Leslie's (LESL) 2026 財年第三季法說會：因營收下滑 8.4% 撤回財測

重點摘要

• 2026 財年第三季銷售額年減 8.4% 至 4.585 億美元，同店銷售額下降 6.2%，主要是由於交易量與客流量減少所致。
• 調整後 EBITDA 從 8,160 萬美元降至 5,570 萬美元，反映出銷量下降與毛利率壓力。
• 毛利率自 39.6% 壓縮至 36.5%，主因高毛利產品銷售疲軟、不利的產品組合，以及物流中心與製造成本上升。
• 營業費用 (SG&A) 下降 17.9% 至 1.064 億美元，其中包括來自信用卡手續費和解的 1,750 萬美元一次性收益。淨利增加 2,610 萬美元至 4,780 萬美元。
• 由於整體經濟環境的變化以及旺季客流量低於預期，Leslie's 撤回了先前發布的 2026 財年全年銷售額與調整後 EBITDA 財測。
• 該公司正與特定金融權益關係人探索戰略替代方案，以提高財務靈活性並降低槓桿率。目前尚未確定或保證達成任何交易。

核心財務數據

業務與營運表現

不利的天候減少了實體門市與線上管道的需求，導致通常能支撐高毛利特種化學品採購的泳池問題減少。管理層還提到本季競爭對手採取了更激進且由庫存驅動的定價策略。

Leslies.com 實現了正向的同店銷售成長，管理層將此視為調整後的定價策略在消費者能直接比價的地方發揮作用的證明。然而，該公司表示，定價與轉化率的提升尚未帶來持續的實體門市客流量成長。

Leslie’s 報告稱，在重新尋回去年未消費、但在 2021 年至 2024 年間曾購買的顧客方面展現動能。管理層將這一進展歸功於精準行銷、定價調整以及重新推出的顧客價值主張。

該公司完成了全店培訓、改善了門市營運，並維持了關鍵「常備無缺」產品的高供貨率。管理層表示，儘管總交易量和顧客人數有所下降，但這些措施支撐了健康的門市轉化率以及每筆交易件數的成長。

庫存下降 15%，同時關鍵產品的供貨率保持強勁。截至 2026 年 7 月 4 日的資本支出為 1,050 萬美元，而去年同期為 1,910 萬美元。

管理層展望

Leslie’s 撤回了先前對 2026 財年的全年銷售額與調整後 EBITDA 財測，且未發布替代展望。管理層指出，原因包括總體經濟環境的演變以及旺季客流量低於預期。

該公司繼續預計 2026 財年的資本支出將遠低於 2,000 萬美元，反映出紀律嚴明的資本分配，主要集中於門市與物流中心的維護。

風險與關注領域

• 客流量與交易筆數持續承壓，管理層將其視為公司的核心營運挑戰。
• 消費者需求放緩、不利的天候以及促銷活動加劇，對銷售額和產品組合造成沉重打擊。
• 高毛利特種化學品的銷售額下降，加上物流與製造成本增加，對毛利率造成壓力。
• Leslie’s 在本季結束時擁有 7.53 億美元的長期負債淨額，目前正在評估戰略替代方案，可能包括去槓桿交易及一項或多項融資交易。
• 管理層強調，尚未就資產負債表交易做出任何決定，且無法保證一定會達成任何交易。

完整財報電話會議紀錄

完整財報電話會議逐字稿

管理層陳述

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.