Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Sportsman's Warehouse fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To participate, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear a message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, simply press star 1-1 again. Please note this conference is being recorded. Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to the Vice President of Strategic Programs and Investor Relations, Riley Thimer. Please proceed.

Thank you, Operator. Participating on our Q4 and full year 2025 call today is Paul Stone, our Chief Executive Officer, and Jennifer Fall Young, our Chief Financial Officer. I will now take a moment and remind everyone of the company's Safe Harbor language. The statements we make today contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which includes statements regarding expectations about our future results of operations, demand for our products, and growth of our industry. Actual results may differ materially from those suggested in such statements due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those described in the company's most recent Form 10-K and the company's other filings made with the SEC. We will also disclose non-GAAP financial measures during today's call. Definitions of such non-GAAP measures, as well as reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, are provided as supplemental financial information in our press release, included as Exhibit 99-1 to the Form 8K we furnished to the SEC today, which is also available on the investor relations section of our website at sportsmans.com. I will now turn the call over to Paul.

Thank you, Riley, and good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, I want to recognize our dedicated outfitters across the country. Every day, they deliver on our promise of great gear and great service, strengthening our connection with customers and supporting the progress to transform Sportsman's Warehouse. I'm pleased with our fourth quarter and full year results, which exceeded our revised expectations. While the first half of Q4 reflected a more pressured promotional environment, we turned our sales trends positive in the back half of the quarter, which contributed to our better than expected results. We also delivered positive same-source sales growth in each of the first three quarters of 2025, resulting in a 1% growth for the year. This is our first year of positive comp since 2020 and a meaningful milestone in our turnaround. This progress reflects disciplined execution of the three-year strategy we launched in late 2024. While there's more work ahead, we are encouraged by the traction across many areas of the business. For several weeks prior and through the first week of December, sales softened, driven by external factors, including the government shutdown and weaker than expected Black Friday and Cyber Week performance. We moved quickly to adjust our holiday strategy with a more promotional cadence to meet a value-driven consumer. These actions helped reverse trends, with sales turning positive in December, with strength coming into January, February, and March. While we are encouraged by these improving trends, we remain measured, as the US consumer remains under pressure. Within the quarter, performance across our core pursuits was strong. Hunting and shooting sports grew more than 5%, with firearm units again outperforming adjusted NICS checks, indicating continued market share gains. We also believe January demand benefited from external event-driven factors accelerating our personal protection categories. Throughout 2025, we strengthened our position in personal protection by building a more focused assortment aligned with growing customer demand for safety solutions. This work is supported by the expertise of our outfitters, many with law enforcement or military backgrounds who provide trusted service and credibility that we believe is difficult for competitors to replicate. By leaning into this category with expertise, service, and a more disciplined assortment, We are attracting new customers and gaining share, which is accelerated given current external factors. Fishing delivered quarterly results of 3.2%. Warm weather in the west drove a double-digit decline in ice fishing, masking underlying strength. Excluding ice fishing, the department grew over 11%, highlighting the strength of our business and the share growth opportunities ahead. We are encouraged with our early start to the spring season with sales up double digits so far this quarter. While our key pursuits perform well, camping assault lines remain challenged, reflecting their discretionary nature. We continue to sharpen assortments, eliminate lower productivity skews, and align these categories more tightly to our core pursuits. Inventory in these categories decline in line with sales, demonstrating improved discipline, efficiency, and healthy inventory. Our e-commerce business outperformed again, with sales up 8.3% in the quarter and 6.6% for the year. This underscores the strength of our omnichannel model and the growth potential in our core pursuits. We also saw improvements in both units per transaction and average order value, driven by regionally and seasonally relevant merchandise, better in-stocks, and stronger attachment across categories. In 2025, we made meaningful progress across four strategic priorities. First, through stronger planning and merchandising discipline, along with strategic technology investments, we significantly improved in-stock levels in the core 20% of products that drive 80% of our business. This delivered faster turns, skew reduction, and improved seasonal alignment. Second, We re-anchored the business to our local market advantage by strengthening the roles of our outfitters as trusted local experts and expanding locally relevant brands and products. Our position remains clear, out local to big box players and offer more depth in merchandising authority than smaller competitors. Third, we strengthened our authority and personal protection by optimizing our assortment, increasing depth in key handgun brands, and introducing a broader non-lethal offering. including an exclusive collaborative partnership with Burna that brought in Sorteator, innovation, and a new customer in the Sportsman. This reinforced our leadership and drove growth. Finally, we strengthened brand awareness and advanced our digital-first go-to-market strategy. We optimized our performance marketing approach, driving efficient traffic across our channels through targeting and a more powerful customer experience. Leveraging data-driven insights and personalization, we are reaching customers with greater precision to support profitable omni-channel growth. Now I'll walk you through the next phase for our three-year transformation. In 2026, we are strengthening our leadership position in our core pursuits, fishing, hunting and shooting sports, and personal protection. These pursuits define our brand and attract our most engaged, highest value customers. Building on the foundation we set last year, our focus centers on three initiatives to support our core pursuits. First, we are upgrading our loyalty rewards program. We are partnering with a leading strategy and platform design firm to build a more powerful program that directly connects loyalty and our credit card ecosystem. Our goals are clear, increase retention, expand lifetime value, and drive higher AOV and frequency through compelling rewards and personalized engagement. This work is early but grounded in new data capabilities and best-in-class design. We expect later this year to begin testing and plan to launch the enhanced program in early Q1 of next year. Second, we are developing firearm solution bundling, building on our strength in hunting and shooting sports and personal protection. With over 75% of firearm purchases beginning online and significant firearm traffic already coming to our site, we see meaningful opportunity to convert more of that demand through an improved digital experience. This tool will help customers build a complete firearm solution tailored to the pursuit while improving our overall margins. Given our natural store moat, which requires the customer to pick up their firearms in store, we are leveraging our e-commerce experience to improve attachment, to these items relevant to a single firearms purchase. Third, we are reinventing the omni-channel fishing experience. Fishing represents meaningful growth upside. We believe we have about 1% share of a large and growing category, and we have an ambitious omni-channel plan to double that share over the next three to four years. This strategy includes two pathways. First, we are elevating the in-store experience through locally assorted merchandise built around species, seasons, and innovation. Second, we are strengthening our digital fishing experience with the new species and region-focused platform that integrates content and commerce. This will help anglers build their total solution more easily and quickly. While this work began in mid-2025, we are accelerating our pace given the categories appeal to new, high-value customers and its margin-accretive profile. Looking to the year ahead, the U.S. consumer remains under pressure. Rising fuel costs and broader microdynamics are adding weight to discretionary spending. At the same time, however, we've seen bright spots. Since January, demand in personal protection and ammo has strengthened, driven by external factors. We are capturing that demand while remaining realistic about duration. We also see potential tailwinds ahead, such as America's 250th anniversary. which aligns well with our customer and categories. While early, we are seeing a strong start to the fishing season and believe we are well positioned to capture demand due to our strategic initiatives in place for this category. Given all of this, we feel optimistic about our positioning. Our strategy is working, our initiatives are gaining traction, and the turnaround is firmly underway. The team is energized and disciplined, and our focus remains on driving profitable growth. Discipline management of inventory while executing against the priorities we've laid out. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jennifer.

Thank you, Paul, and good afternoon, everyone. For the full year 2025, we delivered net sales and comparable store sales growth of 1%. We are encouraged by how the year finished with results exceeding our revised guidance following Q3. Importantly, this marks our first year of positive comparable store sales growth since 2020. Adjusted EBITDA for the year was $27.5 million. While modestly below prior year, this result exceeded our revised expectations driven by stronger than expected sales in the fourth quarter. A key focus throughout the year was disciplined inventory management. We ended 2025 with inventory down $29.1 million, or 8.5% year-over-year. We are pleased with the quality and composition of our inventory and believe we are well positioned to support growth in our key categories while continuing to improve productivity and churns. We ended the year with net debt of $90 million, a reduction of 6.1% versus the prior year, and total liquidity of $107.8 million. We also generated positive free cash flow, reflecting improved operating discipline and improved working capital efficiency. Turning to full-year department performance, fishing remained our strongest growth driver in 2025, increasing 10.3% for the year and nearly 18% on a two-year stack basis. This performance reflects more precise inventory timing, improved locally relevant assortments, and continued strength in participation trends. We see this as a category with ongoing opportunity for both growth and share gains. Hunting and shooting sports increased 4.4% for the year, driven by improved in-stock levels in core firearms and ammunition, better alignment of inventory with key hunting seasons, and continued traction in personal protection, including less lethal alternatives. Our other categories declined for the year, reflecting pressure on discretionary spending. Importantly, we maintained inventory discipline in these areas, with inventory reductions exceeding sales declines, supporting improved efficiency and margin structure over time. Turning now to fourth quarter results. Net sales were 334.9 million, down 1.6% versus prior year, with comparable store sales declining 1.8%. Performance was led by hunting and shooting sports, which increased 6.2%, driven by strengthened firearms and ammunition and less lethal personal protection, partially influenced by event-driven demand. Fishing increased 3.2% in the quarter, though performance was impacted by unseasonably warm weather in the western U.S., which pressured ice fishing sales. Excluding ice fishing, sales in this category were up over 11%, reflecting its underlying strength. Our other categories declined, reflecting a more promotional environment, the impact of the government shutdown, and continued pressure on the U.S. consumer. Boost margin for the fourth quarter was 28.4% compared to 30.4% last year. The decline was primarily driven by category mix with a higher penetration of firearms and ammunition, increased promotional activity, and lower sales in higher margin categories. SG&A expense improved to 28.7% of net sales compared to 29.4% last year, driven by disciplined cost control, particularly in payrolls. We remain focused on managing expenses while continuing to support the business. Net loss for the quarter was $21.7 million or 56 cents per diluted share compared to a net loss of $8.7 million or 23 cents per diluted share in the prior year. Adjusted net loss for the quarter was $3.9 million or negative 10 cents per diluted share compared with adjusted net income of $1.6 million or 4 cents per diluted share in Q4 of the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was $9.6 million compared with adjusted EBITDA of $14.6 million in Q4 of last year. Now I'll provide more details regarding the balance sheet and liquidity. We ended the year with inventory of 312.9 million, down 29.1 million from the prior year and better than our expectations exiting Q3. We exited the year in a healthier inventory position having worked through the majority of our seasonal products. As part of our ongoing inventory efficiency efforts, we are further refining the timing of receipts. As an example, for the upcoming spring season, inventory is planned to arrive later, which we expect will support improved churns and overall productivity. We expect to operate with lower average inventory levels throughout 2026 compared to last year, while still having sufficient levels of inventory to hit the top end of our plan. Capital expenditures for the full year were approximately $19.5 million, primarily focused on general store maintenance and strategic technology investments to support our operational and digital capabilities. We ended the year with net debt of $90 million and total liquidity of $107.8 million. We generated $8.9 million of free cash flow and used that cash to reduce debt. Debt reduction remains our top capital allocation priority as we continue to improve our leverage ratio. As we conducted a thorough review of our fleet of stores, we estimated we will be closing approximately five stores in the next 12 months. We expect these closures to happen after the holidays. Therefore, we do not anticipate a material impact to this year's results. Turning now to our guidance for 2026. Starting with our net sales outlook, we estimate same-store sales to be in the range of down 1% to up 2% over last year. This outlet reflects a balanced view of the current environment and the health of the U.S. consumer, which continues to be pressured. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $30 million to $36 million. This improvement is expected to be driven by better gross margin performance continued inventory discipline, and ongoing expense management. We expect capital expenditures to be between $20 and $25 million, primarily related to technology investments as well as normal store maintenance. To reiterate, our priorities for 2026 are driving profitable comp store sales growth through the execution of our strategic initiatives, managing our inventory efficiently, and using excess free cash flow to pay down our debt and strengthen the balance sheet. That concludes our prepared remarks today. I will now turn the call back to the operator to facilitate questions.

Thank you so much. And as a reminder, to ask a question, press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To remove yourself, press star 1-1 again. One moment for our first question. It comes from Matt Coranda with Roth Capital. Please proceed.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to start out with the near-term demand trends that you highlighted. I know you mentioned sort of a shift that you saw at the end of December that carried through, and I think you said in the prepared remarks, all the way through March. Does that mean we're effectively comping positive in the first quarter to date? And maybe just how you think about the category strength. I would assume it's still kind of the usual suspects in terms of firearms, ammunition, personal protection that's doing well. Maybe just unpack category strength as well for us.

Yeah. Hey, Matt. This is Jennifer. Thanks for the question. Yeah. What we named in our prepared remarks is that we were seeing that trends that really started in January continue through, you know, February and March, whereas you just called it as really strong growth coming from firearms and ammunition. And, you know, as we know, and as you know, our industry tends to be really influenced by external events. And, you know, we think there's some tailwinds right now going on because of what is kind of going on externally. So, yeah, we feel good about the quarter. You know, we gave guidance of a negative one to a positive two on the year, but we feel like we're coming out strong in Q1.

Okay, understood. And then maybe just for the EBITDA improvement that you're embedding in the guidance for the full year, just wanted to hear how to think about the building blocks there, because obviously the comp guide is what's called flattish at the midpoint. And I would assume that the mix of categories Being more skewed toward firearm ammunition probably puts a little pressure on gross margins. So where are the building blocks to get to the positive EBITDA outlook, despite kind of the flattish top line and maybe a little margin pressure from category mix?

Yeah, so we do feel bullish about our fish category as well. That has been positive comping on a one-year and a two-year stack. So we're continuing to put our shoulder against fish, and we have a lot of initiatives that support it. And that, with the exception of ice fishing in January, that category has bounced back nicely. So we will have some goodness there with the fish coming into play. That being said, Q1, just based on the penetration of firearms and ammunition, we expect margins to be down year over year. And then for the rest of the quarters, margins will be flat to slightly positive, slight improvement. And then with SG&A, a little bit of the same story, do expect flat to some slight leverage within that range, and that essentially kind of gets you to where our improvement in adjusted EBITDA comes in. You know, just the one thing to note that, you know, Q3 of last year, you know, versus Q4 of last year, there was a heavily weight of EBITDA on Q3 versus Q4, but we do think some of the Charlie-Kirk effect influenced that, and we expect those to be a little more balanced go forward.

Okay, understood. If I could think just one more in on... Way to think about free cash flow this year, especially on, I guess, the inventory front. It sounds like the signal is we see more efficiency opportunity. Just wanted to hear about how you think about inventory balance throughout the year, especially as we're closing the 500 performing stores and how maybe, you know, there might be opportunity for inventory per store to improve further this year.

Yeah, we're definitely, you know, as part of our go-forward strategy, in addition to executing on our, you know, against our core pillars, we do think there's opportunity to continue to find efficiency in inventory. Everything from really about timing of inventory, making sure that we're getting in, similar to what we did in Q3 and Q4 this year, getting in a little ahead of the season and definitely looking to take the marks before the season's over. while the demand is still there. So that's what's really helped our inventory, especially towards Q4 and how we ended up so clean, even though we came in to the quarter with the first six weeks were a little bit tough. So definitely opportunity in inventory. From the stores that we discussed, which is an estimated five stores, it might be a few more, it might be a few less. We're still in negotiations on that one. Those we don't expect to close until after the holidays. So you're not going to see a material impact on those. Depending on when we actually take action on those, we will transfer inventory and liquidate anything seasonal within the store when those, in fact, do close, though.

Okay. Matt, I would just add, I think there's been a lot of learning on the inventory front as we went through last year, and I think from a seasonality standpoint, course correcting from 24 to 25. We were probably in the seasons a little too early, carried inventory a little too long. So I think as we think of the discipline and the inventory approach this year, really the rigor is going to be around being able to hit the mark, be able to improve the turns, and to look at this improvement in inventory going through the quarters all the way through the year and be much more efficient with how we land the inventory and how we get out of the inventory.

Thanks a lot, Seth. Appreciate all the color guys. I'll leave it there.

Thanks. Our next question comes from Anna Gliskin with B Reilly Securities. Please proceed. Good afternoon.

Thanks for taking my questions. I guess I'd like to follow up on Matt's question about the first quarter here. I guess how should we be thinking about, you know, it sounds like the tailwinds from the external events are supporting demand, offsetting maybe the con of gas inflation and the government shutdowns, how should we be thinking about the potential risk as the conflict extends? Do you think we should layer on, you know, an assumption of more consumer headwind if it extends into, you know, April, May? Thanks.

Yeah, with the risk, you know, we do think the health of the U.S. consumer is really the risk that we're seeing. You know, Q1, we do have a couple months behind us, so we're feeling pretty good, but you know, with fuel prices and given where our customer is positioned, you know, that's definitely something we've contemplated in our guide. You know, on the offset of that, the tailwind really is, you know, the 250th anniversary of America, which we think resonates well with our customer. And also, if there's anything else from a, you know, external events-driven factors, A lot, you know, we were just looking at all the legislations, both state and federal, that's out there. And there's, you know, 16 that are on the table right now. Some good for our industry, some not so good. But that's just, that also impacts consumer demand. So there's a lot of variables in there. So we just tried to make sure that as we're thinking about the quarter and the year that we've accounted for that the best we can.

Got it. Thanks, Jennifer. And then a bigger picture question, you know, in the past we've talked about potentially getting the mix back to pre-COVID, implying, you know, a lesser mix from firearms and ammo to help support margin recovery going back to the historical mid to high single to digital justice, even on margin. Now we've seen hunt increase in penetration this past year. While, of course, it's great to see the outperformance versus the industry, I guess, how should we be thinking about the hunt penetration over, you know, in 26 and over the next few years and how that's being contemplated in the margin outlook.

Yeah, we've contemplated it in our margin. You know, what we're trying to also do, kind of going back to, you know, the mix question is, as I mentioned on the first question, continuing to put our shoulder against fish. In addition, we have been working on cleaning up the apparel business. You know, there was a pretty big hangover in that category. And we're finally getting to the point where we're able to bring in some new and exciting brands and kind of get the soft goods business back on track as well. Probably have a little bit more work to do with camp, but as we actually start taking these other categories, you know, the soft goods and camp and gift bar and whatnot, and make them more attached to our pursuits, we know that's also going to help get them back on track as well. Because right now they're a little bit ancillary and doing their own thing, but it's really aligning everything to personal protection, and fish.

Yeah, I would just add, Anna, I think the website experience that we're really leaning into this year and the opportunity around the bundling component of it where we're not putting that complete burden on the outfitter when they come in to attach at that rate, but to be able to allow the consumer to be able to walk through an easy process, to be able to have the complete package and solution that they need and then allow them to have that solution when they get to the store versus putting the complete burden on our outfitter in the store. We like what we're seeing and what we're putting into place with that. And then fish as well. We've started to work with fish. We know we're under-penetrated online with fish, even though we've seen growth over the last couple of years. We think we have a large opportunity to improve what our overall experience looks like online. and to be able to allow us to be able to grow that penetration of fish as well. So the growth has really happened from fish. We need to accelerate it this year, and we think there's a huge opportunity for us to do that through investments we make on working online to allow the consumer to have an ease of experience.

Great. Thanks. One moment for our next question, please. Comes from the line of Mark Smith with Lake Street. Please proceed.

Hi, guys. Can you walk through a little bit more some of the different headwinds on gross profit margin in Q4 and the additional insights you can give us on kind of how much of the pressure came from mix versus promotional intensity, maybe late in the quarter and anything like freight that, you know, was an additional headwind?

Yeah, it's a combination of mix as well as promotional cadence. We, you know, as we came out off of our third quarter call, we were still in the midst of having some pretty pressured sales. So, you know, as we discussed on that call, we had the inventory and it was seasonal inventory that we needed to make sure that we were clean up come end of January. So we did take the opportunity to be more promotional to drive sales as well as to clean up our inventory. So that's definitely a component of it. But in addition to that, you know, with ice fishing not performing significantly, You know, it's probably one of our weaker comps for fish with Q4, simply because the ice fishing, you know, there was no ice to fish. So that put pressure on it as well. But, you know, that fence has come back. That season is behind us. So, you know, fish is back on track now. So a little bit of both. But as we look forward, you know, there's not a ton of tariff impact in here. There's some. We know what that is. But I wouldn't say that's putting the pressure necessarily down. on our margins going forward?

I think, Mark, I mean, a big part of it, we had to play a lot of catch up in the back half. I think November was an extremely challenging month for us. As we started December, we were seeing the same thing. And to Jennifer's point, we were going to clean up and lift our commitment to be able to get out a product in season and not carry it forward. We like the way clearance is year over year now and the health of the inventory. We did have to take some steps, being promotional at the same time, being cognizant of getting out of the seasonal inventory within the season. So I think the slow start that we saw in November and carrying over into the first of December caused us to react. And we did that, knowing that we wanted to be in a much cleaner position and not have this continuous carryover of inventory.

And I think, Jennifer, you may have said that you expect Q1 margin to be down a little bit year over year. Is that just some continuation post-January of some of those same pressures and lack of snow in winter? That's all mix?

Yeah, that's mix. It's heavily penetrated towards fire and ammunition.

I think that is the way you think about it is with the mix or seeing a micro effect in February. and March being lighter months for fish, not to help you there. Then we get into the peak of fish. That helps to outweigh, or at least to be able to take a little bit of pressure off of what the mix looks like. But to have February and March in there, especially with some of the temps that we saw out east, and in particular in the southeast to start the year, that we just don't have enough volume in those first couple months of fish to be able to offset it.

And then I just wanted to dig in a little bit deeper on some of the store closures. You guys took impairments on, on 10 stores. It sounds like closing an estimated five, but it's all going to come after kind of the holiday. Can you just walk us through the thought process? Maybe, you know, of those 10 stores, how many are, you know, losing cash? And, you know, if any of these are kind of at the end of lease terms as you close.

Yeah. So, you know, we, we, I think we've always talked about how, in general, our fleet is very healthy. If you go store by store, it's good. But really, it came time to take a hard look at those five underperforming stores that just don't have a long-term place in our fleet and make some calls on those. So the thought process there is these are long-lasting leases that we have because our leases are, unfortunately, 10 years long. So these aren't all 10 years, but they're going out quite a bit. But, you know, right now what we're doing, and these are actually losing adjusted EBITDA stores. So we're working with some brokers to try to either, you know, renegotiate, get a subtenant in there, look at all different options, do a buyout, all of which financially makes sense for us just given where they are within the portfolio. I'd say the others, there's a lot of, not a lot, but there are a few stores that are going to roll off within the next coming, call it 18 or 20, excuse me, 12 to 24 months anyway. So those, you know, you really can't do much with landlords when you have that short of a time left on your lease. So those are ones we will, that we may have impaired, but we will just let run off. And then there are some in there where if we're going to close some of these other stores that we know we want to close, there'll be some sales transfers to their neighboring stores and that will actually help improve the overall, productivity of those stores. So those might actually remain in the fleet.

Okay. Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you. And as I see no further questions in the queue, I will pass it back to Paul Stone for closing comments.

By way of note, we posted an updated presentation on our investor relations website. Thank you for all joining the call today, and thank you to all the passion outfitters around the country for their commitment to Sportsman's Warehouse. Together, we look forward to providing our customers with great gear and exceptional service. Thank you.

And this concludes our conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.