Boot Barn Holdings, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Boot Barn Holdings Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Mark Dedovesh, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Finance. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Boot Barn's first quarter fiscal 2026 earnings results. With me on today's call are John Haston, Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Watkins, Chief Financial Officer. A copy of today's press release, along with a supplemental financial presentation, is available on the Investor Relations section of Boot Barn's website at bootbarn.com. Shortly after we end this call, a recording of the call will be available as a replay for 30 days on the investor relations section of the company's website. I would like to remind you that certain statements we will make during this call are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect Boot Barn's judgment and analysis only as of today, and actual results may differ materially from current expectations based on a number of factors affecting Boot Barn's business. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. For a more thorough discussion of the risks and uncertainties associated with the forward-looking statements to be made during this conference call and webcast, we refer you to the disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements that is included in our first quarter fiscal 2026 earnings release, as well as our filings with the SEC referenced in that disclaimer. We do not undertake any obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. I will now turn the call over to John Hazen, who runs Chief Executive Officer. John.

Thank you, Mark, and good afternoon. Thank you everyone for joining us. On this call, I will review our first quarter fiscal 26 results, discuss the progress we have made across each of our four strategic initiatives, and provide an update on current business. Following my remarks, Jim Watkins will review our financial performance in more detail, and then we will open up the call for questions. We are very pleased with our start to fiscal 26 as first quarter results significantly increased compared to the prior year and exceeded our expectations. First quarter revenue increased 19% to $504 million and consolidated same store sales increased 9.4%. In addition to strong sales growth, merchandise margin rate increased 180 basis points compared to the prior year period. The strength in sales and margin combined with solid expense control resulted in earnings per diluted share of $1.74 during the quarter, which equates to 38% growth compared to the prior year period of $1.26. The team's ability to deliver strong top and bottom line results reflect the execution of our four strategic initiatives, which I'll now spend some time discussing. Let's begin with new store growth. We opened 14 stores in the first quarter, ending the period with 473 stores across 49 states. Our new stores continue to exceed expectations across all geographies and are projected to generate approximately $3.2 million in annual revenue and pay back in less than two years. We are on track to open 65 to 70 new stores this year in both legacy and new markets. In addition to strong revenue in their first year of operation, new stores are also helping drive same-store sales growth once they turn comp. New stores opened over the last six years currently comprise approximately 40% of our comp store count and have outperformed stores opened prior to 2019 by approximately 350 basis points over the last year, resulting in more than a 100 basis point tailwind to consolidated comps. We are very pleased that our new stores are continuing to attract new customers and grow sales after their initial opening, which couples nicely with our sales and customer growth and legacy stores. This underscores the growth potential of our new store initiative as we believe we have the market potential to double our store count in the U.S. alone over the next several years. Moving to our second initiative, same-store sales. First quarter consolidated same-store sales grew 9.4%, with brick-and-mortar same-store sales increasing 9.5%. Store comp growth was driven by an 8.5% increase in transactions and a 1% increase in units per transaction and flat average unit retail. From a merchandising perspective, we saw broad-based growth across all major merchandise categories in the first quarter, led by the combined ladies, western boots, and apparel businesses, which comp positive mid-teens. This was followed by the combined men's western boots and apparel businesses, which comped positive high single digits. Our denim business, which is included in the figures just mentioned, comped positive high teens. Our work boots business comped low single digit positive, and our work apparel business comped high single digit positive. We are extremely pleased to see the broad base growth across categories continue through the first quarter. From a store operations perspective, I am proud of the team's performance, delivering strong results and best-in-class customer service during an especially busy quarter. In the first quarter, the team was able to open 14 new stores, navigate the complexity of several large-scale remodels, and work through labor-intensive reticketing on third-party goods. I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the entire field organization for their hard work and dedication. Moving to our third initiative, Omnichannel. In the first quarter, e-commerce comp sales grew 9.3% and BootBarn.com, which is approximately 75% of our online sales, comp low double-digit profits. We are very pleased with the momentum in our online business and the continued innovation from our Omnichannel team. The team is actively advancing its AI initiatives, including the rollout of our new AI-powered search functionality on our websites. Boot Barn now leverages AI to enhance product copy, support store associates through our Cassidy Assistant, develop multimedia training modules, and power the new search experience. In addition to improving our technical abilities, the team's focus on being a stores-first organization continues to generate benefits. More than half of our online orders are being fulfilled by the stores, which helps increase merchandise margin and provides the customer with a broader assortment of merchandise to shop. Buy online, pick up in store, and ship to store have both reached record levels, which will drive increased traffic to our stores, help to reduce shipping costs, and improve customer loyalty as we encourage them to shop both in store and online. Now to our fourth strategic initiative, merchandise margin expansion and exclusive brands. During the first quarter, merchandise margin increased 180 basis points compared to the prior year period. Remarkably, merchandise margin rate has increased approximately 630 basis points over the last six years, or over 100 basis points per year on average. First quarter exclusive brand penetration increased 250 basis points to 40.6% of sales. I am proud of the team's commitment to drive sales growth while increasing merchandise margin and growing exclusive brands. From a marketing perspective, we are using the creative team's outstanding content to further support our own exclusive brands, starting with our leading work brand, Hawks. In the first quarter, we launched a new website and marketing campaign for Hawks that focuses on work boots and clothing for blue-collar workers across industries. We are encouraged by the early returns and the positive results give us confidence to move forward with our strategy to market our exclusive brands directly and we expect to launch a direct marketing campaign later this year to support our leading men's brand, Cody James. I'd now like to provide a recap on our pricing strategy as it relates to tariffs, which remains consistent with what we shared on our call in mid-May. We have received third-party cost increases from our vendor partners, and our field organization has begun reticketing these items to reflect the new MSRP. We expect the reticketing of third-party items to be completed by the end of August, resulting in maintaining merchandise margin rate. For exclusive brands, we plan to hold off on price increases until the fall in order to gauge price elasticity. We will then review exclusive brands by individual style to determine if we should raise or hold price on certain items, which could result in giving up margin rate in order to maintain or gain market share. Now turning to current business, we are four weeks into the second quarter of fiscal 26 and we have continued to see broad-based growth as consolidated same-store sales increased 11.7%, driven by an 11% increase in transactions and a 1% increase in average unit retail. While we are pleased with the start to our second quarter, we are mindful that July was the softest month of the second quarter last year. We remain cautious of overall consumer sentiment and macro uncertainty, and we'll continue to manage our business prudently. I would like now to turn the call over to Jim.