting by a number of our competitors, which also made it difficult for the quarter. As we go forward, we're seeing things balancing out now and going back a little bit to normal. We do have sensitivity, of course, in the Juvenile business towards cost increases, resin, freight, all of that. We do have some hedged -- call it, hedging or locked-in contracts in some of that area. So although we are sensitive to it, we are not expecting huge material impacts for the rest of the year. We will have to adjust by adjusting prices in certain areas depending on what areas have the cost increases. But overall, we're pretty still bullish on that business going forward. If we look at the gross margin in the quarter, 26%, a decline of 130 basis points from last year. The bulk of that was the negative foreign exchange impact, primarily the euro, which weakened right at the end of the quarter. Since then, the euro has actually bounced back, as most currencies have gotten stronger versus the U.S. dollar since the end of the quarter. So we think a lot of that is going to be reversed. The operating profit was $3.6 million, versus $3 million. But if you take out restructuring, $5.3 million versus $4.2 million. If we flip over to Home now. Home is obviously a concern point for everybody. The decline of 57% to $45 million, was lower than we expected. Now a lot of it was an intentional reduction that we announced at the year-end as we try to go forward with a -- the large part of the existing business is the Cosco business, which is furniture-adjacent. As people know, it's not quite furniture. And then the actual furniture business, which was a smaller part. Well, the Cosco business, although a bit short in the quarter, is still solid and is still a core part of this. The other part of the business, trying to maintain all of the furniture product is proving a little bit more difficult than we hoped. And we're reacting and deciding whether or not we want to carry the overheads associated with the various different product lines, and making decisions to exit a product line if it's going to cost us more in overheads as we try to become a very light expense business on the Home side. The loss decreased by $5.6 million for the quarter. And again, all of that -- if we look, first of all, if we exclude restructuring, the operating loss decreased by $6.2 million to $4.9 million. But that's still, in our eyes, way too high, obviously. We have significantly reduced footprint and we're looking at ways to continue to do that going forward. With that, I'll pass it back to you, Martin.

Okay. Thank you, Jeffrey. For our outlook, driven by our success outside the U.S. market, the Juvenile segment performed well in the quarter. Looking forward, we expect the sales and earnings to improve in the U.S. And coupled with our ongoing success in Europe and other markets, this gives us confidence that we will have a strong second half. Expectations are that adjusted earnings for the full year 2026 will exceed prior year. While we are seeing some upward pressure on the cost, we are actively engaged with strategic suppliers and addressing other costs to mitigate these headwinds. At Dorel Home, we are prudently reassessing the business to identify our path forward. We intend to leverage our excellent retail partnership and making choices on categories that make sense for them, and improve our portfolio mix going forward. Cosco remains a leader in its product categories, and this has been particularly true as uncertainty around the tariffs meant retailers were exploring alternate sources of supply and we were able to work with them from multiple jurisdictions. Fortunately, the work done last year in reducing our footprint to what it is today allows us to make any needed changes relatively quick. While this is not likely to impact the second quarter, we expect that we can deliver profits in the Home segment in the medium to long term. With that, I'll ask the operator to open the lines for questions. And please limit your questions to 2 in the first round.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Cheryl Zhang from TD Cowen.

Jeffrey, this is Cheryl. So my first question is on Juvenile. So very strong growth there in Europe and Australia. Is there anything you can point to that enabled Maxi-Cosi's outperformance in those markets? And I'm curious, who you gaining shares from in those markets?

Well, it's definitely the product pipeline. We've been talking about it for a couple of years now. Our market share has been growing significantly in car seats in Europe, for example. And it's based on our technology, our innovation. What we do in Europe tends to flow through to most of the rest of the world, and that's why we're seeing so much of it. What I'm excited about is the pipeline is still full. We still have a lot of new stuff coming later this year. I mean, I would say every quarter we're introducing something actually to the market. But we know what's coming for the rest of the year, we know what's coming in the first quarter of next year. We've shown it to a number of our accounts. Everybody is excited. So it's really innovation, and product is driving all of that. Market share is coming from most everywhere, gains. It's not one particular place or person. But yes, again, excited about that. We're also looking forward to starting to bring more of our European-based products into the U.S., which we were doing the hybrid in the past, where we would take some European ideas and make sort of American product with it. And now we're going to go more to the actual European product adapted for American standards.

Okay. That's very good color. And on the Home side, I'm wondering if you can give us an update on the restructuring program and what is remaining?

So it's a good question. I mean we have -- we are, I would say, on schedule with everything we wanted to do, that we came up with sort of the decisions. It is on schedule. There are a few legacy costs, some buildings that we're still paying rent on that we need to exit, and we're working very much on that. That's going to be a key element. We are still selling off the old inventory, what we call the non-go-forward inventory. However, as we look at new product lines, we need to sort of reevaluate, is there more inventory that needs to be kind of put in the non-go-forward bucket? That's sort of the area. And are we looking at new facilities? We're re-looking at everything to see if there's more things to add to the original restructuring program. It's a bit of a work in progress.

Okay. Got it. And last one before I requeue. Just given the ongoing industry softness and the challenging macro outlook, how do you feel about the Home segment returning to profitability by year-end? Or do you feel like it's more likely a 2027 event?

A lot of it -- we know that the Cosco business is profitable, like in itself, right? That's the bulk of it. We also are looking at an expansion of, we'll call it juvenile and youth furniture, within our Juvenile business. So some of what we used to call home furnishing is moving over to Juvenile under its current overhead structure, which is great, meaning we don't need any -- or very little headcount, we need very little warehousing, and all of that stuff is there. Those 2 areas are profitable. What's going to hold us back might be the legacy costs. How fast can we get out of those costs? And therefore, can we get to the profitability by the end of the year? That's our goal. That's what we think we can do and that's where the effort is. But we know that the businesses that we're really holding onto are profitable businesses. It's just there's still costs that need to be dropped.

Our next question comes from Stephen MacLeod from BMO Capital Markets.

I just wanted to follow up on the Juvenile outlook, and you talked about just some of the upward pressure you're seeing on costs. And I'm just curious, how are you managing those costs? Will those come through in higher prices, or -- you kind of -- you talked about a couple of things in the press release, I just wanted to get a bit more detail.

Yes. I mean that's like live, that's happening as we go. There are certain items we're going to need price increases on. There are certain items that we think that we can make it through without the price increase. There's currency. I mean there's so many things moving, so we're still -- it's a real live thing. But yes, I would expect to have some price increases around the world, definitely. Some markets are easier than others. But we'll have to deal with that. And how long are these cost increases going to going to last? We don't know about that either, right? So it's really dynamic. But we feel that with the momentum of the brand, the Maxi-Cosi brand, is keeping us well anchored. And also as the innovation hits the market, it allows us a little bit more price control. But yes, I can't give you a hard number because we're in it like every day.

Yes. That makes sense, definitely. Very dynamic. That's helpful. Yes. And just on the Home business, you talked a lot about Cosco being a very steady product line and sales were good in the quarter, profitable. Like how big of Home is Cosco?

Well, the question becomes the theoretical number that we thought it would be or what the actual number is, which is more. I mean it is -- yes, it's weird what we're doing. I'm going to not give you a hard number because we're still in the process of taking things apart. But it's north of 70%. And that number could be more as, again, as we move some of our furniture over to the Juvenile, then it just -- it shrinks the Home pie, it doesn't shrink Dorel's pie. But it's the bulk. I mean it's the bulk of, I guess, that we're having. I mean, I'm sure you see what's going on in, particularly in Quebec with the furniture industry, it's -- what I find very interesting is all of these furniture companies, they're not just filing and trying to restructure and regroup. They're all just closing.

Yes. I've seen that.

They're not even fighting anymore. They said, "We're done." I find that really interesting, how that's different than a lot of other things. So it's really tough out there, the traditional furniture. And we don't want to play a losing battle, not when we have a great business in the Juvenile.

Yes. Yes, of course. And then just trying to frame the Home business from where you were at Q4. The challenges you're seeing in the traditional furniture side, are they more intense than you would have expected from Q4? Like has there been kind of a change in the backdrop over the last few months?

Yes. We're finding still the stuff that we had in the past been competitive on and been able to move is tougher than we expected, yes. On the traditional side.

And with that, we'll be concluding -- actually, one moment. We do have a follow-up question from Cheryl from TD Cowen.

Just a quick question. I think in the prepared remarks, you noted that you have some hedging and fixed-price contracts in place. Curious if you can comment on what input costs are covered there and how much of your exposure is hedged and when do you have those hedging going off?

I mean we have -- I'll give you an example. I mean we don't have that -- I can't give you hard numbers, but we have contracts like on freight, for instance. Now that doesn't mean that freight is not going to have surcharges on top of that. But generally, we're not buying open freight pricing. And that allows us -- that protects us to a certain extent. We have some inventory that we've got on resin that's going to last us for a little while. So again, if this continues to go up and up and up, no, it's not going to be enough to stem. But if this is, let's say, a 2 or 3-month issue, or a 4-month issue, I think we'll be okay there. So I wouldn't -- I can't give you a hard number.

And ladies and gentlemen, with that, we will be concluding today's question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Martin Schwartz for any closing remarks.

Okay. I just want to thank everybody for joining us today, and I just wish you a good day and a good weekend. Thank you.

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.