クラウン・クラフツ（CRWS）2027年度第1四半期決算説明会：売上高8％増、利益率拡大

Crown Crafts（NASDAQ: CRWS）は、2027年度第1四半期決算で増収、調整後売上総利益率の拡大、および黒字転換を発表した。在庫供給状況の改善が売上高を後押しした一方、関税返還金がGAAPベースの利益とキャッシュ創出に大幅に寄与した。

主要ハイライト

• 売上高は1,680万ドルに達し、前年同期比8%増となった。消費支出が軟調だったものの、在庫水準の改善により Crown Crafts は需要により良く対応することができた。
• 調整後売上総利益は430万ドルとなり、価格改定の取り組みと高粗利益率商品の構成比向上に支えられ、調整後売上総利益率は前年同期比で290ベーシスポイント上昇し25.6%となった。
• GAAPベースの純利益は210万ドル（1株当たり0.19ドル）となり、前年同期の純損失110万ドル（1株当たり0.10ドルの赤字）から黒字に転換した。
• 関税の返還により、当四半期の売上原価が370万ドル減少した。同社は、関税関連の恩恵を調整した後でも黒字を確保したと発表した。
• 営業キャッシュフローは計550万ドルとなった一方、負債は会計年度初めの1,400万ドル超から四半期末時点で960万ドルへ減少した。
• 経営陣によると、再投入されたGroovy Girlsの売上は主にカナダが牽引し、予想を上回った。秋には欧州市場やAmazonでの展開も予定している。

主要財務データ

事業・業績の動向

売上増の主な要因は在庫水準の改善であった。経営陣は、前年の関税による混乱期と比較して、Crown Crafts は需要を満たせる体制が整っていたと述べた。

関税返還金を除外しても粗利益率の改善傾向は続いた。同社は調整後売上総利益率の拡大の要因として、戦略的な価格設定と高利益率商品の構成比向上を挙げている。また、コスト削減策により、売上高に対するノーマライズド販売促進・一般管理費の比率も低下した。

再投入されたManhattan Toy Groovy Girlsシリーズは、特にカナダで好調なパフォーマンスを示した。需要が想定以上に旺盛であったため、Crown Crafts は当初米国市場向けに予定していた在庫を振り向け始めた。経営陣は、カナダの代理店によるサポートや Indigo Bookstores によるマーケティングおよびローンチイベントをその要因として挙げている。

海外売上高も、Manhattan Toy と Sassy の両製品ラインを全チャネルで取り扱う Crown Crafts の新たなカナダ代理店の寄与を受けた。また、前年秋以降に加わった新たな欧州代理店も更なる業績改善をもたらした。

同社は業務の統合と負債の削減を進めている。倉庫統合には約18カ月を要する見込みで、2028年5月の完了を目指している。経営陣は、関連費用が2027年度に発生する可能性は低く、翌年度から開始される見通しであると述べている。

また、Crown Crafts は成長投資と債務返済のための手元資金を確保するため、四半期配当を適正な規模に調整した。経営陣は改定後の配当利回りを約4%としている。

経営見通しおよびスケジュール

経営陣は欧州市場向けとして、9月にドイツのK&JでGroovy Girlsをローンチする計画である。Amazonでの開始は10月を目標としているが、カナダでの旺盛な需要を受け、当初のAmazonでの提供は製品ラインの一部にとどまる可能性がある。

当期の設備投資は、ITやERPのアップデート、プラスチック玩具の金型といった通常項目を中心に維持される見込みである。倉庫関連の設備投資については、早くても翌年度以降に開始される予定である。

ミネソタ州にある Manhattan Toy のオフィス賃貸契約は来年3月末で満了し、更新されない予定である。経営陣は、小規模な現地スタッフのリモートワークへの移行、あるいは写真スタジオを備えた小規模なスペースへの移転などを検討している。

リスクおよび注視事項

• 経営陣は、高金利、インフレ、世界的な地政学的不確実性を背景に、消費支出が低調に推移していると述べた。
• 2027年度第1四半期のGAAP利益は関税返還金から大幅な恩恵を受けたが、経営陣は調整後ベースでも黒字を確保したとしている。
• Crown Crafts は560万ドルから570万ドルの関税払い戻しを申請し、約470万ドルを受領・計上済みである。約90万ドルは未受領かつ未計上のままである。
• Groovy Girls に対するカナダでの旺盛な需要のため、米国から在庫を流用する必要が生じており、Amazonでの初期ローンチ時の取扱商品数が制限される可能性がある。
• 倉庫の統合には、初期投資と約18カ月の実施期間が必要となる。

アナリスト質疑応答の要点

経営陣は、Groovy Girls のカナダでの実績が予想を上回ったと述べた。代理店と Indigo Bookstores との関係およびそれを支援する販促活動が立ち上げに寄与したとみられるが、同ブランドがカナダで特に好調であったより広範な理由について経営陣は明確にしていない。

計上された約470万ドルの関税払い戻し金の大部分は7月に受領された。四半期末時点では、同金額は売掛金ではなくその他流動資産に計上されていた。

経営陣は、倉庫統合プロジェクトが晩秋または初冬に開始され、2028年5月の完了を目指すと見込んでいる。当年度の設備投資は、通常のIT、ERP、および製品用金型の費用が大部分を占める見通しである。

新しいMotherhoodブランドのおむつ用バッグはAmazonで販売を開始したものの、初期の出足は緩やかであった。Crown Crafts はウォルマートで販売されている製品を含め、NoJoブランドのバッグも2種類展開しており、同カテゴリーの開発を継続している。

決算説明会文字起こし全文

決算説明会の完全なトランスクリプト

経営陣による説明

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone. everyone and welcome to the Crown Crafts Fiscal Year 2027 First Quarter Conference Call. During today's call, the company may make certain forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may be beyond Crowncraft's control, and the company is under no obligation to update these statements. For more information about the company's risk factors and other uncertainties, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 10-K. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to President and Chief Executive Officer Olivia Elliott. Please go ahead.

Olivia Elliott

Thank you, Operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining this afternoon's call. Today, after the close, Crown Crafts reported very solid quarterly results, given the still-solved demand environment. We accomplished this by focusing on what we can control, and our team did a terrific job executing on our strategy. We were able to grow our net sales 8% despite the uncertainty that consumers continue to feel around high interest rates, inflation, and global geopolitical events. Improved inventory levels account for most of the growth, as we were able to better meet demand than during last year's tariff instability. Just as important, we were able to drive a higher gross margin, both on a GAAP basis and also when adjusting for tariff refunds, as Claire will walk us through in a moment. On an adjusted basis, our growth margin for the quarter climbed nearly three full percentage points year over year to 25.6%.

As a result, we were able to produce positive net income versus the loss reported in the prior year period, and we once again generated positive operating cash flow of nearly $5 million, similar to the March quarter. Combined with a significant reduction in our debt balance during the quarter, our balance sheet is significantly strengthened. As we mentioned on our last call, during the June quarter, we relaunched Manhattan Toy Brands Groupie Girl. pleased to say that so far, sales of this iconic line of fashion dolls has exceeded our expectations, largely driven by the Canadian market. And we believe this bodes well for continued success of this retro-inspired beloved brand. Next, I'll provide an update on our strategic initiatives to grow both our top and bottom line. Our priority is our ongoing innovative internal product development to expand our product offering. Another initiative is to build on our recent margin expansion to further drive profitability.

We're moving towards a favorable mix of higher margin products and, of course, our relentless spending disciplines. We're also striving to consolidate certain internal operations for greater efficiency, reduce our debt levels, and over the next two years, we'll be working on warehouse consolidation to further enhance our operating structure. These initiatives to create long-term value can often require upfront investment, and to that end, our Board has elected to right-size our quarterly dividend, which will provide us strategic access to a greater portion of our cash flow. That will also allow us to pay down debt and build the balance sheet strength that will support Crowncraft's growth well into the future. In essence, our new quarterly dividend allows for a well-balanced capital allocation approach that includes investing in growth initiatives and maintaining a solid balance sheet, while still rewarding our valued shareholders with what is now approximately a 4% attractive dividend yield. In closing, we had a solid quarter as we continued to execute on our business plan. While leveraging our inherent strengths, including our brands, our licenses, and our valued retail and licensing partners, our multi-pronged strategy that covers internal development of new products, reinvigorated marketing efforts, tight cost controls, and the strategic allocation of capital, positions as well for the creation of long-term shareholder value.

And now I'll turn it over to Claire to provide additional details around our quarterly results before we take your questions.

Unknown Speaker

Thank you, Olivia, and welcome everyone once again to the call. Our first quarter net sales of $16.8 million were up 8% over the prior quarter as improved inventory levels helped us capitalize on still soft consumer spending. As Olivia mentioned, we had strong growth margin performance. During the quarter, tariff refunds reduced our cost of products sold by $3.7 million. Even adjusting for this benefit, our gross profit of $4.3 million was above the prior year's $3.5 million and equates to a gross profit margin of 25.6%, which was up 290 basis points year-over-year. This section of our adjusted growth margin reflects both our strategic pricing initiatives and an increasingly favorable mix of higher margin products. We recorded marketing and administrative expense of $5.2 million for the first quarter as compared to $4.7 million a year earlier, although this quarter's figure includes just over half a million dollars of accrued incentive and compensation associated with tariff refunds.

On a normalized basis, we reduced marketing and administrative expense as a percent of net sales to 28% versus 30.5% in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, which speaks to our sharp focus on cost efficiencies, as Olivia mentioned. Moving down the income statement, we also successfully reduced net interest expense to only $190,000, well below the year ago $283,000 as a result of our efforts to reduce debt over the past year. From a GAAP perspective, we reported net income of $2.1 million, or $0.19 per share, well above the prior year loss of $1.1 million, or $0.10 per share. While first quarter net income benefited from the tariff-related adjustments described, I'll again note that on an adjusted basis, we still generated the first quarter profit versus the prior year quarter's net. loss. Turning to our balance sheet, as of June 28, we had total liquidity of $12.1 million, including cash and equivalents and availability on our revolving line of credit. During the first quarter, we significantly reduced our debt from more than 14 million at the start of the fiscal year to just 9.6 million at the end of the quarter. Not only do we reduce outstanding debt, but our net cash from operating activities of $5.5 million served to further support our balance sheet strength, putting us in a strong position to capitalize on future growth opportunities in a disciplined manner.

In summary, this was another quarter of strong execution in which we focused on what we can control while economic conditions remained soft. Even adjusted for tariff refunds, we grew revenues, expanded our growth margin, and generated stronger earnings per share than in the year-ago quarter. further strengthen our balance sheet and are well positioned to make progress against our strategic initiatives as we move through the new fiscal year. And now And now, operator, if you could please open the lines, Olivia and I would be happy to take questions. Thank you.

Operator

We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. and again that is star 1 if you would like to ask a question and our first question will come from Doug Ruth with Lenox Financial Services.

Unknown Speaker

Olivia and Claire, congratulations, fabulous report. I have several questions, so if you like I'm asking too many and I'll mind getting back in the queue. Could you give us a...

Olivia Elliott

offer some commentary of what you think is happening with Groovy Girls? So Groovy Girls has done phenomenally well in Canada. And as we look back on history, even when, you know, before we acquired Manhattan Toy, the first time they launched Groovy Girls, it appears that it took off in Canada first then as well. So, yes. We have actually sold so much in Canada at this point in time that we're having to divert inventory that should be coming to the US to go to Canada. So we're really excited about the opportunity there. And then we'll be launching Groovy Girls at K&J in Germany for the European markets in September.

Unknown Speaker

Okay. Is there a theory of why the Canadians like Groovy Girls so much?.

Olivia Elliott

We don't know. I can tell you that our distributor, they are partnered with Indigo Bookstores who really put some marketing efforts behind it and they hosted an event so that probably helped with it to.

Unknown Speaker

have such a large partner to launch with. Okay. What about, you had previously mentioned that ultimately the Groovy Girls will be on Amazon. Is there like a date that that might happen?.

Olivia Elliott

We are still hoping to launch early fall the inventory having it take off faster than we expected, it may not be the full line, but we're still targeting October sometime with at least part of the line.

Unknown Speaker

Okay, very good. And then could you explain to us what the status is of the I think you had told us there was maybe around 5 million, maybe 5 and 1 half million.

Olivia Elliott

expecting more money or do you think that's it or we're hoping to get more money so we had Requested reimbursement for 5.6 to 5.7 million in tariffs. And so far we've received about 4.7 million. And that is the portion that we booked. Most of that was received in July. A very, very small portion had been received in the first quarter. There's about 900,000.

Unknown Speaker

we still haven't received and we have not booked okay and then how is the balance sheet changed from or are you able to tell us anything about you know where the balance sheet is now versus where it was you know based on maybe tariff money.

Olivia Elliott

You mean as of today versus the quarter end? Yes. It's certainly improved by getting $4-plus million in cash in in the month of July, but that's about all we can really tell you. Oh, okay. I didn't realize the $4 million came in in July. Okay, very good. Yes. So it was booked as other current assets as opposed to a trade receivable at quarter end and quarter end.

Unknown Speaker

I see. So that's the other current asset that's on the balance sheet. Yes, and I think there's more information Claire just pointed out in – Footnote four. Footnote four. Okay, good. Okay, and then what can you tell us about the warehouse?.

Olivia Elliott

We'll be starting that project sometime in late fall or early winter. It's about an 18-month process and the plan is to get it consolidate sometime in May of 2028. So that process is not quite started yet.

Unknown Speaker

Okay and can you provide any additional details about capital expenditures and what you're thinking and how much you might be spending?.

Olivia Elliott

As of right now, our capital expenditures should just be the normal capital expenditures, which is mainly IT, so it would be any ERP upgrades that we're going through right now. molds for plastic toys, anything for the warehouse is unlikely to be spent in this fiscal year. It'll probably start sometime in the next fiscal year.

Unknown Speaker

Okay. All right. And then how about the international sales are doing so well. Can you share anything that's happening and why they're doing so well or what you're doing and the kind of.

Olivia Elliott

stuff. A lot of that's Groovy Girls in Canada, but it's more than that in Canada as well. We had two different distributors in Canada previously and starting in this calendar year, maybe a little bit in December of 25. we got a new distributor that is handling both the Manhattan Toy and Sassy product lines and taking that to all channels. So we've seen a pretty good improvement there across the board. Groovy Girls certainly added to it. And then we did starting when we went to K&J last fall, we did pick up some new distributors that started buying product maybe later in the fall, early winter. So a little bit in Europe, a little improvement as well.

Unknown Speaker

Okay. And then what can you tell us about Legoland? And we know we got that big new facility or I guess it's a year old now in Shanghai. What's happening with Legoland?.

Olivia Elliott

I don't think there's been any changes with Legoland. That was the last new park of any size and a little A lot of the parks for Legoland actually start winding down and closing for the winter. So there are some that are open, I know like Florida and California stay open year round, but a lot of them close maybe sometime in October. So those are more seasonal sales than year round.

Unknown Speaker

Okay. And then how about the Manhattan Toy Office in Minnesota? Is there any thoughts or updates on that at all?.

Olivia Elliott

That lease expires at the end of March next year. So we'll obviously not renew that lease. We're still kind of thinking about what we need, if anything at all, in Minneapolis. If we do get a lease, I mean there's two trains of thought there, we can either let, it's very small staff so they can either work from home full-time or we may need some small lease that can just hold a few people and some like a photography studio but but we will not be renewing the.

Unknown Speaker

very expensive lease that we're in right now. Okay. And my last question, is there Any new thoughts or ideas on diaper bags and how the company might proceed with that business?.

Olivia Elliott

We're still working on that product line. We did just start selling the new motherhood diaper bags. Very slow start at this point in time. It's only on Amazon. We're working on that. We have a couple of No-Joe bags, No-Joe branded, one of which is in Walmart. That's really it right now but we haven't given up on diaper bags we're just still working on it.

Unknown Speaker

Okay. You just did a fabulous job and thank you for what you did on behalf of the shareholders.

Operator

Thank you. And this now concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Olivia Elliott for closing comments.

Olivia Elliott

Thank you, Operator, and again, we appreciate everyone being on the call. We look forward to building on the early success of Groovy Girl and our other innovative products on the way. We appreciate your continued interest in Crown Crafts and will keep you posted on our progress as we move through the new fiscal year. Please feel free to reach out with any additional questions, and thanks again for your time.

Operator

for being with us. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

This live transcript is auto-generated without human intervention or review.

[Call has ended.]