Denise Paulonis
Analyst · TD Cowen, your line is now open
Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. We're pleased to report a solid quarter, delivering top and bottom line results within our guidance ranges. Fiscal Q3 net sales totaled $935 million, with comparable sales flat. Gross margin expansion and ongoing cost management translated to strong bottom line delivery. Adjusted operating income totaled $87 million. And adjusted diluted EPS came in at $0.55, an 8% increase versus a year ago. This performance enabled us to generate strong cash flow from operations of $81 million and continue to return value to shareholders in the quarter. These results highlighted both the underlying strength of our business model and the benefits we are delivering from our strategic initiatives. The quarter was led by strong growth in the Sally segment, which delivered comparable sales growth of 1.6%, including a robust 3.5% increase at Sally U.S. and Canada, driven by balanced growth in both transactions and ticket, as well as strong performance across both stores and e-commerce. From a category perspective, color continued to be a standout performer. On a total Sally segment basis, color was up 8%, while Sally U.S. and Canada delivered growth of 9%. Additionally, fragrance continues to build impressive momentum. Hair care trends have started to improve leading up to the category reset we talked about last quarter, which is rolling out this month. We believe our plans to refine our hair care product assortments, as well as the expansion of men's, will enable us to drive improvement in hair care sales performance over the coming quarters. New brands coming as part of the assortment update include Yellow and NatureLab. Tokyo. We're also expanding Design Essentials, The Doux, and Camille Rose. And in men's, we're doubling down on key brands, including Clubman and Level 3, to name a few. Importantly, our push into new, highly relevant categories, such as men's and fragrance, expands our total addressable market and positions us to capture increasing share over the long-term. Looking now at our BSG segment, stylist sentiment has remained fairly consistent through fiscal 2026. Appointment books are steady and color services continue to be strong, while add-on services have been inconsistent. In shopping behavior, stylists remain value-focused and choiceful with additional spending, particularly in hair care and styling tools. For the quarter, BSG comparable sales declined 2.1% with strength in color and nails offset by softness in hair care. For the quarter, we lapped the April 2025 launch of K18, pressuring the flat hair care sales trend of the last few quarters. We know that both value and newness drive this category, and we are laser focused on accelerating our innovation pipeline, expanding distribution, and reinforcing our value proposition to reignite the care category in the coming quarters. In fact, we have recently started to action stronger price forward messaging, which is translating to higher customer engagement and an improvement in trends. Additionally, as we start Q4, we have expanded milk_shake to hundreds more stores and just launched Virtue Labs in 300 stores. I'll now walk you through the latest updates on the initiatives supporting our four key growth drivers. Our first strategy is understanding and activating the customer. At Sally, CRM and performance marketing are driving new customer acquisition. The success of Save and Skip the Salon messaging has been a key driver, and we'll be building on that in Q4 with the rebranding of the campaign to Your Beauty Journey, No Salon Required. As we continue to reimagine beauty retail through immersive education and community connection, we're building on the success of our recent Sally Color Fest celebrations with college campus events across the southeast this month. Our experts will be bringing beauty resources, product discovery, and career networking opportunities to students at the University of Florida, Florida A&M, University of Alabama, University of Houston, and University of Texas at Austin. This is another great example of how our teams are always developing innovative ways to position Sally firmly at the center of beauty culture while driving customer engagement and new customer acquisition. Another important tool for driving customer acquisition at Sally is our Licensed Colorist On Demand service, offering free color and care advice. In fiscal Q3, average weekly consultations exceeded 5,200, and the number of new customers increased by 28% versus the prior year. LCOD customers continued to outspend non-LCOD customers driven by increased frequency. In a nutshell, this service brings new customers to Sally and increases engagement by providing the digital equivalent of the accessible, friendly education and support that our store associates are known for. Now shifting to our second growth driver, unlocking and harvesting digital value. Global e-commerce sales increased 11% in fiscal Q3, driven by continued strength in Sally's marketplaces, as well as the rollout of updated apps of both business segments earlier this year. On the Sally app, we're seeing strong engagement and higher conversion with order and sales growth outpacing sessions. Average order value is strong, up 6% in fiscal Q3. Notably, buy online, pick up in store represented the majority of app order volume in the quarter, our most efficient delivery channel. At BSG, order and sales growth also outpaced sessions as features such as faster checkout, simplified reordering, inventory near me, and Apple Pay provided an improved customer experience. Similar to the Sally app, a significant portion of orders are being fulfilled through buy online, pick up in store. Moving to our third growth driver, differentiating with product assortment and innovation. Across both segments, innovation has always been a key competitive differentiator and central to unlocking growth. At Sally, strong performance in both own and national brands is being fueled by innovation. Newness and brand refresh initiatives are resulting in improved performance across own brands like Beauty Secrets, ion Luxe, Salon Care, and Texture ID. As mentioned earlier, we also have a significant newness update coming on the national brand front with the assortment update in hair care. At BSG, recent brand launches like milk_shake, Keratin Complex, and Epilogue by Danger Jones continue to build momentum. As I mentioned, we have more innovation coming in fiscal '27. Our fourth growth driver is accelerating new growth pathways. Let's start with our Sally Ignited initiative, where we have seen significant runway ahead. As of the end of July, we have completed 33 store refreshes year-to-date, and we have another 17 planned for fiscal Q4. This puts us on track with our plan to complete 50 remodels in fiscal 2026, which will put us at 80 Ignited locations by the end of September. As we watch KPIs, we're incredibly pleased with the way customers are responding. Traffic, dwell times, UPT, and ATV all continue to move up and to the right, with sales growth nicely outperforming the fleet. From a category perspective, nails and fragrance remain standout performers. We are well underway with planning for the next phase of the rollout. More to come next quarter on our strategy for increasing scaled Ignited business in fiscal 2027. In the skin and spa category, we are ramping BSG's presence and methodically expanding our footprint. During the quarter, we added IMAGE and Matter of Fact brands to another 250 stores and launched Amika skin care across all of our U.S. and Canada locations. Before wrapping up, I'll briefly touch on our Happy Beauty initiative. At a high level, our mall locations continue to outperform with strong performance in key categories such as cosmetics, fragrance, and skincare. Ahead of the holiday season, we plan to open another 10 mall locations. Equally exciting, we're preparing for the upcoming launch of our Happy Beauty e-commerce site at the end of the fourth quarter. As we focus on driving sustainable, profitable growth, our Fuel for Growth program is delivering benefits across gross margin and SG&A. We are tracking to our plan to generate $45 million of benefits in fiscal 2026, and we will have captured about $120 million of cumulative run rate savings over a 3-year period at the conclusion of our fiscal year in September. Entering the final months of our fiscal year, the strength of our operating model, the traction we're seeing across our strategic initiatives, and our ability to navigate dynamic macroeconomic environments give us confidence in the path ahead. I want to thank our teams across the organization for their relentless focus on our customers and disciplined execution as we work to deliver long-term shareholder value. Now I'll turn the call to Adrianne to discuss the financials.