Gary Friedman
Analyst · Morgan Stanley
Thank you, Alex, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll start with our letter, and then we'll open the call up to questions. To our people, partners and shareholders, RH continued to generate industry-leading growth in the second quarter as revenue increased 8.4% and demand increased 13.7% despite the polarizing impact of tariff uncertainty and the worst housing market in almost 50 years. On a 2-year basis, revenues increased 12% and demand increased 21%, resulting in significant share gains and strategic separation. As a reminder, we expect the approximate 5.4 point variance between demand and revenues due to tariff disruptions will shift from the second quarter and be realized as revenues over the second half of 2025. Adjusted operating margin of 15.1% and adjusted EBITDA of 20.6% both increased 340 basis points versus last year, inclusive of an approximately 170 basis point drag from investments to support our long-term European expansion. Net income increased 79%, and we generated $81 million of free cash flow in the quarter. We continue to be pleased with the second year demand trends at RH England, with gallery demand up 76% in the second quarter and online demand up 34%. Current demand trends indicate that gallery is expected to reach approximately $37 million to $39 million of demand in 2025, its second full fiscal year with online demand reaching approximately $8 million. To put those results in perspective, if an RH Gallery in the English countryside with an estimated population of 100,000 in a 10-mile radius 2 hours outside of London can generate $46 million of total demand in its second full fiscal year, what can a gallery in the center of Mayfair, the most exclusive shopping district in London, with a population of 9.7 million do in its second full fiscal year? We believe exponentially more. While many questioned the decision to open our first RH Gallery in such a remote location believing it would fail, what they failed to understand is the value of doing something extraordinary that breaks through the clutter and creates the conversation. We've learned during our journey at RH that when we've done extraordinary and remarkable work, we've always figured out a way to monetize it. And we've also learned that it's hard to monetize ordinary and unremarkable. The most important news regarding our European expansion was the September 5 opening of RH Paris, our most innovative and immersive brand experience to date. Located on the Champs-Élysées, just off the Avenue Montaigne, RH Paris stands at the epicenter of fashion and luxury. Pass through the majestic gold leaf gate down a crushed limestone path to a secret garden where ivy-covered walls and sculpted trees frame the 18-foot cast medallion doors marking the entrance. Juxtaposing the entry is a freestanding RH Interior Design Studio. The 2-story glass structure is home to what has become 1 of the largest residential interior design firms in the world with projects on every major continent. A contemporary inlaid brass and white onyx mosaic frames a 3-dimensional image of Leonardo Da Vinci's the Vitruvian Man and the RH Design Ethos. The image and ethos not only mirror the entrance to RH Paris but are also reflected in every building we inhabit and every house we turn into a home. Step through the threshold and enter the Architecture & Design Bibliothèque. Discover rare books from the foundational Masters, Da Vinci, Palladio, Blondel, and Haussmann. Commanding the center of the Bibliothèque is 1 of the first modern printings, circa 1521 of De Architectura, The Ten Books on Architecture by first century BC architect Marcus Vitruvius. His description of a man outstretched within a circle and a square inspired Da Vinci's famous drawing, The Vitruvian Man, some 1,500 years after his death. The gallery, spanning 7 levels, is connected by a soaring atrium of floating glass medallion stairs and a glass elevator that magically appears, then disappears from an invisible shaft atop the rooftop garden. A cast bronze caryatid, circa 1870, by renowned French sculptor, Louis-Felix Chabaud, whose work is on display at the Louvre, graces the center of the atrium. Beyond their structural role, caryatids symbolize strength, grace and ingenuity, a harmony between art and engineering. We placed this specific caryatid in the center of the grand atrium as a symbol of not only our desire to connect and create harmony between the architecture, art, history and hospitality offerings of RH Paris but also our desire to create harmony between RH and the people of Paris. On the lower level, ground and first floors immerse yourself in artistic installations of furniture, antiques, artifacts and art in a gallery setting. Each level features full floor exhibits by a singular artist and carefully curated pieces not only chosen to furnish your home but also define it. Dine under a spectacular curved glass and steel structure inspired by the Grand Palais while enjoying a curated menu of American and Mediterranean classics at Le Jardin RH, located on the second floor terrace. Marvel at the stone mastery as every surface from the bar to the bathrooms is clad in rare white onyx slabs. On the third floor discover The World of RH Bar & Lounge, a physical and digital immersion into the places and spaces that define the RH brand while enjoying lite bites and a craft cocktail by legendary bartender Colin Field. Step into a jewel box of champagne-lacquered walls with a sparkling ceiling of over 7,000 individually handblown glass polyhedrons at Le Petit RH. With 30-degree views, including the Eiffel Tower, Grand Palais and the Louvre, the Le Petit rooftop is one of the most spectacular dining destinations in all of Paris, featuring a creative menu of caviar specialties, small plates, signature salads and seafood towers. While RH Paris may not sound like a retail store, it's not meant to be. It is an authentic expression of the RH vision and design ethos. It is a global destination designed to manifest dreams, generate desire and inspire an elevated and elegant way to live. I was asked by a journalist prior to opening, "You're introducing multiple hospitality concepts at RH Paris. Have you considered that Parisians have very strong opinions about their hospitality?" I thought for a moment and my answer was this. Parisians have very strong opinions about a lot more than their hospitality. Parisians have strong opinions about art, architecture, antiques, people, politics, fashion, design, food and wine. Paris is a place you come to do your very best work. It is where you have the most to gain and the most to lose. In Paris, the measure is eternity. This we know and have built accordingly. I'm also pleased to report that RH Paris is off to a very strong start. Traffic in the gallery has exceeded RH New York day by day, and the design pipeline in the first 6 days is greater than the design pipeline of our first 5 European galleries combined in their first 6 days. I didn't know what to put for this next headline, so I just kept it simple, tariffs, tariffs and the possibility for more tariffs. Just when you might have thought the tariff conversation was complete, the announcement of a new furniture investigation and the possibility for additional furniture tariffs on top of existing furniture tariffs and incremental steel and aluminum tariffs were introduced with the goal of returning furniture manufacturing back to America. We believe most in our industry hope that this investigation surfaces the difficulty of that task as current manufacturing for high-quality wood or metal furniture does not exist at scale in America. It would require years of investments in building the facilities and workforce that most in this industry cannot afford to make. Not to mention the significant inflation that we believe will start to become evident in the second half of this year and accelerate into 2026 and beyond. While strong brands like ours will benefit from the likely dislocation and consolidation more tariffs will have on our industry, many smaller companies will have difficulty surviving these levels of tariffs. Additionally, more tariffs on furniture could also result in U.S. manufacturers moving production from the U.S. to countries closer to their international clients, avoiding freight costs and the likelihood of counter tariffs. Our hope is that the investigation will seek out the perspective of a cross-section of leaders in our industry as we drive towards the best outcome for our country. As previously communicated, we've continued to shift sourcing out of China and expect receipts to decrease from 16% in Q1 to 2% in Q4, with a meaningful portion of the tariff absorbed by our vendor partners. Additionally, we are aggressively responding to the recent 50% tariffs imposed on India, which impacts 7% of our business, almost entirely hand knotted rugs. While the hand knotted rugs category is highly specialized and not manufactured in America, I think, for 100 years, we have begun the process of identifying alternative countries. We have also resourced a significant portion of our upholstered furniture to our own North Carolina factory, where we have been manufacturing for 10 years and plan to continue doing so. We are now projecting that 52% of our upholstered furniture will be produced in the United States, 21% in Italy and approximately 12% in Mexico by the end of fiscal 2025. We also expect the percentage made in the United States will continue to increase throughout 2026. While there remains uncertainty until tariff investigations are complete, we have proven we are well positioned to compete favorably in any market condition. Outlook. Due to the dislocation and continued uncertainty related to tariffs, we believe it is prudent to revise our guidance for fiscal 2025 due to the following factors: while we continue negotiations with our manufacturing partners, our updated outlook reflects a $30 million cost of incremental tariffs, net of mitigation in the second half. As communicated, due to the uncertainty related to tariffs, we delayed the launch of the new brand extension that was planned for the second half of 2025 to the spring of 2026. We've also delayed the introduction of our Fall Interiors Sourcebook by 8 weeks, as we awaited tariff announcements needed to finalize pricing. Last year, 100% of the Fall Interiors Sourcebook were in home by the first week of August. This year, the Fall Interiors Sourcebook will be 100% in home by the last week of September, with only 28% in home as of the end of last week. We now expect approximately $40 million in revenues to shift out of Q3 and into Q4 and Q1 '26 because of that shift. Our outlook does not include any new tariffs as a result of the recently announced furniture investigation. Fiscal year 2025 outlook: revenue growth of 9% to 11%, adjusted operating margin of 13% to 14%, adjusted EBITDA margin of 19% to 20%, free cash flow of $250 million to $300 million. The above outlook includes an approximately negative 200 basis point operating margin impact from investments and start-up costs to support our international expansion and a 90 basis point impact from tariffs net of mitigations. Third quarter 2025. Revenue growth of 8% to 10%, adjusted operating margin of 12% to 13%, adjusted EBITDA margin of 18% to 19%, the above outlook includes an approximately negative 270 basis point operating impact -- operating margin impact from investments to start across this quarter in international expansion and the opening of RH Paris and a 120 point -- basis point impact from tariffs net of mitigations. Platform expansion -- elevation and expansion plans for 2025. We continue to open the most inspiring and immersive physical experiences in our industry and some would say the world, spaces that are a reflection of human design, a study of balance, symmetry and perfect proportions; spaces that blur the lines between residential and retail, indoors and outdoors, home and hospitality; spaces with garden courtyards, rooftop restaurants, wine and barista bars; spaces that activate all of the senses; and spaces that cannot be replicated online. Our plan to expand the RH brand globally, address new markets locally and transform our North American galleries represents a multibillion-dollar opportunity. Our platform elevation and expansion plans for the remainder of 2025 include the opening of 4 additional design galleries in Manhasset, San Diego, Detroit and Palm Desert. As previously communicated, we anticipate an inflection in our business across Europe as we begin to open in the important brand building markets of Paris in 2025 plus London and Milan in the spring of 2026, all with dramatic brand building hospitality experiences. We believe post-opening, we will begin to have the scale to support the necessary advertising investments to accelerate our growth in Europe. If the early reads coming out of RH Paris are an indication of what's to come, RH Europe and the Middle East should enable us to double the size of RH over the next 5 to 7 years. Looking forward, we plan to accelerate our expansion strategy to include the opening of 7 to 9 new galleries per year, plus 2 to 3 design studios, outdoor galleries or new concept galleries per year that increase our current presence in underpenetrated markets and open new markets to the RH brand. "Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies and they will briefly rain gold," Warren Buffett. While we expect a higher risk business environment due to the uncertainty caused by tariffs, market volatility, inflation risk and an increasing level of global discord, we believe it's important to separate the signal from the noise. The fact is we've been operating in the worst housing market in almost 50 years for 3 straight years. For context, in 1978, there were 4.09 million existing homes sold when the U.S. had a population of 223 million. Contrast that to 2024 where 4.06 million existing homes sold with a population of 340 million, 50% more people and less homes sold. And it illuminates just how depressed the housing market has been this past year to 3 years. Despite that fact, we are performing at a level most would expect in a robust housing market. We believe it's the result of investing with a very narrow focus and a long-term view or what we like to call an inch wide and a mile deep, elevating and expanding our platform by creating the most desired products presenting in the most inspiring spaces in the world with bespoke interior design services and beautiful restaurants that generate energy, engagement and tremendous awareness of the RH brand. While our business has been strong, it has been so due to action versus inaction, innovating versus duplicating, investing versus divesting and aggressively taking market share during this downturn, so we are positioned to create long-term strategic separation on the other side of it. We are investing in the most iconic global locations in retail that will likely never be duplicated in our lifetimes. We are building a global hospitality company with multiple concepts across multiple continents. We are creating a global bespoke interior design business that completes million-dollar-plus full home installations. We are building a global contract and hospitality business where our products were featured in some of the finest hotels and residential projects in the world. And we are creating the most desirable and distinguished brand in our industry, all while forecasting an EBITDA margin of approximately 20%. Imagine what our margins and cash flow might look like in a robust housing market as we begin to cycle and leverage those investments. While we began the year with meaningful debt, almost entirely due to our stock repurchases of $2.2 billion, we also began the year with incredible business momentum and meaningful assets. The assets include real estate that we believe has an estimated equity value of approximately $500 million that we plan to monetize opportunistically as market conditions warrant and excess inventory of $300 million at cost that we plan to turn into cash over the next 12 to 18 months as we optimize our assortments post our product transformation. We are forecasting to generate $250 million to $300 million of cash flow in 2025, and our plans call for significant and growing cash flow from operations over the next several years if we cycle this aggressive investment period. We estimate that our adjusted capital expenditures will decrease to a range of $200 million to $250 million in 2026 and $150 million to $200 million in 2027 and beyond. We remain confident in our ability to make the necessary investments to continue our industry-leading growth while significantly reducing debt and lowering interest expense. As Warren Buffet wrote in his 2016 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, "Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies and they will briefly rain gold. When downpours of that sort occur, it's imperative that we rush outdoors carrying washtubs, not teaspoons." Our debt is reflective of a washtub bet on ourselves. We repurchased 60% of our outstanding shares that greatly benefited our long-term shareholders post the publishing of Mr. Buffett's letter in 2016 and '17 and repurchased 30% of our outstanding shares during this housing downturn in 2022 and 2023. While the sky in our sector has been darkened by inflation, interest rates, tariffs and global politics, those clouds will soon pass, and it will not only be clear skies but also clear that it was a good time to be a shareholder of RH. Carpe diem. Operator, we'll now open the call to questions.