Bhaskar Rao
Analyst · Rafe Jadrosich with Bank of America
Thank you, Scott. In the first quarter of 2026, consolidated sales were solid $1.8 billion, and adjusted earnings per share was $0.59, up 20% over the prior year. There are approximately $26 million of pro forma adjustments in the quarter, all of which are consistent with the terms of our senior credit facility. As a reminder, year-over-year comparisons are impacted by the acquisition of Mattress Firm in early February 2025, and the related divestiture of Sleep Outfitters, and certain Mattress Firm retail locations in the second quarter of 2025. I will be highlighting like-for-like comparisons fined as reported numbers adjusted for the acquisition and divestiture impacts normalized for these items in our commentary. Now turning to Mattress Firm results. Net sales through Mattress Firm were approximately $886 million in the first quarter. Same-store sales were flat, outperforming a market we believe was down mid-single digits in the quarter. Mattress Firm adjusted gross margins decreased 360 basis points to 31.5%, including a 40 basis point headwind from the stub period. The remaining decline was primarily driven by promotional expense and product mix combined with some fixed cost deleverage. The impact of product mix on gross margin was primarily driven by increased balance of share of Tempur Sealy products as Tempur Sealy's supply contract is structured and to provide a portion of Mattress Firm's economics in the form of cooperative advertising credit, which reduces Mattress Firm's operating expenses. When looked at on a conforming basis, there is no material impact on EBITDA margin from the product mix change. Mattress Firm adjusted operating margins declined approximately 230 basis points to 4.9%, including a 150 basis point headwind from the stub period. The remaining decline was primarily driven by the decline in gross margin, partially offset by the favorable cooperative advertising dollars I mentioned a moment ago. Turning to Tempur Sealy North America. North America sales grew 5% on a like-for-like basis. With like-for-like net sales through the wholesale channel increasing approximately 8% in the first quarter, our sales with third-party retailers declined 4% after normalizing for [ 4 ] models. Like-for-like sales through the direct channel declined 12% in the first quarter, driven by reduced customer traffic at retail stores an e-commerce site, as we reduced our e-commerce advertising in the quarter. However, we have seen a marked improvement in recent trends. North America adjusted gross margins increased a robust 1,300 basis points to 58.3%, including a 600 basis point benefit from the stub period. The remaining increase was primarily driven by realized synergies and operational efficiencies with lower product launch costs as well. North America adjusted operating margin improved 710 basis points to 24.3% in the quarter, including a 230 basis point benefit from the stub period. The remaining increase was primarily driven by the improved gross margin, partially offset by investments in cooperative advertising as noted a moment ago. Now turning to Tempur Sealy International results. International net sales grew a robust 16% on a reported basis and 7% on a constant currency basis. Our international gross margins increased 140 basis points to 50.4%, primarily driven by favorable mix and operational efficiencies. Our international operating margin increased 160 basis points to 18.4%, driven by the improvement in gross margin and fixed cost leverage. I'd like to spend a moment discussing commodity inflation and our related pricing actions. Its historical industry practice to adjust pricing as input costs rise. Like others in the industry, we have recently announced modest pricing actions designed to offset inflationary pressures tied to oil-derived inputs, including key chemicals as well as gasoline, diesel. Importantly, the structure of our supplier contracts provide us with early visibility into inflationary cost pressures before they flow through our P&L. This visibility allows us to thoughtfully implement pricing actions to offset inflation while minimizing any material interim exposure. This is a structural competitive advantage. We expect commodity inflation will not impact Tempur Sealy's full year '26 earnings, but will modestly quantify our normal seasonality as the timing of cost increases hit slightly before our pricing actions are fully implemented. This is by design to give our retailers time to adjust their merchandising and advertising plans. As a result, the second quarter will have an approximate $10 million headwind to Tempur Sealy profits. We expect that this will fully offset in the third and fourth quarter with our announced pricing action taking effect following the July 4 promotional period. On a full year basis, we expect the pricing action to be dollar neutral to Tempur Sealy earnings, effectively offsetting the inflationary impact. We anticipate this will result in a $50 million pricing lift to the back half of 2026 global Tempur Sealy sales on a like-for-like basis with an expected annualized lift of approximately $100 million. Now turning to sales and cost synergy targets. In the first quarter, we achieved $15 million net benefit in adjusted EBITDA from sales synergies, and another $50 million benefit from cost synergies. In order to support the summer selling season and leveling out of manufacturing for seasonal fluctuation, batches firm built their inventory of Tempur Sealy products in the quarter. The planned inventory build is reflected in intercompany sales for the first quarter. However, we never realized any sales benefit to [indiscernible] EBITDA and [indiscernible] Tempur Sealy products sold to Mattress Firm is sold through to the end consumer. Now moving on to Somnigroup's balance sheet and cash flow items. At the end of the first quarter, consolidated debt less cash was $4.5 billion, and our leverage ratio under our credit facility was 3.1x, demonstrating our strong cash generation and disciplined capital allocation approach. Turning to cash flow performance. In a muted market, we delivered record first quarter operating cash flow of $247 million and record first quarter free cash flow of $186 million. We have reduced our net debt by nearly $500 million over the trailing 12 months of fully supporting growth initiatives and returning over $250 million to shareholders in dividends and buybacks. We expect to return to our target leverage ratio of 2 to 3x over the next [indiscernible]. Now turning to 2026 guidance. As a reminder, our guidance considers the elimination of intercompany sales between Mattress Firm and Tempur Sealy, which we expect to present approximately 23% of global Tempur Sealy 2026 sales. [ Intercompany ] eliminations in accordance with GAAP, will reduce Tempur Sealy sales but be margin accretive and neutral to dollars of operating profit. Please note that we acquired Mattress Firm in February 2025. As a result, our first quarter and full year '26 reported results will reflect the impact a little over 1 additional month of Mattress Firm financial results. We expect adjusted earnings per share to be between $3 and $3.40 for the full year. This guidance range contemplates a sales midpoint of approximately $7.8 billion after intercompany eliminations. Our annual guidance also reflects our expectation that the global bedding industry will be flat to slightly down year-over-year. The announced pricing actions across our global markets, Tempur Sealy North America, like-for-like sales growing mid-single digits, international business growing mid-single digits and like-for-like mattress firm sales growing low single digits. We also expect reported gross margin slightly above 45%, and nearly 100 basis points of net margin expansion from operational efficiencies, including synergies and operating leverage partially offset by the impact of Tempur Sealy pricing actions, which are intended to neutralize commodity inflation dollars, which will be margin dilutive. Our 2026 outlook also contemplates our assumption for Tempur Sealy brands and private label to be in the low 60% of Mattress Firm total sales. This represents about an incremental $40 million of EBITDA benefit for 2026 compared to '25. And approximately $700 million of advertising investments. All of which we expect to result in adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.45 million at the midpoint. Regarding capital expenditures. We expect 2026 CapEx of approximately $225 million, which includes $75 million of investments in Mattress Firm store refreshes and brand wall installation. We expect our CapEx to normalize $200 million in the future years. And for at least 50% of our free cash flow in '26 to go toward quarterly dividends and share repurchases. Now I would like to flag a few modeling items. For the whole year 2026, we expect D&A of approximately [indiscernible] million, interest expense of approximately $230 million, a tax rate of 25% with a diluted share count of 213 million shares. Note that our guidance does not include any impact for the closing of the proposed combination with [ Leggett & Platt ] as the timing is dependent upon regulatory review and approval by [ Leggett & Platt ] shareholders. We expect the transaction would be accretive to adjusted earnings per share within the first year of operations before any synergies. Finally, a bit of color on guidance. The midpoint of our guidance assumes that consumer confidence, which has been pressured by geopolitical conflict will normalize as we progress through the year. If these pressures were to continue through the year-end, we would be tracking closer to the low end of our guidance. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Scott.