Lifetime Brands, Inc. ($LCUT)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Lifetime Brands Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to introduce our host for today's conference, [ Jamie Kirchen ]. Mr. Kirchen, you may go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Lifetime Brands Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. With us today from management are Rob Kay, Chief Executive Officer; and Larry Winoker, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin the call, I'd like to remind you that our remarks this morning may contain forward-looking statements that relate to the future of the company, and these statements are intended to qualify for the safe harbor protection from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and factors that could influence our results are highlighted in our earnings release and other factors are contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such statements are based upon information available to the company as of the date hereof and are subject to change for future developments. Except as required by law, the company does not undertake any obligation to update such statements. Our remarks this morning and in our earnings release also contain non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of Regulation G promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Included in such release is a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures with the comparable financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. With that introduction, I'd like to turn the call over to Rob Kay. Please go ahead, Rob.

Thank you, and good morning. A year ago, we entered 2025, knowing it would be a challenging year. What we did not fully anticipate was just how dynamic the external environment would become. The tariff escalations, retail customer disruption, consumers' reactions, the operational demands were all significant. And yet, when I look at where we stand today, I'm proud of how our team performed and where we finished the year. Let me walk you through the key dynamics that shaped both the fourth quarter and the full year and the decisions we made, including those that carried short-term costs and why they were right for our business. Overall, what drove Lifetime's 2025 performance was the macro environment, largely shaped by U.S. tariff actions and the market's reaction to them. The biggest impact of this was the second quarter implementation of 145% tariffs on goods sourced from China following the liberation day tariffs implemented on many countries throughout the globe. This resulted in wide-scale disruption and in some cases, cancellation of orders for our products. both by our customers and internally by Lifetime as the immediacy of the implementation would have resulted in selling products at a loss. As the year progressed and some stability was introduced on tariff rates, Lifetime was a first mover in implementing price increases across all our channels to offset the tariff cost. While this initially hurt our volumes as we were selling our products at a higher price than most of our competition, the market eventually caught up and pricing parity was restored. However, Lifetime benefited from enhanced profitability due to the price increases, which led to improved performance relative to the overall market and many of our peers. In particular, we note that bottom line results showed a positive year-over-year growth by the fourth quarter of 2025. Contributing to this performance was our pricing strategy, a comprehensive cost efficiency and reduction program and improved results in our international business. First, as we told you earlier in the year, the impact of the 145% tariffs on China-sourced product was significant. It negatively impacted shipments in the second quarter and flowed into disruption in the third. We specifically called out that some of that deferred volume would come back in 2025 with a fuller normalization expected in 2026. As you can see, we benefited by the current quarter with some resumption in shipment levels from missed second quarter shipments, particularly in Tabletop and Kitchenware. The most visible example is Costco, our largest year-over-year decline in any single customer through September. They pulled back sharply on Tabletop programs as tariff uncertainty peaked. But as conditions stabilized, a portion of those programs shipped in the fourth quarter, and we performed very well with Costco in Q4. That recovery was a meaningful contributor to a strong finish. The second major factor driving performance was Lifetime's decision to move first on pricing to offset tariff costs. We did not wait to see what the market would do. We built a detailed plan with each of our customers, communicating the rationale clearly and implementing the increases. As I mentioned above, there were short-term consequences. In the third quarter, we were priced higher than the market, and that created some volume headwinds. A portion of our shelf performance suffered while competitors had not yet moved. But by the fourth quarter, the market had largely caught up, pricing parity had returned across all our categories. And because we had been selling at higher prices earlier than most, we captured better margins during that window. If you look at our results, particularly the bottom line, you can see that clearly. We had a modest outperformance on the top line, but we significantly exceeded expectations on the bottom line. Our first-mover pricing decision was a key contributor to that outcome. The third element of our Q4 performance was cost discipline. Variable costs naturally flex with volume, but we also took deliberate action on our cost structure throughout the year. We streamlined infrastructure and SG&A came in at $38 million in Q4, down 12% versus the prior year quarter. That's a meaningful reduction, and it reflects real work done on the cost base. Combined, these 3 factors drove a strong quarter and finish to the year. The fourth quarter came in ahead of expectations, and I think the results speak to the strategy working. Revenue was modestly below prior year, which we anticipated, but margins expanded and the bottom line was strong. Larry will take you through the detail in a moment. While the year was challenging due to tariffs, we took the decisive actions I've discussed to mitigate their effects. Given the circumstances, we performed well as evidenced by our results. In the fourth quarter, adjusted income from operations was up over 30% from the prior year quarter and full year adjusted EBITDA was over $50 million despite a 5% decline in net sales. We continue to experience positives from our investment in new product development. The Dolly brand grew to approximately $18 million for the year, an increase of over 150%, a great reflection on where the strategy is gaining traction. We are encouraged by the trajectory heading into 2026. Our International segment continued to demonstrate resilience. For the full year, international sales came in at $56.7 million, up 1.7% as reported. On a constant currency basis, international was down modestly at 1.7%, a solid result given the backdrop, particularly as we gained share in national accounts in light of a continued decline in independent shops, which historically have been the core of the European customer base. On Project Concord, our international restructuring initiative, we made continued progress throughout the year and the financial benefits are flowing through. That said, I want to be transparent. The final phase of Concord implementation was delayed modestly due to legal and structural constraints that took longer than anticipated to work through. We expect those to be fully resolved and implemented in the first half of 2026. The direction here remains clear, and we remain committed to completing Concord and realizing the full benefits of the program. As announced early last year, we also took deliberate action on our distribution infrastructure, announcing the relocation of our East Coast distribution center to Hagerstown, Maryland. The facility will span approximately 1 million square feet, adding 327,000 square feet of incremental capacity over our current New Jersey facility, which it will replace and is expected to commence operations in the second quarter of 2026. This move is consistent with how we approach the business, identifying where we can drive long-term efficiency and positioning Lifetime's operations to support our multiyear growth initiatives while significantly containing Lifetime's future distribution expenses. As we enter 2026, we do so with momentum, a leaner cost structure and a clearer sense of where the opportunities are. On guidance, consistent with our historical cadence, we intend to provide detailed full year 2026 guidance in conjunction with our first quarter results in mid-May. At that point, we will have a clearer line of sight into the year and can speak to it with specificity you deserve. What I can tell you now is that recovering sustainable top line growth is the priority. We have done the work on the cost base and proven we can protect margins. Now the focus shifts to driving volume through our existing customer relationships through the brands and product lines that are gaining traction and through the pipeline of strategic activity that we continue to develop. Finally, I want to acknowledge that this type of year, navigating real disruption while delivering results that exceeded where we started does not happen without an exceptional team. I'm grateful for everyone at Lifetime who stayed focused, executed under pressure and kept our commitments to customers and shareholders alike. With that, I'll turn the call over to Larry to review the financials in more detail.

Thanks, Rob. As we reported this morning, net income for the fourth quarter of 2025 was $18.2 million or $0.83 per diluted share compared to $8.9 million or $0.41 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of '24. Adjusted net income was $23 million for the fourth quarter or $1.05 per diluted share as compared to $12 million or $0.55 per diluted share in '24. Income from operations were $20 million for the fourth quarter of '25 as compared to $15.5 million in '24 and adjusted income from operations for the fourth quarter of '25 was $26.4 million compared to $20.2 million in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year 25 was $50.8 million. Adjusted net income, adjusted income from operations and adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP measures, which are reconciled to our GAAP financial measures in the earnings release. Following comments are for the fourth quarter of 2025 and '24, unless stated otherwise. Consolidated sales decreased 5.2% to $204.1 million. U.S. segment sales decreased 5.5% to $185.3 million. Sales were favorably impacted by the increase in selling prices to mitigate the impact of higher tariffs on foreign sourced products. However, retailers buying disruption and consumers dampened spending reaction to the high tariff environment dampened demand in our industry. Within this segment, product lines decreases were in Kitchenware and home solutions, partially offset by an increase in tableware. International segment sales decreased 2.3% to $18.8 million. And excluding the impact of foreign exchange translation, the decrease was $1.4 million or 6.8%. The decrease came from the U.K. e-commerce. Gross margin increased to 38.6% from 37.7%. U.S. segment gross margin increased to 38.8% from 37.6%. The improvement was driven by lower ocean freight rates, some favorable product mix and the timing of inventory costs recognized under FIFO inventory accounting. These factors more than offset the adverse effects of tariffs in the current quarter. For International, gross margin decreased to 36.8% from 38.6%, driven by higher customer support spending in the current period. U.S. segment distribution expenses as a percent of goods shipped from its warehouses was 8.3% versus 9.1%. The decrease was attributable to improved labor management efficiencies largely resulting from the fully implemented new warehouse management system in our West Coast facility and the effect of higher tariff induced selling prices without a commensurate increase in expenses. International segment distribution expenses as a percentage of goods shipped from its warehouses was 19.8% versus 18.1%. The increase is due to higher sales to prepaid freight customers and the expansion of sales into the Asia Pacific region. Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased by 12% to $38 million. U.S. segment expenses decreased by $3.2 million to $29.6 million. As a percentage of net sales, the expense decreased to 16% from 16.7%. The decrease was driven by lower employee expenses, including incentive compensation. International SG&A decreased $1.5 million to $3.1 million. As a percentage of net sales, the expense decreased to 16.7% versus 24.2% due to lower employee and advertising expenses as well as a foreign currency transaction gains. Unallocated corporate expense decreased $500,000 to $5.2 million due to lower employee expenses, also including incentive compensation, partially offset by higher professional fees. Interest expense decreased by $600,000 due to lower average borrowings and lower interest rates on our variable rate debt. For income taxes, the benefit is primarily driven by the release -- the benefit rate is primarily driven by the release of a valuation allowance against deferred tax assets recorded in the second quarter. And looking at our debt and liquidity, our balance sheet continues to be strong, notwithstanding the higher working capital needs that resulted from tariffs. At year-end, our liquidity was $76.6 million, which includes cash plus availability under our credit facility and receivable purchase agreement. And our adjusted EBITDA to net debt ratio at year-end was 2.9x. Lastly, as Rob discussed, the relocation of our East Coast distribution center is expected to begin operating in the second quarter. And I'll add that the costs that is exiting the New Jersey facility and starting up the Maryland facility, including capital expenditures, are expected to be at or below our forecast. This concludes our prepared comments. Operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Matt Koranda from ROTH Capital.

I know you don't typically give full year official guidance until the first quarter, but just wanted to hear a little bit more about building blocks for growth in '26. I know you said you intend to grow in the year. Maybe you could just talk about some of the puts and takes around the price that you took in '25 that sort of wraps into '26, new product launches, existing growth with some of the successful lines like Dolly. I guess some of those are maybe a little bit offset by volume declines more recently. But just how do you think about those factors qualitatively as we kind of think about the forecast for '26? And any commentary on seasonality this year would be appreciated as well.

Well, from a seasonality, we're expecting more of a normal seasonality. There were disruptions in '25 that were tariff oriented, which put a total curve on normal seasonality. So I think we don't expect it to not normalize in '26. Some of the things you mentioned, pricing increases, which is kind of a onetime event happened throughout 2025. So the impact of those will be fully felt because they were fully implemented in '25. So you get the full impact of that in 2026 with, of course, the caveat is who knows what's going to happen. From a new product introduction, I think -- well, I know that we've been introducing a much greater amount of new product than a lot of competition just because the times are tough and a lot of people are paring back. But a couple of areas we're seeing good traction. One, we talked about the Dolly brand. That's actually expanding beyond the dollar channel where we have firm commitments. And while we had tremendous growth in '25, we expect that trajectory to continue in '26. So we see some good growth there. Our foodservice initiative, that's a business where you have to build a book of business and then it becomes a bit of an annuity for a period of time. And particularly Mikasa Hospitality has gained a lot of traction. So while a small base, we expect substantial increase in those revenues in '26. The end market in '25 for foodservice establishments was very challenged. So you saw new store openings decline. You saw store closings throughout a lot of multiunit franchises and the like. Unknown where that heads in '26. The industry thinks it will go up. But nonetheless, we've gained market share and not end market driven, we'll see some nice growth in that area in 2026. So those are some of the key drivers, hopefully answers -- gives you some perspective there.

That's helpful. I wanted to also hear a little bit about what you're hearing from your large retail customers in terms of willingness to take on inventory. what does sell-through look like or POS data that you're seeing in kind of your key SKUs versus sell-in? And how are you thinking about that for '26?

So we've seen a pretty large divergence from channel to channel with certain channels performing very strong from a POS perspective and certain ones being weaker. We saw a continuing trend in the fourth quarter that we've seen over the last couple of years that there's been an uptick in e-commerce. So the holiday season continued the trend that we saw in 2024, where a lot of consumers waited to make their purchases from historical purchase cycles because they knew they could get delivery rather quickly and that helped e-com in the fourth quarter and therefore, drove full year performance. So that trend should continue. But there is high bifurcation. From a perspective, you see from time to time, particularly with larger retailers where there's -- and we saw some of this in '25, they pull back on safety stock issues. So there is a divergence between sell-in and sell-through, and we saw some of that in '25. We don't expect that to be a major impact in '26. And part of that is some of the more sophisticated people that have done that have pared back a lot. And if they pare back more, they would harm their sell-through and their velocity, which is obviously not in their interest to do so. So we don't expect that to be a factor in '26.

Okay. Very helpful. And then maybe just one more, if I could. The net leverage at the end of the year looks good under 4x. I wanted to just hear how you guys are thinking about cash priorities this year. Obviously, you got a lot of organic growth initiatives in place. But then you have the European restructuring that's still maybe ongoing or maybe just recently implemented. How do you balance the organic investments that you need to make versus the M&A funnel versus buying back your stock? Just wanted to hear a little bit about sort of capital allocation decision-making for '26.

Yes. So there's actually a lot of internal growth initiatives that we're pursuing, but they're not capital intensive, except for the DC, which we've already -- there's not too much on the come for that. And we also will get the benefit of the $13 million of funding -- government funding from -- mostly from Maryland that will offset. So not really any issue and constraints there and plenty of availability. From -- we'll continue -- we have no intention to change anything on our dividend, our dividend policy. We we'll look to ultimately restructure our debt arrangements because at this point and where we are in terms of the life of that, we're not in an ability to buy back stock. So we're not using cash at this point to do that because we have agreements with our lenders in place. But we'll ultimately restructure that and allow us to do so when we do that. And the M&A environment is the strongest I've seen in decades for strategic because, first of all, financials aren't investing. So our competition for the longest time has been financials at very, very high valuations. So valuations have been down. But a lot of businesses that are institutionally owned, there's something that needs larger company or infrastructure help, like to move product from a China-based system to a distributed geography, you need a lot of infrastructure to do that, both from a supply chain quality, it takes a lot of effort and work. And with the fluctuations of moving it all over the place, it's a lot of smaller, less capitalized people are having trouble, let alone the systems and everything to deal with the constant pricing fluctuations as tariffs change and evolve. So that combination has made it very attractive. So we're seeing real deal flow at real valuations that we haven't seen literally in decades. So we have some large opportunities we're looking at. You don't know if they'll come through, but it's one of the things that we wrote off on a couple of things that were working, not wrote off, but expensed in the fourth quarter. related to that. And hopefully, we'll see some highly accretive opportunities if we can execute.

Our next question comes from Brian McNamara from Canaccord Genuity.

So this was your best Q4 EBITDA margin that we can recall with sales down even better than 2020 and 2021 when sales were up. So gross margins were nicely up presumably from the benefit of tariff pricing. But I'm curious what drove SG&A lower and how sustainable that is?

Yes, it's a great question, Brian. So it's sustainable. The -- we -- it's all a function of how fast we want to grow. And if we have opportunities and there's a good return on that, we can increase investment, which would increase infrastructure and SG&A, but with a return. So in the current state of the business with what we have on the plate, including the growth we intend for 2026, there's not a need for investing in SG&A. We'll also see the further benefits one way or the other with our international operations, which will continue to benefit those line items.

Brian, let me just...

Larry is going to give you....

Something on the U.S. gross margins, the comment I made about the FIFO inventory. So we had talked about how we were increasing our sales price to offset the tariffs, which should have a negative effect on the gross margin percentage neutral to dollars. But because we are -- we still have some pre-tariff inventory, we're seeing some benefit there. But that's not going to continue, right? As that rolls off, it will come back a bit. So I just wanted to...

Sorry to belabor, but as you know, Brian, you've seen this for a little bit is in any given particularly quarter reporting period, you're going to get margin fluctuations based upon mix, channel mix, particularly, but also product.

Understood. So next, I'm curious, which of your brands saw sales increases in 2025 outside of Dolly as overall sales decline for a fourth straight year. What gives you guys confidence that the top line inflects this year?

The main confidence that we see there is the disruptions that we saw in '26. And again, in the fourth quarter, we got some rebound of things that didn't ship from Q2 and Q3, but we'll have a much more normalization in a lot of the core business in 2026 because we didn't -- some of that did not come back in '25 will in '26. So that's going to be a natural driver for our business. We talked about Dolly will continue to grow, and we're seeing good traction there. In cutlery, we've had a tremendous run for a few years. And a lot of that is new product implementation. Our Build-A-Board line went from nothing created a whole marketplace. The growth trajectory of that piece of cutlery will not continue from the trajectory of growth, but we established a new business and will maintain. And there are some other things in that line that we're introducing that hopefully will produce some good growth. There are some things we haven't disclosed that are new that get us into a new space, totally internal investment that hopefully will hit '26. -- if not, we'll hit '27. But unfortunately, we can't disclose that at this moment, but there are some things that are total organic internal initiatives that are completely new that hopefully will drive some nice growth for us.

Great. And just on the brand growth for the year, any brands performed better than the company average?

Yes. So I mean, Taylor had a phenomenal year. Taylor is a great business. From the retailers to our customers' perspective, it's very attractive to them because what they track [indiscernible] is a key metric, which is the velocity and the margins that they make, it's very profitable for them. It's very good. And it had a very good year across the board in '25. Again, that trajectory will not continue in '26, but we had a banner year, and that continues to do well. Farberware across different things, very strong. And Farberware is our growth engine. KitchenAid, we lost some share a couple of years ago at Walmart. That has run through our numbers. We still have some of that hit us in '25. So that's actually the opportunities. And we relaunched the kitchen tool piece of that with a new line that's getting tremendous traction. And we also introduced just recently for '26, a storage -- KitchenAid storage product, which we think is beautiful, but it is getting more importantly, acceptance in the marketplace. So that -- not in '25, but '26 is looking pretty good, KitchenAid.

Great. And you mentioned the Dolly brand, obviously, sales up really nicely, up 150% for the year. How big is that now? And what is your expectation for sales growth contribution or shipments in 2026?

So '24, we started that program. It was a small base, right? So part of that 150% was off a small base. We shipped $18 million in '25. We will have substantial growth in '26 as well.

Got it. Okay. And then finally, obviously, topical given the war in Iran at the moment. Can you remind us how you're positioned on freight in terms of spot versus contract, your cost exposure to oil and resin and anything else we should be mindful of there?

Yes. So many of my questions I take an hour to answer. But -- so from a couple of things in Iran. One is what we're seeing is container rates are starting to go up, and we'll probably start to experience that. We have very attractive long-term contracts in for freight. But the reality of what happens in very high escalating periods is the shippers start to ignore those, to be honest. So long-term contracts are a benefit, but sometimes there's only so much that you can benefit. And you'll get some of it, but not all of it in very high inflationary ocean freight environments. We do very little business in the Mid East. We won't get much disruption there. It will get no disruption. We actually have a lot of upside that may not come on some new business. But either way, it's not material. Our European business is in jeopardy of seeing some supply disruption because the shipments are coming in a different -- it's going to be longer if they have to go around Africa and the like. But we think our inventory levels aren't going to impact that. And from a cost of goods sold perspective, plastics have resins, resins are impacted by petroleum cost. We have not seen anything. We'll see how that plays out. But if you look at it as a total percentage on a bill of material basis, it isn't going to have a huge impact on us.

And our next question comes from Anthony Lebiedzinski from Sidoti & Company.

Certainly nice to see the better-than-expected results here in the fourth quarter. So it sounds overall like you guys should be able to maintain your SG&A costs. As far as your distribution costs, those also came down in the fourth quarter. How should we be thinking about that line item? And then I have a couple of other questions as well.

Yes. On the distribution, as I noted, our West Coast facility is running very efficiently given the new warehouse management system that's working quite well. And as I noted, as an expense -- as a percentage because we had selling price increases, but there wasn't any meaningful cost increase. We'll continue to see that expense benefit as a percentage. And we think there'll be some, I'd say, mild disruption in expenses perhaps when we move into the Maryland facility, but we anticipate those. And we've done it many times, these moves. We are putting that new warehouse management system in that facility. So we're anticipating it to run quite well.

And on SG&A, this also goes to Brian's question a little bit is the moves we've taken are sustainable. The only thing where you'll see some bounce back in '26 versus '25 is, look, from a sort of target and incentive compensation perspective, we paid out hardly any, particularly nothing to management. And with improved performance in '26, there will likely be corresponding payment of incentive compensation. But everything -- that's not the bulk of the SG&A cost that was achieved -- cost reduction that was achieved in '25.

Got it. Okay. And then in terms of the International segment, Larry, you may have said this, but perhaps I missed it. But in terms of the operating loss for the quarter, for the year, can you provide the comments on that?

Yes. I mean there was a loss. It wasn't as pronounced as we had in 2024. I mean, as Rob mentioned in his comments, we're not done. The Concord and new Concord 2.0 continues. So -- and there's some other things that we had hoped to achieve, but there's legal and other roadblocks that slowed us down, we're hoping to achieve during 2026.

Okay. Got it. And then just a couple of other things here. So as far as the fourth quarter, you had a tax benefit, which you addressed, Larry. How should we think about the tax rate for '26? Any sort of commentary there on that?

Sure. So yes, it's very hard with our numbers to figure out tax rate. But we should be in the high 20% range. And that's based on -- the thing that -- well, I can say we have some usual occurrence this quarter, more usual than others. But what distorts our provision historically has been the loss internationally, where because of the history of losses, you can't record a tax benefit, and that will distort it. So we -- to the extent we get the international operations to breakeven or better, our tax rate should be in the 27%, 28%. And that's a combination of the U.S. federal rate and state.

Got you. Got it. Okay. And then lastly, as far as the Maryland distribution center, it sounds like it's very well on track. So in terms of thinking about the CapEx for this year, do you guys have a ballpark estimate of what that could be?

Yes. So we had -- I said we're anticipating it to be below budget, but let's not count it. We're very confident we can achieve the budget. I think we should beat it. So for CapEx, I think we had originally forecasted $9 million. It may be perhaps less than that, a little less. And we -- but of that, we spent a couple of million of it in '25. So let's call it around $7 million for that -- just for that in '26. But also bear in mind, there'll be a little offset compared to historically because we won't have the maintenance that we typically have in our New Jersey facility because we are putting in new racking and other things and tariffs and other things in the Maryland facility. So there will be maybe another $1 million benefit against what we would otherwise spend for routine maintenance.

And ladies and gentlemen, I'm showing no additional questions at this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing remarks.

Thanks, Jamie. Thank you, everyone, for listening and your interest in Lifetime Brands, and we look forward to further dialogue in the future. Have a great day.

And with that, everyone, we'll be concluding today's conference call and presentation. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.