Brian Lynch
Analyst · JPMorgan Securities
Thank you, Chip, and good afternoon, everyone. We are pleased with our second quarter results and encouraged by the progress we have made on our transformation back to a pure-play golf company. In the first 6 months of this year, we have significantly improved the profitability of our business, fortified our capital structure and started returning capital to shareholders. While there is more work to be done, we are energized by the progress to date and excited by what lies ahead. Now let's turn to our financial results in more detail. Please note that on today's call, I will be discussing our non-GAAP financial results from continuing operations unless otherwise noted. We have provided in our earnings release today a reconciliation of these non-GAAP results to the GAAP results, and we provided additional information about the discontinued operations. With that said, second quarter consolidated net sales increased 2% year-over-year to $612 million. This performance reflected a 4% increase in Golf Equipment net sales, driven by strength across both clubs and balls. Golf Goods net sales decreased 4%, primarily due to the timing of shipments between Q1 and Q2 and FX headwinds in Asia, while TravisMathew grew slightly in the quarter. Q2 gross margin increased 460 basis points to 48.5%, driven primarily by continued progress on our gross margin initiatives, including select price increases, cost reductions and rationalizing select lower-margin business. with tariffs providing a slight positive impact to the year-over-year increase. Excluding the tariff benefit, Q2 gross margin increased 440 basis points year-over-year. The improvement was broad-based with gross margin expansion in both the Golf Equipment and Soft Goods segments. Q2 operating expenses increased approximately $1 million or less than 1% as cost of living increases and inflationary pressures in the Golf Equipment and Soft Goods segments were largely offset by a $4 million or 13% decrease in corporate overhead expenses, primarily due to the company's strategic transformation and related cost savings initiatives. Adjusted EBITDA of $125 million increased 36% year-over-year. This improvement was driven primarily by higher net sales, improved gross margins and corporate cost savings with tariffs providing a slight incremental benefit in the quarter. Moving to liquidity. We ended the quarter in a net cash position. As of June 30, 2026, we had $74 million of outstanding debt, including $23 million of finance leases and $278 million of cash and cash equivalents. Total available liquidity, which consists of cash on hand and availability under our credit facilities, was $775 million at the end of the second quarter of 2026 compared to $1.16 billion at the same time last year, a decrease of $387 million, which is primarily due to cash used for our debt paydown of $1.4 billion in the first half of 2026. During the quarter, our $258 million of convertible notes matured on May 1, and we settled the notes in cash. Additionally, on May 29, we paid in full the remaining $163 million outstanding under our Term Loan B facility. We also continued to return cash to shareholders and have now repurchased 5.9 million shares through June for a total cost of approximately $84 million. Broken down by quarter, we repurchased approximately $42 million of stock in the first quarter and approximately $42 million in the second quarter. As of June 30, 2026, we had approximately $120 million of repurchase authority remaining under our current program. Looking ahead, Callaway Golf's capital allocation priorities remain unchanged as we focus on: one, reinvesting in our business; two, maintaining a healthy balance sheet; and three, returning capital to shareholders through the $200 million stock repurchase program authorized earlier this year. As we continue to generate free cash flow in excess of our business needs, we will work with our Board to balance cash needed to reinvest in the business and returning capital to shareholders. We still expect to end the year in a net cash leverage position. With regard to future share repurchases, no decisions on the magnitude or timing of repurchases have been made at this point. However, based on our expected continued performance and subject to market conditions and buying opportunities from time to time, we plan to continue to steadily return capital to shareholders at some level while maintaining a strong balance sheet. And to be clear, the purpose of the share repurchases is not only to reduce dilution from equity awards, but also to reduce share count meaningfully over time. Next, I want to give a quick update on tariffs following the expiration on July 24 of the temporary 10% global minimum tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 and the implementation of new Section 301 forced labor tariffs, which took effect the following day and range between 10% and 12.5%, depending on the country. The tariff situation remains dynamic, and there is some speculation additional tariffs under Section 301 or otherwise will be forthcoming. Since we don't actually know if such additional tariffs will be implemented or when or in what amount, our guidance today incorporates only the forced labor tariffs under Section 301 that began on July 25. We had previously assumed tariffs would increase to 20% once the temporary tariffs expired, so the recently announced Section 301 tariffs are upside versus our previous guidance. We now expect that the full year gross tariff expense for 2026 will be approximately $43 million, a net improvement of approximately $7 million compared to our prior guidance. The full year gross tariff expense in 2025 was $34 million. We continue to believe that we have the opportunity to obtain refunds for tariffs paid up to just under $50 million in the aggregate over the course of the refund program. We have applied for both Phase 1 and Phase 2 refunds, representing approximately $11 million and $32 million, respectively, and have received all of the Phase 1 refunds to date and almost $7 million of the Phase 2 refunds. We expect to receive the balance of the Phase 2 refunds in the second half of this year. There also should be another almost $7 million to apply for in Phase 3, which brings our refund potential to approximately $50 million, consistent with what we discussed last quarter. One final point for the sake of clarity. On a GAAP basis, we recognized $10.8 million in Q2 for the tariff refunds. We excluded those refunds from our non-GAAP results to give a clearer picture of period-over-period results. The almost $7 million of Phase 2 refunds we received were recognized in Q3. We will continue to account for additional refunds as we receive them, and we will continue to exclude the refunds from our non-GAAP results. The cost pressures we discussed last quarter from broader geopolitical activity continue. As a reminder, these include increases in certain commodities and strategic metals such as tungsten, which have increased multiples over 2025 costs. In addition, conflict in the Middle East has led to increased petrochemical-based cost pressures, including increased energy costs for us and our suppliers and increased petrochemical-based raw material costs, primarily those used in golf balls. These cost pressures are included in the guidance we provided today. Now turning to our full year and third quarter 2026 outlook. Given our strong first half results and general health of the golf market, we now expect full year 2026 net sales of $2.045 billion to $2.070 billion, an increase of approximately $15 million at the midpoint. The increase reflects the flow-through of our Q2 net sales beat as well as an additional $5 million organic raise in the second half of the year, partially offset by approximately $5 million of additional foreign exchange risk. As a reminder, our net sales in the second half of this year will be impacted by fewer new product launches compared to 2025 as well as the continued rationalization of select lower-margin business. We continue to believe these actions will strengthen our business and support higher overall margins over the long term. With regard to EBITDA, we are increasing our adjusted EBITDA expectations to $246 million to $260 million, an increase of $31 million at the midpoint of guidance. This increase represents the following: $21 million of the increase is related to the flow-through of the non-tariff Q2 EBITDA exceed, plus an additional $3 million from the flow-through of our improved net sales outlook and a slightly improved gross margin outlook, plus an additional $7 million from the revised tariff estimates I discussed earlier. As a reminder, lower dividend income will be an approximate $12 million year-over-year headwind to adjusted EBITDA in the second half. This is due to the excess cash we held in the back half of last year generated from the business and the sale of Jack Wolfskin, which we subsequently used along with proceeds from the Topgolf sale to pay down $1.4 billion of debt in the first half of this year. While this reduces EBITDA versus last year, it is a net benefit to free cash flow given the higher cost of debt relative to the yield we are earning on cash. Turning to cash flow and margins. We expect 2026 capital expenditures of approximately $40 million. While we are not providing specific free cash flow guidance, we do expect the increase in our adjusted EBITDA to generally flow through to additional cash flow. For gross margin, a reminder that due to the seasonality of our business, gross margins are meaningfully lower in the second half compared to the first half. In addition, while we continue to expect improvement year-over-year, we anticipate second half gross margins to increase less than the first half due to the lower volumes related to the change in launch cadence we mentioned earlier. And lastly, remember that our cost savings initiatives began in the second half of 2025, which will affect year-over-year second half comparisons. As a result, while we expect corporate overhead expenses to decrease for the full year, second half corporate overhead expenses will likely increase compared to last year due to cost of living and other inflationary pressures. Now turning to Q3 guidance. For Q3, we are forecasting net sales of $415 million to $435 million and adjusted EBITDA of $10 million to $20 million. The year-over-year increase in revenue primarily reflects the change in launch cadence, tougher second half comparisons following 8% U.S. sell-through growth last year and FX headwinds. The year-over-year decrease in adjusted EBITDA is primarily driven by the flow-through of our lower revenue, lower dividend income and cost of living increases, partially offset by continued gross margin improvement and more favorable tariffs. Over the past year, we have greatly simplified our business and strategy. We have sold our Jack Wolfskin business and 60% of our Topgolf business. We have returned to a pure-play golf company and significantly improved our profitability. We have also significantly improved our capital structure, having paid down $1.4 billion in debt and eliminated recourse to Callaway for the Topgolf debt, resulting in a net cash position. And our shareholder value creation strategy is straightforward. That is grow revenue over time faster than the golf market, continue to improve the profitability of our business, generate cash and return capital to shareholders. We are excited by our progress over the last 6 months and look forward to creating additional shareholder value by continuing to execute upon this strategy. With that said, I will turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A.