Hamilton Beach Brands (HBB) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Margin Expands, Revenue Outlook Cut

Key Takeaways

• Third-quarter revenue increased 5.6% year over year to $140.3 million, primarily reflecting a recovery in the U.S. consumer business after retailers paused purchases in 2025.
• Gross margin expanded 640 basis points to 27.5%. The prior-year quarter included about $5 million of incremental costs tied to inventory imported under the temporary 125% China tariff rate.
• Operating profit rose 52.6% to $4.4 million, while net income increased to $3.5 million, or $0.26 per diluted share, from $1.7 million, or $0.12 per diluted share.
• Hamilton Beach Brands lowered its 2026 revenue outlook to approximately flat year over year from its previous expectation for growth approaching the mid-single-digit range, citing cautious retailer inventory commitments and a softer consumer outlook.
• The company raised its 2026 outlook for cash flow from operating activities less investing activities to $40 million-$50 million, supported by normalization of tariff-related working capital effects.
• Hamilton Beach Health recorded its fifth consecutive quarter of profitable growth and remains on track, according to management, to increase sales by 50% in 2026.

Key Financial Data

SG&A increased by $9 million. This included $4 million of higher performance-based incentive expense, primarily related to stock-price appreciation, $1.3 million of accelerated depreciation for the legacy ERP system and approximately $1.6 million of additional advertising spending.

During the quarter, Hamilton Beach Brands repaid $25 million of debt, repurchased about 25,000 shares for approximately $600,000 and paid $1.7 million in dividends.

Business and Operating Performance

The U.S. consumer business was the primary driver of third-quarter revenue growth. The comparison benefited from retailer purchasing pauses in spring and summer 2025, when customers reassessed inventory and pricing following higher U.S. tariffs.

Product launches during the quarter included two single-serve coffee platforms and new irons, air fryers and multi-cookers. Management said increased marketing spending will continue through the fourth quarter to support product awareness and retail demand.

In premium products, Lotus Professional expanded its online distribution, while Lotus Signature had a soft launch ahead of a broader introduction planned for early 2027. Hamilton Beach Brands also plans to launch the HB Professional Kettle in the fourth quarter.

The commercial business began the initial rollout of the Eclipse Blender at a leading national coffee chain. Sunkist commercial juicers and sectionizers continued to grow, with sourcing improvements supporting margins. The company is also pursuing similar hotel programs after adding irons and hair dryers across approximately 770 U.S. locations of a national hotel chain.

Hamilton Beach Health completed its fifth consecutive quarter of profitable growth. Its platforms have tracked more than 1.25 million injections and managed 70,000 patients globally. The company is preparing to expand beyond injectable medication management with a pill management platform initially targeting rheumatology and gastroenterology.

The company also advanced its digital strategy through website changes for AI-driven discovery, tests of AI-optimized product content, a paid ChatGPT advertising pilot and a new platform for measuring AI search visibility.

Management Guidance

Hamilton Beach Brands now expects 2026 revenue to be approximately flat year over year, compared with its previous forecast for growth approaching the mid-single-digit range. Excluding the prior-year contribution from the expired Bartesian licensing agreement, management forecasts 2026 revenue growth of 3.4% and fourth-quarter growth of 1.3%.

Management continues to expect the 2026 gross margin to improve modestly from 25.7% in 2025. However, operating profit is now projected to decline by a high-teens percentage versus 2025 because of the lower revenue outlook and higher non-cash incentive compensation expense.

The operating profit outlook includes an incremental $6 million of planned advertising spending and approximately $5 million of non-recurring accelerated depreciation related to the legacy ERP system.

The company raised its forecast for 2026 cash flow from operating activities less cash used for investing activities to $40 million-$50 million from $35 million-$45 million. The outlook excludes the $36.5 million IEEPA tariff refund received in the second quarter and an additional $4 million refund anticipated in the fourth quarter.

Risks and Watchpoints

Retailers have become more cautious about inventory commitments amid a softer consumer outlook, leading management to reduce its fourth-quarter and full-year revenue expectations.

The fourth quarter also faces a more difficult comparison because sales recovered to approximately flat year over year in Q4 2025 after double-digit declines in the middle of that year.

The expiration of the Bartesian licensing agreement at the end of 2025 remains a drag on reported revenue comparisons. Higher advertising investment, accelerated ERP depreciation and stock-based incentive expense are also weighing on the 2026 operating profit outlook.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

Thank you all for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to today's Hamilton Beach Brands Quarter 3 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Without further ado, I would like to turn the call over to Brendon Frey, Partner, ICR. Brendon, you have the floor.

Brendon Frey

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast for Hamilton Beach Brands. Earlier today after the stock market closed, we issued our third quarter 2026 earnings release, which is available on our corporate website. Our speakers today are Scott Tidey, President and CEO; and Sally Cunningham, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer.

Our presentation today includes forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in either our prepared remarks or during the Q&A. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties is available in our 10-Q, our earnings release, and our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025. The company disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which may not be updated until our quarterly conference call -- our next quarterly conference call, if at all. The company will also discuss certain non-GAAP measures. Reconciliation for all Regulation G purposes can be found in our earnings release. With that, I'll now turn it over to Scott. Scott?

R. Tidey

Thank you, Brendon, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We are pleased with our third quarter results, which were generally in line with our expectations. The mid-single-digit net sales increase we delivered was driven primarily by the continued recovery of the U.S. consumer business we lost last year. As you will recall, several retailers paused purchasing in the spring and summer of 2025 to reevaluate their inventory levels in response to the implementation of higher tariffs. The year-over-year change in the tariff environment also significantly improved gross margin. In last year's third quarter, we incurred about $5 million in incremental costs as we sold through inventory imported earlier in 2025 under the temporary 125% China tariff rate. This year, we benefited from sales of inventory through our foreign trade zone that was not subject to additional tariffs.

These factors combined to fuel a 640 basis point improvement in gross margin. Higher sales and higher gross margins were partially offset by increased spending, including our planned incremental investment in top-of-the-funnel advertising programs designed to broaden awareness of our brands, support our innovation pipeline, and drive consumer demand. In addition, this year's SG&A included higher non-cash expenses related to the accelerated depreciation of our legacy ERP system and stock-based compensation expense due to the appreciation in our stock price during the quarter. Despite these headwinds, we increased operating profit by over 50% compared to the third quarter of last year.

Turning now to our five strategic growth pillars. I want to update you on the progress we've made during the third quarter. Across these initiatives, our priorities are clear: Strengthen demand of our consumer brands through innovation and marketing, expand our higher-margin commercial and health businesses, and build the digital capabilities needed to support sustainable growth. Starting with driving growth of our core business. We continue to execute against our new product pipeline with several launches in the quarter. Our increased marketing investment is intended to build awareness of these innovations, strengthen consumer demand, and support their growth at retail. We introduced two new single-serve coffee platforms, bringing much needed innovation to the category, as well as several new irons, air fryers and multi-cooker products.

In addition to the positive response from the consumers to the innovation we are bringing to market, it is always rewarding to be acknowledged by the media. Our Sandwich Stacker, which we launched earlier this year, was recently recognized with the Good Housekeeping 2027 Kitchen Gear Award. Our commitment and focus on innovation are translating into growth across multiple categories with our key mass market retail partners, which we are supporting with increased marketing investments throughout the fourth quarter.

Moving to gaining a larger share in the premium market. On the heels of a broader market launch last quarter, Lotus Professional expanded its distribution online, while Lotus Signature soft launched in Q3 ahead of its broader launch earlier next year. The initial reception of Lotus, our newest company-owned premium brand, has been very strong with the Lotus Professional Blender and Lotus Signature Coffeemaker also receiving Good Housekeeping Awards this quarter. Our CHI partnership also had a strong quarter, receiving three HGTV Clean Home Awards, and we have a full chain expansion planned at a leading department store.

Looking ahead, we will be launching our HB Professional Kettle in the fourth quarter, the first in a series of reimagined products under our new experience brand language with additional HB Professional products still in development. Turning to leading in the global commercial market. Q3 was highlighted by the initial launch of our Eclipse Blender at a leading national coffee chain, as well as continued growth of our Sunkist commercial juicers and sectionizers. As we begin year two of this partnership with Sunkist, we are excited by the topline momentum and improvements we are making in product sourcing that are enhancing the margin profile of the business. This progress represents an important step in our strategy of increasing the contribution from our higher-margin commercial line of business.

As I mentioned last call, we added our irons and hair dryers to a national hotel chain across approximately 770 U.S. locations. And during the third quarter, made progress toward replicating the same program with 6 to 7 additional flagship chains. Looking ahead, we are gearing up for the launch of our high-performance Titan Food Processor, targeting roughly 90 million global food processor market. Several regional food chains recently tested the product and the feedback on the features and pricing was very positive. Moving to accelerating our digital transformation. Our work towards ensuring Hamilton Beach stays discoverable and preferred as consumers' shopping shifts to AI-driven search accelerated in the third quarter.

To start, we implemented initial website improvements to support search and AI-generated demand, while also advancing our testing of AI optimized product content ahead of a broader deployment. We also launched our paid ChatGPT advertising pilot and have begun collecting early campaign insights. And finally, we activated a new AI search measurement platform to benchmark our visibility against competitors. Next steps include building out AI-ready catalog data, additional platform integrations, evaluating our pilots, and connecting AI visibility more directly to sales.

Finally, on accelerating growth of Hamilton Beach Health. Q3 was our fifth consecutive quarter of profitable growth, and we remain on track to increase sales by 50% in 2026. Health is becoming another meaningful contributor to our strategy of expanding higher-margin businesses with attractive long-term growth opportunities. We recently surpassed more than 1.25 million injections tracked and 70,000 patients managed across our platforms globally by our expanding network of specialty pharmacy and pharmaceutical company partnerships, as well as increased auto enrollment and improved Medicare and Medicaid access that is helping fuel higher participation.

This figure is set to rise as we expand our connected medical device platform beyond our core injectable medication management with the upcoming launch of our pill management platform, which is designed to improve medication adherence and provide valuable patient feedback. We are initially targeting rheumatology and gastroenterology areas with plans to expand to other therapeutic areas as we validate the platform's effectiveness. This expansion represents a significant opportunity to address additional patient pain points and grow our distribution network with large specialty pharmacies.

In closing, distribution and sell-through of our brands and products has remained solid. However, retailers have become more cautious with their inventory commitments amid a softer consumer outlook. As a result, we now expect fourth quarter sales to be lower than previously anticipated and have revised our full year outlook accordingly. While we have reduced our near-term guidance, we remain positive about our prospects for future growth. We are continuing to invest behind our brands and innovation pipeline to strengthen consumer demand, while expanding our high-margin commercial and Hamilton Beach Health businesses.

Together, these efforts are strengthening our growth profile and creating a more diversified business. We believe this progress positions us well to navigate the near term and capitalize on market opportunities as the economic backdrop improves. I want to thank our teams for their continued hard work and execution this quarter. With that, I'll turn it over to Sally.

Sally Cunningham

Good afternoon, everyone. As Scott mentioned, we are pleased with our third quarter performance. We delivered results in line with our expectations with solid sell-through of our brands and products despite the continued uncertain consumer environment. For the third quarter, revenue was $140.3 million, up 5.6% compared to $132.8 million a year ago. The increase was driven primarily by the recovery of our U.S. consumer business as retailers paused buying in the year ago period while they assessed inventory levels and price increases following the implementation of higher U.S. tariffs in April 2025.

Turning to gross profit and margin. Gross profit was $38.5 million in the quarter compared to $28 million in the year ago period. And the gross profit margin was 27.5% compared to 21.1% in last year's third quarter. The significant improvement in gross profit margin reflects the change in the tariff environment year-over-year. A year ago, we incurred approximately $5 million in incremental costs as we sold through inventory imported under the temporary 125% China tariffs. This year, we benefited from the sell-through of inventory in our free trade zone that was priced in anticipation of IEEPA tariffs, which were eliminated following the Supreme Court ruling in February.

Selling, general and administrative expenses increased to $34.2 million compared to $25.2 million in the third quarter of 2025. The $9 million year-over-year increase was driven by three primary factors, two of which were noncash. The first was $4 million in higher performance-based incentive expense, primarily due to the appreciation in our stock price during the third quarter. The second was $1.3 million in accelerated depreciation of our legacy ERP system, which we are in the process of replacing. We also invested approximately $1.6 million more in advertising, primarily in top-of-funnel programs designed to broaden awareness of our brands and drive consumer demand.

For the third quarter, our operating profit increased $1.5 million or 52.6% to $4.4 million compared to $2.9 million in the third quarter of 2025, driven by higher revenue and higher gross margins, which more than offset the aforementioned increase in expenses. Income tax was $1.6 million compared to $372,000 in the third quarter of 2025, and our tax rate was 31.6% this year compared to 18.4% last year. The higher tax rate in 2026 reflects a favorable discrete tax benefit recognized in the third quarter of 2025 that did not recur in 2026. Net income in the third quarter was $3.5 million or $0.26 per diluted share compared to net income of $1.7 million or $0.12 per diluted share a year ago.

Now turning to our balance sheet and cash flows. For the nine months ended September 30, 2026, net cash provided by operating activities was $80.5 million compared to $14.6 million used in operating activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2025. The increase was primarily driven by IEEPA tariff refunds and lower working capital due to lower inventory levels. Inventory on September 30, 2026, was $138.7 million, down 20.6% from $174.8 million on September 30, 2025. During the third quarter of 2026, we allocated our cash flow to pay down $25 million in debt, repurchased approximately 25,000 shares, totaling about $600,000, and paid $1.7 million in dividends. At the end of the third quarter, our net cash position was $67.5 million compared to a net debt of $32.8 million on September 30, 2025.

Now turning to our outlook for 2026. As a reminder, our outlook excludes the benefit from the $36.5 million IEEPA tariff refund we received in the second quarter and the additional $4 million IEEPA tariff refund anticipated in the fourth quarter. As Scott said at the top of our prepared remarks, third quarter results were in line with our expectations and sell-through of our brands and products has remained solid. However, retailers have become more cautious with their inventory commitments and the softer consumer outlook. As a result, we now expect fourth quarter sales to be lower than previously anticipated. The company now expects 2026 revenue to be flat year-over-year compared with our prior view for growth approaching the mid-single-digit range. We are also facing a more challenging comparison in the fourth quarter as sales recovered to approximately flat year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2025, following double-digit declines in the middle of last year.

Our revenue forecast continues to reflect the expiration of our Bartesian licensing agreement at the end of 2025. Excluding Bartesian's contribution from last year, 2026 and Q4 revenue are forecasted to increase 3.4% and 1.3%, respectively. Despite the lower revenue outlook, we still expect 2026 gross margins to improve modestly over 2025's gross margin of 25.7%, which is up from our initial outlook at the start of the year for gross margins to be similar to slightly better. Based on the lower revenue outlook and higher non-cash incentive compensation expense related to the appreciation in our share price, we now expect operating profit to decline in the high teens on a percentage basis compared with 2025. The forecasted operating profit continues to reflect an incremental $6 million of planned advertising spend in support of the company's strategic growth initiatives and approximately $5 million in non-recurring accelerated depreciation associated with the company's legacy ERP system.

Importantly, despite the revised revenue and operating profit outlook, we are increasing our cash flow expectations for the year. Cash flow from operating activities less cash used for investing activities for 2026 is now expected to be in the range of $40 million to $50 million, up from the previous expectations of $35 million to $45 million, primarily due to the normalization of tariff-related impacts on net working capital. To close, we are pleased with our performance year-to-date and are confident that the work we are doing to drive consumer demand and increased penetration of our higher-margin commercial and health business has the company in a good position to deliver sustainable growth and increase shareholder value over the medium- to long-term. This concludes our prepared remarks. We will now turn the line back over to the operator for Q&A.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] There are no questions at this time. This concludes our question-and-answer session, and that also includes our call for today. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.