Krispy Kreme, Inc.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for standing by. My name is Ellie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Krispy Kreme third quarter 2025 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. I would now like to turn the call over to Christine McDevitt, Krispy Kreme Associate, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Krispy Kreme's third quarter 2025 earnings call. Thank you for joining us today. This morning, Krispy Kreme issued its earnings press release for the third quarter of fiscal 2025. The press release and an accompanying presentation are available on our investor relations website at investors.krispykreme.com. Joining me on the call are President and Chief Executive Officer Josh Charlesworth, and Chief Financial Officer Raphael Duvivier. After their prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. But before we begin, please note that during this call, we will be making forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements of expectations, future events, or future financial performance. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, assumptions, and uncertainties, and we caution investors that many factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the cautionary statements in our earnings press release, our annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC, and in other SEC filings we make from time to time. Forward-looking statements represent our expectations only as of today. We assume no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements except as may be required by law. Additionally, during this call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings press release on our website for additional information regarding those non-GAAP measures including a reconciliation to the closest comparable gap measures. Rafael will take us through our quarterly financial performance in a moment, but first, here's Josh.

Thank you, Christine, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased with the early progress we are making on our turnaround plan to deleverage the balance sheet and deliver sustainable, profitable growth, as reflected in our third quarter performance. As a reminder, we are focused on one, re-franchising, two, improving returns on capital, three, expanding margins, and four, driving sustainable, profitable US growth. First, re-franchising enables us to more profitably drive system-wide sales growth and accelerate unit development through our capital-like franchise model. We are already working toward re-franchising certain international markets as we look for experienced long-term potential partners to operate and expand our iconic brand around the world. We also plan to restructure our joint venture in the Western U.S. with the WKS Restaurant Group, which today represents approximately 15% of our U.S. revenues. Restructuring is expected to reduce our ownership to a minority stake. We are happy with the strength of our operations in the WKS joint venture and look forward to future capitalized expansion across 10 Western US states. Proceeds from international re-franchising and the WKS restructuring are expected to be used to reduce net debt. Second, our focus on improving returns on capital involves reducing capital intensity by leveraging existing assets and focusing on franchise development. As part of this approach, we have lowered our capex spending for the back half of 2025 compared to the first half of the year. And in aggregate, annual capex will be significantly below 2024 levels. In the U.S. next week, we will open our Hot Light Theater Shop and Production Hub in Minneapolis, bringing Krispy Kreme to an area where fans have been eagerly anticipating our arrival. Overall, though, we have reduced investment in building new hubs, preferring to leverage existing excess capacity for growth where available. Looking ahead to 2026, we plan to reduce capex investment compared to 2025. We also expect our international franchise pipeline to continue to be a source of capital-like growth in the years ahead. For example, through our franchisees and minority joint ventures, we recently opened our first hot light theater shop in Madrid, Spain. will soon enter Uzbekistan and have announced further expansion in Brazil. Future international growth is expected to come not just from new shop openings with franchisees, but also through fresh delivery door expansion in grocery, convenience, club wholesalers, and quick service restaurants. For example, our collaboration with KFC in the UAE has now expanded to more than 200 KFC restaurants offering Krispy Kreme donuts. This reflects the success of the model and the potential for future growth. Third, to expand margins through greater operational efficiency, the business model is being simplified. U.S. operations have been strengthened under the leadership of Chief Operating Officer Nicholas Steele, and costs across the P&L are being reduced. First, donuts are being made more efficiently by optimizing production, streamlining hub activities, and improving labor productivity. These initiatives are expected to maximize capacity, enhance operations and guest experience, and increase profitability through better labor management. Second, donuts are being delivered more efficiently by improving route management and demand planning, and by testing adjusted production and delivery schedules to support cost-effective expansion. These efforts are further strengthened by the capabilities of our third-party logistics partners whose expertise in fleet management, delivery technology, and safety now supports approximately 54% of our US network. Outsourcing has already resulted in more predictable logistics costs, and we expect to fully outsource US delivery in 2026. And third, the benefits of reduced headcount and costs that we previously announced are decreasing both operating expenses and SG&A. Finally, To drive sustainable, profitable growth in the U.S., we are focused on strategic customers with high volume and high margin doors, ensuring that we have the right product variety in the right amounts, in the right place, and at the right time. We continue to grow with strong existing customers. During the third quarter, more than 200 profitable doors were added with strategic partners, including Target, Costco, Sam's Club, Kroger, and Publix. In total, approximately 1,000 profitable doors have been added year-to-date, and these doors are delivering weekly sales well above the system average. At Walmart, we are seeing the benefit of additional shelf space combined with our current merchandising towers and cabinets, as well as placement on Walmart's website. Early results demonstrate higher sales at current stores while supporting incremental distribution at new stores. So far, we only serve about 30% of Walmart's total domestic footprint, so there is a considerable opportunity ahead of us. Our marketing continues to emphasize the original glazed donut, our most iconic, most affordable, and most profitable product, while leveraging digital channels to engage consumers and further amplify sales. The excitement around our signature core product is coupled with innovative limited time offerings that are culturally relevant and tied to buzzworthy events. Third quarter examples include our Harry Potter and Passport to Italy collections, as well as our collaboration with Crocs. In the fourth quarter, we are also pleased with our successful Halloween campaign. These limited time offerings perform particularly well in our digital channel. In the third quarter, US digital sales increased 17% year over year, and represented more than 20% of US retail sales. Our heightened traction in this channel reinforces digital as a key driver of profitable growth and a highly valued means for connecting with US consumers. In addition, we recently announced a refresh of our everyday doughnut menu, featuring trending flavors, fan favorites requested on social media, and returning popular doughnuts. Our updated offerings provide more variety for consumers while reinforcing the strength of our core menu. Our turnaround plan to drive sustainable, profitable growth and reduce debt leverage is showing progress, and I'm confident that we can deliver on our objectives and achieve compelling results. Our long-term success will be built upon the strength of our leadership and field teams, whose talent and commitment to operational excellence continue to inspire confidence. I'm especially encouraged by how our new CFO has seamlessly taken on his role, providing strategic financial leadership that complements the operational expertise of our teams. With that, Rafael will now review our third quarter financials.

Thank you, Josh. Through our comprehensive turnaround plan, we have pivoted to better position ourselves for sustainable, profitable growth. As I mentioned in August, My immediate focus at CFO is leveraging the balance sheet, improving profitability in the US during the second half of this year, and leading our re-franchising efforts to evolve Krispy Kreme to a more capitalized franchise model. The third quarter provided us with an encouraging start as we grew adjusted EBITDA 17% year over year. or 20% if you exclude the sale of our majority stake in Sonia Cookies in the third quarter of 2024. Adjusted EBITDA was $40.6 million in the third quarter, more than double what we saw in the second quarter. We also delivered positive free cash flow of $15.5 million. These results reflect the early progress we are making on our turnaround plan. reducing our net leverage by 20 basis points compared to the second quarter. We have excess liquidity of over $200 million as of the third quarter, which I believe provide us with the flexibility to meet both short-term obligations and long-term investments as we continue to implement our turnaround plan. Net revenue for the quarter was $375.3 million with 0.6% organic revenue growth driven by the international segment, offset by the strategic closure of underperforming doors, primarily in the US. Total net revenue declined by 1.2% compared to last year, largely due to the sale of a majority stake in soy milk cookies. Adjusted EBITDA was $40.6 million, up from $34.7 million last year. We generated nearly as much adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter as we delivered in the first half of 2025. These results were positively impacted by productivity initiatives, SG&A savings, and the removal of costs from the now-ended McDonald's-USA partnership, combined with recoveries from business interruption insurance related to the 2024 cybersecurity incident. Turning to the U.S. segment. Organic revenue growth declined 2.2%, in part due to the exit of approximately 600 unprofitable doors. During the third quarter, we also accessed approximately 2,400 doors connected to the now-ended McDonald's USA partnership. As Josh mentioned, we also have added doors to deliver substantially higher average weekly sales. This door optimization has resulted in an 18% increase in average weekly sales to $617 per door, demonstrating the traction we have when our products are in the right place with the right partner. Adjusted EBITDA was $21 million in the quarter, up from $13.9 million in the third quarter of last year. We benefit from cost savings related to operational efficiency at our retail shops and our logistic outsourcing initiatives, in addition to cyber-related insurance recoveries of $9.3 million. Excluding those cyber-related insurance recoveries, U.S. adjusted EBITDA increased sequentially $1.8 million, despite approximately $3 million of lagging costs early in the quarter related to the now-ended McDonald's-USA partnership. This demonstrates solid improvement resulting from our turnaround plan initiatives. Within our company-owned international markets, organic revenue grew 6.2%, driven by growth in Canada, Japan, and Mexico. These markets continue to see the benefit of strategically rolling out our hub-and-spoke model. International segment adjusted EBITDA increased by $0.4 million, or 1.7%, to $23.2 million driven by Japan and Mexico. This is the first time in the last four quarters we saw year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth in this segment. The margin decline of 90 basis points to 16.5% was due to the ongoing turnaround in the U.K., where we saw strong sequential improvement in adjusted EBITDA as the UK leadership team continues to make progress. In the market development segment, organic revenue declined 5.3%, as growth in royalty revenues from international markets was more than offset by lower product sales and limited equipment sales in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $12 million, with a margin rate of 63.5% of 930 basis points year over year. Shifting back to our consolidated results, adjusted EBITDA and working capital management strengthened cash flow. We generated $42.3 million in operating cash flow during the third quarter and $15.5 million in free cash flow following two quarters of cash outflows in the first half. Our bank leverage ratio was 4.5 times at the end of the quarter, which is below the five times leverage ratio limit in our credit facility. Our net leverage ratio, which reflects our net debt divided by trailing four quarters adjusted EBITDA, was 7.3 times, down from 7.5 times as of last quarter, positively impacted by the adjusted EBITDA improvement. Josh outlined several steps we're taking to increase profitability. We have already started to see the benefit of an estimated $12 to $15 million of annualized SG&A cost savings, along with productivity improvements at retail shops and efficiencies through third-party logistics. All of these items are already having a tangible impact on our financial condition. Sequentially, we saw working capital improvement across our balance sheet, including accounts receivable, accounts payable, and inventories. While we are encouraged by this progress, we are mindful of continued consumer softness in the marketplace and are managing through these conditions with discipline. We must remain focused on the leveraging the balance sheet as we move towards our capital life franchise model. With that, I'll turn it over to Josh for his closing remarks.

Thanks, Rafael. In summary, we are making progress on our comprehensive turnaround plan to deleverage the balance sheet and deliver sustainable, profitable growth. We are focused on re-franchising, improving returns on capital, expanding margins, and driving sustainable, profitable U.S. growth. I am confident in our ability to capitalize on the significant growth opportunity ahead and share the joy of Krispy Kreme with more people in more places around the world. Operator, let's now open it up for Q&A, please.

We are now opening the floor for question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for a brief moment to wait for the questions to come in. Your first question comes from the line of Danielle Guglielmo of Capital One Securities. Your line is now open.

Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. You all mentioned great momentum in the international segment, and we have seen international strength versus the U.S. for other global brands this earnings season. Are you seeing continued strong trends in those markets for 4Q? I think you mentioned Japan and Mexico adjusted to job growth this year, this quarter.

Hey, hi, this is Rafael. I can't think of a question. Thank you for the question. yeah we we did see and as you can see from the results international we saw um year-over-year growth but also more important uh a growth in the quarter which we have not seen in the past quarters uh we continue to see good momentum uh you mentioned max in japan they continue to deliver but also the markets that we don't know, the international franchise markets. We're going to continue to see growth in places like Brazil, where we've just opened, and the places that we're actually planning to open. So we continue to see strong momentum there.

Okay, great. I appreciate that. And then I think in the commentary, it seemed like there is going to be some VFD expansion in some of the international markets. Can you just talk about some learnings that you've taken away from the U.S. expansion that you're going to kind of think about as you're doing this expansion in international? Just be helpful to understand.

That's a great question. Look, we learn a lot with DFD over the years. And as we expand internationally, we have a spoken mind. So as we go places where we already have the DFD in place internationally, think about UK, think about Mexico, Japan, but also and new countries like Brazil or France, we are taking all of those learnings. We know better and better what works, and it's interesting. When the brand is in the right place with the right partner, we see how EFT and the hub and spoke can operate very well.

Great. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Your next question comes from the line at Grand Harbor. Morgan Stanley, your line is now open.

Good morning, guys. I guess maybe could you just comment on sort of the, you know, the U.S. demand environment as you saw in 3Q and kind of into 4Q here?

Yeah, I'll take that. Good morning. Q3 was very interesting for us because the results reflect the progress on our turnaround plan. Think about it. intentionally exited from McDonald's restaurants and another 600 performing doors. So overall, that contributed to a small revenue decline, but a significant improvement in EBITDA and positive cash flow. So it was clearly the outcome of our actions. The rationalization program, though, on U.S. doors is over. So instead, we continue to focus on high volume, profitable doors going forward with strategic partners. We've actually added a thousand of those year to date with people like Walmart, Target, and Costco. And that's resulted in average weekly sales jumping back up over 600 bucks. So that is about the future. We intended to have that reduction in growth in the third quarter to drive the turnaround plan. Underlying all that, we're actually seeing US trends improving. The consumer response in particular to our specialty doughnut campaigns, we had Harry Potter in the late summer and just saw a successful Halloween means that my confidence in Krispy Kreme's long-term sustainable profitable growth is high.

Okay, thanks. What, I guess, what additional cost things should we expect here just into the end of the year? And, you know, I know you're not guiding, right, but do you think that, you know, do you want to make any comments about where you think EBITDA could be in the fourth quarter?

Yeah, I can take this, Rafael. Look, we saw a sequential improvement in EBITDA in Q3, as you saw in Q2, and are happy with the progress we made in the turnaround plan. is working and we continue to believe that as we enter Q4, we will see sequential EBITDA improvement. As I said, we're not providing guidance, but we do expect Q4 EBITDA to be higher and to still be able to generate a positive cash flow in Q4.

Next question comes from the line of Sarah Senatore. of Bank of America, your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for the question. Isaiah Austin on for Sarah. My first question is around the comment on fully outsourcing U.S. delivery in 2026. Do you guys just mind talking through the P&L implications? You know, does that create a lower cost per delivery or just a more like variable cost structure so that, you know, you don't need as much volume to lever expenses? And then I have a quick follow-up.

Yeah, sure. This is an important program for us through our turnaround. You're right, we're now 54% of the network is outsourced to third party providers, and we expect that to be the whole network in 2026. What we see is very high service levels, we're very pleased with the partners as we roll this program out. For now, on your P&L question, it's ensuring we have more predictable costs. But interestingly, we see it as in the long term providing us a tailwind. If you recall, earlier in 2025, late 24, we were seeing the impact of casualty losses and that exposure is reduced going forward. We also expect with the expertise of these partners, who are focused every day on moving our doughnuts as logistics experts, as opposed to us ourselves being the producers of the doughnuts. We expect operational improvements over time. They've already been identifying and sharing with us ideas around how they can use their technology and expertise to improve route management, for example. So a long-term tailwind for us. For now, the impact on the P&L is more just ensuring we have predictable costs without any of the surprises of those casualty losses.

Excellent. Thank you, Josh. And then just as a follow-up, just thinking about the recently announced expanded core menu lineup, just want to know, you know, like what prompted that change? And, you know, how do you all think about balancing variety versus complexity? Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, it reflects, you know, we talk about long-term sustainable profitable growth. that's seen us really focus on our core business. And there's nothing more core than our fresh donuts, bordered our donut shops across America. And, you know, we've been highlighting the original glaze itself, adding flavor glazes like chocolate glaze, strawberry glaze. But we also saw that we haven't refreshed and updated our assorted donut menu for many years. And we get a lot of input from consumers, social media in particular, pointing out that there are favorite donuts from the past or even favorite ideas that they have that they would love to see. So, you know, we've been listening to the consumer. You'll see we brought out with this new refresh range, Oreo cookies with cream and New York cheesecake, my favorite, the Biscoff cookie butter. And that's a response to consumer demand. Now, we also think, we've also done that with being really thoughtful about making sure that consumers have a good amount of choice and get a really awesome experience when they come to the Krispy Kreme donut shop. All in the context of our turnaround plan, focusing on what we do best, making awesome donuts. And, you know, we're really looking forward to the impact of that.

Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Rahul Krusapalli of JP Morgan. Your line is now open.

Good morning, guys. Josh, you have a large brand presence or brand equity that is probably even bigger than the company, as many would say today. Discuss The growing supplier competition in the segment, I see a number of cake and cookie and other sweet treat brands in the market. And at the same time, many consumers are also being more mindful of spending generally and then also more conscious around the segment. Any thoughts you could like to share there? And I have a follow up.

Yeah, we're very proud of the strength of the brand, both in terms of awareness and also in terms of what it means to people, particularly in sharing occasions, gifting occasions. It makes us quite unique compared to others. It's a relatively infrequent purchase, just two or three times a year. So we don't really get impacted by those things. Instead, we find what's most important is making sure we really come with an awesome donut experience with our original glaze, most famously with the hot donut, and continuously bringing news, as I just mentioned a moment ago, with innovation, specialty collections, and being relevant at those important times of the year. hot doughnut season right now. It's really important that we saw a good response to the brand at Halloween and the whole holiday period coming up is an important one for us. That's where we're focused, bringing moments of joy that people can share and enjoy with us.

The follow-up is on the retooling the distribution network. I know you are taking a full look on the entire DFD touchpoints now. Is there any changes to the thought process on kind of brands and partnerships you want to focus on going forward? Where are we in the journey there? And then also, is there any change in the kind of agreements or how you want to execute the drop-offs in this new model?

We're continuously looking to improve our distribution network. looking at delivery timing, making sure that we are producing the donuts in close proximity to our customers, but also efficiently. So we really are doing a lot of work around that as part of our turnaround and continuing to expect benefits from that. The big initiative for us was to exit from low traffic doors. We had, over time, we identified there were about 1,400 doors in the US where the traffic wasn't high enough, then therefore the weekly sales weren't good enough. And so we intentionally exited from those this year, but that program is done. So going forward to your broader question, it is about expanding convenience and access to the brand, but only where The traffic is high enough and in-store visibility is really clear. That's when the conditions are right for us. What's great is we have several customers that already qualify against that, and they have plenty of upside opportunity. It's only recently in the last year or so that we entered Target, and we're really just starting out with Costco as two clear examples of that. And even more recently, just got going with Sam's Club. So we have plenty of customers where we can go that are sort of proven with that high traffic. It's interesting and internationally that we see some other innovations, such as the KFC we're seeing in the Middle East, but really in the US, the focus is on these big high traffic locations in which we have plenty of runway on, and they can support a long-term, sustainable, profitable growth.

Appreciate the color, Josh. Look forward to seeing you next week. You bet. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Alexandra Gilgird of BNP. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. This is Jafar Mestari from BNP. Just wanted to clarify one thing in terms of the outlook where you talk about the remainder of 2025. You expect to see further improvements in I just said EBITDA. Does that mean a Q4-25 EBITDA higher sequentially than Q3? Is that a Q4-25 EBITDA higher year-on-year than Q4 last year, or is there any other way we should look at this? Thank you.

Rafael A. hey I can take this profile yeah that's that's a major readers, we do expect to see improvement in Q4 versus Q3 and now support the cash flow into for as we generated in. Rafael A. In into three and went to 2026 you're not providing guidance, but you can expect to question proven in a visa and, as I said, in Q2 we continue to focus on lowering cut expense. Rafael A. We do this in the second half of this year and we will lower cutbacks for next year as well.

Thank you very much. Thanks.

Thank you. There are no further questions. I'd now like to hand the call back to the CEO, Josh, for final remarks.

Well, thank you, everyone, for your interest in Krispy Kreme today. We saw we implemented a turnaround plan this summer to drive sustainable, profitable growth and deleverage the balance sheet. And we're already seeing that turnaround underway. It's thanks in large part to our great Krispy Kreme team all over the world. So I thank you as well. Thank you. Goodbye.

Thank you for attending today's call. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.