レスリーズ（LESL）2026年度第3四半期決算説明会：売上高8.4%減で業績予想を撤回

主要ポイント

• 2026年度第3四半期の売上高は前年同期比8.4%減の4億5,850万ドルとなり、既存店売上高は主に取引件数と来店客数の減少により6.2%減少しました。
• 調整後EBITDAは、販売数量の減少と粗利益率の圧迫を反映し、前年同期の8,160万ドルから5,570万ドルに減少しました。
• 粗利益率は、高利益率製品の販売不振、不透明な製品ミックス、配送センターおよび製造コストの増加により、前年同期の39.6%から36.5%に低下しました。
• 販売管理費（SG&A）は、クレジットカード決済手数料（インターチェンジ・フィー）の和解による1,750万ドルの一時的和解益を含め、17.9%減の1億640万ドルとなりました。純利益は2,610万ドル改善し、4,780万ドルとなりました。
• Leslie’sは、マクロ経済環境の変化と最盛期の来店客数が予想を下回ったことを理由に、先に公表していた2026年度通期の売上高および調整後EBITDAの見通し（ガイダンス）を撤回しました。
• 同社は、財務の柔軟性を高めレバレッジを削減するため、特定の財務関係者とともに戦略的代替案を模索しています。取引に関しては確定しておらず、保証されているものでもありません。

主要財務データ

事業および業績の状況

天候不順が店舗およびオンラインチャネル全般の需要を押し下げ、高利益率の専門化学薬品の購入につながるプール関連の問題発生が減少しました。また、経営陣は当四半期中、競合他社が在庫処理を目的としたより積極的な価格設定を行ったことも挙げました。

Leslies.comはプラスの既存店売上高を記録し、経営陣はこれを、顧客が価格を直接比較できるチャネルにおいて改定価格戦略が奏功している証拠と捉えました。しかし、価格改定や購買率の改善は、店舗への安定した来店客数の増加にはまだ結びついていないとしています。

Leslie’sは、昨年同社で購入しなかったものの2021年から2024年の間に購入歴があった顧客の再活性化に手応えがあったと報告しました。経営陣はこの進展について、ターゲットを絞ったマーケティング、価格改定、およびカスタマー・バリュー・プロポジションの刷新によるものとしています。

同社は全店研修を完了し、店舗運営を改善するとともに、主要な「常時在庫（never-out）」商品の高い在庫保持率を維持しました。経営陣は、総取引件数や顧客数の減少にもかかわらず、これらの施策が店舗での堅調な購買率と客単価（買上点数）の増加を支えたと述べています。

主要商品の在庫保持率を高い水準に維持しつつ、棚卸資産は15%減少しました。2026年7月4日までの設備投資額は1,050万ドルで、前年同期の1,910万ドルから減少しました。

経営陣の見通し（ガイダンス）

Leslie’sは、先に公表していた2026年度通期の売上高および調整後EBITDAの見通しを撤回し、代替となる見通しを発表しませんでした。経営陣は、マクロ経済環境の変化と最盛期における想定を下回る来店客数を理由に挙げています。

同社は、主に店舗および配送センターの維持・管理に焦点を当てた規律ある資本配分を反映し、2026年度の設備投資額が2,000万ドルを大幅に下回るとの予想を維持しています。

リスクと注視すべき点

• 来店客数と取引件数は依然として圧迫されており、経営陣はこれを同社の中心的な事業課題として特定しています。
• 消費者需要の減退、不順な天候、およびプロモーション活動の活発化が、売上高と製品ミックスの重荷となりました。
• 利益率の高い専門化学薬品の売上減少と、配送・製造コストの増加が粗利益率を圧迫しました。
• Leslie’sは、当四半期末時点で7億5,300万ドルの純長期有利子負債を抱えて終了し、デレバレッジ取引や1つ以上の資金調達取引を含む可能性のある戦略的代替案を検討しています。
• 経営陣は、貸借対照表（バランスシート）に関連する取引についての決定はなされておらず、いかなる取引が行われる保証もないことを強調しました。

決算説明会（電話会議）全文文字起こし

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, and welcome to the Fiscal Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call for Leslie's. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay later today on the company's website.

I would like to remind everyone that comments made today may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from management's current expectations. These statements speak as of today and will not be updated in the future if circumstances change. Please review the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in the company's earnings press release and recent filings with the SEC.

During the call today, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation between the GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures can be found in the company's earnings release, which was furnished to the SEC today and posted to the investor relations section of Leslie's website at ir.lesliespool.com.

On the call today is Jason McDonell, Chief Executive Officer; and Jeffrey White, Chief Financial Officer.

With that, I will turn the call over to Jason.

Jason McDonell

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter fiscal 2026 results. First, I want to take a moment to recognize our Leslie's team members across the country. Whether in our stores, our distribution centers, our field organization or our corporate offices, our people have continued to show up for our customers with care through this pool season. I also want to thank our vendor partners, many of whom have worked closely alongside us on training, product availability and promotional support this year. We appreciate your continued partnership.

During the third quarter, we continued to execute our comprehensive transformation plan in a challenging operating environment marked by softer consumer demand, heightened promotional activity and evolving customer purchase behaviors. While these dynamics continue to weigh on our financial performance this quarter, we remain focused on making progress on our strategic initiatives. By continuing to execute our pricing strategy, reactivate customers, enhance our store operations, optimize costs and improve our asset utilization, we aim to create a more efficient business model to help drive long-term value over time.

Before I get into our third quarter results, I want to provide a brief update on our financial position. As we discussed in May, we continue to evaluate opportunities to address our long-term debt obligations and strengthen our balance sheet. As part of that effort, we have begun exploring strategic alternatives with certain of our financial stakeholders to provide the incremental financial flexibility needed to continue delivering on our strategic priorities and drive sustainable growth.

Such strategic alternatives may include, but are not limited to, a deleveraging transaction, potentially combined with one or more financing transactions. No determinations have been made at this stage, and there is no assurance any such transaction will result. While this work is underway, we are committed to operating our business effectively and will continue to provide updates as appropriate.

Turning to the quarter, sales were $458.5 million and adjusted EBITDA was $55.7 million. Total sales declined 8.4% year-over-year, with comparable sales declining 6.2%, primarily reflecting lower transactions and customer traffic. Unfavorable weather patterns during the quarter had an effect on both demand and traffic in our stores and online, resulting in fewer prescribed pool problems that typically drive traffic and purchases for higher margin specialty chemical offerings.

While we saw modest improvements in mid-June, it was not sufficient to overcome the operating leverage headwinds we faced through the balance of the quarter, particularly as competitors reacted with more aggressive inventory-driven pricing actions. Despite these pressures, we maintain disciplined cost management while continuing to invest in the initiatives we believe should help strengthen the business over time.

Importantly, we saw operational proof points supporting the strategic actions we are taking, particularly with respect to our ability to redirect customers of our stores that we recently closed to nearby locations and our digital platforms. Our new pricing strategy continued to resonate with customers. And through our research and customer feedback, we believe that our targeted marketing campaigns are reaching our core audiences who are responding positively to our pricing improvements. Notably, we delivered positive comparable sales on leslies.com this quarter, where customers most often make direct price comparisons.

That said, translating this positive response into consistent store traffic improvement takes longer, and we remain focused on specific targeted marketing and promotional efforts to help drive sustained traffic gains across our physical locations. Despite declines in overall transaction count and overall customer count in the quarter, I am pleased to share that we saw momentum in reactivating customers this quarter, achieving strong growth with customers who did not shop with Leslie's last year but did shop with us in the period between 2021 and 2024.

This is a proof point that our pricing strategy, targeted marketing efforts and renewed customer value proposition are successfully bringing former Leslie's customers back into our ecosystem.

In addition, we continue to strengthen the fundamentals of the business through investments in our people and our store operations. We completed full-scale training across our store organization, continued enhancing the customer experience through improvements in our store operations and maintained strong in-stock levels across our never-out SKUs, supporting healthy in-store conversion rates and units per transaction growth in the quarter. Taken together, these operational improvements reinforce our confidence in the strategic actions we are taking to reposition Leslie's as America's one stop for pool care.

At the same time, we are continuing to evaluate our cost structure and overall operating model in light of the evolving macro environment in order to realize the benefits of these initiatives and support our long-term growth objectives. While this work is underway, we are sharpening our focus on a number of fronts. We believe that traffic generation, not just pricing or conversion, is now the central challenge in front of us. And we are taking a hard look at how we drive new and retained customers into our stores and onto our digital channels.

For new customers, this includes a combination of competitive pricing solutions and clearer communication of our expertise and convenient offerings to help us show up and win when customers are actively looking for solutions. In addition, we intend to continue to focus on our core values, providing loyalty, unmatched service and deep expertise to keep new and existing customers coming back.

With that, I will turn the call over to Jeff for a detailed review of our third quarter financial results and additional context on our capital structure.

Jeffrey White

Thank you, Jason. I'll begin my remarks today with a review of our third quarter financial results, followed by an update on our liquidity and balance sheet and outlook for the remainder of 2026.

Sales for the third quarter decreased 8.4% to $458.5 million compared to $500.3 million a year ago, reflecting softer customer demand in our retail business during the quarter as well as the loss of sales from the closure of 80 underperforming stores as part of our ongoing efforts to improve our cost structure. Excluding those closures, comparable sales decreased 6.2% in the third quarter compared with the same time period in fiscal year 2025. Gross profit margin for the third quarter was 36.5% versus 39.6% in the prior year period, driven by lower sales of higher margin products, a shift in product mix, and higher distribution center and manufacturing costs.

We continue to tightly manage controllable expenses during the quarter. SG&A decreased $23.2 million or 17.9% to $106.4 million compared to $129.6 million a year ago, reflecting lower labor and store operating costs as well as a $17.5 million one-time gain related to a credit card interchange fee settlement, partially offset by investments in technology. As a percentage of sales, SG&A improved 270 basis points year-over-year to 23.2%.

Compared to the third quarter of the prior year, net income improved by $26.1 million to $47.8 million and adjusted net income improved by $12.6 million to $37.8 million. Adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter was $55.7 million compared with $81.6 million in the third quarter of 2025. The year-over-year decline was primarily driven by lower sales volume and gross margin pressures during the quarter.

Inventory at the end of the quarter was $233.4 million, down 15% compared to $273.2 million at the end of the third quarter of 2025, reflecting continued progress on our inventory optimization initiatives, in part driven by the previous closures of unprofitable stores and continued cleanup of our non-go-forward inventory. Notably, even with these reductions in inventory, in-stocks on key products remain strong during the quarter.

Capital expenditures as of July 4, 2026, totaled $10.5 million compared to $19.1 million a year ago, primarily related to maintenance of our stores and distribution centers. We remain disciplined in our capital allocation and expect full-year fiscal 2026 capital expenditures to come in well below $20 million.

Turning to liquidity, we ended the quarter with $30 million outstanding under our revolving credit facility, compared to $20 million in the prior year. We also had $753 million of net long-term debt. As of quarter end, we had approximately $207 million (sic) [ $207.1 million ] of availability, including cash on hand and borrowing capacity under our credit facility. We continue to have meaningful liquidity to operate the business in the normal course as we evaluate opportunities to strengthen our balance sheet and address our long-term debt.

As Jason mentioned, we are engaged in constructive discussions with certain of our financial stakeholders as we explore strategic alternatives to provide incremental financial flexibility and delever our balance sheet. Throughout this process, we remain focused on maintaining financial discipline while continuing to execute on our comprehensive transformation.

Finally, turning to our fiscal 2026 outlook. Given the evolving macroeconomic environment and lower than anticipated customer traffic during our peak season, we are withdrawing our previously issued full-year sales and adjusted EBITDA guidance and are not providing an updated outlook at this time.

With that, I will turn the call back over to the operator.

Operator

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