a.k.a. Brands Holding Corp.

Greetings and welcome to the aka Brands Holding Corp. Second Quarter Fiscal 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Casey White, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining a.k.a. Brands to discuss our second quarter, 2026. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you of the company's safe harbor language. Management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, 1995. All statements made on this call that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including when we refer to expectations, projections, and other characterizations of future events, including guidance and underlying assumptions. Any forward-looking statement providing during this call, including projections for future performance, is based on management's expectations as of today. We undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by applicable law. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statement. For a further discussion of risks related to our business, please see our filings with the SEC. Please note, we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. This call will also contain non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in the release furnished to the SEC and available on our website. With that, I'll turn it over to Ciaran.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us to discuss our second quarter 2026 results. In the second quarter, we generated net sales of 160.1 million, essentially flat to the prior year, while driving adjusted EBITDA growth of 16% year-over-year to 8.7 million, further validating that the structural improvements we've made across the business are enabling strong profit flow-throughs. We delivered on our growth expectations in both the US and rest of world geographies with net sales of 2% and 51% respectively. The Australia and New Zealand region were the outlier, with net sales there contracted approximately 13%, pressured by a challenging macro backdrop and a tough prior year comparison from the clearance of non-go-forward goods. Importantly, Q3 to date, momentum has accelerated in all regions. with overall net sales growth in the high single digits alongside healthy margins, giving us continued confidence in our outlook for the second half of the year. We're seeing clear proof points of success across both our women's and men's businesses, reinforcing that our strategic initiatives are resonating with customers and positioning us well for long-term growth. As I highlighted on our Q1 call, a.k.a. Brands is a fundamentally repositioned operating model Our performance this quarter was driven by the expanded distribution of our brands across stores, wholesale and marketplace, the strengthening of our operational foundation and continued financial discipline across the business. We're off to a solid start in Q3 and I remain confident that 2026 will serve as another meaningful proof point that our strategy is working and our business is on a stronger trajectory. Reiterating our strategy, we've continued building out our omnichannel model beyond our direct-to-consumer routes. Princess Polly now operates 13 US stores plus our first two Australian locations with more openings planned in bulk markets this year. As we announced this morning, Country Kings is also expanding its store footprint in the U.S. with a signed lease for a new store in Puerto Rico and final negotiations for a major metropolitan opening later this year. At the same time, we are expanding our wholesale and marketplace partnerships, which are exceeding expectations, expanding brand awareness, attracting new customers, and creating incremental growth opportunities. and behind the scenes, we've laid the operational groundwork for this expansion. Inventory has been well managed, driving more full price sell-through and improved inventory turns are giving us greater flexibility to invest in growth. That discipline has also enabled Culture Kings and Minimal to further evolve towards the test and repeat merchandising model, which has been a multi-year initiative that is now showing up clearly in our margin improvements. As I previously mentioned, We also completed a full overhaul of our sourcing network in 2025, diversifying across geographies and vendors. That gives us a more resilient supply chain, one built to support test and repeat and to handle the current trade environment as we keep growing. Together, these initiatives have strengthened our financial model. We ended the quarter with our strongest balance sheet since becoming a public company, reducing our inventory by 14%, and our debt by 8% versus the prior year. And we ended the period with net leverage of 3.37 times. This provides us with increased financial flexibility to continue investing in both growth and profitability. Looking ahead, three priorities remain. Driving direct consumer growth through differentiated products and marketing, expanding reach through retail, wholesale and marketplace, and continuing to sharpen our operating model. We're also scaling our AI investment, already seeing early gains in imagery, marketing efficiency and inventory with more margin benefit expected over time. Turning now to our brand highlights. Princess Polly, our largest brand, delivered another strong quarter. The brand's expanding omnichannel presence continued to extend its reach beyond a successful direct-to-consumer model driving growth across port new and returning customers with stores, wholesale and marketplace each making meaningful contributions. Princess Polly's thousand square foot pop-up at The Grove in Los Angeles, which opened in May, far exceeded our expectations and we're excited to have made The Grove a permanent location. Princess Polly is on track to open four additional stores in the US and one in Australia all by year end. Looking ahead to 2027, we plan to open as many as 10 new Princess Polly stores with five leases already executed in major trade areas, including Charlotte, Boca Raton, Nashville, Burlington and Jacksonville. Longer term, we see the potential for a minimum of 100 Princess Polly stores in the US alone, up from a current fleet of 13 stores. As I mentioned, our sales growth of more than 50% in the rest of the world was another bright spot in the quarter. The largest driver was the UK distribution center that launched in March, which is delivering the customer experience we envisioned. The two-day delivery window is transforming conversion with momentum compounding week over week. This confirms for us the tremendous growth opportunity we have for Princess Polly in the UK and internationally, which we will look to capitalize on over the coming years. From a merchandising perspective, Princess Polly enters the back-to-school selling season with an evolved approach that builds on its test-and-repeat model. Beginning this month, and informed by strong customer feedback, the brand expanded its offering with deeper buys in core seasonal styles across denim, sweats, and tops. This is designed to capitalize on peak selling throughout the season, both in stores and online. I want to be clear though, test and repeat remains the core of Princess Polly's assortment strategy. What we're doing is layering in evergreen programs, season after season, in the categories where customer demand has proven durable. Taken together, these results underscore while global expansion of Princess Polly's addressable market remains a key strategic priority. Our smaller women's brand, Petal & Pop, continue to expand its wholesale and marketplace distribution in Q2. Nordstrom remains a productive partner with strong unit velocity and sell-through across dresses and casual styles in-store and online. Macy's was a notable Q2 call-out and newly remains a strong growth partner with Topps now the number one performing category on the platform, reinforcing the strength of our expanding separates offering. Petal & Pop continues to build distribution of its expanding lifestyle assortment by addressing by adding more specialty wholesale partners. And during this quarter, it will take another important step, taking part in the specialty retail trade show Magic in Las Vegas, the largest wholesale trade show in the U.S. Looking ahead for Petal & Pop, we've intentionally pulled forward our product flow with fall launching in August and holiday in October, four to six weeks earlier than last year. This gives both our direct-to-consumer and wholesale partners a longer selling window heading into the back half. Petal & Pop is well positioned for the second half, and I'm confident in the white space runway and long-term trajectory of an omnichannel playbook that has driven success across our women's brands. We're expanding beyond direct-to-consumer through stores and wholesale, while continuing to execute our disciplined full-price test-and-repeat merchandising strategy. Customers are responding to improved product and a less promotional approach, driving strong sell-through. While sales were not at the level we expected for Culture Kings in Australia in the quarter, the business contributed meaningfully to the overall gross margin expansion. Culture King's experiential retail model, together with its portfolio of in-house brands that we have now transitioned to a test and repeat model, including Minimal, Loiter, and Carre, provide a strong foundation as we expand across new channels. Minimal's recent performance has been among the strongest we've seen from the brand, with several key products achieving exceptional success in TikTok shop, and Minimal now ranking as a top five brand in the men's category on the platform. Loiter will lean further into collaborations with their recent WrestleMania partnership and the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog collaboration, serving as great examples of how differentiated the Loiter brand is. And finally, in Q2, Carre launched their first local collaboration with Coca-Cola centered around the World Cup, and we're excited by Carre's product pipeline and future collaborations. The team's continued work expanding the in-house brand portfolio Curating third-party brands such as New Era, Adidas, and Asics, and driving the strategic transition towards a more full-price, test-and-repeat model sets the stage for meaningful, profitable growth ahead. Marketing remains a key strength for Culture Kings. Brand activations, creator partnerships, and exclusive collaborations continue to drive traffic, customer engagement, and cultural relevance, reinforcing the foundation for profitable growth. Our men's brands are known as solid footing to follow a similar path to our women's business, expanding reach through brick and mortar retail, wholesale partnerships, and marketplaces. We're still early in this journey, but I'm confident that we're in a strong position to meaningfully grow our men's total addressable market. As I've mentioned, we signed a new Culture King store lease in Puerto Rico, and we're in the final negotiations for another opening in a major metropolitan market. We expect to have both new stores open in Q4 2026. These will be Culture King's first new US store opening since 2022 and mark an important milestone in the brand's next phase of growth. New stores will draw on the learnings from our highest performing Australia locations as well as our highly productive and profitable Las Vegas flagship. In closing, our second quarter results reinforce that the operating model we've built is delivering. We post double digit adjusted EBITDA growth positive operating cash flow year to date, and our strongest balance sheet position since our IPO. The work we've put into go-to-market strategy, sourcing, inventory, and channel expansion is translating directly into profit flow through. Q3 to date, trends have been strong, and we continue to make progress building out our omnichannel model, well underway in women's, just beginning in men's. Taken together, That gives me real confidence in both the back half of the year and the long-term opportunity across our brand portfolio. I want to thank our teams for the continued hard work and commitment. Our results are a direct reflection on their dedication to our brands and our customers. Before I turn it over to Kevin, I want to take a moment to note a change to our board. Eileen Eskenazi has stepped down after many years of dedicated service and on behalf of the entire company, I want to thank her for her contributions and counsel over time. I'm delighted to welcome Kerry Cassidy to the board. Kerry brings deep expertise in talent and organizational leadership, having served as Chief People Officer at Restoration Hardware and held senior leadership roles at Levi Strauss, Barclays and First Data, and currently serves on the board of Fulma and GL Mazzetta. As we scale our brand's portfolio, her perspective on leadership and organizational performance will be a real asset to this board. We're excited to have her on board. With that, I'll turn it over to Kevin.