Abercrombie & Fitch Company

and welcome to the Abercrombie & Finch first quarter fiscal year 2025 earnings 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 at that time, please press star-1-1 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, please press star-1-1 again. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mo Gupta. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to our first quarter 2025 earnings call. Joining me today on the call are Fran Horowitz, Chief Executive Officer, Scott Lopesky, Chief Operating Officer, and Robert Ball, Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we issued our first quarter earnings release, which is available on our website at corporate.abercrombie.com under the Investors section. Also available on our website is an investor presentation. Please keep in mind that we will make certain forward-looking statements on the call. These statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations and assumptions we mentioned today. These factors and uncertainties are discussed in our reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, we'll be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures during the call. Additional details and reconciliations of GAAP to adjusted non-GAAP financial measures are included in the release and the investor presentation issued earlier this morning. With that, I will turn the call over to Fran.

Thanks, Mo, and thanks everyone for joining. I'm pleased to report first quarter results came in ahead of the expectations we provided in March on both the top and bottom lines. I am proud of how the team is applying our playbook to execute for our customer and our business. As we've mentioned before, Our playbook and Read and React model are an important part of the strong foundation we've built over years of transformation. This foundation allows us to manage and adapt to the environment while maintaining focus on strengthening our brands and company for the long term. We are one quarter into 2025, and our team is doing an excellent job balancing both of these priorities. For the first quarter, we delivered record net sales of $1.1 billion on growth of 8% to last year, above our expected range of 4% to 6%. Operating expense leverage partially offset lower growth margin and marketing investment, resulting in an operating margin of 9.3% and earnings per share of $1.59 for the quarter, both above the ranges we provided in March. We also used our strong balance sheet to return $200 million to shareholders through share repurchases, totaling 5% of shares outstanding as of the beginning of the year. We saw net sales growth across all regions in the first quarter. The Americas grew 7% on good traffic levels in both stores and digital, building on a terrific first quarter in 2024 where we grew 23%. In EMEA, we grew 12% on top of 19% growth last year. We saw continued strength in the UK and Germany, with digital demand complementing the positive reception we've seen to the six stores we opened in the region last year. In APAC, we grew 5% on top of 10% growth last year with nice comparable sales performance in China. From a brand perspective, Hollister led the way, delivering record first quarter results with 22% net sales growth last year on top of 12% growth in the first quarter of 2024. We had strong comparable sales as well, up 23%. I am so proud of the Hollister team as they delivered the brand's eighth consecutive quarter of growth. Both AUR and units were up in the quarter, and growth was balanced across genders and categories, with strength in fleece, jeans, and skirts. Cross-channel traffic was strong in the quarter, and we continued to ramp marketing investment year over year to support growth. We're excited about the balance we are seeing in the assortment, and we look forward to the summer season officially kicking off. At Abercrombie Brand, results fell short of expectations. We saw a 4% net sales decline against stellar 31% growth and record net sales achieved in Q1 2024. Comparable sales were down 10% versus 29% comp growth last year as we expected entering the quarter. Sales performance was primarily driven by AUR decline as we moved through winter carryover inventory. We also saw softer results in some of the spring categories that produced standout growth in Q1 last year. We built our business to rapidly respond to customer feedback, and the team acted quickly, leveraging our agile operating model to shift inventory receipts based on summer product test reads. The brand continues to see good traffic trends, and on the store side, we continue to see productivity and surrounding digital sales growth from new stores. We have 13 openings planned for the second quarter in some great locations, building on April's successful opening in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I have confidence in the team and the playbook, and our goal is to deliver sequential improvement on the top line in the second quarter, putting Abercrombie Brands on a path to growth later this year. From a total company perspective, we expect to deliver year-over-year second quarter sales growth on top of a record 2024, with balanced growth across regions. As we navigate through the evolving trade environment, we remain open and agile with our inventory receipts and marketing spend to ensure we can best align our product investments with selling trends. Our playbook was built to effectively respond to circumstances like these, just as our team successfully managed the freight and cotton spikes from a couple of years ago. Our global supply chain and sourcing teams are working hard to drive efficiency across the supply chain based across the supply base through discussions with our sourcing partners and by making strategic geographic changes to our buys and supply footprint. Throughout our business, we are looking for expense efficiencies while remaining on offense in key investment areas. All of this work will have clear impact, and based on our current assumptions on tariffs, we are not planning broad-based ticket increases. As we've done season after season, our goal is to deliver high-quality product and aligned inventory and promotions with our customers' value perception. This will give us the best opportunity to produce healthy sell-throughs, AURs, and growth margins that underpin our track record of net sales, earnings, and cash flow growth. Our playbook and model both work, and we will continue to leverage them moving forward. Thinking further about what we've built over the years, we also have a history of capitalizing on moments like these to further strengthen the business, and we remain focused on the long-term opportunity ahead. We strongly believe in the global power of our brands, and we are continuing to further their reach by investing in marketing, technology, new channel partnerships, and company-owned stores. On the store side, we expect to add around 100 new physical experiences this year in with additional localized product and advertising to build lasting market presence and growth. The first quarter was another example of where we set a goal and delivered on that goal. As we move through the second quarter, we expect to add to our track record of controlling what we can control and doing what we say we're going to do. Global growth remains our highest priority for 2025, so we look to our first quarter progress while investing for the long term. And with that, I'll hand it over to Robert to expand more on our results and key outlook drivers.