Denise Paulonis
Analyst · TD Cowen
Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. Our first quarter financial performance marks a strong start to fiscal year 2026. We achieved top line results and adjusted operating income at the high end of our expectations and adjusted diluted earnings per share above our guidance range. Through focused execution in the service of our customers, we delivered total sales of $943 million with comparable sales flat to last year, reflecting our ability to navigate and rebound from the macro volatility we saw during the quarter, most notably from the government shutdowns. Strong gross margins of 51%, careful cost control and benefits from our Fuel for Growth program resulted in outperformance on the bottom line with adjusted diluted earnings per share increasing 12% to $0.48. We also generated strong cash flow from operations of $93 million, which we deployed towards investing for growth, further strengthening our balance sheet with $20 million of debt paydown and returning value to shareholders through $21 million of share repurchases. In our Sally segment, while our customers remained choiceful, they demonstrated overall resilience in a challenging macro environment. We are pleased to see performance strengthen in December as the government reopened. And in turn, our Sally U.S. and Canada business delivered positive comparable sales growth of 1.3% for the quarter. Of note, in the quarter, we did exit substantially all of our lower-margin full-service operations in Europe. This represents a positive strategic shift for our business as it simplifies our operations and allows us to concentrate on driving growth within our core store and omnichannel businesses. While this exit will result in a modest sales headwind of approximately $10 million to full year 2026, it is not expected to have a material impact on operating profit, underscoring the benefits of focusing our resources on areas with greater long-term potential. Our core color category was a standout performer at Sally with year-over-year growth of 8%. For Sally U.S. and Canada, color was also up 8%, and we saw a meaningful increase in color customer count, which increased 3%, fueled by our performance marketing and personalization initiatives as well as ongoing momentum in our licensed colors on-demand platform. Additionally, our entry into the fast-growing fragrance category was met with positive response. In November, we introduced fragrance in our top 1,000 Sally U.S. stores and strong demand drove out of stocks in the latter weeks of the quarter. On the digital side, our Sally Global e-commerce business delivered strong results, growing 20% in the quarter. This performance was powered by marketplaces as well as positive trends across key categories, including color, care and styling tools and reflects robust performance throughout the Black Friday, Cyber Monday weekend. Turning to our BSG segment. Top line results were roughly flat with both net sales and comp sales down 20 basis points to last year as stylists continue to buy closer to need and seek value. Spending trends softened in tandem with the government shutdown, but rebounded nicely in December. While appointment books were relatively busy, their customers were more cautious in their spending with some pullback in add-on services. We are pleased to have delivered healthy gains in key categories and brands, highlighting the innovation and value we bring to our stylists. As our teams continue to execute against our 4 key growth drivers, we remain focused on delivering consistent performance with a business that is resilient and positioned for long-term growth. Now I'll provide an update on our strategies and discuss our near-term initiatives. Our first strategy, understanding and activating the customer is focused on acquisition, retention and share of wallet. At Sally, our Save While You Skip the Salon campaign that we launched in Q1 is resonating with customers, and we're continuing to run that in Q2. Additionally, as we continue to drive new customer acquisition from our performance marketing, CRM and personalization initiatives, we are pleased to see expanding customer counts among the millennial and Gen Z cohorts. We believe there is a meaningful opportunity to grow our brand with these important customer cohorts that embrace color trends, hair health and DIY. Our brand marketing strategy also includes licensed colors on demand, which continues to drive strong economics and serve as a powerful customer acquisition tool. Of note, customers acquired through LCOD spend 2x more than the customers acquired through other means over their first year with us. And our existing customers that engage through LCOD show a lift of over 25% in their annualized spend. With that level of impact, we are pleased to see that in Q1, the number of new and reactivated customers continued to grow, and we averaged approximately 5,000 weekly consultations. Moreover, we recently launched a new care consultation strategy, which is gaining traction quickly in the new year and is expected to help drive long-term improvement in care category performance. Looking at BSG, we are implementing new personalization and journey optimization strategies to deepen engagement with our stylists. While BSG is in the early innings relative to Sally in this area, we are already seeing our efforts make a difference in 2 places. First, we use targeted offers to drive strong reactivations from customers that had previously lapsed, and we have plans to expand our targeted offers as we move through the next few quarters. Second, we are partnering with our brands to drive more effective and direct communication with our stylists, and we saw several key brands drive significant growth in customer counts in the quarter, like Schwarzkopf, Color Wow and Danger Jones. Moving now to our second strategy, unlocking and harvesting digital value. E-commerce sales were up 20% in the Sally segment and up 4% in the BSG segment in the quarter. With strong e-commerce sales momentum in both business segments, our teams are focused on leveraging our existing capabilities and strengthening our digital foundation to drive increased engagement and conversion. In fiscal Q1, we saw broad-based e-commerce gains across categories at Sally, fueled in part by our marketplaces strategy. The upgrade of our Sally app is underway and will continue to roll out in the coming quarters, which will improve the user experience and reduce friction. Notable enhancements include coupon clarity and loyalty transparency, so value is more visible, easier to interpret and actionable at the right moments as well as a more efficient search engine for easier product discovery. At BSG, during the quarter, we launched Apple Pay to reduce friction at checkout, introduced inventory near me functionality and created a favorites category for our stylists, enabling quicker discovery of frequently purchased items. In addition, we're on track to roll out substantial updates to the BSG app in the coming months. The updates are designed to deliver an improved user experience, faster payment checkout and enhanced capabilities around education, AI and personalization. The changes will begin to roll out to our stylists this spring. Turning to our third strategy, differentiating with product assortment and innovation. In the Sally segment, we are quite pleased to see that our customers have given us permission to participate in the fragrance category. In our second quarter, we're expanding to another 1,000 Sally locations and expect to end the quarter with fragrance in 2,000 stores. On the own brands front, the Q1 relaunch of Texture ID is bringing customers back to the brand and building momentum. Looking ahead, we have more brand refreshes and innovation coming throughout the year. At BSG, we have some exciting launches planned for fiscal 2026. Earlier this month, we introduced Milkshake and Keratin Complex, brands that are well loved by stylists and bring exciting innovation to BSG. We brought Milkshake to 225 U.S. stores and e-commerce with products across both color and care. And Keratin Complex launched in 525 of our U.S. stores, full service and e-commerce, deepening our participation in the glassing and straightening trend. We're also excited about upcoming expansion in key brands where we already have strong momentum, including Moroccan Oil, Danger Jones and K18. Now to discuss our fourth strategy, accelerating new growth pathways. I'll start with our Sally Ignited initiative, which encompasses both physical and digital refreshes, category and brand expansion and immersive experiences focused on discovery and community. During fiscal Q1, we completed 8 store refreshes, bringing us to 38 locations and putting us on track to have approximately 80 Sally Ignited stores in the market by the end of fiscal 2026. We're pleased to see positive KPIs in our Ignited stores, reinforcing that we are on the right path. Let me share a few details. First, from a customer perspective, we are seeing a mid- to high single-digit increase in new and reactivated customers. Second, on the sales front, UPT and ATV continue to trend above the rest of the fleet with customers spending more time in store and cross-stropping categories at an increased rate. Notably, this stronger performance is especially evident in our larger format stores where expanded skin care and cosmetics assortments have contributed to even stronger basket growth. We will continue to use fiscal 2026 to refine the program as we look towards scaling the rollout in fiscal 2027. In the BSG segment, we are advancing our initiatives to enter the skin and spa category with testing underway. Currently, we have 2 brands, Image and Matter of Fact, in 250 stores, and we activated marketing in the first quarter as well. We are focused on building awareness within the skin care community, and we'll continue to roll out campaigns targeting aestheticians in the coming quarters to drive consideration and conversion. Turning now to an update on Happy Beauty. Our recent merchandising and marketing initiatives are proving successful and contributed to strong holiday season results. Our mall locations outperformed with indie brands leading the way across key categories, including cosmetics, skin care and fragrance. Building on the traction we saw in our mall locations, we are actively at work on our Happy Beauty e-commerce site that will launch later this fiscal year, and we continue to evaluate the optimal path forward for brick-and-mortar. More to come in the quarters ahead. While continuing to fuel the top line through these 4 growth drivers, our teams are also remaining laser-focused on driving profitability unlocks via our Fuel for Growth program and ongoing financial discipline. We're in year 3 of the program, which is expected to be an important contributor to gross margin and profitability in fiscal 2026. We're tracking to capture approximately $45 million of benefits this year, putting us at total cumulative run rate savings of $120 million by the end of fiscal 2026. We are grateful to our talented teams and remain confident in our path forward. We are committed to driving durable growth and building long-term shareholder value in the quarters and years ahead. Now I'll turn the call to Marlo to discuss the financials.