Ciaran Long
Analyst · Lake Street
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us to discuss our second quarter 2026 results. In the second quarter, we generated net sales of $160.1 million, essentially flat to the prior year, while driving adjusted EBITDA growth of 16% year-over-year to $8.7 million, further validating that the structural improvements we've made across the business are enabling strong profit flow-through. We delivered on our growth expectations in both the U.S. and Rest of World geographies with net sales up 2% and 51%, respectively. The Australia and New Zealand region were the outlier with net sales there contracted approximately 13%, pressured by a challenging macro backdrop and a tough prior year comparison from the clearance of non-go-forward goods. Importantly, Q3 to date momentum has accelerated in all regions with overall net sales growth in the high single digits alongside healthy margins, giving us continued confidence in our outlook for the second half of the year. We're seeing clear proof points of success across both our women's and men's businesses, reinforcing that our strategic initiatives are resonating with customers and positioning us well for long-term growth. As I highlighted on our Q1 call, a.k.a. Brands is a fundamentally repositioned operating model anchored on profitability and durability. Our second quarter results are a clear reflection of that transformation with strong profit flow-through, driving adjusted EBITDA growth in the mid-teens. Our performance this quarter was driven by the expanded distribution of our brands across stores, wholesale and marketplace, the strengthening of our operational foundation and continued financial discipline across the business. We're off to a solid start in Q3, and I remain confident that 2026 will serve as another meaningful proof point that our strategy is working and our business is on a stronger trajectory. Reiterating our strategy, we've continued building out our omnichannel model beyond our direct-to-consumer routes. Princess Polly now operates 13 U.S. stores plus our first 2 Australian locations with more openings planned in both markets this year. As we announced this morning, Culture Kings is also expanding its store footprint in the U.S. with a signed lease for a new store in Puerto Rico and final negotiations for a major metropolitan opening later this year. At the same time, we are expanding our wholesale and marketplace partnerships, which are exceeding expectations, expanding brand awareness, attracting new customers and creating incremental growth opportunities. And behind the scenes, we've laid the operational groundwork for this expansion. Inventory has been well managed, driving more full price sell-through and improved inventory turns are giving us greater flexibility to invest in growth. That discipline has also enabled Culture Kings and mnml to further evolve towards a test and repeat merchandising model, which has been a multiyear initiative that is now showing up clearly in our margin improvement. As I previously mentioned, we also completed a full overhaul of our sourcing network in 2025, diversifying across geographies and vendors. That gives us a more resilient supply chain, one built to support test and repeat and to handle the current trade environment as we keep growing. Together, these initiatives have strengthened our financial model. We ended the quarter with our strongest balance sheet since becoming a public company, reducing our inventory by 14% and our debt by 8% versus the prior year and we ended the period with net leverage of 3.37x. This provides us with increased financial flexibility to continue investing in both growth and profitability. Looking ahead, 3 priorities remain: driving direct-to-consumer growth through differentiated product and marketing, expanding reach through retail, wholesale and marketplace and continuing to sharpen our operating model. We're also scaling our AI investment, already seeing early gains in imagery, marketing efficiency and inventory with more margin benefit expected over time. Turning now to our brand highlights. Princess Polly, our largest brand, delivered another strong quarter. The brand's expanding omnichannel presence continued to extend its reach beyond the successful direct-to-consumer model, driving growth across both new and returning customers with stores, wholesale and marketplace each making meaningful contributions. Princess Polly's 1,000 square foot pop-up at the Grove in Los Angeles, which opened in May, far exceeded our expectations, and we're excited to have made the Grove a permanent location. Princess Polly is on track to open 4 additional stores in the U.S. and 1 in Australia, all by year-end. Looking ahead to 2027, we plan to open as many as 10 new Princess Polly stores with 5 leases already executed in major trade areas, including Charlotte, Boca Raton, Nashville, Burlington and Jacksonville. Longer term, we see the potential for a minimum of 100 Princess Polly stores in the U.S. alone, up from a current fleet of 13 stores. As I mentioned, our sales growth of more than 50% in the Rest of World was another bright spot in the quarter. The largest driver was the U.K. distribution center that launched in March, which is delivering the customer experience we envisioned. The 2-day delivery window is transforming conversion with momentum compounding week-over-week. This confirms for us the tremendous growth opportunity we have for Princess Polly in the U.K. and internationally, which we will look to capitalize on over the coming years. From a merchandising perspective, Princess Polly enters the back-to-school selling season with an evolved approach that builds on its test and repeat model. Beginning this month and informed by strong customer feedback, the brand expanded its offering with deeper buys in core seasonal styles across denim, sweats and tops. This is designed to capitalize on peak selling throughout the season, both in stores and online. I want to be clear, though, test and repeat remains the core of Princess Polly's assortment strategy. What we're doing is layering in evergreen programs season after season in the categories where customer demand has proven durable. Taken together, these results underscore while global expansion of Princess Polly's addressable market remains a key strategic priority. Our smaller women's brand, Petal & Pup, continued to expand its wholesale and marketplace distribution in Q2. Nordstrom remains a productive partner with strong unit velocity and sell-through across dresses and casual styles in-store and online. Macy's was a notable Q2 callout and newly remains a strong growth partner with tops now the #1 performing category on the platform, reinforcing the strength of our expanding separates offering. Petal & Pup continues to build distribution of its expanding lifestyle assortment by adding more specialty wholesale partners. And during this quarter, it will take another important step, taking part in the specialty retail trade show Magic in Las Vegas, the largest wholesale trade show in the U.S. Looking ahead for Petal & Pup, we've intentionally pulled forward our product flow with fall launching in August and holiday in October, 4 to 6 weeks earlier than last year. This gives both our direct-to-consumer and wholesale partners a longer selling window heading into the back half. Petal & Pup is well positioned for the second half, and I'm confident in the white space runway and long-term trajectory of the brand. Turning now to our streetwear brands. Over the past several years, we strengthened the foundation of the streetwear business, and we're now applying the same omnichannel playbook that has driven success across our women's brands. We're expanding beyond direct-to-consumer through stores and wholesale while continuing to execute our disciplined full price test and repeat merchandising strategy. Customers are responding to improved product and a less promotional approach, driving strong sell-through. While sales were not at the level we expected for Culture Kings in Australia in the quarter, the business contributed meaningfully to the overall gross margin expansion. Culture Kings' experiential retail model, together with its portfolio of in-house brands that we have now transitioned to a test and repeat model, including mnml, Loiter and Carré, provide a strong foundation as we expand across new channels. Mnml's recent performance has been among the strongest we've seen from the brand with several key products achieving exceptional success in TikTok Shop and mnml now ranking as a top 5 brand in the men's category on the platform. Loiter will lean further into collaborations with their recent WrestleMania partnership and the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog collaboration serving as great examples of how differentiated the Loiter brand is. And finally, in Q2, Carré launched their first global collaboration with Coca-Cola centered around the World Cup, and we're excited by Carré's product pipeline and future collaborations. The team's continued work expanding the in-house brand portfolio, curating third-party brands such as New Era, Adidas and ASICS and driving the strategic transition towards a more full-price test and repeat model sets the stage for meaningful profitable growth ahead. Marketing remains a key strength for Culture Kings. Brand activations, creator partnerships and exclusive collaborations continue to drive traffic, customer engagement and cultural relevance, reinforcing the foundation for profitable growth. Our men's brands are now on a solid footing to follow a similar path to our women's business, expanding reach through brick-and-mortar retail, wholesale partnerships and marketplaces. We're still early in this journey, but I'm confident that we're in a strong position to meaningfully grow our men's total addressable market. As I've mentioned, we signed a new Culture Kings store lease in Puerto Rico, and we're in the final negotiations for another opening in a major metropolitan market. We expect to have both new stores open in Q4 2026. These will be Culture Kings' first new U.S. store openings since 2022 and mark an important milestone in the brand's next phase of growth. New stores will draw on the learnings from our highest performing Australia locations as well as our highly productive and profitable Las Vegas flagship. In closing, our second quarter results reinforce that the operating model we've built is delivering. We posted double-digit adjusted EBITDA growth, positive operating cash flow year-to-date and our strongest balance sheet position since our IPO. The work we've put into go-to-market strategy, sourcing, inventory and channel expansion is translating directly into profit flow-through. Q3 to date trends have been strong, and we continue to make progress building out our omnichannel model, well underway in women's, just beginning in men's. Taken together, that gives me real confidence in both the back half of the year and the long-term opportunity across our brand portfolio. I want to thank our teams for their continued hard work and commitment. Our results are a direct reflection on their dedication to our brands and our customers. Before I turn it over to Kevin, I want to take a moment to note a change to our Board. Ilene Eskenazi has stepped down after many years of dedicated service. And on behalf of the entire company, I want to thank her for her contributions and counsel over time. I'm delighted to welcome Carrie Cassidy to the Board. Carrie brings deep expertise in talent and organizational leadership, having served as Chief People Officer of Restoration Hardware and held senior leadership roles at Levi Strauss, Barclays and First Data and currently serves on the Board of Thuma and Zio Mezzetta. As we scale our brands portfolio, her perspective on leadership and organizational performance will be a real asset to this Board. We're excited to have her on board. With that, I'll turn it over to Kevin.