Flexsteel Industries, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Flex Steel Industries third quarter fiscal year 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Should you need assistance please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by 0. After today's presentation there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions. To ask a question you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question please press star then 2. Please note this event has been recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mike Ressler Chief Financial Officer for Flex Steel Industries. Please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome to today's call to discuss Flex Steel Industries third quarter fiscal year 2025 financial results. Our earnings release which we issued after market closed yesterday, Monday April 21st, is available on the investor relations section of our website at .flexsteel.com under news and events. I'm here today with Derek Schmidt President and Chief Executive Officer. On today's call we will provide prepared remarks we will then open the call to your questions. Before we begin I would like to remind you that the comments on today's call will include forward-looking statements which can be identified using words such as estimate, anticipate, expect, and similar phrases. Forward-looking statements by their nature involve estimates, projections, goals, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to those that are described in our most recent annual report on form 10k as updated by our subsequent quarterly reports on form 10q and other SEC filings as applicable. These forward-looking statements speak only as the date of this conference call and should not be relied upon as predictions of future events. Additionally we may refer to non-GAP measures which are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAP measures. The press release available on the website contains the financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today as well as the reconciliation of the GAP to non-GAP measures. And with that I'll turn the call over to Derek Schmidt. Derek?

Good morning

and

thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter results. We continue to execute well and delivered strong results in the quarter. Our growth strategies are working and enabling us to continue our solid sales momentum as we delivered sales growth of .3% compared to the prior year quarter which represents our sixth consecutive quarter of single to low double digit -over-year growth. Encouragingly the drivers of our growth remain broad-based as we grew in both our core markets and in our new and expanded market initiatives. Within core markets we continue to see significant success from new product introductions that bring increasing value to consumers and from continued share gains with large strategic accounts where we continue to enhance our advantaged customer experience. Our focus on new and expanded markets remains an important growth contributor led by continued market penetration with our Z-Clinr lineup and ramping orders of new case goods product. April Highpoint Market begins this week and we have an exciting lineup of new product to showcase that includes 25 new groups spanning all areas of our business. We are expanding our Z-Clinr lineup with additional SKUs adding new bedroom dining and occasional groups to our case goods offering and adding a plethora of sleek stylish products with improved functionality to our stationary and motion soft seating portfolio. New product has been an underpinning to our growth story over past several years and we remain aggressive in continually bringing fresh looks with improved value to our retail partners. I'm also especially pleased with our continued profitability improvement and strong cash generation. Our adjusted operating margin of 7.3 percent in the quarter represents our eighth consecutive quarter of -over-year improvement and our second highest quarterly adjusted operating margin over the past seven years. The levers driving our consistent profit improvement are unchanged and working effectively and include sales growth leverage, strong operational execution and productivity, and product portfolio management. Additionally, we delivered operating cash flow of $12.3 million in the quarter and bolstered ending cash to $22.6 million. Our strong financial position is a competitive advantage in this period of heightened economic uncertainty. As we look forward to the remainder of our fiscal year 2025, we enter our fourth quarter under a very tough economic backdrop with substantial uncertainty following the release of the proposed U.S. Recipial Tariff on April 2nd. In the near term, we are assessing and developing responses to three key risks. First, the impact of tariffs on our business, including margins, pricing and supply chain design. Second, the short-term volatility and demand largely influenced by tariff and economic uncertainty. And third, the midterm outlook for the U.S. economy, consumer spending, and ultimately consumer demand for furniture. I'll elaborate on each of these individually beginning with tariffs. As we've shared previously, we have completely moved out of China for finished good product sourcing and our primary tariff exposures now reside in Vietnam and Mexico. Currently, Vietnam production supports roughly 55 percent of our revenue and our Mexican operations support almost 40 percent of sales. While we have seemingly avoided tariffs on Mexico for now, our product source from Vietnam are impacted by the 10 percent tariffs which took effect on April 5th and remain in effect as the two sides negotiate a new trade agreement. Should the initial 46 percent reciprocal tariff rate that was announced on April 2nd but subsequently delayed 90 days ultimately go into effect on Vietnam goods, it will have wide-reaching implications both on Flexfield's business and the overall U.S. furniture industry. As context, Vietnam was the primary beneficiary of replacing China-made furniture after the U.S. increased tariffs on China in 2019 and is currently the largest exporter of furniture to the U.S. at 37 percent of furniture imports in 2024. While we have taken steps to identify alternative sources in other countries beyond Vietnam, the other major furniture exporters like Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia have similarly large proposed reciprocal tariffs leaving the overall industry heavily exposed to the U.S. and that the parties will negotiate a lower rate although the timing of such a deal is difficult to predict. Exports make up a large percentage of Vietnam's GDP and the U.S. accounts for roughly 30 percent of their total exports so Vietnam has significant incentive to negotiate. They have already expressed a strong desire to make a deal with the U.S. and took preemptive actions to cut tariffs on U.S. goods and increase commitments to purchase more U.S. goods and services. While we await clarity on a potential U.S.-Vietnam deal, we have taken several steps to minimize our short-term tariff exposure. Most notably, we have implemented modest tariff surcharges on new orders for some parts of our business effective April 9th although these surcharges do not completely offset the 10 percent tariff on Vietnam imports. Furthermore, we have and will continue to look for cost efficiencies and other savings to partially offset the impact of tariffs. If Vietnam tariffs are implemented at significantly higher rates than the current 10 percent for an extended duration, we will take the necessary steps to realign our purchasing and purchasing forces. While reconfiguring our global supply chain would not be easy or fast and tariffs could have an adverse impact to margins in the short term, I do feel confident that we are prepared to swiftly optimize our network if required. The second risk mentioned is short-term demand volatility. Even prior to the recent tariff announcements, many of our retail partners noted considerably slower traffic which likely reflects the sharp drop in consumer confidence over the past several months. As a result, we've seen a slowdown in incoming orders from retailers since the tariff announcement and even some large order cancellations. While we started the fourth quarter with a healthy backlog of $78.3 million that would normally give us strong confidence in continuing our momentum of -over-year sales growth, the risk of continued muted retail orders and additional order cancellations only grows the longer the uncertainty around tariffs persist. As a result, our forecasted range of growth for the fourth quarter is broader than usual. The third risk and likely the most significant is the midterm outlook for the U.S. economy and consumer spending. As a result of the new tariffs, many economists now expect significantly higher U.S. inflation for the next year along with slower economic growth and even a likelihood of a recession if the higher proposed tariff rates are eventually implemented and sustained for an extended period. While we remain hopeful, the U.S. administration can successfully negotiate with its trading partners to reduce or eliminate reciprocal tariffs and minimize the impact on the U.S. economy. Our outlook for the industry over the next year is moderately pessimistic given the external challenges to consumer spending. As such, we are prepared to navigate multiple demand scenarios and as we've demonstrated over the past few years, we can deliver share gains even in challenging industry conditions. To summarize, we are executing well on what we can control and remain confident that our strategies are working and we remain well positioned to continue gaining share. I'm encouraged by our financial performance and believe that our financial strength will enable us to effectively navigate near-term market choppiness while continuing to smartly invest in key growth and development. I'll be back momentarily to share my closing thoughts. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike who will give you some additional details on the financial performance for the third quarter and the financial outlook

for

the fourth quarter.

The third quarter net sales were $114 million or growth of 6.3 percent compared to net sales of $107.2 million in the prior year quarter. As Derek mentioned, this marks our sixth consecutive quarter of -over-year sales growth and was near the high end of our guidance range of $110 to $115 million. The increase in sales was primarily driven by higher unit volumes and to a lesser extent pricing from ocean freight surcharges. From a profit perspective, gap operating loss was $5.1 million in the third quarter, driven by a $14.1 million non-cash impairment charge related to our facility in Mexicali, Mexico. In 2022, we commenced a 12-year lease for a manufacturing facility in Mexicali, Mexico to support strong demand that was elevated following the pandemic. Subsequently, U.S. furniture demand reverted to pre-pandemic norms and as a result, we pivoted to subleasing the space in the short term while maintaining the option to utilize the facility in longer term. While we had previously secured multiple short-term sublease tenants, the facility is unoccupied and substantial changes in trade relations between the U.S. and Mexico in early 2025 as well as the U.S. and the rest of the world have caused foreign investment and expansion in Mexico to greatly diminish. As a result, we've concluded that the carrying amount of the right use asset associated with the lease is no longer fully recoverable and recorded an asset impairment charge of $14.1 million in the quarter. When excluding the $14.1 million impairment charge as well as the $0.7 million gain from sale of a building formerly part of our sales. The .3% adjusted operating margin exceeded the high end of our guidance range of 6.0 to .0% and is a 210 basis point increase from the prior year quarter. Our adjusted operating margin performance was driven by sales growth leverage, favorable mix of new product with higher margins, ongoing operational efficiency, and discipline spend controls as we navigate dynamic market conditions. From a balance sheet and cash flow perspective, the company generated $12.3 million of operating cash flow in the quarter and ended the quarter with cash on hand of $22.6 million. In the quarter, the company received $0.8 million in proceeds from the sale of a building that was previously part of our Huntingbird, Indiana, distribution center complex. We also invested an additional $1.4 million in capex, primarily for modernization of ERP systems. We ended the quarter with $103.4 million of working capital. Moving to our outlook, as Derek noted, the tariff situation is very dynamic and there is a high level of uncertainty from the potential impact of new trade policies on consumer demand and the furniture industry. We believe we have strategies in place to effectively navigate the current environment, but a significant change in macroeconomic factors could materially impact our outlook. For the fourth quarter, we expect sales between $109 and $116 million, reflecting minus two to positive 5% growth compared to the prior year quarter. We entered Q4 with a strong order backlog of $78.3 million and anticipate that many retailers will pull ahead demand and build inventory to avoid potential tariff increases. However, if consumer demand drops and sell throughout retail slows significantly, we would anticipate softer orders in the back half of the quarter, which will ultimately impact our sales. We expect gross margin between 21.0 and .0% in the fourth quarter. Our gross margin assumes 10% tariffs remain in effect on Vietnam imports for the remainder of the quarter and also assumes that our Mexico imports to the U.S. will remain tariff free under U.S. MCA. Should tariff rates change on either Vietnam or Mexico, it could have a material impact on our gross margin in the quarter. We recently implemented modest surcharges on some of our business to partially offset the cost of tariffs, but anticipate tariffs to have an overall dilutive impact on gross margins. We've worked closely with our supply chain partners to minimize the impact on retail pricing and consumer demand. We expect SG&A costs between $16.5 and $17.0 million, and we will continue to prioritize high ROI investments in new product, innovation, and marketing to accelerate our growth strategy. We project operating margin in the range of 6.0 to .3% for the fourth quarter and expect free cash flow for the quarter in the range of $4 to $7 million. Near-term priorities for cash remain resourcing new innovation, customer experience initiatives, and funding capital expenditures. For the fourth quarter, we expect capital expenditures between $0.5 and $1.0 million, primarily for modernization of our ERP systems and supply chain maintenance. Besides tariffs, the most significant drivers of variability in the fourth quarter guidance range are consumer demand and competitive pricing conditions, which will be shaped by macroeconomic factors. To reiterate, our outlook assumes no major economic impact from near-term U.S. policy changes, including trade and tariffs, which could materially change our business forecast. If we gain better clarity and there is a material change in our outlook, we will update our guidance. As Derek noted, we have multiple strategies that we are working to both strengthen our supply chain agility and resilience and mitigate tariff risks. Now, I'll turn the call back over to Derek to share his perspectives on our outlook.

The external environment is exceptionally dynamic right now, as major influences on the U.S. economy and outlook for consumer spending can change daily. Until there is greater clarity and confidence in the stability of both the outlook for U.S. trade policy and economic growth, we expect business conditions to remain volatile and challenging. As a company, we face similar unpredictability over the past five years, and as a result, we've learned to adapt to and thrive in new situations, albeit trying. As a company, we have two main priorities near-term to ensure we remain competitive and can continue to outperform. First, we will stay hyper-focused on executing our strategies. They are working and enabling us to deliver strong sales growth and financial results, and we won't veer from that formula that has supported our success over the past few years. While we will certainly manage spending prudently to quickly respond to changing consumer demand in this dynamic environment, we will not diminish our commitment to providing an exceptional customer experience and investing in new products, innovation, and marketing, as these are foundational to our strategies and continued success. Second, we will continue to strengthen our supply chain to minimize tariff risks. We have strong relationships throughout our value chain and have confidence that we can work collaboratively with our partners in the short term to address the effect of tariffs while minimizing the impact on consumer prices. In the long term, we remain assured of our ability to reconfigure and optimize our supply chain, if required, due to permanent changes in global trade policies. In summary, FlexDeal is financially strong and performing well. We are navigating a turbulent time for the industry, but we enter this period of rising uncertainty, advantaged with excellent sales momentum, good profitability, and a strong balance sheet in cash generation. While challenging business conditions present risks, we also see great opportunities to strengthen our competitive position and customer value proposition by aggressively investing for long-term growth at a time when we anticipate that other competitors may pull back investments in response to slowing demand. We have confidence that we can thrive in periods of disruption and maintain our focus on positioning the company for sustainable, long-term, profitable growth. With that, we will open the call to your questions. Operator.

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your questions, please press star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Anthony Libesinski with CELOTI and Company. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Derek and good morning, Mike. Certainly nice to see the sales and earnings outperformance in the quarter. I have a few questions here. First, as far as just the quarter, as the March quarter progressed, just wondering if you guys saw any notable changes month to month terms of your order patterns or delivered sales, just wanted to get a better sense as to how the cadence of the quarter was.

Hey, Anthony. It's Derek. I'll start. In terms of March, typically from a seasonality perspective, March is a bit light from an order perspective relative to the two months in the quarter. So what's typical is we did see orders slow down in March, but compared to prior year, the year of year growth was still pretty consistent with the other periods in the quarter. What I will emphasize though, and I mentioned this in my earlier comments, following the April 2nd announcement of tariffs, we have seen a significant slowdown in orders since that period. I think retailers for the most part are in wait and see mode. They're trying to understand where the trade discussions are going to go, how it's going to impact consumers. And so we saw some of this behavior during the pandemic. I'm hoping that this week at High Point Market we'll get better clarity from retailers on certainly how they're feeling, what their intentions are. We'll be looking to sift out what retailers want to stay on the offense and which ones are going to play a little bit more defensive posture in this period. But there are certainly, nothing remarkable in March, but certainly a step function change here in April following the tariff announcements.

Understood. And Derek, you mentioned in your prepared remarks how you're focused on new products, which you talked about this previously, but also just having an advantage customer experience. So with that in mind, do you guys have a goal as far as how much of your want to derive from new products? Has that changed given the tariff announcements that we've heard?

No, I think as I've noted in the past, Anthony, it's a big part of our overall success strategy. If you look at our sales for both the quarter as well as year to date, I mean, over half of our sales currently are from new products that have been launched in the last couple of years. So it's a huge driver of our continued kind of growth. And what I'll emphasize is that as we think about navigating through this period of uncertainty, and you know this, Anthony, because you know us, I mean, we're going to be very prudent in terms of where we add structural costs, how we manage kind of spending. What we will not pull back, though, is our commitment to driving new product introductions, innovation, spending on marketing, because it is so core to our overall strategy. So to your question is, yeah, we're going to continue to be very aggressive around bringing new product and innovation to the market, you know, regardless of the external environment.

That's encouraging to hear. And then, you know, just thinking about tariffs. So you guys have put in some tariff surcharges. We're just wondering if you could perhaps, you know, quantify what's embedded in your guidance. And just curious to know if you've seen any of your notable competitors respond with their own tariff surcharges or, you know, just curious as to what you're seeing from the competition.

Yeah, Anthony, this is Mike. Yeah, we've, we have seen competitors implement surcharges, and obviously they vary based on, you know, their supply chains, etc. Within our guidance, you know, it assumes that the current 10 percent Vietnam tariff we have in place remains intact. We've implemented a modest surcharge on some of our dealer direct, on some of our dealer direct product categories where customers are, you know, importing containers. We've ultimately held our pricing on our made to order product that we manufacture in Mexico as well as pricing on our product that we fulfill out of our warehouses. We, you know, we typically carry four to, you know, or six to probably 10 or 12 weeks of safety stock. So in the quarter, we don't expect that there will be a substantial impact in terms of the tariffs around our overall profitability. There will be, you know, a minor amount of dilution to our operating, our operating margins, but we would expect if those tariffs remain intact and or if they change, there would be a larger impact, you know, into the Q1 timeframe.

Gotcha. And then just thinking about product sourcing, so obviously as you called out, you know, Mexico and Vietnam are the vast majority of where you source your products from. In the past, you guys have talked about, you know, other countries kind of all over. So are you, it sounds like you are kind of speeding up that process a bit, I guess, in terms of looking at other potential sources. If you could maybe, you know, kind of expand on that and kind of, and then, you know, if you were to do more sourcing out of other countries, do you think your gross margins could be comparable to what you've been posting here lately or, you know, how should we think about that?

Yeah, it's, um, the situation is fairly dynamic, as you can appreciate, Anthony. So what we have done and what we'll continue to do is look for as many alternative sources as possible. So what we've already lined up is, you know, potential suppliers in other Southeast Asian countries. So depending on ultimately where trade negotiations go country by country, certainly we'll have some agility to reshape our portfolio based upon a kind of tariff optimized mix. We've more aggressively started to seek out potential suppliers in other parts of the world, granted that aren't as maybe sophisticated in terms of furniture supply chain and don't have the infrastructure. But again, I think we are taking the appropriate steps to make sure, again, we have options. And as soon as we have more clarity ultimately on where the trade policy and tariff discussions go, I think we can move fairly quickly to optimize our supply chain given ultimately where things land.

Got it. And I think in

terms of your discussion around kind of margins, you know, depending on the magnitude ultimately of where tariffs land, it will determine the margin impact. As Mike kind of suggested, you know, near term they're going to be slightly dilutive. Certainly if tariffs end up being much larger than 10 percent, they'll be even more dilutive. What we anticipate attempting to do though is working with our value chain partners and that's retailers, that's suppliers to collectively figure out how we minimize the tariff impact consumers in this kind of economic environment. I think, you know, consumer spending is going to be challenged and so it's in our mutual best interest to figure out how we minimize, you know, passing certainly any significant pricing on the consumer. So that would be our approach.

Got you. All right. Well, you know, it does sound like you guys certainly are prepared and could have some market share gains given all the disruption. So I think that's all I had here. Best of luck to you guys and I look forward to seeing you at High Point.

Sounds

good. Thanks, Anthony. Thanks, Anthony.

Thank you. Again, if you have a question, please press star then one to ask a question. Okay. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Derek Schmidt for any closing remarks.

In closing, I want to thank all of our Flex Steel employees for their hard work and dedication in driving the company's strong performance during the third quarter. I'm also thankful to all of you for participating on today's call. Please contact us if you have any additional questions and we look forward to updating you on our next call. Thank you.

Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.