Melinda Whittington
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Brad, your line is live
Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday, following the close of market, we reported results for our October ended second quarter. We delivered sales in line with the high-end of our guidance and non-GAAP operating margins exceeded guidance ranges issued last quarter, despite an increasingly challenging macro environment and continued soft home furnishings industry. These results were achieved via strong execution in both our retail stores and across our manufacturing supply chain, which has led to continued market share gains. Highlights for the quarter included: consolidated delivered sales of $511 million, up 14% versus our most recent pre-pandemic second quarter, but down 16% versus the prior year as expected, which benefited from delivering the above normal pandemic backlog. Total La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network written same-store sales growth of 1% positive, and flat written same-store sales for our company-owned retail stores. Non-GAAP gross margin improvement in both our retail and wholesale segments and total consolidated non-GAAP gross margin improvement of 340 basis points year-on-year. Non-GAAP operating margin of 7.9% above our guidance range, but down from a year ago, given deleverage on the delivered sales decline. Non-GAAP EPS of $0.74, a 30% decline from the same period last year, but 42% greater than pre-pandemic fiscal '20, and above our expectations. The launch of our new brand campaign, Long Live the Lazy, that has had early success with our expanded target consumer and is contributing to strong conversion levels. And finally, continued progress against our Century Vision growth strategy, including the expansion of our retail business with the opening of two new stores, and the acquisition of one independent La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery store. Our company-owned retail store base now represents just over 50% of the entire La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network. The overall home furnishings industry is in a continued slowdown with year-over-year declines in category spending. Consumers continue to de-emphasize discretionary spending on durables, as they adjust to higher interest rates, and housing turnover continues decline on a year-over-year basis. Despite these challenging consumer traffic trends, our La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network grew written same-store sales 1%, and company-owned stores held same-store sales flat versus year ago. With our ongoing efforts to build a more agile supply chain, along with disproportionately growing our retail business, where we have greater control over the end-to-end brand variance, we are positioning our business to continue driving profitable growth over the long-term. La-Z-Boy has been a trusted brand throughout our nearly 100-year history and we are encouraged with our progress, particularly given the challenges across the broader furniture industry. We continue to take a long-term approach to investing in our business, and remain confident in our ability to drive performance that outpaces the industry. Additionally, should sales and traffic headwinds persist longer-than-anticipated, we have the proven ability to manage our cost structure. And finally, our vertically-integrated model and the disproportionate growth of our direct-to-consumer business, which now contributes nearly half of our total company sales, comes with a structurally higher margin and will support continued investment into the business, as well as improvements in profitability. Highlighting our ongoing top-line trends, total written sales for our company-owned retail segment were up 3% versus last year's second quarter. This growth in written sales was attributed mainly to acquisitions of independent furniture gallery dealers in the quarter. Written same-store sales for our company-owned retail segment, in the second quarter, held essentially flat versus the prior year, even in the challenging consumer environment. Our Long Live the Lazy brand campaign has produced strong early results, in driving more productive traffic to stores, and in store execution remains solid with strong conversion and higher design sales. And we have sharpened some of our opening price points as raw materials and freight expenses normalize. Our written same-store sales were buoyed in August with strong Labor Day performance, but weakened during the balance of the quarter, as traffic trends slowed, particularly in October, consistent with our industry. That said, we have had a solid start to the holiday season in November. Against the backdrop of a 9% industry contraction during the second quarter, our 3% increase in total written sales indicate continued market share gains. As noted, across our entire La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network of 353 stores, written same-store sales grew 1% for the quarter, even against this challenging backdrop. Turning to Joybird. Written sales turned positive in the second quarter, up 5% versus year ago, as we lapped year ago Labor Day when Joybird trends fell significantly, consistent with most e-commerce furniture businesses and exacerbated by short-term marketing execution issues. Our renewed marketing execution is now efficient and resonating with consumers to build brand awareness. And while Joybird posted a small loss for the quarter as expected, the focus on managing both sales and profitability has led to a notable improvement in operating performance, and we remain optimistic about the prospects for the brand returning to both top and bottom-line growth over the medium-term. I also want to take some time to discuss the long-term focus we have for our business, and give an update on the progress we made against our Century Vision objectives during the quarter. Recall, Century Vision is our strategic framework for setting up La-Z-Boy Incorporated for our next 100 years, as we celebrate our first century in 2027. This is measured by our intention to grow top-line at a pace double the market, and deliver consistent double-digit operating margins over the long-term. First, we continue to grow and update our La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network, and our company-owned retail portion of that network through new stores, acquired stores and remodels to provide an outstanding end-to-end consumer experience. Company-owned stores now total 177, and for the first time in our history, represent just over half of our entire network, reflecting the impressive journey our retail business has been on over the last decade. We continue to see potential for up to 400 stores across the entire network in the intermediate term, a potential incremental 13% to our total network. During the quarter, we opened two new stores and we completed the acquisition of one independent La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery store in Lafayette, Louisiana. And in October, we signed an agreement to acquire an additional six store network from an independent La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries dealer in the Midwest, scheduled to close in our third quarter. As a reminder, these store acquisitions are immediately accretive to our profitability, and allow the company to benefit from the integrated wholesale retail margin. As we grow our company owned retail, our vertically integrated supply chain will become a more meaningful differentiator versus competitors in the industry. As we are uniquely able to understand the consumer and then deliver custom furniture with strong speed to market. We are actively leveraging the discipline of our team and the strength of our balance sheet to drive continuous improvements in offering greater value for our customers. These competitive advantages position us to continue to grow our business over the long-term. Second on Century Vision, we are refining our brand channel strategy to expand the distribution and availability of La-Z-Boy products in additional compatible outlets to meet our consumers with the right products wherever they prefer to shop. As one example, last quarter, we announced a new partnership with Rooms To Go, a top-10 furniture retailer with a focus on Southwest and Southeast US markets, with a selected assortment of La-Z-Boy Recliners. While early, this partnership is off to a good start and we look forward to reaching more consumers through strategic partnerships. Third, we're excited about the potential of our new Long Live the Lazy brand campaign. In the quarter, we activated a new marketing strategy, leveraging database consumer insights and our brand heritage of comfort and quality to connect with a broader consumer base. Our goal is to build top of mind awareness, relevance, and updated perceptions of the brand. What makes us excited about our Long Live the Lazy brand campaign? It connects to cultural conversations and momentum, celebrating the value of earned rest and relaxation in our busy lifestyles. It reflects real-life lived-in rooms and well-loved homes across a variety of situations, life stages and home styles in which people can see themselves. We leverage knowledge of consumers rest and relaxation habits to connect, such as listening to music or a podcast, gaming, watching the news or the big game, and we will show up consistently across all touchpoints on the consumer journey to build familiarity and trust. And next, Joybird. We continue to optimize Joybird to deliver a balance of sales growth and profitability. We view Joybird as an opportunity to increase our omnichannel presence for consumers. The brand continues to have significant opportunity to grow share, which will be our focus as we make prudent choices to return to profitability. Joybird currently operates 12 stores with the recent opening of a new store in Portland, Oregon, and we have identified a total of 25 potential locations over the intermediate term with our expansion pace depending on opportunities in real estate and the overall business environment. And finally, on Century Vision, we continue our progress on building a more agile business model. Now that we have been able to successfully lower our unprecedented backlog to a more normalized level and are meaningfully improving plant productivity. We recently made decisions to further optimize our global supply chain. As part of this initiative, we are shifting upholstery production from our Ramos, Mexico operations to our other existing upholstery plants, and then relocating a portion of our cut and sew operations back to Ramos, Mexico. Resulting in the permanent closure of our leased cut and sew facility in Paris, Mexico. Action taken to realign Mexico operations will be completed by the end of the fiscal with benefits accruing in fiscal 25. The strategic decision is made possible through continued productivity improvements achieved across our remaining plant network. Now, let me turn the call over to Bob to review the financial results in more detail. Bob?