Xcel Brands, Inc. (XELB) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Hello, and welcome. My name is Ayesha, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Xcel Brands Quarter 1 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Welcome to the Xcel Brands First Quarter of 2026 Earnings Call. We greatly appreciate your participation and interest. With us on the call today are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Robert D'Loren; and Chief Financial Officer, Jim Haran. By now, everyone should have had access to the earnings release for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. In addition, we filed our quarterly report on Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission last Thursday. The release and quarterly report will be available on the company's website at www.xcelbrands.com. This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on the company's Investor Relations website. Before we begin, please keep in mind that this call will contain forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from certain expectations discussed here today. These risk factors are explained in detail in the company's most recent annual report filed with the SEC. Xcel does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The dynamic nature of the current macroeconomic environment means that what is said on this call could change materially at any time. Finally, please note that on today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP diluted EPS and adjusted EBITDA. Our management uses these non-GAAP metrics as measures of operating performance to assist in comparing performance from period-to-period on a consistent basis and to identify business trends relating to the company's results of operations. Our management believes these financial performance measurements are also useful because these measures adjust for certain costs and other events that management believes are not representative of our core business operating results, and thus, they provide supplemental information to assist investors in evaluating the company's financial results. These non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation or as alternatives to net income, earnings per share or any other measure of financial performance calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. You may refer to the attachment to the company's earnings release or the Form 10-Q for a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures. And now I'm pleased to introduce Robert D'Loren, Chief Executive Officer. Bob, please go ahead.

Thank you, Seth. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I would like to start today's call with a brief update on recent developments since the recent filing of our annual Form 10-K and our outlook moving forward. After that, our CFO, Jim Haran, will discuss our financial results for the quarter in more detail. We continue to work hard with all our licensee production partners, powerful influencers, and strategic retail partners to drive our business. We launched 2 of our influencer or creator-led brands towards the end of the first quarter, and we expect to launch 2 more in the fall and another in spring '27. As we previously mentioned, we announced our influencer-led brands with Cesar Millan, Gemma Stafford, Jenny Martinez, Coco Rocha and Shannon Doherty. These influencer-led brands grew the social media following in our brand portfolio from 5 million to over 46 million. Based upon our pipeline of new influencer-led brands, we are on track to reach 100 million followers across our brand portfolio. We began wholesale shipments with our licensees for 2 of our influencer-led brands during the first quarter and on-air programming commenced for them on QVC and HSN in the second quarter. As I mentioned, the other influencer-led brands will be shipping and launching throughout the rest of 2026 on interactive TV and at bricks and e-commerce retailers. We are very pleased and optimistic given early results and demand for these brands. I should add that our TV and streaming content reaches well over 100 million households and generates tens of millions of media impressions per month. Many of our investors and licensing partners have asked, why we are so excited by the influencer-led brand opportunity? Please allow me to illuminate this a little. According to a recent report issued by Goldman Sachs, the influencer or creator economy generated $254 billion of sales in 2025 and is expected to grow to over $2 trillion by 2035. Why is this happening? Marketing dollars are shifting to influencers and influencer-led brands given the relatively high return on ad spend according to statistics from Shopify Influencer Marketing Hub. Industry surveys note that 67% of consumers trust influencer recommendations over legacy brand ads. We believe we have fully entered the fast-growing market and we'll continue to penetrate it over the coming years. We continue to explore opportunities to sell certain of our legacy brands and closed the sale of our Judith Ripka brand at approximately 6x gross royalty income in Q2. This is consistent with the sale multiple of our formerly owned brand, Isaac Mizrahi and is further confirmation of the value of our brands. I should note that recent analyst reports report that ascending influencer-led brands are trading at revenue multiples as high as 15x revenue. We generated an adjusted EBITDA loss of approximately $700,000 in Q1, flat from the prior year quarter, which we expected. During the quarter, we had approximately $100,000 in nonrecurring expenses and lower HSN sales in Q1 caused by a change in the apparel supplier for our C. Wonder and Tower Hill by Christie Brinkley brand. Well, this change disrupted inventory availability in Q1, we have significantly improved product quality, which should drive sales going forward. C. Wonder and Christie Brinkley remain 2 of the most popular brands on HSN. And the new licensee that supplied product on HSN began shipping during this quarter. With the supplier transition behind us, we expect significant growth in these brands compared to the past 2 quarters. The Longaberger brand is scheduled to launch in spring of 2027 with new products co-created by Shannon Doherty. Shannon has 3 million followers and is perfect for Longaberger. We are pleased with the progress of our brand portfolio, and we believe revenue growth is now in front of us. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CFO, Jim Haran, to cover our financial results for the quarter. Jim?

Thanks, Bob, and good afternoon, everyone. I will now briefly discuss our financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. Revenue for the first quarter of 2026 was $1.1 million compared with $1.3 million for the first quarter of 2025. The decrease from prior year was primarily attributable to HSN's transition to a new apparel supplier for our C. Wonder and Christie Brinkley brands in the fourth quarter of 2025, which caused a temporary gap in wholesale shipments and negatively impacted sales for these brands and our associated licensing revenues during the current quarter. Direct operating cost and expenses were $2.1 million for the current quarter, down from $2.3 million in the prior year quarter. This decrease from prior year was primarily attributable to cost reduction actions taken by management during 2025, which reduced payroll and benefit costs. Looking at our other operating costs and expenses, which were all noncash in nature, during the current quarter, we recognized a small impairment charge of $61,000 to write down the value of the Judith Ripka trademarks, which we then subsequently sold in April for $2.3 million in cash plus future earn-out consideration. Our depreciation and amortization expense for the current quarter was essentially flat from the first quarter of last year at approximately $0.9 million. Also on the prior year quarter notably included approximately $0.3 million of equity method losses and other related charges and adjustments for equity investment on IM Topco, which we were to dispose of in the fourth quarter of last year. Interest and finance expense was approximately $0.59 million in the current quarter, up slightly from $0.56 million in the first quarter of last year. As you may recall, However, under our term loan agreement, a majority of the interest due under our current debt will be paid in kind, meaning that it will accrue and not require cash payments until starting 2027. Overall, we had a net income loss for the current quarter of approximately $2.5 million or minus $0.42 per share compared with a net loss of $2.8 million or minus $1.18 per share in the prior year quarter. After adjusting for certain cash and noncash items, results on a non-GAAP basis were a net loss of approximately $1.4 million or minus $0.24 per share for the current quarter and a net loss of approximately $1.4 million or minus $0.58 per share for the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the current quarter was approximately $700,000, essentially flat from the prior year. Once again, as a reminder, our earnings press release and Form 10-Q present a full reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures of the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Now turning to our balance sheet and liquidity. As of March 31, 2026, the company's balance sheet reflected stockholders' equity of approximately $13 million, restricted cash of $1.1 million and unrestricted cash of approximately $0.2 million. I would also like to note that we have significant financing activity during the first quarter of 2026, extending into the month of April. In January 2026, we entered into a committed equity line facility given us access up to $15 million of funding over the next 2 years for working capital and potential acquisition opportunities at our discretion. To date, we have not utilized any funding under this facility. In February and March of this year, we executed certain amendments to our term loan debt, which set the stage for a significant debt financing transaction in April. In April, we paid a portion of our variable interest rate term loan debt and entered into $3 million of senior secured notes at a fixed interest rate. And with that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Bob. Bob?

Thank you, Jim. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our prepared remarks. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Thomas Forte with Maxim Group.

So Bob and Jim, congrats on the progress. I have one question and one follow-up question. So Bob, can you talk about your current thoughts on your influencer pipeline? And then remind us on how long it typically takes from the initial conversation to revenue generation?

Yes. That's a good question, Tom. So generally speaking, from the date we signed with an influencer, it's a 12-month process to either get that influencer on-air with QVC or doing live streams on any one of the platforms that are out there today: TikTok, Amazon or any of the others. It all relates to product design and development. That's generally the period that it takes. And that's why you're seeing now many of the influencers that we signed last year are beginning to launch. And we will be launching the first 5 that we executed with last year through the balance of this year. So Gemma Stafford, Jenny Martinez recently launched, next will be Cesar and then Coco Rocha, and then that will be followed by Shannon Doherty for the Longaberger brand.

Excellent. And then can you talk about your current cost structure and how we should think about the flow-through of incremental revenue dollars to the bottom line?

So we've been working hard to run the company as tight as we can. We were able to find some additional savings. We think that we will be able to continue to run at a lower operating cost. The goal is to get it down to around $7.5 million. And then as we ramp up because there's talent cost, which is all variable, expenses will increase as a percentage of the revenue generated by the influencers.

The next question comes from the line of Michael Kupinski with NOBLE Capital Markets.

It looks like an exciting year is building for you guys. Just a couple of things. I was wondering if you -- Bob, if you can give us an update on maybe some additional detail on the early performance of Mesa Mia by Jenny Martinez on HSN, including maybe sell-through trends, reorder activity, consumer engagement metrics, things like that.

Sure. Both Jenny and Gemma are scheduled throughout this year. And there's always a discovery period, Michael. Part is media discovery, which dayparts work best for a particular influencer or on-air guest. And then there's product discovery. We all do the best to design products that we think the customer wants. But sometimes, you just don't get it right regardless of market research analysis that we do. And then we adjust. But the first shows I thought were good and as expected. We will make some tweaks to the product mix we found that for both Gemma and Jenny, there was a much stronger response to food products as opposed to hard kitchen products. So for the balance of this year, we'll lean more into food. The good news about food is we don't have long lead times on developing that product. All of that product is made in the United States.

Got you. And then I noticed that social media has kind of stepped up towards Cesar Millan recently. I was just wondering, do you have an update when Cesar Millan products will be launched. I know that you indicated in the fall maybe, but I was wondering if you have a specific date around that? And then will this be a step rollout? Or will there be a significant number of products introduced all at one time? I'm just kind of curious on how the rollout is going to look like.

So typically, there's a cadence, Michael, to product categories when you build a licensing portfolio for any brand. But for Cesar, we expect there will be many more categories this year. In fact, our licensees are in the market selling as we speak for the fall into brick-and-mortar and e-commerce retailers like Amazon. We do expect to launch Cesars Amazon store in the next 60 days and the first products on the Amazon store will be EcoStrong cleaning products and shampoos and conditioners and collars, leashes and dog apparel and other dog accessories.

And then I know that I was just wondering if you could just talk a little bit about the retail expansion currently planned beyond QVC and HSN for some of your other brands as well.

So all of the brands are planned for distribution in brick-and-mortar and e-commerce retailers as well as on livestream platforms, including QVC and HSN. Today, we believe and we have always believed you have to be everywhere where people are shopping, and you can't exclude any of those distribution points. And we will roll out all the brands across all of those retail categories.

Got you. And then has the disruption from QVC restructuring normalized now? Have you seen any further impact on launch timing, vendor relationships or future distribution plans related to the QVC?

No, there was actually a little disruption from their restructure. I think it was a brilliant job that management did at QVC. They are paying all vendors on time as usual. And I believe that they are in a very, very good place at the moment to move forward into streaming.

Got you. And I know in the past -- I'm sorry, if I can sneak one more question in. I know in the past, you talked a little bit about the potential for acquisitions. Any additional color on the pipeline for future acquisitions, whether or strategic partnerships?

Well, there is -- there is a big strategic partnership that we've been working on for the last year, and we're hopeful that we'll be able to announce that before the end of the second quarter. And then in terms of acquisitions, we look at many transactions every month, whether they're brand transactions or operating company acquisitions that would help with our distribution efforts. And certainly, if something were to come up along those lines, it would be transformative.

There are no further questions at this time. So I will now turn the call back to Robert D'Loren for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for your time this afternoon. We greatly appreciate your continued interest and support in Xcel Brands. As always, stay fit, eat well and be healthy.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.