Leslie's, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings conference call for Lesley's. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, management will conduct a question and answer session. If you require any operator assistance during the conference call, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay later today on the company's website. I will now turn the call over to Matt Skelly, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you, and good afternoon. I would like to remind everyone that comments made today may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from management's current expectations. These statements speak as of today and will not be updated in the future if circumstances change. Please review the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in the company's earnings press release and recent filings with the SEC. During the call today, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures can be found in the company's earnings press release, which was furnished to the SEC today and posted to the investor relations section of Lesley's website at ir.lesleyspool.com. For this quarter, we have opted not to post an earnings presentation as we continue to refine our materials under our new chief executive officer. On the call today are Jason McDonald, Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Bowman, Chief Financial Officer. With that, I will turn the call over to Jason.

Thanks, Matt. And thank you all for joining us this afternoon. I'd like to take this opportunity to share how appreciative I am to serve Lesley's customers, team members, and shareholders as our new CEO. I'm not only a longtime admirer of the 60-year legacy of the Lesley's brand, but I'm also a longtime customer. And I'd like to thank the Lesley's frontline team, our corporate team members, and our board of directors for the warm welcome I've received. Also, to our shareholders, I want to make it clear that shareholder value creation is top of mind as I enter the role. I believe Lesley's has a strong set of near-term and long-term opportunities. And the team and I are very motivated to build on the legacy of Lesley's and ensure that we perform while we transform. Understanding the needs of our customers and our employees who serve them is critically important to me, and I plan on putting the customer at the center of everything we do. Since joining the Lesley's team in September, I've had the pleasure of visiting over 40 stores, multiple distribution centers, and regional commercial service centers across more than half a dozen states, including California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, and North Carolina. While I'm less than 80 days in my role, I've captured a lot of learnings in that short period of time. And while spending time in the market, I've been really pleased to witness the pride and expertise with which our team members care for the customer. When I step back and put my customer hat on, one thing really resonates with me. We do a lot more than just sell pool supplies. At Lesley's, our purpose is to enable joy through customized pool care solutions. And when you're in our stores, you can see and feel the passion of our purpose with our frontline team members. They take pride in serving customers. And I've seen this exemplified with Clara in Texas, Dawn in Florida, and Scott in Arizona. I saw this firsthand when a customer came into our store. and called our general manager by their first name. That relationship mindset, whether it's assisting a residential or, as I call it, a DIY customer with our best-in-class AccuBlue water testing technology, helping our local pros with liquid chlorine so they can get on their way, or helping our retail customers with an equipment repair, our employees' commitment to serve is unwavering. Lesley's represents an empowered team that provides trusted care for DIY and pro customers with customized pool and spa care solutions. I have also had the opportunity to connect with many of our vendor partners, and each conversation has deepened my appreciation for this industry. The pool industry has experienced one of the most dynamic five-year periods in its history, which of course Leslie's has experienced as well. We believe our industry has been and will remain advantaged for the long term. The installed base of pools and spas at over 14 million bodies of water, with a total addressable market of approximately $15 billion, typically grows 1% to 2% every year. And those pools need to be maintained. As we turn the page to the next chapter of Lesley's history, one observation has been abundantly clear. Sharpen our focus on the fundamentals of retailing. Presents a compelling opportunity. And that's just what we plan to do. So what does that mean? It's about getting back to basics. Blocking and tackling. Retail 101. At Lesley's, we remain the only national large-scale omni-channel player in aftermarket pool and spa care that serves both DIY and pro customers. In addition, we are closest to the pools. In fact, our 1,000-plus store network is within 20 miles of 80% of the pools in the United States. In the Sun Belt, we're even closer, with almost 88% of our pools within 10 miles of a Leslie store. Our footprint remains a major competitive advantage that we plan to leverage to deliver more value to our DIY and pro customers through our omnichannel approach. In addition to our proximity advantage, Lesley's has a well-known pool expertise and capabilities that are key to personalized customer care. Our brand strength and MPS scores are strong, driven by our ability to serve the DIY and pro customer quickly and efficiently. So, we believe our industry and our company remains advantaged. The next logical question is, how do we leverage those advantages even better going forward? What you can expect from Lesley's is a clear focus on fundamentals and that we plan to leverage our competitive advantages to drive long-term profitable growth. It starts with three strategic themes, customer centricity, convenience, and asset utilization. Each theme has a set of related priorities and defined initiatives intended to deliver sustainable, profitable growth and fuel long-term shareholder value. I will speak to these three themes today and plan to expand on them each quarter in fiscal 2025. The first strategic theme is customer centricity. As I noted, we are putting the customer at the center of everything we do. Since 1963, the Lesley's brand has been synonymous with trust and expert care. While our marketing research still indicates these words are associated with our brand, I believe we can take these to the next level in the future. Continuing to elevate our customer care through pool expertise for the DIYer and the pro will make it even more rewarding to shop with us. As we look to the future, we can elevate this experience with a more personalized approach. The customers who choose to take care of their pool know the value of Leslie's. In fact, over eight out of 10 DIY customers are members of our loyalty program. That is extremely powerful. We know a lot about them and their pool, including location, size of their pool, whether it is a salt or chlorine pool, equipment preferences, the health of their pool following a water test, and even their last purchase of an inflatable for their family. This wealth of information allows us to know our customer more deeply, offer more personalized solutions, and inform us on what winning in service can be. Having had experience in loyalty programs, I believe that we have an ability to elevate our loyalty program even further for both the retail customer and the pro. Our primary goals will be to increase the awareness of the program to attract new loyalty members and enhance its value proposition to the loyalty member and for Leslie's. Lastly, in this customer centricity theme, I believe we can build traffic by increasing awareness around our best in class water testing, our differentiated expertise localized for the customer's neighborhood, our product availability, and by customized services leveraging our omnichannel approach. Our second strategic theme is convenience. We believe this theme is core to us winning within the DIY and pro customer. Being closest to the pools with a best-in-class footprint is a key competitive advantage to helping customers with their pool needs. Whether it's a part a pro needs to make their customer's equipment work, specialty chemicals for a DIYer to balance their pool to be clean, safe, and beautiful, or that special pool toy to brighten a child's day. We want to be able to satisfy any pool need quickly. Convenience is such an important aspect of being a trusted total solution provider. Time to solve a customer's problem often determines who wins the sale and who is key to delivering on our customers' expectations. a major element of enabling this through inventory and store assortment. With a solution orientation, we're reframing availability with a customer-centric and convenience approach in terms of minutes, hours, and days. In our portfolio, some products have customer availability expectation of minutes. They have a need, and time is of the essence. Included as part of that thinking is our new inventory segmentation I like to call Never Outs. For these items, we measure in minutes, and we have to have the best in-stock performance, and we can never be out. To complement to this line of thinking, we are evolving Leslie's focus towards localized assortment. There are regional and local differences in the pool market, and we need to have the right inventory in the right place at the right time. It's about being able to get to the place of precision inventory in our local markets. This precision inventory approach will better leverage our existing advantage footprint. It can also speed up reverse logistics, lower inventory adjustment expense, and reduce shrink. To reiterate, This is about convenience as a competitive advantage, and we expect improving inventory management will help accelerate our time to serve. Our third and final strategic theme is asset utilization. The areas of focus in improving asset utilization include our physical assets, our technology and data assets, and our human capital. First, on improving our physical asset utilization, I've already discussed our best in class footprint, including our 1,000 plus stores. But our physical assets also include our strategic network of distribution centers and commercial service centers. In fiscal 2025, we expect to add approximately three stores to our footprint. That said, the majority of our attention will be getting more out of our combination of assets to drive higher organic sales. Expanding average sales per store will drive comp growth, feeling positive leverage through the P&L. Internally, the company has made significant investments over the past couple of years to enhance our technical capabilities, such as adding the Blue Yonder tool. And I believe we can do more to maximize the value that these strategic investments can bring to our processes and our operations. We will plan to also prioritize incremental investments that enhance our ability to serve the customer as we pursue our strategic objectives for the coming year. Finally, in the area of human capital, we believe we can use our national scale and local community presence to make a stronger, positive impact in the communities we serve. As the industry's market leader, Lesley's workforce is dedicated to making human capital a positive differentiator through the expertise we provide our pool and spa customers and the care they entrust in us to keep their pool clean, safe, and beautiful. These three strategic themes, customer centricity, convenience, and asset utilization will be supported by empowering our teams to drive a continuous improvement culture. At Leslie's, we will focus on the customer and the fundamentals and prioritize what helps achieve our objectives and deprioritize what does not. Turning to our results for the fourth quarter and for fiscal 2024, sales for the fiscal fourth quarter were $398 million, down 8%, which was in line with our revised guidance from July. Sales for fiscal 2024 were $1.33 billion, down 8%, also in line with our expectations. Adjusted earnings per share were two cents for the fourth quarter and a loss of one cent for the year. Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter was 43 million and was 109 million for the full year. Consistent with our primary capital allocation priority of reducing debt, we expect to pay down approximately 25 million of our debt balance during the current quarter. Scott will detail further our financial performance for the fourth quarter and full year during his prepared remarks. During the first seven weeks of the fiscal year, trends were in line with our expectations. We had some positive demand activity from post-storm cleanup in Florida and throughout the southeast. However, as I mentioned earlier, the macro environment continues to be dynamic. And we're in the process of orienting our business around our three key strategic themes and related initiatives. Given these factors, at this time, we're only providing financial guidance for the first quarter of 2025, which includes top line sales expected in a range of down 3% to up 1% year over year. We continue to form our thoughts on the year ahead and expect to update the market with some of that thinking on our next earnings call. I'll now turn it over to Scott to give his remarks.

Scott? Thank you, Jason, and good afternoon, everyone. I would like to remind everyone that my comments on our quarterly and annual performance are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise indicated. On the top line, we finished the fiscal fourth quarter and year in line with our revised guidance we communicated in July. Our profitability was mainly impacted by items that we expect to be one time in nature, which I will address in my prepared remarks. I will also provide commentary on how we see the start to the year, including our first quarter fiscal 2025 guidance. But first, I'll take you through our fourth quarter and annual performance for fiscal 2024. For the fiscal fourth quarter, we reported total sales of $398 million, a decrease of 8%, driven primarily by continued softness in traffic and larger ticket and discretionary products. Comparable sales decreased 8.3%, and non-comparable sales contributed $1.5 million in the quarter. With respect to sales trends by consumer group, residential pool declined 10%, pro pool declined 1%, and residential hot tub declined 5%. We were encouraged to see relative strength in our pro pool consumer group, which outperformed with a low single digit sales decline through the second half of the fiscal year, which is our peak pool season. That compares to a total company sales decline of just over 7% during the same period. This consumer group has proven to be resilient during a very dynamic season, and we see more opportunity for this group going forward. Gross profit was $143 million compared to $160 million in the same period last year, and gross margin rate decreased 105 basis points to 36%. The decline in rate was largely due to 77 basis points of deleverage on occupancy expense and, to a lesser extent, deleverage on DC costs. Additionally, we had a one-time item of approximately $5 million in the quarter related to rebates and warranties on a vendor contract. This contract has since been revised to eliminate this issue for 2025 and going forward. Excluding this one-time item, gross margin would have been 37.3%, an increase of 20 basis points versus the prior year. SG&A was 117 million for the quarter, a decline of 4% or 5 million, and represented 29% of sales. We continue to make solid progress on our cost management initiatives, which we expect to help fuel our operating leverage when we return to positive sales growth. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $43 million compared to $59 million in the same period last year and was primarily impacted by softer sales and a one-time gross margin item partially offset by lower SG&A expense. Interest expense was $17 million in the quarter, approximately flat compared to the same period last year. Adjusted net income was $4 million compared to $26 million in the same period last year, and adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.02 compared to $0.14 in the same period last year. Diluted weighted average shares outstanding were $185 million. Now turning to our fiscal full-year results. For fiscal 2024, total sales were $1.33 billion, a decrease of 8% compared to the prior year, with comparable sales down 8.8%. Non-comparable sales totaled $8 million for the year. As mentioned earlier, our total sales were in line with our revised guidance communicated in our July release. With respect to trends by consumer group, sales for residential pool declined 9%, pro pool declined 4%, and residential hot tub declined 9%. While we experienced another year of softness in our core residential category, we were encouraged by sequential improvement in our pro pool and hot tub consumer groups. We expect further improvement across our consumer groups in fiscal 2025 as industry conditions continue to normalize, though as Jason noted, the macroeconomic environment remains dynamic. Gross profit was $477 million compared to $548 million in 2023, and gross margin rate decreased 193 basis points to 35.9%. The year-over-year decline was primarily due to headwinds from the June 2023 chemical price actions the expensing of previously capitalized DC costs, and deleverage on occupancy costs. These were partially offset by favorability and inventory adjustments and DC costs. Full-year SG&A was $420 million, down $26 million from a year ago, and represented 31.6% of sales. We continue to look for further opportunities to optimize our cost structure as we focus on increasing asset utilization across the company. Fiscal 2024 adjusted EBITDA was $109 million compared to $168 million in the prior year, and adjusted net income was a loss of $1 million compared to income of $51 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was impacted primarily by lower sales, partially offset by favorability and SG&A expense. Interest expense was $70 million for fiscal 2024, an increase of $5 million compared to the prior year, which was primarily due to higher interest rates. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was a loss of one cent in fiscal 2024 compared to income of 28 cents in the same period last year. Diluted weighted average shares outstanding were $185 million. Related to income tax expense, we established a valuation allowance of approximately $11 million in the quarter in order to provide an offset to our deferred tax assets. This balance is subject to change as the realization of future deferred tax assets changes over time. Moving to the balance sheet, we ended fiscal 2024 with cash and cash equivalents of 109 million compared to 55 million in fiscal 2023. The increase was primarily due to significant efforts by the team to reduce inventory through improved analytics and operational efficiencies. Inventory ended the year at 234 million, a decrease of 78 million or 25% compared to the prior year. even as our in-stock position, service metrics, and net promoter scores all remained very strong. At the end of fiscal 2024, we had $784 million outstanding on our secured term loan and no amounts outstanding on our revolving credit facility. This compares to $790 million on our term loan and a zero balance on our revolver at the end of fiscal 2023. Overall, our debt levels were $6 million lower than a year ago, and our leverage ratio was 6.2 times. The effective interest rate on our Term 1 was 8.1% for fiscal 2024 compared to 8.2% in the prior year. With that, I'd like to turn to our first quarter of fiscal 2025 outlook. Considering our recent CEO transition, we are providing our outlook for only the first quarter of fiscal 2025 at this time. Our first quarter outlook reflects expectations for continued softness in larger ticket and discretionary categories in a balanced view of year-to-date company performance in the current macroeconomic environment. As Jason outlined earlier, we believe we have a great opportunity to improve how we serve the customer, leveraging our themes of customer centricity, convenience, and asset utilization. We expect these strategic themes and resulting initiatives to help drive sales and market share growth and to boost incremental efficiencies in working capital and capital spending. All combined, we are working to maximize free cash flow generation to serve our number one capital allocation priority, the reduction of debt and corresponding leverage levels. While we won't see these initiatives contribute meaningfully to our first quarter results, we expect them to begin contributing to our performance later in fiscal 2025. For the first quarter of fiscal 2025, we expect the following. Sales of $169 million to $176 million. adjusted EBITDA of negative 29 million to negative 27 million, adjusted net loss of 39 million to 37 million, adjusted diluted EPS of a loss of 21 to 20 cents, and target debt pay down of 25 million in the quarter. After the first seven weeks of the year, we are trending broadly in line with our expectations and slightly above when accounting for hurricane-related demand incurred during this time period. We are seeing strong results in our pro and e-commerce channels, with other channels showing sequential improvement from the fourth quarter. Although we are very early in the fiscal year, these are encouraging signs as we continue to position ourselves to win pool season in 2025 and to generate long-term sustainable growth. I would like to remind everyone that the first two quarters of our fiscal year are historically smaller in volume and thus have an inherently higher degree of operating leverage embedded within them. From a balance sheet perspective, we continue to improve our cash position in order to enhance liquidity and pay down debt. With $109 million in cash to start the fiscal year, we believe we have the ability to pay down debt and execute on our strategic priorities. We expect the magnitude and timing of future debt reduction to be determined by general business trends, the need to build inventory in the first half of the year, and the amount of excess cash generated in the back half of the year during pool season. Moving to capital allocation, we plan to pay down debt by $25 million in the current quarter with further guidance on pay down to be communicated during our February call. As a result, we expect to limit new store openings and M&A activity to focus on our debt pay down priority. I will now turn it back over to Jason for closing remarks.

As we move forward in fiscal 2025, I believe there is strong value creation potential for Leslie's and all of our stakeholders. We believe we have what every successful retailer needs to win with the customer. We believe Lesley's is in an advantage industry, has key competitive advantages, differentiated omni-channel solutions, and a great team to serve our DIY and pro customers. Our three strategic themes of customer centricity, convenience, and asset utilization will drive our key initiatives and be fueled by the pride of our employees. We believe that their pursuit of excellence in execution provides a value proposition that our customers are going to embrace. As we let the Leslie's pride shine through, we are going to ensure we have a clear focus on the fundamentals. Over the coming weeks and months, I look forward to continuing my conversations with our stakeholders to frame our opportunity set, solicit their valuable feedback, and then go and win with our team. I will now turn it back over to the operator for Q&A. Please proceed.

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys.

One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is from Kate McShane with Goldman Sachs.

Please proceed with your question.

Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking our question. Jason, I wanted to ask a little bit more about the strategic focus for Lesleys. Just which one of those strategic themes do you think will make the largest impact in the near to medium term?

Thanks, Kate. Thanks for the question. Firstly, when I look at the strategic themes, for me, what I love about those themes is that they are strategic themes that are developed by the team members. And it's a result of listening and learning through the early days that I've been CEO here at Leslie's and helps shape our go-forward plan. The other piece is it focuses on the comp sales side of the growth and also making sure that we have focus on driving an improved efficiency to drive leverage through the P&L. So on your question specifically around impact, having that as a backdrop, asset utilization is the one area and the one theme that I think does the best job of that because it helps us focus on optimization, but it also helps in regards to how we improve same-store sales. So early on and when looking at Leslie's prior to starting and then often when I came in and spending time looking at the stores and DCs, I identify that this is an area with the team that we should have as a critical focus. So as I broke that out between physical assets, technology and data assets, and then obviously people and human capital, I think there's an opportunity here for Leslie's. Our proximity of assets really demonstrates that we are structurally advantaged at Leslie's. And with that, with combination with our supply chain supply chain in our DCs as well as our customer service centers and where our proximity of stores are is one thing that we can really leverage and I think that that's an area of focus that I want to make sure we as a company have to make sure that we're delivering on customer needs going forward. Another piece of the physical assets is inventory. You know I'm pleased with how the team has reduced inventory in 24 and That said, I think from visiting stores, et cetera, and DCs, I think there's also an opportunity to drive some optimization. Optimization meaning further reduction over time, but also this concept of precision inventory, which I mentioned in my opening remarks. The precision inventory for us is about how do we make sure we have the right product at the right place at the right time. And not every part of the country is equal in terms of our assortment that needs to be there. On the tech side, we have a tool that's going to help us with that. We have an inventory management tool that enables us to really bring precision there and really drive the precision around the depth and the breadth of the inventory that we have. So in that combination, I think we have opportunities both in breadth but then also depth. And I want to make sure we have the right depth in things, as I mentioned, around never outs, the most important SKUs for our company. Another piece on the tech side for asset utilization is one item around first-party data. We have a lot of information regarding our customers and how they know a lot about their pool and how they operate and how their day-to-day operations of their pool are and how we can best serve them. I think it's an opportunity for us to even get more personalized. And we have that personalized ability through our water test where people come in and get their water tested. And we can provide that level of technology and trust for them. So I feel great about that. I got to see this firsthand in California. And when I was standing there, I saw a customer come in, and the GM leaned over to me and said, this lady comes in every week. And I said, really, every week? He said, yes, she just wants to see what her score was. So she was excited when she got over an 80% on her score. And I asked her, I said, so you come in every week? She goes, yes. I just love the ladies here. So that showed me a real key area around the other part of leveraging our assets, which is literally our human capital. And our people in the front line are great. And they have a really opportunity to share their expertise and build confidence. So in a nutshell, I think it's asset utilization to answer your question. And I firmly believe it's the balance of assets really a clear focus here for comp sales growth and then driving efficiency to drive leverage through the P&L. And then, as Scott mentioned, continuously pay down the debt.

Thank you. And I just wonder if I could follow up with a second question. Just wondered if you could talk a little bit more as to why you're seeing the relative strength in the pro business versus the rest of the business and what you think is driving that?

Yeah, I'll take that one, Kate. Thanks for the question. You know, there's a couple good things going on in the pro business. You know, under Dave Casper's leadership, he's really engaged the team, you know, to driving sales and knowing what's important to the pro, right? And so we've done, you know, several, you know, flash sales that we've done in the past, and we've kind of reinvigorated those and have seen really good response. And so it's It's really more targeted, you know, kind of promotional activity around more of kind of an event or flash sale has played out well. We continue to add more pro partners. You know, so we have 4,400 pro partners today. It's about 14% higher than last year. And so, you know, those pro partners spend in excess of $10,000 a year at Leslie's. So another positive. And then just, you know, really dialing into pricing, you know, and all of the key skews to understand where the market is and where we need our pricing to be the most competitive. And so that's paid big dividends because, as you probably know, the pros are very price sensitive. They want to shop at Leslie's, but we have to be competitively priced. And so that's another area where I think we're doing better and getting more refined data, and it's paying off with our pros.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley.

Please proceed with your question.

Hi, thank you so much for taking our question. I guess the first question is just on comps of negative 8.3 for the quarter. Just curious if you can break this out between ticket and traffic. Was this driven by one more so over the other? Thank you.

It was driven more by traffic, so very similar to what we've seen in recent quarters. You know, traffic you know, has been, you know, the main driver, you know, of our comps. And, you know, so as Jason talks about, you know, some of the initiatives, it's really laser focused on, you know, driving that top line and really leveraging our competitive advantages, you know, in our stores and in other channels. And so that's one of our main focuses right now to drive traffic.

Okay, great. That's helpful. And I guess our follow-up is just on the unit growth. So you – Current focus is to, you know, focus on the current assets you have. And you talked about opening three stores for fiscal 25. Can you talk about how this maybe changes your long-term unit growth outlook of the 2% to 3%? Is that still something we can get to in the medium term? Thank you.

I think so. I think at some point. Our near-term priority is to pay down debt. And, you know, so we generated a lot of cash last year and ended the year with about $108 million on the balance sheet. puts us in a good position, you know, to start executing that pay down on debt. And that will remain our key priority for the near term from a capital allocation standpoint. You know, as we think about future growth, you know, whether it be a buy or build situation, there's still plenty of opportunities out there. And so when we get to a point where we're comfortable with, you know, adequate pay down of debt, you know, we will start, you know, engaging on new store builds in a bigger way and more M&A activity. But that being said, the other reason is just we want to focus on the core, right? We want to really focus in on our initiatives, improve the core profitability and top line, and then after we get some traction with that, we'll be in a better position to reengage on growth.

And just to build on that, I think the biggest piece of us from a focus standpoint on growth and I'm glad you asked that question, is because it is a crystal clear area of focus for us in terms of baseline growth. And really it has to do with going deep with the customer. We believe that we have some really strong competitive advantages in the marketplace around proximity, obviously the quality of the product portfolio, the expertise that we have in our stores, the water testing technology that we have, an omnichannel approach that we need to continue to work to bring more awareness to. And that can help us drive some traffic. In addition to that, when we are driving that level of awareness and people are visiting Leslie's is to then continue to bolster our loyalty program. We have a strong level of personalized data today that gives us information about our customer. But I think we have the opportunity to even go further with that Both of those are going to allow us to build plans to drive long-term sustainable growth at Lesley's.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Ryan Merkle with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Wanted to start off on gross margins, which have been sort of a disappointment and were again this quarter. So what are some of the strategies you're thinking about to improve gross margins? And are you thinking you need to have more cost takeout from here, or is your focus on more, you know, improving the top line?

Yeah, good question, Ryan. You know, I think, well, first off, I think it's more top line focus, okay? And so this past quarter we had, you know, a little bit higher, you know, inventory and scrap, you know, entries. you know, some of that was, you know, kind of weighted towards the back half of the year. And so we'll always have that, you know, probably a little bit of room to reduce that. But by and large, I mean, I think we control our DC expenses pretty well. And it's all about driving that top line so we can get leverage, right? So our deleverage on occupancy alone was, you know, almost 80 basis points, you know, last quarter. We had, you know, more deleverage on DC costs as well. And so as we look at it, we'll continue to refine kind of the DC operations and, you know, inventory adjustments and so forth. So some marginal improvements there to be had, but it's really about driving top line so we can leverage those fixed costs. And so it really comes back to, you know, what Jason's talking about and, you know, kind of those key initiatives that we see that we can start to engage on, you know, to drive the top line in pro and other categories. Okay.

Okay. That's helpful. And then a question on inventory. Do you feel like you're right-sized here, or do you have to cut more? I think you mentioned the localized assortment and the precision inventory, so just how do we balance all those things?

Yeah, good question. As we look at it, there's still some room to take out inventory, not nearly as much as we saw this past year. But as Jason has walked a lot of stores and distribution centers and and commercial centers, there's a lot of inventory out there that is kind of stuck. And so from an allocation standpoint, there's a pretty nice opportunity to consolidate some of that inventory, get it back to our warehouses, and really just tighten up our allocation strategy, especially on the high ticket items. So that initiative will help us free up dollars to put more dollars into those specific items, those never outs that are so important you know, to our customers and our pros.

I think the big word I used in discussing this with the team and as we're proceeding is this word, like as you mentioned, precision. And it is about making, you know, we have the benefit of having stores so close to all the pools across America that we can build an efficient assortment because we can be very tailored to the pools in those neighborhoods. And I think that that's a significant opportunity for us. And then at the same time, we leverage some of the technology we've had and we have and further utilize it even better to then really manage the breadth and the depth of what we're talking about from an inventory standpoint so we can do the level of utilization and almost any efficiency that we need for inventory, which is what Scott mentioned.

All right.

Thanks. Pass it on.

Thank you. Our next question is from Jonathan Matuszewski with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Great. Good afternoon. Hi, Jason. Hi, Scott. Thanks for taking my question. The first one was just on 2025, you know, without formal guidance for the year. Maybe you could just share some high-level qualitative views in terms of some of the underlying trends that you expect, maybe just any nuances in terms of how you're thinking about chemical demand versus equipment or AOV versus traffic. I know this past year it was a big theme between discretionary versus non-discretionary. So any high-level views would be helpful. Thanks.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, so a lot there. I think for us, from an equipment standpoint, still down 15% or so. We are seeing some bright spots in that category. And some of the promotions that we've ran targeting equipment, free installs and things like that, had resonated quite well. And so I think there's some learnings that we've taken from the last quarter that we can further deploy this year to try to boost that business. But You know, at the end of the day, a lot of this is going to come down to, you know, consumer behavior and, you know, just how willing they are to spend, you know, those dollars on the more discretionary items. That being said, we have made some improvements in our hot tub business. You know, so we were down five for the quarter, down nine for the year. And, you know, that is really a function of the team really engaging, you know, more with the leads that we generate and having better tools, you know, to execute against those leads. And then being more creative, you know, having, you know, more hot tub events at Costco and other areas has really paid, you know, big dividends for us. And so part of it is on us, you know, just to really spur that demand, you know, with those kind of targeted events and promos. And part of it is, you know, external. But, you know, the way that we think about it is, how can we improve what we do to make sure that our pricing is right, make sure the awareness is there, make sure the marketing is targeted to draw those customers in, and then just leverage our competitive advantages. We have so many advantages. We think there's still more to do there to take full advantage.

That's really helpful. Thank you. And then just my follow-up question was on e-commerce. I think it's annualizing around or in excess of 20% of total sales. So just wanted to understand the opportunity there. I think historically, Leslie's has been a large chunk of Amazon's pool and spa care business. So where does that business stand today and is there incremental growth there? Thanks.

Yeah, you know, so it's kind of two sides of the business, really. You know, our marketplace business and, you know, somewhat our in the swim business is, you know, much more, you know, kind of price sensitive and especially Amazon, you know, to get that buy box, you got to have your pricing sharp. And so that's a piece of it, you know, that we continue, you know, to get better with. And the other part is just making sure the availability is there. And, you know, that prime, you know, we're hitting all the targets to make sure that we're on prime. So it's really just making sure, you know, we have the right products there and we're competitively priced and we make adjustments, you know, almost on a daily basis. For the Leslie proprietary site, a little bit different story. I mean, Leslie's proprietary site was actually positive in the quarter. And, you know, certainly there's some synergies there, you know, and tie-ins, you know, to our store with that site. You know, we can offer, you know, promos on equipment, offer free installs, you know, on that site, and it gives us a big advantage. And so there's some threads there that we're going to continue to work on that can leverage, you know, that site probably more than the other two.

Just to build on that, what you're sensing here is that the opportunity for us is really about taking an omni-channel approach. going forward as well and sort of looking at the digital side, which is not only the e-commerce site, but is also the effectiveness of our mobile app. How do we connect both the digital way of doing business with our brick and mortar and finding the best ways to serve our customers by making sure that we meet them where they are. And that's one of the pieces that we're very focused on is how do we leverage some of the successes that we've had around e-commerce, as Scott just mentioned, and some of those, but do so in an integrated way to best serve the customer's needs. And it's really about us spending a lot of time going deep on each of the customer journeys, candidly for both DIY and for pro, and meeting them and providing them with the solutions that they want going forward.

Thanks for that. That's a lot. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Stephen Forbes with Guggenheim Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Good evening. This is Rene Maranon for Steve Forbes. Jason, Scott, can you just expand on the $5 million contractual gross margin headwind? I guess, was it volume related? And then as you think about your sourcing agreements across all product categories, are there any other risks we should be aware of as we reframe the out-year gross margin profile?

Yeah, first off, we don't really see any additional risks. So as far as kind of the vendor contract language, what happened there is late in the year, we renegotiated one of our supplier contracts. And what it involved was taking on some responsibility for warranties in exchange for a higher volume-based rebate. And so... In doing that, we had a fixed rebate that we had had over the years that was actually taken out of that contract as well. And so it was kind of a total recast of that agreement. What we saw was that the warranty costs were escalating and much higher than what we thought they would be. And so we quickly renegotiated with that vendor and talked through you know, a scenario that could work for both of us and ultimately came up to an agreement that no longer had us liable for those warranties as of the first day of this fiscal year. Okay, and so I think it was an anomaly where, you know, we saw those escalating warranty costs. We reacted with the vendor pretty quickly, got a new contract in place, and so that won't be an issue going forward.

Got it. And then as a follow-up, can you break down or provide any additional color on the one QCROS margin pressures as implied by the guidance into various factors?

Yeah, sure. First off, based on the old contract with that supplier I just talked about, we did have some fixed rebates that hit in the first quarter. And that will cause about 75 basis points of pressure there. Without that, our product margin will actually be slightly favorable, which is a function of some lower cost. We also will see a little bit higher cost in some DC cost and some inventory adjustments. That's really a function of doing things like cycle counts on a more regular basis instead of waiting until a physical inventory. We've done that in the past, but based on some of the adjustments we saw in fourth quarter, tells us that we need to do more cycle counts on a regular basis and kind of spread out the cost of those inventory adjustments and keep track of it. And other than that, the main drag is occupancy. So occupancy will be about 100 basis points of drag in the quarter.

Got it. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question is from David Bellinger with Mizuho Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. Thanks for the time here. I appreciate all the prepared remarks from Jason. Our question, just on some of the internal initiatives you guys laid out and maybe some of the retail fundamentals maybe not where they should be at this point, could you talk about any potential reinvestment that's needed? I know you talked about building awareness. Is Is there a certain level of, you know, dollars that have to go back in to get awareness where it should be and get Leslie's back to being top of the mind for the consumer? And then anything about wages, too. Should we expect some kind of increase in wages to get that, you know, that asset leverage out of the store base that you're talking about?

Yeah, thanks for the question. I think, you know, firstly, we're at the early stages of the development. The team is going through You know, as I mentioned, the collaboratively around the focus of the clear priorities around those three initiatives, and then they're building the plan around the specifics around those initiatives. And I'll be able to discuss that more from quarter to quarter as we go throughout the year, and I'll make sure to do that. Maybe to answer the second part of your question regarding maybe just investments in the spirit of planning, delivering and driving traffic. For me, it's not determined yet in terms of additional funding that's required. I sort of look at two things when thinking about driving critical traffic for Leslie's going forward. You know, the first is I want to make sure that we look at, I guess, maybe the art and the science of that being an answer. The art being what's the key messaging and the communication that we need to do to our customers so that It persuades them to obviously come to Leslie's and drive traffic. So I think the foundation of the competitive advantages we have around obviously being the proximity around being in their local neighborhoods to the water testing capability we have, the expertise we have in stores, these are all things that we can then communicate to our customers and make sure we do so. The science part of this, and that would be the art, the science to me is I've spent a lot of time in my career as early as maybe 2006 on marketing mix modeling. And when looking at marketing mix modeling, it doesn't necessarily build awareness. You need to just add marketing spending. You can reallocate your current marketing spending to areas that drive efficiency and drive the best performance based off of good modeling. and leveraging data and analytics to then see what kind of best return we can get from the investments we make and choose the mediums appropriately. So I plan on doing both with the team, is defining the best message and obviously the best in supporting our initiatives around that, but then doing so the right way with a prudent approach on how do I leverage the consistent spend we have today and do it as most efficient as possible.

Great. Thanks for that. And then my second question, it looks like you're essentially pausing new store growth, likely pausing some of the tuck-in M&A activity. We think about 2025, the vast majority of free cash flow going to debt paydowns. Is there any way to frame up just how much that could be in addition to the $25 million you mentioned in Q1?

Yeah, good question. And it's hard to frame up the exact dollar amount for the remainder of the year, but I think the point here and the message here is that we are committed, you know, to that priority. It will remain our number one priority to pay down debt, you know, for the foreseeable future. You know, store growth in M&A is important to us. And, you know, long term, you know, it plays a big role in our growth. And so in the meantime, we'll continue to build, you know, the pipeline and to fine tune, you know, where those next stores will be. We already have a pretty robust pipeline of M&A stores. and we'll continue to build on that. And so when we're ready to reengage, we can shorten the time window that that's going to take.

Appreciate all the details. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Justin Kleber with Bayard. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. First one was just on, I wanted to ask about chemical AUR trends. We noticed you've been highlighting a new low price on shock. Curious if that's you being proactive and passing through lower product costs, or are you following others in the industry that are taking price lower? And then just how do we think about any sales or margin impact from this change compared to some of the broader chemical price reductions you took in June of 23?

Sure. Yeah, so first off, it's not near the magnitude and really not comparable to June 2023. What I would say is we're being kind of targeted on pricing, and it's particularly in the pro area. I mentioned earlier that we need to be more competitive on pro pricing, and we're doing that, and it's showing some good top-line results. And so that's where we're kind of placing our chips right now is in the pro area. In the kind of the residential customer, pricing is pretty stable. And so we haven't really had to move too much at the retail, you know, customer level. In order to fund, you know, kind of lower pricing on pro, we have had some better pricing come through on our key chemicals. And so that is basically covering, you know, most if not all of that reduced price.

Got it. Great. Thanks for that, caller Scott. And just to follow up, to David's question regarding investments. Can you just talk conceptually about the SG&A line? Certain states that you operate in continue to raise minimum wages. So I guess the question is, can you continue to reduce SG&A dollars on a year-over-year basis like you did this past year while simultaneously making these investments that are needed to turn the traffic in the top line?

Yeah, good question. You know, I think it's more difficult, for sure, because we have made, you know, some pretty significant reductions in SG&A. And we want to be thoughtful about that, right? We want to make sure that we have the structure to support the business and the growth of the business. And so really our mentality on SG&A is that we will continue to invest in that area, but we want to follow the growth, right? And so we want to start to see the growth first, and then we'll follow with, the SG&A growth behind that. I think one thing to keep in mind as we move forward here, the incentive compensation has been quite low in the last two years. And so I think one thing to think about when things do pick up a little bit, that incentive compensation will move higher as that happens. But all the other areas in SG&A, you know, I think we have a really good handle on and we have good control over. And we're very mindful, you know, on spending additional G&A. And we'll do that, you know, to take care of our teams and to make sure we're funding the growth.

All right. Appreciate the color. Thanks. Best of luck.

Thank you. That's all the time we have for Q&A today. Thank you for joining the call you may now disconnect.