Unifi, Inc. (UFI) Q4 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning, and thank you for attending Unifi's fourth quarter fiscal 2026 earnings conference call. During this call, management will be referencing a webcast presentation that can be found in the Investor Relations section of unifi.com. Please familiarize yourself with Page 2 on the Slide deck for cautionary statements and non-GAAP measures. Today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Our speakers are listed on page 3 on today's presentation and include Al Carey, Executive Chairman; Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer; A.J. Eaker, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Al Carey. [Operator Instructions]

Good morning, everyone, and I thank you for joining our earnings call today. I'm happy to lead the call off with some good news. We're seeing very nice progress in our efforts to reposition Unifi for sustainable growth in the long term. You know, we began this effort about 18 months ago, and I think you'll see in our Q4 earnings that we're beginning to show some of the improvement. And A.J. will take you through that in the next few minutes. There were three steps in this transformation when we got started. The first one was to reduce our costs significantly, so we began by closing the Madison facility and reduced our excess capacity. We also resized our labor force, improved efficiencies throughout our manufacturing footprint, and we also optimized the portfolio to remove unprofitable items from our lineup. All of that was step one, and all of that work is now complete. And A.J. will take you through all of that. Step two was to improve our cash management and also lower our debt. And we've dramatically reduced inventories over the last 18 months. We've also seen our capital discipline improve, cost controls, and you'll see that as well in our Q4 results. The next step on step two is to close on a purchase agreement signed this week for property and excess assets for $60 million, and Eddie will tell you more about this deal, but when the deal is closed, it will have a dramatic impact on our net debt and our balance sheet. And the third and final step is to ramp up our revenue growth. Now I'll tell you that revenues in our industry over the last 12-plus months have struggled. It's an industry that's got lots of macro issues such as oil prices, shifting tariff rates, and inflation. I'll let you know here, though, that we're not sitting around waiting for things to change. We've taken charge of our own revenue growth plan, and you'll see more of that as the next couple of quarters unfold. We're now seeing some evidence that we're seeing improved demand for our innovations and also for our business in Central America and overall U.S., and most of that will probably happen as we get towards this middle of the year. So we're at a pivot point for our company right now. And I'd like to make two final comments before handing it off to our CEO, Eddie. We're not celebrating. We aren't even close to finishing our work, but I will tell you that it's all about revenue right now, and we're all over it, and you will see that improve. The second comment I wanted to make is about our management team. We've taken out costs. We've cut inventories. We've reworked management processes, which is not the most fun stuff to work on. But I'll tell you, the quality of our management team has a lot to do with the progress that we've made up until now. This is a determined, never-give-up team, and I would emphasize the word team. I'd say out of our top 20 executives that were here when we got going on this initiative, 19 of them are still with us today. And one of the biggest reasons for my optimism is the quality of this team today. So now let me turn it over to their leader, Eddie Ingle.

Thanks, Al. I'm very pleased to be able to say that we closed out fiscal 2026 on a strong note with 4% top-line growth and another quarter of improving profitability and cash generation. This stronger financial performance reflects the successful execution of our initiatives over the past several quarters to realign our cost structure, optimize our operations, and enhance our margin performance through improved portfolio management. Importantly, the progress we've made from these efforts has strengthened our operating foundation and increased our confidence in our ability to navigate these very difficult and challenging market conditions, but at the same time supporting our customers with differentiated solutions and drive sustainable growth over the long term. I'd like to call out our recent agreement for the sale of non-strategic assets in the U.S., as Al mentioned. We look forward to moving along with this deal, which once concluded, will have no impact to our operations and ability to service customers while at the same time allowing us to retire a material portion of our outstanding debt. Said another way, the sale of these warehouses and adjacent land is not reducing in any way the existing production capacity in our Yadkinville, North Carolina, complex. Before I dive deeper into our near-term priorities, our innovation progress, and what lies ahead for Unifi in fiscal 2027, I'm going to turn the call over to A.J. to walk you through the financial details for the quarter. A.J.?

Thank you, Eddie. I'll start off by discussing our consolidated financial highlights for the quarter on Slide 4. Consolidated net sales for the quarter were $144.2 million, up 4% again on a year-over-year basis. The improvement in net sales reflects strong performance in our Brazil segment, stabilization in the Americas and Asia, as well as increasing momentum across our Beyond Apparel initiatives. Consolidated gross profit was $14.3 million, and gross margin was approximately 10% during the period, compared to gross loss of $1.1 million and gross margin of negative 0.8% for the prior year period. Our net loss came in at $1.2 million, but its comparability is skewed as Q4 last year included a gain on the sale of the Madison facility and was partially offset by associated transition costs. When excluding those items, adjusted net loss was $9.5 million better than the year-ago period. Adjusted EBITDA during this period was $8.2 million, a $12.3 million improvement on a year-over-year basis. The continued improvement in performance this quarter is another indication that the operational initiatives we've been executing are taking hold. The work we've done to streamline our cost structure and improve efficiency continues to translate into stronger financial results. Turning now to Slide 5. In the Americas, net sales were down 1% as the region continues to face volume headwinds. Despite the slightly lower sales during the quarter, we did generate gross profit of $3.3 million, a significant year-over-year gain again. This marks the second quarter in a row of delivering positive gross profit in the Americas. The continued improvement in the Americas demonstrates that our footprint consolidation and cost optimization initiatives are delivering the intended results, driving greater efficiency and strengthening the profitability of our domestic operations. Slide 6 displays our Brazil segment, which saw net sales increase by $5.1 million, or 17.8%, and gross profit improved by $6.4 million. The strong performance there during the period was driven by higher sales volumes and favorable pricing dynamics amid the volatile cost environment stemming from Middle East conflicts, reflecting the continued demand stability and growth potential in the region. On Slide 7, the Asia segment had net sales and gross profit increased by $1.1 million and $500,000 respectively, primarily due to the portfolio strength in that region. While we still have uncertainty in the Asia market, our asset-light model has allowed us to maintain stable margins in the segment, and tariff certainty in the future should eventually normalize the business. Slide 8 outlines our improving balance sheet and capital structure. During this fourth quarter, we generated $1 million in free cash flow, bringing full-year free cash flow to $21.5 million. That's over a $50 million improvement versus prior year, fiscal '25. CapEx for the quarter came in at a low $1.1 million, and our full-year CapEx was constrained at $5 million, a 50% decline compared to the prior period as we continue to closely manage all spending. Now, we recognize this level of CapEx will need to adapt for long-term health, and we've allocated between $7 million and $9 million for maintenance and redundancy projects in fiscal '27. Our net debt was reduced to $67.4 million at the end of the quarter, a meaningful improvement from any recent period, and our working capital remains balanced and healthy. We're very pleased with this performance, beating our expectations laid out in the prior earnings call and indicative of our ability to generate positive momentum even in difficult conditions. Looking ahead to fiscal '27, our focus will remain on driving disciplined capital allocation while continuing to explore additional options to further strengthen our balance sheet. Included in those additional options is our plan to sell two non-strategic real estate assets in the U.S. We're able to work with a known buyer to identify portions of the business that benefit their future operations while having no impact to our ability to serve customers and maintain production capacities. Upon closing, we would significantly improve our leverage and balance sheet, and we look forward to providing additional commentary as the closing nears and completes. This concludes the financial overview, and I'll pass the call back to Eddie.

Thank you, A.J. As A.J. outlined, the initiatives we have implemented to improve our operations are showing the early signs of a more resilient and flexible business model, which has positioned us to better navigate market volatility while at the same time supporting our goal of creating sustainable long-term growth. Let's turn to Slide 9, which outlines the strategic priorities that will continue to guide our execution. As we discussed in detail during our third quarter earnings call, our objective is to return Unifi to sustainable long-term growth and enhanced profitability. We are accomplishing this by staying focused on four key priorities. First, we will continue to build on the operational improvements that we've implemented and ensure we don't lose any of the enhancements to the businesses that we've made. At the same time, we will continue to invest in our capabilities and technologies and reinforce and scale our platform of sustainable solutions built around our premier brand, REPREVE. Next, we have a culture built around innovation and new product development, and we will continue to invest in tools and resources necessary to advance the customer adoption of our innovative solutions and to support future growth. And finally, we are focused on making sure we do everything we can to navigate the current trade and geopolitical environment that has created some challenges for us. Now, we're focused on positioning Unifi for a more consistent top-line growth as a broader operating environment improves. And it is encouraging to see the momentum we are building across several of our innovative initiatives, particularly with Beyond Apparel. During the quarter, we saw positive momentum within packaging, military applications, and carpet. Our resin business, in particular, which goes primarily into the packaging sector, has seen significant growth in volumes as the imports have been somewhat muted due to the tariffs and available domestic supply. We do expect this segment of our business to remain robust at least through the next few quarters. The carpet business in Q4 of fiscal 2026 also saw a meaningful increase in volumes as our local supply chain became more important due to the logistical challenges that were exacerbated from March onwards. We remain very positive about the opportunities that the military and tactical market will bring to us, and we continue to see building momentum in that space. Overall, I'm happy to say we're pleased with the progress on our Beyond Apparel initiatives and look forward to providing more growth updates in the next few quarters. Moving on to Slide 10, this past quarter we kicked off April with our annual Champions of Sustainability event, celebrating our partners and their commitment to sustainability through their use of REPREVE and REPREVE Takeback. We welcomed many of our top brand customers to our Yadkinville, North Carolina factory for an engaging program featuring industry leaders shared insights on circularity and the future of the supply chain. The inquiries and conversations with our brands and mills, as well as the strong interest in learning about how we make our circular offerings, gave us tangible evidence that REPREVE Takeback and ThermaLoop insulation are hitting the sustainable goals of many companies. While adoption is slower than expected, we remain confident that we have the best circular fiber solution on the market. Now, April also marked Earth Month, generating strong momentum across social media as brands highlighted their sustainability initiatives with REPREVE. We partnered with brands such as Dagne Dover, Dolce Vita, and Democracy Clothing to develop collaborative content showcasing our partnership, featured product collections, and the collective environmental impact that together we've achieved. In June, World Oceans Day provided an opportunity to spotlight REPREVE Our Ocean through collaborations with several key brand partners. Tiffany & Co. announced the launch of three limited edition Tiffany T Smile bracelets made with REPREVE Our Ocean cordage. We also partnered with Me by Jennie Garth on a reel highlighting the use of REPREVE Our Ocean in their denim collection, while The Sak spoke to their use of REPREVE in a collaborative reel as part of World Ocean Week's campaign. Lastly, we are energized to see the growth and expanding adoption of Fortisyn into critical applications, including those for the U.S. military and tactical markets. Feedback from the markets is that the performance properties of Fortisyn, along with the color consistency that we can deliver, results in a fabric form that excels in the most critical environments. Moving to Slide 11. As we start out the new fiscal year, it is clear that the hard work and focus on cash generation is beginning to show up in the numbers. And we are confident that we are starting off the new fiscal year on the right footing. Our outlook and how we anticipate sustaining our financial momentum for fiscal 2027 is as follows. We will continue to focus on leveraging our improved cost footprint while investing in innovation and strategically managing our balance sheet to capitalize and grow our business as conditions improve. We also anticipate that our sales and profitability results will improve on a year-over-year basis as we begin to recognize the full-year benefits of our past strategic actions. For the upcoming quarter, we expect our Brazil segment to see improved sales and profitability year-over-year as we leverage our strong competitive position and advantageous supply chain. Within our Asia segment, we continue to see opportunities to expand the adoption of our innovative technologies and circular solutions, which we believe will support future revenue growth and strengthen our market position as the tariff situation eventually gains better clarity. This is our most challenged business segment today in terms of revenues, but we are expecting improved volumes of our new innovations to come to fruition as we move through the fiscal year. In the Americas, we expect that the broader market environment will remain challenging in terms of revenues, but our focus will continue to remain on driving growth in margin-accretive revenues from our value-added products and Beyond Apparel initiatives. And this business segment is expected to yield improved year-over-year and sequential margins. As we look ahead, we remain focused on driving long-term growth, maintaining disciplined capital allocation, and executing initiatives that further enhance the strength of our business. While we enter the new fiscal year with improved financial flexibility and a stronger foundation, our focus remains on continuing to execute our strategy, delivering value for our customers, and building on the progress we've made to create long-term shareholder value. And in closing, I would like to take a brief moment to thank our whole team here at Unifi for their hard work and efforts. Making these initial improvements to our business was a true team effort, and I'm confident that we have the right people in place to ensure that we will continue to remain on track with achieving our priorities. With that, I would now like to open the line for questions. Thank you. Operator?

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Your question comes from the line of Anthony Lebiedzinski with Sidoti.

Certainly nice to see the improvement in sales and profitability in fiscal Q4. So I guess I'll start off with Brazil, which had a great quarter. Just wondering if you could expand on the actions that you're taking to leverage your competitive position there and the advantageous supply chain dynamics?

Yes, certainly, Anthony, and thanks for the positive comments. Brazil is in a very interesting environment. We were able to increase revenues and volumes because of the fact that we have a very robust supply chain. When some of the importers who we compete with pulled back on their sales, we were able to do two things really: Service the customers very efficiently and very quickly because we are the largest manufacturer of textured polyester in the region. And second of all, we were able to manage pricing very efficiently as the situation in Iran changed and the petrochemical costs, especially the overseas petrochemical costs, accelerated. So we took the advantage of having a very cost-competitive raw material situation and expanded that into very robust gross profits.

Sounds good. Okay. And then turning to Asia, how are you thinking about pricing and volumes there on a go-forward basis? And as far as the competitive landscape there, have you seen any notable changes? How do we think about that?

It's challenging, to be frank, Anthony. The good thing is we are competing against virgin, and virgin petrochemicals have increased very rapidly. The cost of the recycled materials haven't gone up as much, although they have increased. The real challenge that we're seeing in Asia is there's an uncertainty still around the tariffs that are causing some of the brands to pull back, whether that's in China or that's in Vietnam or Indonesia where we sell a lot of our products into. The good news is we are still seeing a lot of sampling and traction with our REPREVE Takeback and REPREVE specialty products, what we call REPREVE+. And so while it's challenging today, you know, we do think once this situation turns, as it relates to both petrochemical costs and the supply chains which are being constrained, and as we move through the year, we're going to see expanded volumes and revenues, although this quarter will be quite challenging from a revenue point of view, but not so much profit.

Right, okay, got it, okay. And then, you know, in terms of the Americas segment. So you talked about some margin-accretive revenue that you're seeing from value-added products. Just wondering if you could expand on that. Maybe share perhaps what portion of revenue is that and the margin profile of these value-added products?

Yes, as Al mentioned at the beginning of the call, we have done a lot of portfolio management and tried to stay focused on the products that are generating good profits for us. And on top of that, this Beyond Apparel initiative, we did see some really positive growth at the tail end of Q4 for both our carpet business and our resin business. These are -- they have better margins than our normal commodity business, and we're still continuing to focus on growing those. And then looking to the future, I feel very excited about Fortisyn. Fortisyn is this brand that's very competitive on the marketplace. It offers a very, very consistent color matching. And also, we're finding that some of this market is also going to be served by REPREVE Nylon, which is very exciting for us because if we can offer performance, color consistency, and sustainability, it does appear to be getting a lot of traction out there. So as we move through this year, we are confident, as we said in several calls before, that we can get to some meaningful revenue growth. And along with that, the higher margin business. As you could expect from a sustainable and high-performance product.

Got you. Okay. And then as far as Beyond Apparel, is there any way you guys could quantify what portion of your sales came from Beyond Apparel in fiscal 2026? How do we think about the outlook for fiscal '27? As it relates to Beyond Apparel?

It's a good question, Anthony. We're certainly pushing hard in the Beyond Apparel space, as Eddie mentioned, several of those programs and initiatives. We'll look forward to providing some more transparency on that as we get settled into fiscal '27 and can break out some of that detail for you, but as Eddie mentioned, fiscal '27 we do see growth in each of those areas as well as the margin-accretive products as we better manage this portfolio and target the programs that deliver value both on the customer side and the Unifi side.

Okay. And then -- so obviously you guys have done a nice job with monetizing your assets last year with the Madison facility and now with the announcement on Monday that you're looking to sell off the non-strategic assets with land and warehouse space. So are there any other perhaps additional assets that you may look to monetize or do you think this is it for now?

Yes, Anthony, good question. I would say that the hopper is empty in that regard. We're very pleased with this deal as we work through that in the next couple months. Very beneficial from a leverage perspective and happy we found great terms and situation with this buyer that we can move through, but at this point, certainly the hopper is empty in further regard.

Understood. Okay. And then, last question for me. So now that the business is performing better with a leaner cost structure, how are you thinking about capital allocation priorities? Has anything changed meaningfully or how do we think about that?

As we move into closing out this deal, we'll certainly have a huge benefit to leverage in the balance sheet. We're going to maintain a very diligent capital allocation priority, making sure the business, our ability to deliver to customers, and maintain production capacities will remain top priority. So with that, the debt profile would be much improved, and then no major capital plans outside of that at this time. We'll want to get through this transaction, spend a bit of time, and then provide you some more updates in the future.

Anthony, I just mentioned one other thing. We made a big investment in EvoCooler a while back before the market slowed down post-COVID. Those are going to come in to be handy, and we'll reap the benefits of those machines as time goes on. It'll give us more capacity.

Right, yes.

Next question comes from the line of Randy Baron with Pinnacle.

I want to echo Anthony's remarks. It's really amazing the turnaround that you guys have done. I think, Al, to point out that 19 of the 20 executives are still there is a real feather in your cap, so kudos to you guys. I have just a specific question on the real estate and then a broader one. Maybe A.J., this is for you. Can you walk us through the milestones between now and December? Kind of what needs to accomplish to close this deal. And then related to that, my sense is with your NOLs, there's not going to be much tax leakage. So if you can just give us a sense of the $60 million roughly, how much will actually come into Unifi's coffers once this deal is done?

Good question, Randy. Thanks for the comments, also similar to Anthony's. I'll start with the tax question you mentioned and then pass it over to Eddie for some of those milestones. But you are correct there. The NOLs and the credits that we're carrying forward from some of those tougher years will be beneficial in this transaction. We expect minimal tax leakage from this transaction. Nowhere in the millions of dollars range at this point. So that will be a benefit to closing this transaction out and utilizing some of those NOLs and carry-forwards from prior years. I'll let Eddie take the milestones question from there.

Yes, we had signed the PSA, as you know, over the weekend, and we had been working on this for several months. We're very far along in the process. It's a complex deal because we are carving out part of our assets in Yadkinville, and some of the subdivision work that we've had to do has taken some time, but we're very, very close to completing that and expect that to get done in the next few days. We have just a few ancillary things that we need to do, some of the exhibits in our PSA that we have to go through, a lot of legal stuff, but I don't see, none of the things that we have ahead of us to get to closing are of any concern to us today. So some work to do, but just the normal.

And I just want to make sure, is there any regulatory review on this? Or does the municipality have a chance to bid on it, you know, counter?

Yes, so these assets are in either the city of Yadkinville -- the town of Yadkinville, or within the control of the town of Yadkinville. They're zoned industrial, which includes data center zoning, so we have passed all the hurdles around that aspect of this deal.

That's wonderful. I mean, when I pencil that out, you're essentially going to be bank debt-free at the end of this calendar year, which is remarkable. And a great turnaround again. I just have one other question on REPREVE. I mean, this remarkable turnaround that you guys just reported is even more notable because REPREVE hasn't fully kicked in yet. I know that you don't know when the military will come and the specifics, but as you look out, call it three years, five years. Can you talk a little bit about what percent of the revenue you think REPREVE could be? And Anthony was asking about the higher margins. I mean, that kind of shifts the whole margin profile. So if you just riff on that.

Yes, we've had a goal to get 50% of our fiber sales to be REPREVE. And we pushed that out, our last sustainability report that we published, to 2030. We still are very confident in the brand. The brand represents a lot of investment on our side. It has a FiberPrint technology, which is a technology that allows you to prove using our U-TRUST verification system that it is actually made of sustainable materials. That's getting more and more important, the transparency and the trusting part of our brand offering. We're also seeing quietly behind the scenes brands still trying to become more sustainable. There's a lot of tension in the marketplace around the environmental impact of apparel. And the brands are quietly working towards making sure they can offer more circular solutions. And we're right there with our REPREVE Takeback. So while it's been a challenging few years because of the market dynamics in Asia and also with some of the brands themselves have had some challenging times trying to reposition themselves. We are not seeing any of the brands back off on their sustainability targets, except for maybe one or two. But for the most part, the offering we have with REPREVE is known to be 100% recycled. And it has a lot of brand power in the marketplace. And we expect that to grow. And especially on the circular side, REPREVE Takeback and our REPREVE ThermaLoop insulation offering. So we're confident that it's going to grow and we're putting innovation performance technologies on top of our sustainability platform, which is why we talk about our REPREVE+ business in Asia growing. But thanks for the question.

There are no further questions at this time. That concludes our Q&A session and today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.