Steven Madden, Ltd.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2025 Steve Madden LTD Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Daniel McCoy, CP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Brittany, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our third quarter 2025 earnings call and webcast. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that our remarks that follow including answers to your questions, contain statements that we believe to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our press release issued earlier today and filings we make with the SEC. we've explained any obligation to update these follow-looking statements, which may not be updated until our next quarterly earnings conference call, if at all. The financial results discussed on today's call are on an adjusted basis, unless otherwise noted. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure and other associated disclosures are contained in our earnings release. Joining me on the call today are Ed Rosenfeld, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Zima Zouzi, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Operations. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ed.

Ed? All right. Thanks, Danielle, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review Steve Madden's third quarter 2025 results. As anticipated, the third quarter was challenging. driven largely by the impact of new tariffs on goods imported into the United States. During the period in April and May when new tariffs on Chinese imports reached 145%, wholesale customers cut back meaningfully on orders for the third quarter, and we shifted large amounts of production out of China midstream, which led to shipment delays. These factors, together with the negative impact to gross margin from the significant increase in our landed costs, resulted in substantial pressure on both revenue and earnings in Q3. Fortunately, while we will continue to see negative impacts from tariffs, we believe the worst is behind us. Order patterns from our wholesale customers are normalizing, and we are mitigating a larger percentage of the gross margin pressure through strategic pricing actions and sourcing initiatives. And most importantly, underlying consumer demand for our brands and products is strong. Despite the noise from tariffs, our team has stayed laser-focused on executing our strategy to deepen consumer connections through the combination of compelling product and effective marketing, and we are seeing those efforts pay off, particularly in our flagship Steve Madden brand. Steve and his design team have created an outstanding fall product assortment that is resonating with consumers and enabling us to outperform the competition. Boots have been the standout, led by our casual tall-shaft styles, We're also seeing strong performance in dress shoes across various heel heights, as well as casuals like loafers, Mary Janes, and mules. Our marketing team is amplifying this great assortment with richer brand and product storytelling and increased investment across YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest, which is driving measurable increases in awareness and conversion with our key Gen Z and millennial consumers. And as a result, both wholesale sell-through and DTC sales trends for Steve Madden have accelerated meaningfully in recent months. Our new brand, Kirk Geiger London, also has strong momentum as consumers continue to respond to its bold, statement-making designs and eye-catching marketing, including the current campaign featuring Emily Ratajkowski. Comp sales for the brand were up mid-teens in the third quarter. Overall, the acquisition integration remains on track, and our teams continue to make progress on revenue synergies, including expanding Kurt Geiger in international markets through the Steve Madden Network and growing Steve Madden in the UK through the Kurt Geiger platform, as well as cost savings opportunities in areas like freight and logistics. We're also making meaningful progress in advancing our other own brands. In Dolce Vita, we're building on the outstanding success we've had over the last several years in our US footwear business by expanding international markets, and extending the brand into other categories like handbags. And in Betsy Johnson, we are driving renewed cultural relevance for the brand with elevated talent partnerships, authentic community engagement, high impact activations, and differentiated merchandise assortments. Both Dolce Vita and Betsy Johnson are on track to deliver revenue gains for the full year 2025, despite the headwinds from tariffs. So in sum, while the third quarter was undeniably challenging, and our financial results were not up to our usual standards. Our team's disciplined execution of our strategy is strengthening our brands and building relevance and demand with consumers. We are confident that we will begin to see improved financial performance in the fourth quarter, and looking out further, that we have the brands, business model, and strategy to drive sustainable revenue and earnings growth over the long term. And now, I'll turn it over to Zine to review our third quarter 2025 financial results in more detail.