VNCE

Hello and welcome to the Vince Holding Corp. fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2025 results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the conference over to Akiko Okuma, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel. You may begin.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Vince Holding Corp. fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2025 results conference call. Hosting the call today is Brendan Hoffman, Chief Executive Officer, and Yuji Okumura, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, let me remind you that certain statements made on this call may constitute forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those that the company expects. Those risks and uncertainties are described in today's press release and in the company's SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. Investors should not assume that statements made during the call will remain operative at a later time, and the company undertakes no obligation to update any information discussed on the call. In addition, in today's discussion, the company is presenting its financial results in conformity with GAAP and on an adjusted basis.

The adjusted results that the company presents today are non-GAAP measures. Discussions of these non-GAAP measures and information on reconciliations of them to their most comparable GAAP measures are included in today's press release and related schedules, which are available in the Investors section of the company's website at investors.vince.com. Now I'll turn the call over to Brendan.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'm incredibly proud of the strong operating results we are announcing today, highlighting the exceptional momentum we delivered at the end of the year that has continued into the start of fiscal 2026. As we announced earlier this year, we saw incredible strength in our direct-to-consumer business over the holiday period, and that remained the case throughout the full quarter. For the fourth quarter, sales in our direct-to-consumer business increased about 10% compared to last year, supported by our ongoing efforts in improving the customer experience and by the strategic pricing actions taken earlier in the fall. For the overall quarter, sales were up nearly 5% compared to last year, and profitability outpacing the high end of our prior guidance range.

We are especially proud of this performance given the disruption we experienced with developments from Saks Global, which presented a headwind to sales of approximately $2 million in the quarter. With the recent reorganization of Saks Global, we now have more clarity into the situation and are working with our partners there as they move forward in their plans. As a reminder, Saks Global recently represented less than 7% of our total sales. We remain supportive and confident in the new leadership team's ability to stabilize the business. We believe any change in penetration from this one partner going forward will be offset by strength elsewhere in the channel, given our diversified base and strong relationships across our wholesale business. This is a credit to not only our strong partnerships, but to the great product that is resonating across both men's and women's.

We're also really pleased as we continue to elevate the product offering appealing to our broad customer base. This strong performance, supported by our fiscal 2025 results, which delivered sales growth of over 2% and Adjusted EBITDA growth of about 8%, despite contending with approximately $8 million of incremental tariff costs. As we have discussed, our teams have done a tremendous job in mitigating the tariff pressures we face. We acted swiftly, diversifying our sourcing across Asia and globally while working closely with manufacturing partners to maintain the quality standard that define Vince. We also implemented strategic pricing increases while maintaining unit sales, validating the strength and quality of our product. As we enter fiscal 2026, I am encouraged by the growth we are continuing to drive, and I'm more confident than ever in the trajectory ahead of for Vince Holding Corp.

Given this, we are exploring opportunities to continue to invest in the customer experience within our full-price direct-to-consumer business. We are looking at areas like special events, people, and store operations, including remodels and new store openings, while also continuing to leverage our digital platform and expand drop ship to additional categories. In Spring 2026, these categories will include handbags, tailored clothing, belts, and accessories, creating revenue opportunity with minimal inventory risk for the business. In addition, we are continuing to scale our men's business. We ended the year with men's representing approximately 24% of total sales and continue to see opportunity to expand this to 30% penetration, driven by growth in wholesale partnerships and expanded assortments in our own stores and online. With respect to our international business, our second London store in Marylebone exceeded expectations this year and validated our thoughts on further international expansion.

This success gives us confidence to explore additional flagship opportunities in gateway cities like Paris in the next two years. Finally, the strategy I believe will really help to accelerate our growth is our focus on maximizing Vince Holding Corp. as a platform. While we do not have anything yet to report, we are continuing to look for opportunities to leverage our platform, our world-class team, and capabilities to support additional brands. This will create a new revenue stream for Vince Holding Corp. We could not be more enthused by our partnership with ABG, which not only opens channels for us, but also provides great opportunities with respect to marketing and engaging customers.

We were thrilled to partner with the ABG team with a recent event at the Masters last week, and we are looking forward to doing similar types of interactive activations with the team for future high-profile events. This is in addition to the elevated outreach that we are also doing in partnership with our wholesale partners. Following the successful brand events at the end of last year with Nordstrom and celebrating our holiday campaign at our Madison Avenue, New York City flagship, we have continued the storytelling around the Vince brand. We recently celebrated an exclusive capsule collection for Spring 2026 as part of Bloomingdale's California Love campaign and hosted an influencer and editor event to showcase the capsule and preview of our Spring 2026 collection, with over 100 editors and influencers in attendance.

As part of the event, we also co-hosted a private VIC dinner with Bloomingdale's VICs, complete with a fashion show and model presentation to great success. Fiscal 2026 is off to a strong start on all accounts. As Yuji will review and as seen in our outlook in today's press release, the momentum we ended fiscal 2025 with has continued across all channels. Our full-price business has never been stronger, reflecting the customer's continued love for the product and value they see for the brand. We believe, macro events aside, we are positioned well to continue to deliver healthy, profitable growth. A little over a year ago, I returned to Vince as CEO. I cannot emphasize enough the pride that I have in our team, our business, and the results we have delivered to date.

I want to thank our incredible associates for their dedication and execution throughout fiscal 2025. Their ability to evolve the product, maintain quality, and execute against our strategic priorities gives me tremendous confidence in the future. We are operating from a position of strength with disciplined execution and a clear roadmap for growth. I look forward to updating you on our progress as we move through the year. Now I'll turn it over to Yuji to discuss our financial results and outlook in more detail.

Thank you, Brendan, and good morning, everyone. As Brendan reviewed, our fourth quarter performance reflected ongoing strong momentum in our direct-to-consumer segment that we are pleased to see continuing to the start of the new year. Before I discuss our first quarter and fiscal 2026 outlook, let me review our fourth quarter results in more detail. Total company net sales for the fourth quarter increased 4.7% to $83.7 million, compared to $80 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024. With respect to channel performance, our direct-to-consumer segment increased 10.4%, driven by strong performances across both our e-commerce business and stores. This performance offset the 1.2% decline in our wholesale channel, largely driven by the decision to pause shipments to Saks Global. Gross profit in the fourth quarter was $41.1 million or 49.1% of net sales.

This compares to $40.1 million or 50.1% of net sales in the fourth quarter of last year. The decrease in gross margin rate was primarily driven by approximately 300 basis points due to the unfavorable impact of higher tariffs, 160 basis points due to the success of our promotional Black Friday and Cyber Monday events, and approximately 125 basis points due to increased freight costs. These factors were partially offset by a favorable impact of approximately 380 basis points, primarily due to higher pricing. Selling, general, and administrative expenses in the quarter were $44 million or 52.6% of net sales as compared to $37.8 million or 47.2% of net sales for the fourth quarter of last year. The increase in SG&A dollars was primarily driven by $6 million of bad debt expense related to Saks' reorganization.

Loss from operation for the fourth quarter was $2.9 million compared to loss from operations of $29.7 million in the same period last year. Adjusted operating income, which excludes the $6 million related to the Saks reorganization, was $3.1 million. This is compared to adjusted operating income of $2.5 million in the same period last year, excluding the impact of goodwill impairment charges and P180 transaction expenses incurred in the period. Net interest expense for the quarter decreased to $0.7 million compared to $1.6 million in the prior year. The decrease was primarily due to paydown of the third lien facility, which occurred during January 2025. At the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, our long-term debt balance was $19.5 million. Income tax expense was $0.5 million compared to $2 million income tax benefit in the same period last year.

The year-over-year change is primarily driven by tax benefit taken in the prior comparative quarter due to the reversal of the non-cash deferred tax liability associated with the goodwill impairment, which previously could not be used as a source of income to support the realization of certain deferred tax assets related to company's net operating losses. Net loss for the fourth quarter was $3.6 million, or loss per share of $0.28, compared to net loss of $28.3 million or a loss per share of $2.24 in the fourth quarter of last year. Adjusted net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, which excludes the bad debt expense previously reviewed, was $2.4 million or $0.18 per share.

This is compared to the prior year period adjusted net income of $0.8 million or $0.06 per share, which excludes the impact of the goodwill impairment charge and its associated tax impact and the transaction expenses incurred during that period. Adjusted EBITDA was $4.5 million for the fourth quarter, compared to $5.4 million in the prior year. This performance capped off a solid year overall, despite navigating a highly dynamic environment, resulting in a net sales growth of 2.2%, reported net income of $6.4 million, and Adjusted EBITDA of $15.1 million. Please refer to our press release for more details on our full year performance and reconciliation of non-GAAP measures. Moving to the balance sheet, net inventory was $66.2 million at the end of fourth quarter as compared to $59.1 million at the end of fourth quarter last year.

The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by approximately $4.8 million higher inventory carrying value due to tariffs. Turning to our outlook, as discussed, we have seen the momentum experienced in the fourth quarter continue into the start of fiscal 2026. In addition, our outlook assumes a reduced reciprocal tariff rate of 15%, which we expect any benefit to be largely offset by the increase in supply chain costs driven by the rise in fuel and shipping costs. We are also not assuming any benefit with respect to potential tariff refunds. For the first quarter, we expect total net sales growth of approximately 8.5%-10.5%, adjusted operating loss as a percentage of net sales of approximately -3.5% to -4.5%, and Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales to be approximately -1.5% to -2.5%, reflecting year-over-year expansion compared to -5.2% in the prior year period.

For the full year fiscal 2026, we expect net sales growth to be approximately 3%-6%, adjusted operating income as a percentage of net sales to be approximately 3.5%-4%, and for Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales to be approximately 5%-5.5% compared to the 5% in the prior year. In summary, we are very pleased with our strong end of fiscal 2025 and the momentum we're driving to start fiscal 2026, underscoring our team's disciplined approach and our commitment to executing on our objectives. This concludes our remarks, and I'll now turn it over to the operator to open the call for questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. Please ensure that your phone is not on mute when called upon. Thank you. Your first question comes from Eric Beder with SCC Research. Your line is open.

Good morning. Congratulations on a great year.

Thank you, Eric.

Thank you.

I want to talk a little bit about some of the changes you're doing in terms of the stores. In our store visit, we saw a continued emphasis on showing more color and a growing emphasis on some of the newer categories like drop shipping and suiting and handbags. What should we be seeing as we move through 2026 in terms of how the stores are going to be tweaked for these changes to maximize further growth?

Yeah, I think we're continuing to experiment with some of our store setups, especially as we do some renovations. We pull out some legacy cash wraps, which opens up the stores, allows us to better showcase the way Caroline and the team envision the way people are outfitting, mixing and matching, and some doing group sets with our product. I think in terms of the other categories you mentioned, drop ship is a tool we are able to use online to take advantage of our licensed partners' inventory. We started with shoes with Caleres, and we'll add in handbags, suitings, accessories in Q2. To your point about being able to showcase some of these categories in the stores, I've always felt and was taught by our founders that it's important to have some more texture in the store that can only be given by having additional categories beyond just apparel.

I think we are strategically utilizing those categories like handbags and accessories and cold weather and some others to provide more interest when the consumer's shopping. To the extent they become real revenue drivers, I mean, that's a bonus. I think we have that potential, but more so online because of the drop ship. It also allows us to story tell better, both in store and with some of our social media and digital marketing. We're really pleased with the way we've been able to expand categories and the partnership with Authentic Brands to drive that.

Great. When we look at that, what's the word here? The tariffs was a little bit of shock in terms of this. How should we be thinking about for this year and going forward in terms of the potential for both domestic and international stores? I know you mentioned Paris and London stores have done really well. How should we be thinking about the potential here in the U.S. now that we're, I guess, brave to say it's somewhat more normalized than we were last year?

Yeah. I think in terms of domestic stores, we're going to open some, we're going to close some. We obviously are very enthusiastic about the performance we had in Q4 with our stores. As we mentioned in our remarks, that's continued in Q1, probably the best performance I've seen over the course of six months in our stores in my six years here on and off. I'm more bullish than ever on our ability to really drive productivity in our stores. That gives me more confidence and the team more confidence to go out there and look for new locations. I don't think at the end of the day you will see a huge increase in our store count. I think it'll be, hopefully incrementally we'll be able to add a few.

I think in large part, we're in most of the markets we want to be in, and it's more about rationalizing some of the stores and driving more productivity through the existing boxes. I think internationally, as you mentioned, Paris would be probably first on our wish list in terms of the next international gateway. We've had such great success with our Marylebone store in London, and I visited about six weeks ago. Truly, it's as good a store as we have in our fleet in terms of representing the Vince brand, where it's located amongst our peers. I think if anything, it's just raised the bar for us in Paris because to the extent we are able to find something in Paris, it really needs to be a flagship store.

We don't really have much representation in Paris, so we want to put our best foot forward, which just makes it a little bit more difficult to find the right location as opposed to finding a secondary store. I think it's all for the right reasons, and so we'll continue to assess and update you as we have more information.

Last question on wholesale. Nordstrom, you've expanded now to all Nordstrom stores, both men and women. They're a significant part of your business. When you look at the whole wholesale piece, is it adding new partners, becoming deeper into the partners you have? How are you actually thinking about how wholesale can continue to evolve? Thank you.

Thanks, Eric. Yeah, I think it's continuing to become more important with the partners we have, only because we're in most of the partners that are appropriate for Vince, whether it be department stores or specialty stores. We clearly have a lot more growth in Bloomingdale's based on the fact that we've only been back with them for about 4 or 5 years, just going men's all doors and you see their results. We have a great relationship with Olivia and Denise and the team there. We just did an event with them out in L.A. that was terrific. We just did an event with the Nordstrom team, Jamie Nordstrom in Dallas. Continuing to push that relationship and then cautiously optimistic that Saks Global, Saks and Neiman's and Bergdorf's are moving in the right direction.

We obviously went through the trials and tribulations last year and took a hit in Q4. With the old team, new team back with Jeff Waugh and Lana, and then of course, Tracy at Bergdorf's, we know all of them well, and Darcy. We're hopeful that we can get that business back on track. Currently, clearly Nordstrom's and Bloomingdale's are what's driving our wholesale business.

Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Michael Kupinski with Noble Capital. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I offer my congratulations on a great quarter and a great year as well.

Thanks, Michael.

I was just wondering, there's been some reports that there has been renewed amount of traffic in malls and stores as well. I was just wondering if overall, are you seeing that trend or is that just some headline news that it's just not really translating into what is actual and out there?

Yeah, I can't speak to the macro environment. Certainly us as an example is consistent with that. Again, we've had a great six-month run with our store business, driven by traffic, driven by conversion, driven by the increased prices that have been so well absorbed. We have some malls, but then we have a lot of lifestyle and street front centers, and just couldn't be more pleased with some of the outsized performance we're seeing. I think some of it has to do with the centers themselves and how they've expanded and reinvented themselves. We have a great lifestyle store in Chestnut Hill. I hadn't been there in 5, 6 years since I've been gone from Vince. I went and visited and the center is double what it once was. That just brings more traffic and we're advantaged there.

Some of these malls are investing in themselves and adding in new tenants or expanding, and that's all really positive for bringing qualified traffic that then we can take advantage of.

Great. Where have you seen more of the pressure from competitors recently? I was just wondering if you can just give us the lay of the land on the competition in your lane.

Again, I think we're taking market share in our lane, so we certainly respect the peer brands we sit with, and a lot of them are all navigating the same issues we are, and some doing it well and some struggling. I don't think our peer group has shifted all that much in the last few years. As I just implied with the retail locations, the centers, we actually do better when we're surrounded by our peer group and some luxury players to provide some context because I think we show up so well, especially with the product doing so well right now when people can compare and contrast us to some of the others that we're neighbors with.

I know that you tapped on this with a couple of Eric's good questions. I was just wondering, where do you see the most operating leverage that you have untapped right now, and what are some of the more internal bottlenecks that you might be actively working on to remove?

Yeah, well, I think, prior to me returning, the team did a great job with their transformation process and really improved margin through IMU. Thankfully we did that because obviously there were, and are, challenges now with some of the input costs, depending on what happens with tariffs, and as Yuji mentioned, with some of the disruption around fuel. As those things start to play out, and hopefully normalize, I think we'll have an opportunity longer term to recapture gross margin accretion. I think also as we start to grow the business, and you saw our forecast for this year, that would really be a breakout for us to get out of that $300 million collar we've been in.

We should start to get some SG&A leverage, and be able to make some investments back in the business to sustain this growth or be more of a catalyst for this growth. As I've mentioned in the past, we're actively looking at other ways we can utilize our platform and in partnerships. We think we have a lot of different levers to pull and we're hoping that some of the macro issues start to subside, but really proud of the way we got through the last 12 months and couldn't be more confident with how we're situated for success.

That sounds great. Congratulations again.

Thanks, Michael.

This concludes the question and answer session. I'll turn the call to Brendan for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, everyone. We appreciate your continued interest in Vince, and we look forward to updating you on our Q1 results in June. Have a good day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.

Morning all, good afternoon all, and welcome to the Vince Holding Corp. Q3 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Adam, and I will be your operator today. We will now hand the floor to the keynote to begin, so please go ahead when you are ready. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Vince Holding Corp. Third Quarter Fiscal 2025 Results Conference Call. Hosting the call today is Brendan Hoffman, Chief Executive, and Yuji Okumura, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, let me remind you that certain statements made on this call may constitute forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those that the company expects. Those risks and uncertainties are described in today's press release and in the company's SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. Investors should not assume that statements made during the call will remain operative at a later time, and the company undertakes no obligation to update any information discussed on the call. Financial results are in conformity with GAAP. In addition, in today's discussion, the company is presenting its results on an adjusted basis. The adjusted results that the company presents today are non-GAAP measures. Discussions of these non-GAAP measures and information on reconciliations with them to their most comparable GAAP measures are included in today's press release and related schedules, which are available in the Investors section of the company's website at investors.fins.com. Now I'll turn the call over to Brendan.

Thank you, Akiko, and good morning, everyone. We are extremely proud of our third quarter performance as we drove healthy sales growth across all channels and exceeded our expectations for both top and bottom line. Our assortments are resonating across both our women's and men's businesses. But most encouraging is the acceptance we have seen to the strategic price increases implemented this quarter as well as in the momentum in our DTC segment given the enhancements we have made to the customer experience. Our women's assortment, which has the highest impact from tariffs, saw prices increase more than our overall average increase of approximately 6%. But units were nearly flat to last year, validating the quality and value of our product in the marketplace. Beyond the pricing actions, our teams have done an exceptional job in continuing to manage the evolving tariff environment. Our goods are flowing smoothly despite significant changes in sourcing, and importantly, we've maintained our quality standards throughout this transition. With respect to customer experience, following the store renovations from earlier this year, we enhanced our ecommerce site in Q3 with a strategic site refresh, increased marketing support, and the launch of drop ship. Our ecommerce site refresh elevated the customer experience with more modern creative elements and enhanced site merchandise. We are now using AI-generated video content to enrich product detail pages and introduce more service elements, like our cashmere care guide. This investment in our digital platform contributed meaningfully to our strong performance, and we're seeing the benefits flow through in both conversion rates and average order values. Our ecommerce site also significantly benefited from the marketing investments we made in mid-funnel marketing this quarter. Through this work, we saw triple-digit growth in site traffic late in the quarter and supported full-price new customer acquisition as well. At the end of the quarter, we went live with a new drop ship strategy we believe will be a significant growth opportunity for us moving forward. In the first month since launch, we have seen a significant increase in volume. The initial launch focused only on shoes, but we have plans to expand to other categories, capitalizing on our partnership with authentic brands and the category expansion opportunities that provides. The drop ship strategy allows us to not only offer more fashion-forward products we might typically feel comfortable procuring directly, but it also enables us to showcase a more diverse assortment to our customer, providing learnings on customer preferences that we may incorporate into our store channel as well. In addition to these initiatives, we opened two new stores this quarter, in Nashville and Sacramento, following our successful store opening in Marleybone, London, earlier this year, which continues to exceed our expectations. Moving to our wholesale business, we delivered solid growth versus last year, some of this reflecting the timing benefits from the Q2 shipment delays that we discussed previously, as well as ongoing performance of key partners. We were excited to recently celebrate our 2025 holiday collection along with our continued partnership with Nordstrom, with an immersive experience in LA with Nordstrom's top clientele, Nordstrom's VP fashion director, and our creative director, Caroline Bellhumer. A great event to kick off the holiday season and highlight our holiday campaign, which celebrates our brand spirit and showcases connections through stories and gift-giving with a 360-degree omnichannel strategy. Thus far, we have seen a very strong start to the holiday quarter, including record sales across the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend in our direct-to-consumer segment. Given the strength of Q3 and the momentum we are continuing to drive, I am more confident than ever in the trajectory ahead for Vince Holding Corp. and the prospects we have to leverage our platform further to drive growth. We continue to successfully navigate the tariff challenges while maintaining the quality and brand integrity we are known for. We are beginning to reinvest in the business, particularly in marketing initiatives that we had pulled back on earlier in the year, and we're seeing positive returns on these investments. The underlying fundamentals of our business remain strong. We are operating with disciplined execution while positioning for growth. With that strong foundation and the momentum we're building, I'll now turn it over to Yuji to discuss our financial results in more detail and provide our updated outlook.

Thank you, Brendan. And good morning, everyone. As Brendan reviewed, we are very pleased with our third quarter performance as we saw momentum continue across the business, enabling us to begin to reinvest in key areas of the business. Total company net sales for the third quarter increased 6.2% to $85.1 million compared to $80.2 million in 2024. With respect to channel performance, our wholesale channel increased 6.7% and our direct-to-consumer segment increased 5.5%. As Brendan reviewed, part of the growth in wholesale reflects the timing of shipments given the delays we experienced earlier in the year with tariff disruption. Our teams are doing an excellent job in continuing to manage our supply chain, and our goods are flowing smoothly and expect to be back in line to normal course timing by spring. Gross profit in the third quarter was $41.9 million or 49.2% of net sales. This compares to $40.1 million or 50% of net sales in the third quarter of last year. The decrease in gross margin rate was primarily driven by approximately 260 basis points due to the unfavorable impact of higher tariffs, and approximately 100 basis points due to increased freight cost, partially offset by a 140 basis points increase due to the favorable impact of lower product costing and higher pricing, and approximately 110 basis points due to the favorable impact of lower discounting. As Brendan reviewed, we are very encouraged by customers' response to strategic price changes. Our team's ongoing focus on task mitigation efforts. Given timing and mix of sales, we experienced less of a headwind than originally expected from tariffs during the quarter, but expect these costs to ramp into Q4. Selling, general, and administrative expenses in the quarter were $36.5 million or 42.8% of net sales as compared to $34.3 million or 42.8% of net sales for the third quarter of last year. The increase in SG&A dollars was primarily driven by approximately $1.1 million related to compensation and $760,000 of increase in marketing and advertising cost as we reinvested into mid-funnel activities. Operating income for the third quarter was $5.4 million compared to operating income of $5.8 million in the same period last year. Net interest expense for the quarter decreased to $1 million compared to $1.7 million in the prior year. The decrease was primarily due to lower levels of debt under our term loan credit facility. At the end of 2025, our long-term debt balance was $36.1 million, a reduction of $14.5 million compared to $50.6 million in the prior year period. Income tax expense was $2 million compared to zero tax provision in the same period last year. The increase is due to the impact of applying our estimated annual effective tax rate to the year-to-date ordinary pretax income. In the prior comparative period, we had a year-to-date ordinary pretax loss for the interim period, and as such, we did not record any tax expense for the same period last year. As a reminder, following the change in control earlier this calendar year, we have limitations to the use of the NOLs we did not have last year, also impacting the cash tax expense of comparison to previous years. Net income for the third quarter was $2.7 million or income per share of $0.21 compared to net income of $4.3 million or income per share of $0.34 in the third quarter of last year. The year-over-year decline in net income was driven by the increase in tax expense. Adjusted EBITDA was $6.5 million for the third quarter, compared to $7.4 million in the prior year. Moving to the balance sheet. Net inventory was $75.9 million at the end of the third quarter as compared to $63.8 million at the end of the third quarter last year. The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by approximately $4.2 million higher inventory carrying value due to tariffs. Turning to our outlook. As Brendan discussed, we have seen a very strong start to the fourth quarter with a record holiday weekend sales performance in our DTC segment. Our outlook for the period assumes that this momentum continues with the growth in the DTC segment expected to outpace our total net sales growth for the period, which is expected to increase approximately 3% to 7%. This guidance also takes into account potential shifts in timing with respect to wholesale shipments given end-of-the-year seasonality. In addition, we expect adjusted operating income as a percentage of net sales for the quarter to be approximately flat to 2% and for the adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales to be approximately 2% to 4% compared to 6.7% in the prior year period. Our guidance for the quarter takes into account approximately $4 million to $5 million of estimated incremental tariff costs that we continue to expect to partially offset with our mitigation strategy. Given our year-to-date performance and our outlook for the fourth quarter, we expect full-year net sales growth to be approximately 2% to 3%, adjusted operating income as a percentage of net sales to be approximately 2% to 3%, and for adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales to be approximately 4% to 5% compared to the 4.8% in the prior year period, despite incurring approximately $8 million to $9 million of incremental tariff costs compared to last year. This concludes our remarks. And I'll now turn it over to the operator to open the call for questions.

Thank you. A reminder, if you'd like to ask a question on today's call, please press. Our first question comes from Eric Beder at SCC Research.

Good morning. Congratulations on a great Q3. Thanks, Aaron. Thank you. I want to talk a little bit about some of the potential drivers here. So you have just started to roll out some of the licensed products. We've seen handbags and suiting in our store tours. I'm curious, you know, you mentioned it also in your comments. Where do you think that goes? And I know that the tariffs kind of slowed down the rollouts. But what should we be thinking about the potential for that in 2026 and beyond?

Well, I, you know, I think it's I'm even more bullish now after the last month based on my comments on dropships. So what we saw with drop ship with Caleres and Shoes in the last four or five weeks is truly spectacular. And so the opportunity to launch that on ecommerce in the spring on these other categories and then figure out how to better utilize that within the stores in addition to obviously showcasing the product. I think it has a, it can have a real impact on our business more than I was anticipating prior to the drop ship launch.

And when you look at, you know, I know that you've been also looking at putting you put some COH denim into some of the stores. You know, how should we be thinking about that potential opportunity to kind of collaborate with other key fashion brands to kind of help both of you?

Yeah. That's something that we're gonna continue to explore and prioritize. Very happy with the citizens of humanity collab. We're, you know, it also highlights the opportunity we have in denim. Whether we do that in-house, although that's a long, long haul, we'll continue to do partnerships and dealing with citizens and look for other categories that perhaps ABG isn't licensing at this point. And you know, we can bring to kind of round out our assortment. So that was another good, good win for Vince.

Great. And you opened up two new stores in new markets. Can you I know it's very short, you give us a little bit of thought process? And then kind of what should we be thinking about? I know that we pulled back on that a little bit this year just because of things going on this year. But given the results here, what is the store opportunity kind of back on full swing for next year and going forward? Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks. I mean, you know, we're pleased with the way Nashville and Sacramento have been received within the community. You know, it's still early days. Also, we'll be monitoring what it does to our ecommerce business. I think we have 60 stores now between the outlets and full price, and I wouldn't expect that number to move much, maybe a couple more, a couple less depending on opportunities. We continue to be really pleased with our Marleybone store in London. So gonna see if there's opportunities in other parts of Europe. Both to do business where we can be profitable like the Marleybone and also provide some visibility for us in regions where we have a wholesale business. And stores can just reinforce that. So you know, we'll continue to monitor the direct-to-consumer opportunity led by ecommerce. But as I've always said, it's not an either-or with direct-to-consumer and our wholesale business. It's both. It's an and, and I think they just reinforce each other, and we've seen that in Q3 and continue to see that in Q4.

Great. Congrats, and good luck for the rest of the holiday season.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Michael Kupinski from Noble Capital Markets. Michael, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. And I'd like to offer my congratulations as well. Sales were obviously much better than what we were looking for. Were there any particular bottlenecks or limitations that could have delivered even better sales? And I'm thinking, you know, any inventory constraints for particular items, for instance.

I mean, you know, there's never a crystal ball, so you always, you know, there's certain things you wish you had a little bit more of. But I think overall, we were in a good inventory position, you know, really working through the first half of the year, disruption from tariffs as we discussed. So as I'm doing my store tours, I'm not getting too much pushback from the stores about where they need more inventory. I think Vince also since I've been here last, is doing a much better job with our logistics and operations, refilling the stores on a timely basis. So I think we have a good handle on that. Again, not to harp on it, but I am so excited about it. This drop ship opportunity, which allows us to take full advantage of Caleres' shoe inventory. I mean, that's a big deal because that's where we did have some holes in our inventory assortment. Because it's a little bit more difficult with our third-party partners to properly procure ahead of time. So this opens up a really big opportunity for us going forward as I've been saying. But overall, the inventories, I think, were in a good position and, you know, help fuel the growth we saw.

Thank you for that. And then how much of the strong revenue growth was driven by price versus product volume? I know that you touched on that in your comments, but I was wondering if you could just expand on that.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we were really pleased that the units held steady and actually grew at the higher price point. So, you know, we had anticipated given the price changes that we would see a little bit of erosion in our unit velocity. But, you know, so far, we haven't seen that, you know, and the customer seems to be trading up with us. I don't know if that's because they're trading down from other luxury brands, as those prices skyrocket, but our core customer continues to see us as a value, and, as I said in my comments, women's was where we had to take the largest price changes, and the units held strong. So, you know, it was a win-win, and that's continued into, you know, in Dallas. So we'll continue to monitor that, continue to see if there's even a little bit more opportunity to push up price, you know, where we think the customer will react positively. But definitely a driver was the strength in the units.

And then given that wholesale and direct-to-consumer, it looked like, you know, revenues were revenue growth were pretty much similar, but I was wondering if there was any divergence between the two channels in terms of product sales and particularly as you go into the fourth quarter?

No. I mean, we, you know, ecommerce was clearly the big winner and driver when you look across all the channels. But overall, we saw strength at the register with our wholesale partners. You know, we continue to work with Saks Global to make sure that we're able to properly service their business while they go through their transformation, so that creates a little bit of noise. But, you know, overall, as we start December, the product's checking at the register everywhere.

Gotcha. My final question is, can you just talk a little bit about trends in freight costs? I know that I was just wondering if you'd negotiate annually and if you could just talk a little bit about what you're seeing there.

Yeah. Certainly. So, yeah, we are seeing freight cost increases. That's also partially due to the fact that we are changing sources as well of where we're sourcing our products. So it's really more of a product of depending on the shift in timing, we're airing more stuff or certain pieces are taking longer in terms of distance-wise to get here. So it's not so much of the actual inherent sort of freight contract and the pricing related to that. It's really more along the lines of the timing of when we want to bring in the product, which method we're using to bring in the product.

Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have.

We have no further questions, so I hand the call back to the management team for any closing comments.

Okay. Well, thank you all again for your participation today, and we look forward to updating you on our year-end results in the spring, and happy holidays to all. Thank you.

This concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your lines.