Samsonite Group S.A. (1910) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Samsonite 2026 Interim Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to your first speaker today, Mr. [ Alvin ] Concepcion, VP, Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Welcome to the Samsonite Group Interim Results Conference Call. On the call with us today are Kyle Gendreau, Chief Executive Officer; and Tom Pizzuti, Chief Financial Officer. Before starting today's call, we would like to remind you that any forward-looking statements made on this call involve risks and uncertainties that are subject to the company's provisions as stated in the disclaimers in the company's press release and earnings announcement and that actual results can differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Kyle.

Okay. Thanks, everybody, for joining. We're excited. We have a lot of things to talk about, including news that we put out earlier in the day today that I think many of you would have seen. I'm on Slide 5. So whoever is managing the slides, I'm going to start right in. So Importantly, we're making strong progress on our key growth pillars that we've been talking about, and we're executing against, which is helping drive resilient sales in this business. We're focused on amplifying and elevating the awareness of our iconic and consumer-centric brands. We've increased the advertising spend, as we signaled, in the first half of the year. And we're really investing and continuing to invest behind our brands to push the business. We're very focused on being the clear winner in digital to further support not just our own DTC e-com business, but our multichannel approach to growth in the business. In our first half, our DTC e-com business grew faster than any other channels in our business, led by double-digit growth in Asia and Latin America and strong growth across the business. And importantly, our share of digital business, both in our own direct-to-consumer e-com and our broader DTC e-com and our wholesale e-retailer business, both increased as a percentage of our business. We continue to go after the white space opportunities in lifestyle bag. That business in the first half continued to grow. And we saw penetration increase in our business as well in these lifestyle bags, led by strong performance across all of our brands, but particularly Samsonite, Gregory and TUMI had really strong results within that space. And we continue to resonate with globally -- we continue to drive the business with products that resonate globally. And so, we had some really successful launches at the end of last year that continued to right into this year and some new launches this year. I'll cover them in the deck, but products like Samsonite NEXIS are off to a tremendous run. A relaunch of Alpha -- in TUMI, Alpha 4 has been really well received. And Samsonite PARALUX just continues to grow and will continue to fuel growth in the back half of the year. And then lastly and excitingly, we announced last night or early this morning for those in Asia, a definitive agreement to acquire BÉIS. BÉIS is a fast-growing digitally native lifestyle brand that broadens our access to younger, predominantly female consumers and really helps expand our presence in the higher-growth lifestyle bag categories and importantly, strengthens our own digital capabilities in the business, and a business that's coming with a really terrific management team, I'll cover a little later in the deck. So we're excited about that. All of these areas that we're focused on, particularly the pillars, are driving resilient first half performance. When I think about our performance, excluding Middle East and India, and we're all dealing with the conflict in the Middle East, our first half sales on a reported basis were up 3.1%, and on a constant currency basis, up just shy of 1% despite the headwinds. In Q2, the underlying net sales -- and importantly, Q2 is the first quarter that we have the full impact of the conflict -- Our business continued to be resilient. So excluding the Middle East and India, our business was largely flat, as we navigate softening travel demand and some softening consumer sentiment really off the back of the inflationary impacts, particularly in the U.S.. And I'll cover that in more detail as we go through the regions. Our margin continues to expand. Our gross margin on a reported basis for the first half is 60.5%, up from 59.2%. But in that number, we have some tariff refunds that came in for a lot of companies. If I exclude that, we're still up 30 basis points year-over-year for the half, 59.5%, and I would say an improving trend as we go into Q2. Again, reported Q2, 62% versus 59% last year. But excluding the tariff refund, our gross margins are 60%, up 100 basis points to the last year, driven by some favorable sales mix as Asia is moving -- the underlying Asia business is moving well and disciplined execution across our businesses and all of our brands. As we signaled, we delivered sequential improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin. Importantly, for Q2, our EBITDA margin on a reported basis, 16.1%. If I take the tariff out, the EBITDA margin is 14.1%, up 100 basis points to last quarter, so sequential improvement, and that's despite a 150 basis point increase in advertising. So we're pushing the business. We're leaning in on our pillars of growth, and we're delivering operating leverage within our EBITDA margin. That should continue really strongly in the back half of the year. On Slide 7, our core brand performance reflects underlying strength despite a full quarter of headwinds. You can see, our Samsonite business -- and the callout boxes on the top are excluding the impact of Middle East and India. So we're down slightly for Samsonite, 1%, with the headwinds we've talked about. I think that's a very strong result. TUMI, a little less, down just shy of 0.5 point across the globe. That's really off the back of growth in Asia, growth -- really strong growth in Latin America, but a more subdued North America and a bit more subdued Europe, down -- North America down around 5%. Europe down around 2%, really off the back of the headwinds that we're seeing from the conflict. Luciano has been on board for 3 months, doing a great job as he kind of starts to reset the TUMI business. Particularly in North America, we're focused on enhancing the DTC experience. We're prioritizing product innovations that support full-price selling for this brand, and we're strengthening the brand storytelling and consumer engagement. All this will have benefits as we move into the back half of the year, but importantly, as we set up '27 for a strong TUMI result. And then, American Tourister, underlying trends have been improving for the last 4 quarters. If you take out the Middle East, you can see, for Q2, we're up 6.2% with strong growth in North America, a little bit of timing of orders being placed with the wholesale customers, and growth in Europe. Asia, if I adjust for Middle East and India, delivering growth of 3.5%. So the American Tourister business has kind of moved into a trend that's more positive than when we were exiting 2025. On Page 8, we have stable performance in geographies not directly involved in the Middle East. I have a whole section on Asia following this, but I just want to give you a sense for what we're seeing and where you see impacts of conflict. And so, in Asia, particularly, you can see the impact of Middle East and India. But the callout boxes talk about the underlying trend. You see 3 quarters of sequential improvement in overall Asia, excluding Middle East and India. You can really see the impacts in North America on the inflationary pressures due to the conflict, softer travel demand we started to see in North America and some weaker consumer confidence off of inflation, off of a year of tariff, followed by a year of real inflation from the conflict. And we've seen some more cautious purchasing from our wholesale customers. That's driving much of the North America dip that we've seen in Q2. Europe has been stable is what I would say. Our business is roughly flat for the quarter. It's been running roughly up 1% for the last couple of quarters, and it really speaks to the underlying strength in the business despite the headwinds that we're seeing. And we're really seeing pressure in Europe is softening retail traffic. Our wholesale business has held up, and our e-com channels have been very strong within Europe. And Latin America continues to deliver positive growth. We saw a little bit of a softer traffic trend in Brazil and Chile, but our Mexico business continues to be positive, and our outlook for the back half of the year is positive for Latin America as well. The next 2 slides, I wanted to break Asia down because we have really strong underlying momentum in Asia. And I wanted to call out the countries that are really driving some strong results. So the first column is Asia excluding Middle East and India. So you can see, we've had 4 really strong consecutive quarters of growth, and that's continued into Q2. China has been very strong. Our business, as we kind of execute against our strategies -- we executed against a digital e-com channel that's outperforming, probably the strongest pocket of e-com growth in our overall business. You can see our China business up close to 9% growth in Q2 and really strong momentum continuing in that business. Across all brands, particularly brand Samsonite, very strong. And Gregory, I'll cover in a slide, really capturing a good moment within our China business. South Korea has been strong. This is, again, 4 really strong consecutive quarters, and it continues, and it's across all of our brands and channels. We've seen very strong e-com TV home shopping. We launched a very successful American Tourister lifestyle bag collection that's delivering for us and a Samsonite Red collection that we've launched exclusive on Musinsa, which is really a fashion-forward digital channel that we're really executing well with that brand there, that sub-brand. Japan has held up well. We've seen consistent growth in Japan, a little bit softer in Q1 and Q2, really off of some reduced traffic from Chinese consumers. But the underlying Japanese business continues to deliver a strong growth profile. If you go to the next page, you can see the impact within the Middle East, okay? So here, you can see conflict starting. In Q2, our Middle East business down 50%, okay? So that's a huge impact, as you'd expect. Our India business was also directly impacted just from a consumer sentiment perspective. We shifted from double-digit growth last year to down around kind of 8% to 10%. We expect that to improve a bit in the back half of the year, and we're managing that business well. Australia is a bit unique. Australia, you have consumer sentiment that's under strain. But Australians tend to travel to Europe through the Middle East. And I think with the disruption we've seen in the Middle East, we've seen a softer travel number in Australia as well. And then, the last slide, it captures everything else, the rest of Asia. And here, 4 really strong quarters of sequential improvement. These are markets like Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, all continuing to deliver growth. So the underlying kind of momentum, taking out really the 2 countries that have been really impacted by conflict, really speaks to an improving Asia story for us. In the next section, I'm going to go through the pillars. And just a reminder, and I led with these, but we're really focused and the entire organization is focused on what are the pillars to help us drive long-term growth. This elevation and amplification of awareness for iconic brands, enhanced storytelling behind the business. I'll give you some examples of what we're doing there. Being the clear winner in digital across that whole ecosystem, we're winning here, and we continue to push that, and I'll talk you through what we're doing on that front. This white space opportunity in lifestyle bags, really seizing the opportunity. In the last earnings call, I showed what the market size was and what our share is. And we have tremendous opportunity to gain share in this space, and we've had some really success -- strong success across our brands there. And then, we've got some really amazing product. We always have, but we've got products that are resonating globally, and we're leaning behind from a marketing and messaging perspective to move the business. And here, you have a picture of PARALUX, and I will talk you through what we're doing across brands from a product perspective. Importantly, we're continuing to advance our first 2 growth priorities with the global marketing and e-com office that we've established. We're beginning to fill that team out a bit more. And our GMEO continues to establish us as a key partner across the organization, helping to accelerate brand growth, strengthen our digital capabilities and improve marketing efficiencies. We're driving consistent global brand execution through impactful storytelling. You'll see some examples in here what we're doing there that balances our global scale but with local relevance. And that's really one of the powers of our business is we're touching consumers locally, but we're leveraging our global scale in a different way. We're working with teams and advisers like the [ Lions Advisory Group ] to help elevate our brand storytelling capabilities across all the regions. [ Chris ] is bringing people together to get everybody synchronized here. We're enhancing our digital marketing coordination by streamlining processes and improving speed to market by region, harnessing the scale of our business to execute in a different way, and accelerating our commerce capabilities across all digital channels, not just BTC digital. We're seeing great results there. And we're improving our marketing effectiveness through stronger ROI measurements, through greater transparency in the data and disciplined investment allocations. We continue to work with Deloitte on the MMM tools to drive efficient and effective spending. And I think the GMO is helping scale best practices globally across the business to harness the power of the consolidated business to drive long-term growth in portfolio. So, that lays this foundation for Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 that we're leaning into. I'm on Slide 13. And here's a good example of what we're talking about, elevating the Samsonite brand in China to target second half growth with a new brand ambassador, William Chan. William Chan is a leading single, actor, entertainer with more than 20 million followers. He was appointed as the brand ambassador for China really at the end of Q2. Just in the month of July, the campaign generated 42 -- and the campaign was around the NEXIS collection that we've launched, and we launched in China in the middle of Q2. In July, 42 million impressions, 5 million engagements. The strong consumer engagement translated into commercial results. The NEXIS collection ranked #2 -- or #3 in China best-selling collections. And this is after just launching for 6 weeks in this market. The campaign also drove significant traffic and awareness across all of the digital platforms. So the halo effect of this launch really matters. And it really speaks to our ability to continue to invest in culturally relevant brand ambassadors that enhance storytelling, engage consumer engagement and allow us to drive long-term brand growth that we can execute tactically within regions. So really a terrific success story. On Page 14, this is looking at what we did with NEXIS in Europe. So NEXIS launched very strongly in Europe. This was a 360 campaign integrated across the entire region. It really speaks to NEXIS as a flagship innovation platform. This is really next-generation product for us that's driving really enhanced brand visibility and scale. We delivered a full 360 campaign, out-of-home, premium retail environment, TV, social, digital, creator collaborations and content partnerships. And we leveled this multichannel activation to really move the needle. And NEXIS very quickly became a #2 bestseller collection in Europe in Q2, and it really drove brand strength across the entire region. And this is just getting going because this is really launched in China, as I said, in the middle of Q2, and Europe in Q2, and we're launching across the rest of the regions in Q3, and I expect a really strong result for NEXIS. You won't be able to miss it if you're following or you're traveling. Our DTC e-com business, Slide 15, was our fastest-growing channel, up 6.4% for the half. You can see our own DTC e-com on the charts below, went from 11% to 12%. We continue to move the needle there. And if we look at that whole ecosystem that I said at the start of my presentation, our overall DTC e-com and the e-retailers that we can measure, so the likes of Amazon that we're measuring that business, was up 60 basis points, almost 21% of our business coming from these channels and driving a growth story across all regions. Our overall DTC business increased by 1.6%, benefiting from the focus on our DTC e-com channels. Slide 16, our digital capabilities continue to drive consumer engagement across, what I would label, multichannel growth. What makes us a bit unique is, we can touch the entire ecosystem for digital on our own direct-to-consumer sites with wholesale partners that reach kind of global consumers and residents, the likes of Macy's, Nordstrom, our leading e-retailers like Amazons and Mercado Libre and many more that allow us to really play in scale across the entire ecosystem, mobile platforms, and really making sure that we're able to capture those consumers clearly there. We're playing that perfectly. And more recently, marketplaces and social commerce channels are gaining important growth and traction, and we're focused there. And I think our ability to leverage scale to play against this entire ecosystem, we can touch the consumers where they want to be, and we're doing that well across all regions, and more to come. The GMEO is laser-focused on how do we harness our scale to win here across all regions. We're accelerating digital leadership through strong e-commerce momentum in China. China really led the way here. Our DTC e-com business in China grew 14% in the first half, demonstrating this continued focus momentum in this market. We had exceptional performance in the Gregory brand in both DTC e-com and retail within China, and our net sales more than tripled in quarter 2 2026 to the previous year, highlighting the effectiveness of brand-led digital engagement and really targeting consumer activation in a category that's moving in China right now, and we're executing really well. Our DTC e-com channel in China represents 22% of our sales in China. Chinese consumers have shifted here, and we're capturing this really well. And as you know, our overall DTC e-com is 12%. So China is leading the way on capturing consumer demand within these channels. And it continues to be -- China continues to be a strategic priority to driving overall growth, and you could see that in the numbers I talked about for China in the second quarter. On our lifestyle bag positioning -- I'm on Page 18 -- this continued to grow, 2.4% growth. Importantly, as a percentage of our sales, it continues to grow. It's 37%, almost up 100 basis points to last year in this category. And it really speaks to what we're doing to focus on driving this category. I'll talk to you about what the initiatives are in a second, and it's coming across all of our brands importantly. On Page 19, what does it look like? What are we focused on? Just a couple of snippets here. When you think about brand Samsung, the Better Than Basic collection, a U.S. collection that's really delivered tremendous growth. Within TUMI, this TUMI Alpha, which has luggage components, but a lot of what I call lifestyle bags, this Brief Pack continuing to resonate really well with consumers. And American Tourister Take2Cabin performing in Europe really well as consumers shift to what they carry on to plane, and American Tourister is playing here. These hero collections are resonating across multichannels and brands and consumer segments. And our laser focus on optimizing our reach within this category is delivering. We're partnering with advisers to strengthen product development, merchandising and go-to-market capabilities. We're bringing in advisers to look at globally and within regions, how do we execute on this, both from a product development side and distribution side, to really make sure that we're maximizing our opportunity here. And we continue to evaluate opportunities. And the BÉIS acquisition is a good example of that. And I've been signaling there's opportunities here to expand how we execute in this space. And BÉIS delivers a really wonderful story within this space as well. Just a quick callout on Gregory. If you remember, this is a business we acquired, if you've been watching us long enough, more than 10 years ago. When we acquired, it was something like $25 million in sales. It will be north of $100 million in sales next year. It's delivering overall growth 9.1% in the first half, led by Asia, 15%, but growth in both North America and Europe. It's well positioned to capture this white space opportunity in lifestyle bags, both with performance and technical bags. But as these bags shift off the mountain, there's real opportunities to grow. And we're seeing that across all of our regions. The outdoor and wellness trend in China has been tremendously explosive, and we're capturing that really well. As consumers are prioritizing travel, exploration and experience-led spending, we're capturing that with tremendous momentum within China, and I would say, within Greater Asia, and it's helping really reinforce the Gregory brand positioning as a premium player, but with the ability to capture consumers that are more lifestyle focused. And then on BÉIS. And for me, when I think about pillars in the context of pillars, BÉIS is delivering on Pillar 2 and 3, our ability to win digitally. This is a brand that's done, I think, one of the most amazing jobs in this space. along with the ability to capture lifestyle bags, and about half of this business is lifestyle bags. We entered the agreement yesterday. As I said, it's really a fast-growing lifestyle and travel brand with a really loyal, engaged consumer following. This is a digitally native brand. It started 8 years ago with an amazing leadership team that's created a differentiated luggage and lifestyle bags, really authentic storytelling. I think it's one of the strengths, and I would label a best-in-class digital marketing and e-commerce platform. We're excited about this. It has significant growth runway, supported by Samsonite's global distribution, sourcing, innovation and logistics capabilities. Imagine the brand which the team will continue to run. They'll continue to run this from Los Angeles. But they get the benefit of scale that Samsonite can bring in the background to help them kind of achieve their full potential. It's really led by a very strong and energized team. We've got to really -- we've really got to enjoy meeting and getting to know this team. It's led by brand CEO, Adeela Hussain Johnson, and a super-talented team around her that's delivering, and importantly, a founder and somebody who will continue to be the Head of Creative and Design, Shay Mitchell, who has really guided this brand's creative and product vision and will continue to do so under our watch and allow this brand to reach its full potential, both in North America, but I think there will be opportunities to expand this brand against our international platform in a meaningful way. And then on Pillar 4, just continuing to win with products that matter. We've always been here. This is a business that makes products, but we're focused in a different way here to make sure that we're getting the full scale and benefit of products that touch consumers across the globe. We're leading the future with innovation and sustainability over 115-year legacy of real innovation. NEXIS is a good example of what comes to bear when we're able to do this. We're focused on lighter, more flexible, durable and sustainable materials. We're doing this at a scale that nobody in the industry can to really bring next-generation products. This focus on centralized product and marketing coordination, GMEO, enabling global consistency, will move -- continue to move the needle for us. And then, as I said, broaden the assortment to adjacent categories of lifestyle bags. We have real opportunity to win here with products that touch the globe in a more meaningful way. Just a few examples. Samsonite PARALUX continues to build. We were so strong as we launched this at the end of 2025 that we're chasing inventory. We're back into a full inventory position as we get to the end of Q2 and as we lean into Q3. This has become a #2 bestseller collection in the first half of 2026 as a collection. And we're launching new colorways. This Dusty Pink and Blue Fog is off -- recently launching and off to a really strong start. And this is a collection that has won Red Dot Awards. It's innovative. It's sustainable. It's a really good story, and it's resonating importantly with consumers across the globe. Page 24, we're about to launch a color that I think is amazing. This is a luxurious colorway, and it's a wow when you see it in person. It's tagline, [ Brewed for the Bold ]. This is a really exciting colorway extension for this collection, and I think continues to elevate brand Samsonite in a meaningful way. And this will be launching in the fall of this year. I've covered NEXIS a lot. You saw some of the marketing messaging, but there's something really unique about this product. It's really, I would label, next generation of premium innovation and shows what we're capable of doing as a company. It's a differentiated product using our Roxkin technology, which is ultra lightweight, ultra durable and resilient product. It features silent suspension wheels, things that consumers are watching for, organized packing. It's delivering a different experience when you travel with this product. It's got this tremendous value proposition. It's got sustainable materials. It's got advanced security features. And it is resonating with consumers. This is another one wow when you get it in front of you. And there's more to come. This is -- for the markets that we've launched and leaned in, it's delivered. It's moved into a top 5 collection worldwide. And we haven't really launched it yet in North America and the rest of Asia and Latin America. So there's a lot to come with this collection as we move into the back half of the year. And then, on Slide 26, the Alpha 4. TUMI Alpha is a collection that kind of put TUMI on the map, and it continues to deliver. It's a #1 collection across all regions, obviously, #1 collection for TUMI overall. This was a relaunch with premium materials, elevated functionality, innovation, designed for today's traveler, and this continues to move. And it really reinforces TUMI's ability to consistently develop products that resonate globally, while supporting its premium positioning and long-term growth aspiration. And it's been a tremendous success from a launch perspective. So with that, hopefully, you can feel the things that we're doing to push the business and how they're helping us deliver resilient sales. I'm going to hand off to Tom for a financial overview, and then I'll come back for an outlook at the end.

Thank you, Kyle, and hello, everyone. I am starting on Slide 28. We're pleased to report solid momentum in our margins, and I'll talk about these margins excluding the benefit of U.S. tariff refunds. We had disciplined execution in the second quarter that drove higher profitability relative to the first quarter. And along with our scale advantages, this enabled us to invest in our long-term growth. Recall that last quarter, we said relative to Q1 2026, we expected Q2 2026 adjusted EBITDA margin to improve over the course of the year, and that happened. This was driven by a 100 basis point improvement in gross margin relative to Q1 as we successfully managed cost increases, supported by favorable geographic and channel mix, as Kyle referenced earlier. At the same time, we invested in our key growth pillars to amplify and elevate awareness of our iconic brands ahead of the summer travel season and to be the clear winner in digital. Accordingly, marketing spend as a percentage of net sales increased by 150 basis points in Q2 relative to Q1 at 7.2% of net sales. This included flexing our marketing spend down just a little bit versus what we were planning to do in light of the continued headwinds on our net sales, while still leaning in a bit. Distribution and G&A expenses as a percentage of net sales fell by 120 basis points relative to Q1, reflecting disciplined cost management, as we mentioned, and operating leverage from a seasonally higher net sales base. This led to a 100 basis point sequential increase in adjusted EBITDA margin relative to Q1, and we expect this momentum to continue into the back half of the year. On Slide 29, where I'll now discuss our Q2 results relative to last year. And again, I will reference margins that exclude the benefit from U.S. tariff refund. In Q2, reported net sales fell by 1.6%, or by 1.7% on a constant currency basis, due largely to impacts from the Middle East conflict, which were more significant than we expected in our Q1 outlook. It's been 5.5 months of the conflict. Recall that we assumed the impact would not materially worsen relative to what we had seen through early May as it was very difficult to predict what would happen one way or another. But as Kyle mentioned, consumer confidence and air travel demand softened in Q2, particularly in the U.S., which impacted our net sales. That said, underlying performance was resilient, and Kyle referenced that earlier. Excluding the Middle East and India, reported net sales were up 0.6% and constant currency net sales were approximately flat in Q2, down 0.2%. North America, however, experienced a more significant constant currency net sales decrease from Q1 to Q2 due to softening in both consumer confidence and air travel relative to other regions, as well as cautious buying by wholesale customers. Gross margin was 60% in the quarter, reflecting disciplined execution, supported by favorable geographic and channel mix, as mentioned. As we look forward, there are still some uncertainties in the cost environment due to the conflict in the Middle East, but we are well positioned to continue to manage them well. We have forward-bought inventory. We are reengineering products to reduce costs, and we are evaluating pricing actions that are appropriate. We continue to feel confident that we will maintain our strong gross margin profile for the remainder of 2026. Marketing expenses as a percentage of net sales were 7.2% in the quarter, which was up 70 basis points from the same period in the prior year as we invested in marketing to elevate our iconic brands, enhance the storytelling and support, importantly, the e-commerce sales channel. Our distribution expenses were 33.6% of net sales in Q2, an increase of 200 basis points from the same period in the prior year, which is similar to what we experienced in Q1. The increase was mainly due to continued pressure from inflation, selected new store openings and higher outbound freight costs on slightly lower net sales versus Q2 of '25. G&A expenses were 7% of net sales in Q2, an increase of 90 basis points from the second quarter of 2025. The increase was primarily due to increased professional fees, salaries and benefits, and cloud-based ERP system implementation costs. Overall, we're managing costs with discipline as we invest for future growth and operating leverage expansion. We remain focused on investments in marketing, expanded digital capabilities, life style bag growth initiatives and global product innovation, along with selective store openings, all of which are key to securing long-term brand growth opportunities, as Kyle mentioned in his presentation. Looking forward, we continue to focus on offsetting cost pressures through productivity gains and tighter control of discretionary spend. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 14.1% in the second quarter, down from 16.3% during the second quarter of '25, reflecting continued investment across our strategic growth pillars, as mentioned. Looking forward, these investments position us to improve net sales growth as we enter seasonally high net sales period and help drive improved operating leverage relative to Q2. As a result, we continue to expect adjusted EBITDA margin levels to sequentially improve, excluding the benefit from the second quarter U.S. tariff refund. On Slide 30 now, we show our first half '26 results. Similar to what we just walked through on Q2's performance, we made great progress on advancing our growth pillars, which enabled us to deliver resilient underlying net sales performance in light of softening consumer confidence in air travel, due in part to the conflict in the Middle East. Excluding the Middle East and India, net sales were up 3.1%, or 0.7% on a constant currency basis. We expanded our gross margin, while investing in marketing and our strategic growth initiatives. We expect EBITDA margin improvement to continue in the second half of '26. Now, going to Slide 31. Our balance sheet remains healthy with a net debt position of about $1.069 billion at the end of Q2, which is a decrease in debt of approximately $30 million from the end of '25. Our total net leverage ratio was 1.8. And we had a strong liquidity of approximately $1.5 billion as of June 30, 2026. We also continued to invest in our long-term growth with capital expenditures of $19 million in Q2, which was in line with the second quarter of '25. We continue to enhance our distribution center in Europe, which will support future growth, especially in e-commerce. We delivered strong adjusted free cash flow of $58 million in Q2, an improvement of $5 million from the same period in 2025. Our healthy balance sheet enables us to return cash to shareholders, paying $140 million dividend on July 15, 2026. And we also completed a $50 million share repurchase in mid-June. This reflected disciplined capital allocation. And speaking of capital allocation, I just want to add a few additional comments on the BÉIS acquisition. As Kyle mentioned, we're extremely excited to add this amazing brand to our portfolio. BÉIS has delivered rapid profitable growth, generating $210 million in net sales in 2025 at attractive margins. The acquisition is expected to be broadly neutral to our consolidated profitability with additional margin improvement opportunities in supply chain and logistics as this comes into the Samsonite platform, as Kyle mentioned, over time. We also expect this to enhance our overall net sales growth profile, and there will be continued sales growth for the brand in 2026 under our watch when the deal closes. The transaction's enterprise value was -- will be $210 million, and we'll be purchasing 85% of the business. Shay Mitchell, Founder and Head of Creative and Design, will retain half of our ownership in the business and continue to inspire the brand to grow to the next level. We expect to close in Q4 of 2026, subject to the receipt of regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. In summary, our business has been resilient in a challenging demand and cost environment, and we've been able to deliver stable underlying net sales performance, along with gross margin expansion. We invested in our long-term growth, and we'll be able to continue to do so as our adjusted EBITDA margin profile also improves from these levels. We improved adjusted free cash flow. And our healthy balance sheet allowed us to return a sizable amount of cash to shareholders. As a result, we believe we are well positioned to successfully execute the near-term challenges and accelerate growth over the long term as we continue to execute on our key growth pillars. I'll now turn it back to Kyle for the outlook.

Okay. Great. Thanks, Tom. Outlook, I'm on Page 33. I'll go through this, and we'll open up for questions after. So from an outlook perspective, when I think about constant currency growth, I'm going to focus on Q3. I think Q3 will remain stable and be in a similar range to what we saw in Q2 as the conflict continues. Although the situation in the Middle East remains fluid, we expect continued progress on our key growth pillars that we spend a lot of time talking about on this call, which has and will continue to enable us to navigate the pressures and continue to deliver resilient underlying net sales growth. We believe that our scale advantages and our relationships with suppliers and the actions we take to navigate macro conditions and inflationary pressures will allow us to continue to maintain the gross margin profile. We have a very strong track record of delivering gross margin profile. And even in this environment, we've been able to step up our gross margin. So I'm highly confident on that front. We're going to continue to invest behind our brands. We're investing in marketing. For the full year, you should expect us to spend around 6.5% on marketing and advertising spend, which is allowing us to drive much of the pillars that we've talked about today. Relative to the second quarter, and we look at EBITDA margin, and excluding the tariff, you should expect us to continue, as Tom just covered, adjusted EBITDA margin expansion from a margin perspective in the back half of the year, just as you saw in Q2 of this year. As we navigate, as we manage cost structure in the business and we go into a seasonally stronger back half of the year selling period, our EBITDA margin will continue to step up. As Tom just finished, we remain focused on disciplined approach to capital allocation, commitment to returning cash to shareholders through dividends and opportunistic share repurchases and smartly investing behind the business to deliver long-term growth. From a listing perspective, we continue to be in a ready position, and we continue to closely monitor the macro and market -- macroeconomic and market conditions. In light of our view of improvement in our business, we intend to complete the dual listing in 2026 if conditions improve. We need some conditions to improve a bit on trading, but also the backdrop of the conflict, I think, really is a factor for us as we watch. But what I would say is, we're ready to go when we see the window. And lastly, we continue to be confident in the long-term tailwinds that support our business, including continued growth in travel demand, as well as the ability to execute our strategic priorities to accelerate growth. Hopefully, you're feeling that from our presentation. We've added in this deck -- and we're not going to cover it today, but we've added in this deck additional context that really speak to the long-term tailwinds supporting our business, the scale advantages that we have as a business that we're leaning into. You can feel the things that we're pushing in this business speak to leveraging scale advantage and the growth pillars that we're focused on to drive long-term growth in the business, supported by a tailwind in the industry that I think continues to look bright. And to sum it up, I think our underlying net sales growth were resilient in Q2, and we expect to remain stable in Q3 despite many unknowns and the impacts from the demand from the conflict. Our gross margin expanded and our EBITDA margin sequentially improved in the quarter. We're highly focused on actions to leverage our competitive advantages and scale to enable us to deliver a strong and improving margin profile in the back half of the year. We're highly confident on that. And hopefully, you can feel we're playing in offense again in driving this business, investing both organically and inorganically to drive long-term profitable growth. We're focused on progressing our key pillars, which has resulted in durable organic performance in the first half. The BÉIS acquisition will expand our demographic reach within North America, aligns closely with our growth pillars through its strong lifestyle bag portfolio and digital capabilities. And I might add a really strong leadership team that will continue to drive this business. And it will add more than $210 million of our sales to our business with an attractive growth profile and a margin profile that will just continue to add to ours. In closing, our teams have demonstrated, year after year, they are nimble and steadfast regardless of the environment. And for me, it was in full display in the first half of this year as we navigated the business with headwinds around us to deliver, what I would label, a strong result, considering headwinds. This is what gives me the confidence that the investments we're making and the push that we have against our pillars will continue to bear fruit and position us for an accelerated long-term growth story and continue to generate shareholder value as we move forward with this business. So with that, I'll open it back up for questions. And thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Kyle and Tom. [Operator Instructions] Operator, we can go into Q&A now.

The first question comes from the line of Dustin Wei of Morgan Stanley.

First question related to TUMI. Like with the new TUMI management team on board, like anything that you or management see sort of either lower-hanging fruits or something to improve for the brand, especially for the U.S., like we have seen the headwind to the overall U.S. market for quite some quarters already? I noted the macro headwind, which is still like TUMI is really having the potential globally and in the U.S. And second question is on BÉIS, and congratulations on the deal. So like how do you plan to scale up the BÉIS sales? I think versus like 10 years ago, your company also acquired a number of sort of smaller to medium-sized brands. Like what makes you think that this time could be different and really make BÉIS sort of another maybe [ fourth ] largest brand in the portfolio? And would there be any other sort of acquisition in the pipeline?

Okay. I think Luciano is doing a great job settling TUMI. And in many ways, we're in the midst of a reset with this brand. And I covered it a bit when I was on the TUMI slide, was focused on DTC execution. The need to kind of continue to invest behind elevating kind of the awareness for this brand. Its real potential is around broadening awareness. And I would say, the tactical execution of driving that business with products that continue to elevate its positioning. Luciano is in the midst of resetting some of the team members. He has been on for 3 months. I think he is doing a great job. And I have full view to what I think TUMI's full potential is. That hasn't changed. I think we continue to have an ability to double this business over the next 6, 7 years as we continue to drive growth. It's delivering growth in Asia. It's delivering growth in Europe. And the U.S. is feeling the same headwinds that I think the overall U.S. market is feeling. So I think in that backdrop, I think it's a moment in time versus, I think, its long-term potential. And I still have full visibility. I think Luciano is highly engaged and I am on what's TUMI's full potential. From a BÉIS perspective, base has got many things going forward. One, the underlying growth in the U.S. market, I think, just continues to be an opportunity. That's where we'll be focused as we settle this business in and get it going. It will get the benefit of scale from a sourcing, logistics infrastructure piece. That was all outsourced by the owner of BÉIS that was providing the back-office structure. This team will get energized off of what it can get from the scale of Samsonite, while still running and driving the business within the core team there that I think is amazing. The real additional growth drivers for BÉIS is, how do we target countries that make sense. I think we'll be careful with that. We'll still be evaluating that, but it's international opportunities, and BÉIS has visibility to it. But what will be different is, they get scale of our structure to do that. And I think that will provide medium- and long-term growth for this business. What makes it amazing is, it's got a good mix of lifestyle bags. It's got a terrific, very clear travel offering. It really plays in this digital ecosystem in a way that I think will have halo benefits, not just for the BÉIS business touching the rest of the world, but for our overall Samsonite business. So, that knowledge transfer that can come both ways, I think, will add fuel to not just BÉIS but our overall business. And I think it's got tremendous opportunities. And I think we've done a lot of smaller deals over the year that have kind of not moved the needle, but this has got scale. This is a business that's moving. That's the 2005 numbers. The 2006 numbers will be bigger than what Tom talked about in his presentation. And so, momentum, scale and getting to leverage this organization will allow us to do some great things with a really, again, super strong leadership team. And the energy and the halo benefit that Shay brings to that brand -- and she'll continue to be the Head of Creative and Design -- will continue to deliver a great story for this business. So we're very excited and that team is very excited, and we'll close that in Q4. From an acquisition perspective, as I always say, Dustin, we're always evaluating and looking. There's nothing that we're cooking right now, but we have plenty of inbounds and reasons to continue to look. And we continue to look in the space around the adjacent category of lifestyle bags. I think there's opportunities there for us. But we'll be focused on what we got in hand to make sure that's well bedded in here and moving as we move forward. So those were good questions, Dustin. Thank you.

Next question comes from the line of Anne Ling of Jefferies.

My question is on the third quarter-to-date performance. If you can share with us a little bit of the update. I understand that third quarter, you just mentioned that you expect that the sales level in local currency term will be more or less similar. But maybe you can give us a little bit more idea in terms of -- or some color in terms of like different markets' performance. For example, like markets in the North Asia like still continue to do strong -- very good growth. Markets like China, we have seen a very bad weather, not sure whether this impacted the sales so far. So how are you seeing like in different markets, how they are performing?

What I would say, and I'll kind of stick to what I said for Q3, I think we're seeing a stable environment. And it really looks similar to what I just walked through for Q2 across Asia and across Europe. I think stable Europe. I think North America, I might say, in the back half, has some opportunities as wholesale customers' inventories levels have come down. I think there'll be some opportunities in the back half of the year for North America just from a timing perspective with wholesale customers that are buying cautiously. Within Asia, I think China's momentum -- and weather always has impacts, I would say, across the world. The weather dynamics have been strange. You felt tremendous heat in Europe, which impacted inbound tourism. You have kind of the disruptions of weather in the U.S. and really some amazing weather in Hong Kong and China, I think, with the storms that have come through and really record heat. But those aren't really enough to drive kind of a different story in the trend. I think the world kind of has adjusted to that. And so, we still see a strong China for Q3. The team is executing really well. Across all those channels, we continue to see momentum. As the conflict wears on, I think it continues to weigh on consumer sentiments, but that's why I'm guiding, I think, a stable situation for Q3 versus Q2. So not so different than what we just walked through is what I would say.

Our next question comes from the line of Carol Xia of Daiwa.

So firstly, you mentioned that you will keep looking for opportunities in the lifestyle brands for M&As. And then, I want to ask like for our existing brands like TUMI, Samsonite, American Tourister, like Gregory, how -- what are the key drivers to drive the lifestyle part of our existing brands? And which brands do you think are -- have more opportunities [ exposed ] to the lifestyle? And secondly, I want to follow up on your cash usage priorities like for M&A, reducing debt, dividend and buyback, which are your priorities?