La-Z-Boy - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 FY2025 delivered sales rose 4% YoY to $522M and GAAP/Non-GAAP EPS were $0.68; consolidated operating margin expanded 20 bps YoY to 6.7% GAAP/6.8% Non-GAAP, with strength at Retail and core North America Wholesale offset by international deleverage.
• Retail delivered sales grew 11% with written same‑store sales up 7% and total Retail written sales up 15%; Joybird delivered sales rose 9% to $37M and reached breakeven operating profit, while cash ended at $315M with no debt.
• Q4 outlook: sales $545–$565M and Non‑GAAP operating margin 8.5%–9.5% (a step-up vs Q3), predicated on no significant tariff changes; FY tax rate 25.5%–26.5%, capex $70–$80M, and 5–7 new stores in Q4 (raising FY openings to 14–16).
• Stock-reaction catalysts: accelerating Retail SSS, improving core Wholesale margins, and a stronger Q4 margin guide; watch headwinds from the U.K./international transition and tariff uncertainty, which management is mitigating with supply-chain agility and potential pricing actions.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Retail momentum: “written sales for the Retail segment increased 15%… written same‑store sales increased 7%,” with higher conversion, average ticket, and design sales.
  • Core Wholesale improving: Non‑GAAP Wholesale margin up 10 bps YoY to 6.5%, driven by lower input costs and FX; management highlighted “really good margin expansion now three consecutive quarters” in core NA Wholesale.
  • Joybird stabilization: delivered sales +9% to $37M and breakeven operating profit; CEO cited a first‑of‑its‑kind Pantone 2025 collaboration and improving execution as a base for growth.

• What Went Wrong

  • International deleverage: significant customer transition (U.K.) drove Wholesale deleverage; impact expected to ease gradually as DFS rolls out.
  • Retail margin dilution: Retail Non‑GAAP operating margin 10.7% (down 20 bps YoY) as new stores and higher selling expenses weighed in the near term despite sales growth.
  • Macro/traffic: housing affordability and choppy demand persist; traffic improved around key holidays but remains volatile outside events.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning and welcome to the La-Z-Boy Fiscal 2025 Third Quarter Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance during this conference, please press star zero on your phone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Mark Becks, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Mark, the floor is yours.

Mark Becks (Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development)

Thank you, Jenny. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us to discuss our Fiscal 2025 third quarter. With us today are Melinda Whittington, La-Z-Boy Incorporated's Board Chair, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Taylor Luebke, La-Z-Boy's SVP and CFO, and Bob Lucian, La-Z-Boy's retiring CFO. Melinda will open and close the call, and Taylor will speak to segment performance and the financials midway through. We will then open the call to questions. Slides will accompany this presentation, and you may view them through our webcast link, which will be available for one year, and a telephone replay of the call will be available for one week beginning this afternoon. Before we begin the presentation, I would like to remind you that some statements made in today's call include forward-looking statements about La-Z-Boy's future performance and other matters.

Although we believe these statements to be reasonable, our actual results could differ materially. The most significant risk factors that could affect our future results are described in our annual report on Form 10-K. We encourage you to review those risk factors, as well as other key information detailed in our SEC filing. Also, our earnings release is available under the News and Events tab on the Investor Relations page of our website, and it includes reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures, which are also included as an appendix at the end of our conference call slide deck. With that, I will now turn the call over to Melinda Whittington, La-Z-Boy Incorporated's Board Chair, President, and Chief Executive Officer. Melinda?

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday, following the close of market, we reported results for our January-ended third quarter. Our results reflect the steady progress we've made to build a more agile business and create our own momentum to drive growth in what is still a very challenged furniture industry. We delivered sales growth across each of our segments, led by retail and punctuated by strong same-store sales growth, and within our wholesale segment, our core North American La-Z-Boy brand continues to post sales growth and margin expansion. Highlights for the quarter included consolidated delivered sales of $522 million, up 4% versus the prior year, non-GAAP operating margin expansion, up 20 basis points versus last year, and GAAP and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.68. And within these total company results, our retail segment sales increased an impressive 11%, led by same-store sales growth.

Results were also buoyed by acquisitions and new stores as we continue progress against our Century Vision growth strategy. During the quarter, we opened three new company-owned La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries, completed the acquisition of a two-store independent network in Ohio, and signed an agreement to acquire another two-store independent dealer in Michigan, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter. These strong results reflect delivered sales and non-GAAP operating margin above a year ago and at the high end of our guidance range. Additionally, we posted top-line sales growth for the third consecutive quarter, despite the general malaise of the broader furniture industry. Our relentless focus on solving the needs of the consumer with comfort and quality, and controlling what we can control with strong execution, has kept La-Z-Boy top of mind.

The environment in which we operate continues to be volatile, and the fundamentals within the furniture and home furnishings industry continue to be challenged with existing home sales near 30-year lows and steep mortgage rates. However, these trends will eventually turn in the favor of our industry, and in the meanwhile, in spite of these industry headwinds, La-Z-Boy Incorporated is growing. Our vertically integrated model and custom handcrafted furniture with strong speed of delivery is what consumers are valuing in a highly dynamic environment. This foundation has led La-Z-Boy Incorporated to be successful for the past century and will continue to be the cornerstone of our philosophy for our Century Vision strategy over the next 100 years. Shifting to written sales trends, during the quarter, total written sales for our company-owned retail segment increased an impressive 15% versus last year's third quarter.

Importantly, written same-store sales for the segment, which exclude the benefit of newly opened stores and acquired stores, increased 7% versus the prior year third quarter. Same-store sales were positive across each month of the third quarter and strongest in November around the key holiday sales period. Traffic, while still negative, improved from the double-digit declines experienced at the beginning of our fiscal year. We believe our marketing campaigns are resonating to expand reach of the La-Z-Boy brand, and superior in-store execution again led to higher conversion rates, average ticket, and design sales year-over-year. Written same-store sales for the entire La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network of 362 stores increased 5% versus the prior year. On our Joybird business, written sales increased 10% in the quarter versus a year ago.

We're pleased to see this business gaining momentum even in the challenged environment with improved retail traffic and strengthening execution across the business, particularly in store. According to recently released U.S. Census Bureau Data, the Furniture and Home Furnishings Industry grew 5% during our fiscal third quarter, November through January. The furniture-specific subcategory, reflecting only November and December as it's reported on a one-month lag, increased 6%. Across our businesses, our written sales compare favorably to these industry results and reflect continued market share gains in the quarter. Looking to the longer term, I want to recap our Century Vision initiatives to strengthen our enterprise for the future. Recall, this is our strategic framework setting up La-Z-Boy Incorporated for the next 100 years as we celebrate our first century in 2027, driving top-line growth at a pace double the market and delivering consistent double-digit operating margins over the long term.

The continued growth in our business in the quarter is a testament that our Century Vision strategy is working. The Furniture and Home Furnishings category is highly fragmented, and as one of the largest brands in North America, we are well-positioned to continue to strategically grow our business and gain share. We have consistently expanded La-Z-Boy's brand reach over the past several years and will continue to execute the strategy to disproportionately benefit when we do experience sustained industry tailwinds. A key pillar of our expanded brand reach is our total La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network, which ended the quarter at 362 stores. We remain on track to grow the total La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network to over 400 stores within the next several years, with nearly 20 net additions in the last two years alone. Additionally, we are expanding the company-owned portion of the network.

Our retail segment has increased to 197 stores, up 13 in the last year, and now represents 54% of the total La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network. We opened three new company-owned stores in the quarter in Queen Creek, Arizona, Newington, New Hampshire, and Bellingham, Washington, and closed one. Furthermore, we acquired two independently owned stores in Ohio during the third quarter and signed an agreement to acquire two more in Michigan in the fourth quarter. Growing our company-owned furniture gallery stores is a key driver to our success as we control the entire end-to-end consumer experience and develop more value-added consumer insights, and these store acquisitions are immediately accretive to our profitability, allowing the company to benefit from the integrated wholesale and retail margins. We're also growing the business through our refined channel strategy.

The La-Z-Boy brand is showing up in more showrooms as we are expanding strategic distribution while increasing our share of voice in the marketplace to provide a broader range of consumers access to the La-Z-Boy brand. As our business scales, we continue to incorporate a more data-driven approach to product development. These deeper consumer insights enable us to design more on-trend merchandise. A great illustration of this is our expanded motion furniture offerings, where we launched a new consumer-relevant assortment at High Point Furniture Market last fall. Our North American supply chain gives us the ability to produce a wide variety of customized fabric and leather options with speed to market in as little as four to six weeks. This will continue to provide a key point of differentiation and allows us to solve for the growing desire for personalization in consumers' homes.

Another core pillar of Century Vision growth strategy to expand La-Z-Boy reach is through our Long Live the La-Z-Brand campaign. In just a short time since launching the campaign, we are expanding both consideration and purchase intent across a broader range of consumers, including millennials and Gen X. This is achieved by targeting the confidently comfortable consumer and winning more business while also staying true to our heritage of comfort and quality. La-Z-Boy is becoming more socially relevant and leaning into cultural trends when appropriate, and we continue to look for new and innovative ways to connect with broader audiences. In November, we introduced a test-and-learn concept store in Lincoln Park in Chicago. This smaller-format store was designed with an intent to capture a new generation of consumers.

A recliner runway highlighting our most foundational product in a new and innovative way is surrounded by lifestyle rooms from gamer to heritage. Included in our learning agenda, we'll gain deep consumer insights that will inform next steps to use in updating our approach in our existing footprint, as well as inform experiments with entirely new concepts. Joybird is another core pillar of our Century Vision, where we're optimizing the brand to deliver a balance of sales growth and profitability. Joybird had a strong quarter with positive delivered and written sales trends and operating performance improving against the prior year and resulting in break-even profit. The digitally native brand is benefiting from strong execution in its retail footprint as it delivers a seamless, omnichannel experience and enables consumers to bring their own personalized styles to life.

I'm excited to highlight Joybird's most recent collaboration, the Joybird Pantone Collection, a first-of-its-kind furniture collaboration. Joybird had the honor of being the first and exclusive furniture partner for Pantone's Color of the Year 2025 release. The collection features Joybird's top-selling performance fabric, Royal, and stars the Pantone Color of the Year 2025 Mocha Mousse in more than 300 silhouettes. The collaboration leverages Pantone's color authority and decades-long expertise while showcasing Joybird's color-centric brand focus. Strengthening our foundational capabilities, including building a more agile supply chain, is our final pillar of Century Vision. In this challenging global landscape, we view our North America manufacturing footprint, with the majority of final assembly in the United States, as a key differentiator in our ability to manufacture high-quality, comfortable custom furniture with quick speed to market. We're driving gross margin expansion in our core business as we improve efficiencies in our supply chain.

We're also expanding our assortment of on-trend merchandise in our main upholstery categories, particularly reclining and motion. Notably, we were pleased during the quarter to be named Newsweek's 2025 list of America's Responsible Companies, recognizing our commitment to responsible manufacturing operations and business practices. This award, based on quantitative data gathered from independent surveys, highlights our commitment to doing what is right for our business and all stakeholders. As we enter the final quarter of our fiscal year, we continue to expect a choppy macro environment. Overall housing fundamentals and housing affordability remain challenging, and we also continue to monitor and plan against the evolving global tariff and trade environment. However, the structural housing shortage and pent-up demand of the category remain key opportunities as we look to the future.

And in the meantime, we remain optimistic about our ability to continue to outperform the market while investing in our business through our Century Vision strategy. Now, let me turn the call over to Taylor to review the financial results in more detail. Taylor?

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

Thank you, Melinda, and good morning, everyone. As a reminder, we present our results on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. We believe the non-GAAP presentation better reflects underlying operating trends and performance of the business. Non-GAAP results exclude items which are detailed in our press release and in the tables in the appendix section of our conference call slides.

On a consolidated basis, fiscal 2025 third quarter sales grew 4% to $522 million versus the prior year, driven by strong same-store sales, acquisitions in new stores in our retail business, momentum in our core North America La-Z-Boy wholesale brand, and strong sales in our Joybird business. Consolidated GAAP operating income was $35 million, and non-GAAP operating income was $35 million, an increase of 7% versus last year's third quarter. Consolidated GAAP operating margin was 6.7%, and non-GAAP operating margin was 6.8%, reflecting a 20 basis points increase versus last year, driven by lower input costs, including reduced commodity prices and improved sourcing, partially offset by the impact of the significant customer transition in our international wholesale business. GAAP-diluted EPS was $0.68 for the third quarter versus $0.66 in the prior year quarter. Non-GAAP-diluted EPS was $0.68 versus $0.67 last year.

As I move to the segment discussion, my comments from here will focus on our Non-GAAP reporting unless specifically stated otherwise. Starting with the retail segment, for the quarter, delivered sales were $228 million, up 11% over the prior year's third quarter, due to foundational same-store sales growth, independent La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries acquisitions, and new stores. 7% written same-store sales growth was driven by solid conversion rates, average ticket, and design sales, all of which once again improved year-over-year. Retail Non-GAAP operating margin was 10.7% versus 10.9%, holding relatively stable as we absorbed the increased selling expenses and fixed costs supporting our long-term strategy of growing our retail business.

For our wholesale segment, delivered sales for the quarter increased 2% to $363 million, driven by our core North America La-Z-Boy brand through favorable shift in product and channel mix as a result of higher sales to our La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries, partially offset by the customer transition in our international business. Non-GAAP operating margin for the wholesale segment was 6.5% versus 6.4% in last year's third quarter, increasing 10 basis points year-over-year, driven by gross margin expansion, including lower input costs and favorable foreign exchange, and margin expansion in our core North American La-Z-Boy branded wholesale business. This progress was again partially offset by significant deleverage in our international wholesale business. Recall, we are working through a significant customer transition in our U.K. business as we move to a new strategic partnership with DFS, the leading U.K. furniture retailer.

Our strategic partnership with DFS will benefit our U.K. business and grow the La-Z-Boy brand, but it will take time to fully complete the transition as we optimize our merchandising and go-to-market approach in the midst of a highly challenged U.K. consumer demand environment. For Joybird, reported in corporate and other, delivered sales grew to $37 million, up 9% versus the prior year quarter, driven by improved retail traffic and execution across the business. Joybird operating margin performance also saw year-over-year improvement from higher gross margins driven by favorable product mix and SG&A leverage on higher sales. This resulted in break-even operating profit for the quarter as this business achieves foundational stability from which to grow. Moving on to our consolidated non-GAAP gross margin and SG&A performance for fiscal 2025 third quarter. Consolidated non-GAAP gross margin increased 160 basis points versus the prior year third quarter.

Gross margin expansion was driven by the positive shift in consolidated mix towards our retail segment, which has a higher gross margin rate than our wholesale segment, along with lower input costs and favorable foreign exchange. Non-GAAP SG&A as a % of sales for the quarter increased by 140 basis points compared with the same period last year, primarily due to changes in consolidated mix to our retail segment, which carries a higher fixed cost structure relative to wholesale, and reduced leverage in our wholesale segment due to lower sales in our international business. Our effective tax rate on a GAAP basis for the third quarter was 25.1% compared to 20.2% for the prior year. The increase in our effective tax rate was primarily the result of favorable Return-to-Provision adjustments impacting the prior year.

Absent these discrete items, the effective tax rate would have been 25.6% for the prior year third quarter. Turning to cash, we ended the quarter once again with a strong balance sheet, $315 million in cash and no externally funded debt. We generated $57 million in cash from operating activities in the quarter, an 18% increase versus last year. Year-to-date, cash flow from operations was $125 million, up 19% from last year's comparable period. We invested $19 million in capital expenditures during the quarter, primarily related to La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries driven by new stores and remodels. We also spent $7 million on acquisitions during the period. For the quarter, we returned approximately $20 million to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases, including $9 million paid in dividends. Additionally, we repurchased 271,000 shares in the quarter, which leaves 4 million shares available under our existing share repurchase authorization.

Year-to-date, $90 million has been returned to shareholders, up approximately 40% versus the prior year comparable period. We continue to view share repurchases and our dividend as an attractive use of our cash and positive return to shareholders. Our capital allocation target is to reinvest 50% of operating cash flow back into the business and return 50% to shareholders in share repurchases and dividends over the long term. Before turning the call back to Melinda, let me highlight several important items for the remainder of our fiscal 2025 fourth quarter. Consistent with our Century Vision strategy, we continue to target sales growth, double the industry growth rate, and double-digit operating margins over the long term with the benefit of more normalized industry performance. Assuming no significant changes in tariffs, we expect fourth quarter delivered sales in the range of $545 million-$565 million.

Further, we expect fourth quarter non-GAAP operating margin to be in the range of 8.5%-9.5%. Recall, significant winter weather events in January last year resulted in some shifting of delivered sales from Q3 to Q4 in last year's results. Accounting for this shift in base period results and at the midpoint of our fourth quarter range, we expect to grow 2% in the second half of our fiscal year. On the external front, the current situation on tariffs and global trade policies is dynamic, and we have plans ready for a range of scenarios that leverage the strength and agility of our supply chain as well as potential pricing actions. Across the network, we will open five to seven new La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery stores in the fourth quarter, depending on final permit timing.

This will bring new store openings for the year to 14 to 16, of which the majority are company-owned. We expect our tax rate for the full fiscal year to be in the range of 25.5%-26.5%. We anticipate non-GAAP adjustments for purchase accounting charges for the year to be in the range of $0.01-$0.03 per share. We expect capital expenditures to be in the range of $70 million-$80 million for fiscal 25 as we invest to strengthen the company for the future, consistent with our Century Vision strategy. And finally, presuming no significant worsening in macroeconomic trends, we expect to continue share repurchases at dollar levels consistent with pre-COVID levels. I will now turn the call back to Melinda.

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

Thanks, Taylor. I'm excited about the momentum that is building across our enterprise.

Operator (participant)

Our strong execution, even despite a still challenging industry backdrop, is leading to both sales growth and margin expansion. We are thoughtfully and efficiently controlling what we can control. And we'll continue to drive our Century Vision strategy with focus on expanding our La-Z-Boy brand reach, disproportionately growing our company-owned retail segment, improving agility across our supply chain, and driving efficiency and margin expansion. Before we close our prepared remarks, I'd like to note that La-Z-Boy Incorporated has been named to Forbes' list of America's Best Large Employers for 2025. This is a remarkable achievement and our first time ranking among this distinguished list, which is determined using a collection of independent survey data. And finally, I'd like to congratulate and thank our entire team for yet another quarter of outstanding results. With that, I'll turn it back to Mark.

Mark Becks (Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development)

Thank you, Melinda.

We will now begin the question and answer portion. Jenny, please review the instructions for getting into the queue to ask questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. If you would like to ask a question, you can press star one on your phone keypad now. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For anyone using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before you press the keys. Please wait a moment while we poll for questions. Thank you. Your first question is coming from Brad Thomas of KeyBank Capital Markets. Brad, your line is live.

Taylor Zeckan (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, everyone. This is Taylor Zeckan on for Brad this morning. Congrats on a good quarter.

Just curious, Melinda, if you can speak a little bit more to cadence and the trends, cadence of trends throughout the quarter. I know you spoke to positive months throughout the quarter with November being strong, but I think Taylor had mentioned January had a little bit of a shift. So is there any additional color you can provide? And then related to that, any thoughts on what you're seeing so far in this fourth quarter?

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

Yeah. Good morning. So a couple of thoughts. Certainly, we've been talking for a while about the consumer is coming out more around those peak holidays, those key holidays that we've always seen, but even more so here in this kind of malaise industry. So our strength during the quarter was strongest during the holiday period. But overall, year-on-year strength across all three months of our quarter.

As far as February is concerned, I mean, we're still super early in our quarter, super early in the month, and really still just seeing President's Day results starting to come in from across all of our businesses. Overall, again, pleased with execution, feel comfortable with what we're doing there. We didn't see traffic as robust this President's Day across the industry as what we've seen on some of the other recent holidays, but still way too early to tell kind of is that just weather-related. Last year, the end of January was bad. This year, it's early February seems to be bad across more of the states. So time will tell. It continues to be a choppy environment.

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

And on the phasing question, I would just point Melinda references more to the written trends that more impacted our ability to deliver product as winter weather last year shut down some of our plants, complicated being able to deliver. Imprecise calculation on exactly what shifted, which is why we look at our total back half of the year, which we're really proud to outlook about a 2% growth year-over-year across the period.

Taylor Zeckan (Equity Research Analyst)

Gotcha. Thank you. And maybe if I could just touch on margins. Taylor, is there any more color you can kind of provide on some of the puts and takes for the 8.5%-9.5% operating margin you're going to for this fourth quarter? I guess what would get you to the low end and high end and anything to keep in mind?

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

Yeah. I'd start with a couple of points.

One is, we're incredibly pleased at the sustainability of margin progression on our core North America La-Z-Boy wholesale business, which is the one part of the business that was most thrown into, call it, volatility through the pandemic and out of it. And we've seen really good margin expansion now three consecutive quarters. Also very pleased with where Joybird's at, which this time last year losing money to now break even, which is a good foundation for future growth. And on retail, it's kind of where we want it to be as we deal with the general malaise in the broader industry, but we're controlling what we can control and standing up new furniture galleries as well as completing independent acquisitions. So those are all positives looking into quarter four.

And then on the opposite, we have challenges on our international business as talked in their prepared remarks, which have from a wholesale segment a 50 basis points impact on that business. And it will improve over time, but it's going to take some time to grow our partnership with DFS. So kind of what we saw in quarter three, we expect to transition to quarter four. And positively looking forward, we're standing up a lot of new stores. We still have three this quarter, three last quarter, outlook in five to seven in quarter four. Those have a little bit of short-term impacts, but it's exactly what we said we would do. And then over time into next year, we'll start to see those margins benefit the total segment.

Taylor Zeckan (Equity Research Analyst)

Gotcha. Thank you. And then maybe if I could just sneak one more in here, maybe for Melinda.

You've talked about the strategic partnerships. You've had success with Slumberland, Rooms To Go, and others. But can you kind of update us on the progress of those partnerships and maybe speak to the pipeline of potentially rolling out some more strategic partnerships?

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

Absolutely. Along a couple of lines, those B2B partners are foundational to us and remain important to our focus. Across some of the smaller, some of our smaller partners, we continue to invest in what we call our Comfort Studios, which is branded space within the space. And we have, call it, 500 plus of those type of spaces and really making sure the branding comes through with those. So that's something that's been, again, foundational that we're not walking away from. And in fact, we're refreshing. We've got quite a few of those in the pipeline to refresh with updated brand materials and everything.

But to your point, those bigger regional strategic partnerships, what we're seeing in the industry is those that are doing better in this ongoing challenging environment tend to be of the multi-branded retailers are those, call them a little bit larger regional entities. And we like them for a couple of reasons. One, we've talked a lot about partnerships like Rooms To Go up here in the North. It's Gardner-White in the Detroit area. Longtime partner, Slumberland, that advertise heavily. And that's great because that reminds the brand, that reminds the consumer about our brand regardless of where they choose to shop. And so that really increases our share of voice as well as helps us get our product, select product out to consumers that we might not otherwise capture with our furniture galleries. I know recently we've expanded our Furniture Row partnership.

It's been about two years into the Rooms To Go. And there does continue to be a pipeline out there, but I think equally as important will be just growing with those existing partnerships and really doing more with those strategic ones, as you mentioned.

Taylor Zeckan (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you. I'll pass it along.

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

And your next question is coming from Bobby Griffin of Raymond James. Bobby, your line is live.

Bobby Griffin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Appreciate you taking my questions. Congrats on the good momentum during the quarter as well. I guess the first aspect I want to hit on, we're making some progress inside the core wholesale segment. So maybe can we talk a little bit about that on the margin front some more?

From an efficiency standpoint, where are we in getting back that business to the efficient levels that you kind of are used to in wholesale? I guess exclude the international disruption where we can kind of think about it on a core-on-core basis.

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

I mean, Bobby, thanks for the question. We're pleased with the progress as mentioned, particularly on our core North America wholesale business, which has now grown margins in the first three quarters of the year versus the comparable periods, so our supply chain from procurement through manufacturing through distribution is making headway across all fronts, so we're really pleased with the progress.

End of the day, what really needs to get us back to our longer-term goal is we need volume, which right now is still depressed from where we used to be, primarily driven by the fundamentals, which drive the furniture industry as really a healthy housing market, whether new home starts, existing home sales, which albeit we've seen a little bit of a tick up the last couple of months, it's still at decades low. So we continue to focus on what we can control, which is the improvements and efficiencies that we can drive. But end of the day, to get over the hump per se, we need some sustained industry growth to get us there.

Bobby Griffin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

And Taylor, I think you mentioned you're talking to La-Z-Boy brand. What about the non-La-Z-Boy brand stuff that goes through wholesale? I mean, how is that running today?

Is there opportunities there from an efficiency standpoint? And I guess I'm just getting that exit the international transition. Are we just basically left with volume and you guys have got the factories back where you want them is what I'm trying to kind of get at.

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

I would say the general theme on volume is consistent across our entire wholesale segment. I mean, whether it's La-Z-Boy wholesale, whether it's our England division, whether it's our Case goods, it's all impacted by the general industry health.

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

But certainly, we continue to drive ongoing efficiency and improvement on our wholesale business. Again, you saw it this quarter, even at challenging volume levels. Our team in the supply chain is doing two things.

They're creating an agility and building an agility for this macro environment that is unlike anything we've had in the past while still making progress towards getting back to the kind of margins that we touched on just before the pandemic. So to your point, Bobby, yes, there is still headroom. Volume helps a lot. But meanwhile, every quarter, particularly in that core business, we are seeing progress.

Bobby Griffin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Okay. And then when you think about the international transition that's taking place there and some of that disruption, are we past kind of the peak in that disruption? And I guess where I'm getting at, has that become an incremental tailwind, a little bit less of a headwind in FY26, or should we assume that that headwind continues for FY26 against the wholesale margin?

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

I would expect you'll see incremental improvement, but it'll be slow. It'll be slow and steady.

I mean, you've taken our largest customer globally and completely changed them out. So I actually just met with that team at Vegas Market a few weeks ago. They're super happy with where the partnership is, but it's a brand new ground-up partnership. So it's going to take some time.

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

And in the meantime, we're not just waiting for it to organically improve. We're driving both that top-to-top on, call it, commercial levers growth partnership, but we also continue to look into efficiencies across our international organization, including right-sizing our manufacturing capacity to help improve those results sequentially looking forward.

Bobby Griffin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Perfect. And then maybe just on the guidance, unpacking it a little further. Again, when you look at the midpoint, price roughly flat year-over-year, you guys throughout the prior three quarters have grown on a year-over-year basis.

Is that only just a function of the shift, Taylor, that you talked about, or did you see kind of something to end the quarter that gives you a little bit more caution than maybe what we were seeing earlier in the quarter? Some of our checks, I guess, have indicated some strength in November, but then a slowdown to kind of start our kind of as we move into 2025.

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

Yeah, Bobby. I would answer it in a couple of ways. One is the international we just talked through will have, again, a shorter-term impact in quarter four. So that doesn't just alleviate within the next quarter. Two, as mentioned, we have plans to stand up five to seven, again, new La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery stores that has a moment in time, call it, profit impact as we start to ramp those up.

And that's on top of six we've stood up in quarter three and quarter two. So we have that shorter-term impact on our retail business, which is fine, which is exactly what we said we were going to do and what we want to do. So those, I think, are the primarily two impacts to the range as outlooked. And the weather shifting, again, not as precise, does have some level of impact. As regards to exiting the quarter, we saw a strong November, as talked in the written remarks. Again, more positive balance of the quarter. But as we look forward, we expect the consumer to still be choppy. The fundamentals underneath, again, the furniture industry, primarily housing, are still just kind of status quo to where we've been. So all of that together, it affects the guidance rate we put out.

Bobby Griffin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Perfect.

I guess lastly for me, Joybird, nice bright spot in the quarter as well, returning to break even, and it's a nice growth. I think in the prepared remarks, it mentioned foundation for future growth. So maybe you could unpack that a little bit and what you see from the Joybird brand. And is there any update or different view on what the potential is on a multi-year basis for that brand?

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

Sure. As you recall, Joybird was on a really nice growth trajectory in the middle of the pandemic along with many, many primarily e-com digital kind of businesses. We've pulled back when a lot of them went out of business. We've pulled back to really get the fundamentals right on that business. And I feel like we're there.

And that's not just on the sort of the financial fundamentals, but it's on the execution of who we are as a brand and how are we going to bring that to life. And we need to keep in mind where Joybird fits to sort of our capabilities as an enterprise is that because of this same North America-based footprint, Joybird can offer customization and enable the consumer to really express themselves. And then Joybird's brand stands for that expressive, color-forward, if you will, kind of customized furniture. So I feel good about knowing what the brand stands for as well as the financial discipline as we move forward. So with that, we talked several years ago about seeing a near-term footprint or at least a medium-term footprint to 25 stores. We got to 12 when we paused that. We've turned that funnel back on.

Now that takes a little bit of time to start up. But I would see us at a pace of, call it, three-to-four stores next year for Joybird. And then we'll continue. We're going to be cautious because the environment is still challenged, but we feel like the fundamentals are there and we're ready to start investing back into seeing Joybird grow while still keeping a close eye on making progress on that bottom line.

Bobby Griffin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Thank you. I appreciate the details and best of luck here wrapping up the fiscal year.

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

Thank you.

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. Just a reminder, if there are any remaining questions, you can press star one on your phone keypad now. Your next question is coming from Anthony Lebiedzinski of Sidoti & Company. Anthony, your line is live.

Anthony Lebiedzinski (Senior Equity Analyst of Specialty Retail and Consumer)

Thank you. And good morning, everyone. And thanks for taking the questions.

And certainly nice to see the trends in the written sales being up. Just curious, did you guys see any notable differences in terms of your different markets or regions? Anything to call out there as far as the third quarter trends?

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

Nothing that really stands out dramatically. Of course, again, at any given time, there's whatever weather event or whatever, but nothing dramatic across markets.

Anthony Lebiedzinski (Senior Equity Analyst of Specialty Retail and Consumer)

Gotcha. Okay. Thanks, Melinda. And then in the retail segment, your operating margin was down slightly given increased selling expenses and fixed costs. Is that primarily advertising, or can you share more details? And how should we think about these expenses going forward?

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

Yeah, Anthony, it's really a couple of things. It's the pace of new stores that we've stood up both in the quarter as well as quarter two. So six stores over a very short period of time.

Again, those don't start at a going level. It takes time to ramp up. As well as over quarter three is one of our bigger written periods around the holidays. So we have more commissions that hit us in the quarter. So I think those are the two primary drivers for retail.

Anthony Lebiedzinski (Senior Equity Analyst of Specialty Retail and Consumer)

All right. Thanks, Taylor. And then as far as thinking about the potential impact of tariffs, obviously, your guidance, as you said, excludes any tariff impact. Obviously, it continues to be a dynamic situation. But can you provide any sort of more details as far as how you're thinking about that if there are tariffs on Canada and Mexico and elsewhere? Any additional things you can highlight as to how you're thinking about that?

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

Yeah, Anthony.

So on the tariff front, our hope is it's just noise because we think at the end of the day, it's going to more challenge a consumer who's been challenged now for a while, and we like a healthy consumer. But with that being said, since November, we've been planning on a wide range of scenarios, whether Mexico, Canada, or other markets. So we've developed a playbook to respond to whatever could happen, which will, again, leverage our global supply chain from sourcing through where we manufacture, as well as potential pricing actions to ensure we're mitigating whatever could be put into place. So we're planning for all eventualities, and we're acting only on what's fact. Today, there's not much of that. And what has gone into place, we've taken action to ensure we're mitigating the impact.

Anthony Lebiedzinski (Senior Equity Analyst of Specialty Retail and Consumer)

Got it. All right. Well, thank you very much and best of luck.

Melinda Whittington (Board Chair, President, and CEO)

Thanks, Anthony.

Taylor Luebke (SVP and CFO)

Thanks, Anthony.

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. Well, we appear to have reached the end of our question and answer session. I will now hand back over to the management team for any closing remarks.

Mark Becks (Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development)

Thanks, everyone, for joining us. Melinda, Taylor, and I will be in our offices to take any follow-up calls. Thanks and have a great day.

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.