Acushnet Holdings Corp.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the KushNet Company 2Q26 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Cameron Volmoth, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for a Cushnet Holdings Corp. second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me this morning are David Maher, our president and chief executive officer, and Sean Sullivan, our chief financial officer. Before turning the call over to David, I would like to remind everyone that we will make forward-looking statements on the call today. These forward-looking statements are based on a Cushnet's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may differ materially from these expectations. For a list of factors that could cause actual results to differ, please see today's press release, the slides that accompany our presentation, and our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Throughout this discussion, we will make reference to non-GAAP financial measures, including items such as net sales on a constant currency basis and adjusted EBITDA, explanations of how and why we use these measures, and reconciliations of these items to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in the schedules in today's press release, the slides that accompany this presentation, and in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Please also note that references throughout this presentation to year-on-year net sales increases and decreases are on a constant currency basis unless otherwise stated, as we feel this measurement best provides context as to the performance and trends of our business. and when referring to year-to-date results or comparisons, we are referring to the six-month period ended June 30th, 2026 and the comparable six-month period in 2025. With that, I'll turn the call over to David.

Thanks, Cameron, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased to report on a Kushnett Strong second quarter and first half results, highlight the investments we are making to strengthen the company for the future, and outline the puts and takes within our second half outlook. For the second quarter, Acushnet delivered worldwide net sales of $820 million, a 14% increase over last year, driven by strength and momentum within Titleist Golf equipment and steady gains from FootJoy and Golf Gear. This growth contributed to a 46% increase in adjusted EBITDA, which, while healthy on its own merits, also reflects the net benefit from tariff refunds. For the first half, Acushnet net sales of $1.57 billion are up 10% over last year, with growth in all reportable segments and regions. Adjusted EBITDA of $353 million represents a 25% increase in the period. Fueling these results, the Acushnet team remains focused on the game's avid, dedicated golfer and enthused about healthy industry fundamentals and growing participation. First half rounds of play are projected to be up low single digits with growth in the U.S., Japan and Korea offset by modest declines in Europe, which comped against an outsized weather-related increase in 2025. And as Sean will note, we are making strategic investments in the Kushnets' future with focus on golf ball manufacturing and golf club assembly capacity enhanced customization and automation capabilities, and our global technology platforms. Getting to our segment results, you see continued momentum in our Titleist golf equipment business, which grew 14% in the first half. Golf clubs set the pace up 43% in the quarter and 24% for the half, led by the successful launch of our new GTS line of metals. Noteworthy is the good work by our team to accelerate product development and production timelines to move this launch from Q3 into the seasonal peak of Q2. And while GTS is the headline within golf clubs, successful new Vokey SM11 wedges and Titleist irons also contributed to our growth in the first half. Titleist Golf Balls also posted a strong half with revenues up 6% led by Pro V1 growth on top of the challenging comp against last year's launch volumes. On the PGA Tour, Titleist Golf Balls have 22 wins to date, 18 more than the nearest competitor as this pyramid of influence, validation, and success helped to fuel our golf ball momentum in the marketplace. And within the Titleist Golf Equipment segment, we continue to fuel our success and momentum with our strong commitment to fittings and value-added consumer connections across regions. The Kushnets Golf Gear segment is also in good shape, growing 6% in the half, led by double-digit gains in Titleist gloves, bags, and our Club Glove travel brand. And Foot Joy delivered 3% growth in the quarter, led by strong footwear sales, and is up 1% for the half. FJ's underlying fundamentals continue to strengthen with increased focus on premium performance franchises Premier, Hyperflex, and ProSL, generating a favorable product mix shift within footwear and similar trends with FJ apparel, which are helping to offset softness in Japan and Korea. And finally, net sales of products not allocated to a reportable segment were up also. would continue to momentum and growth from Schuss in the U.S. and GB&I. Now looking at our business by region on slide five, you see that all regions increased on a constant currency basis in the second quarter and first half. The Kushnets U.S. sales were up 15% in the quarter, driven by growth in Titleist golf equipment and the benefits from healthy rounds of play and strong engagement from our core dedicated golfer base. EMEA was up 12%, reflecting growth in Titleist golf equipment and golf gear. Japan was up 31%, driven by Titleist golf equipment, notably golf clubs, and continued strength in golf balls. Korea was up 7% in the quarter, also driven by golf equipment and the accelerated GTS medals launch and double-digit footwear gains. And rest of world was up 15% versus last year's second quarter. led by outsized growth in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and China. And now looking forward to the second half, Akushnet is well positioned for the peak summer playing season, and we point to the overall health of the golf industry and our core consumer as baselines for our outlook. It is worth noting that second half comps will be impacted by the timing shift associated with our GTS launch into Q2. and the upcoming transition within golf balls as we prepare and build inventories to support our 2027 Pro V1 launch. This club timing makes for a meaningful change to our typical club cadence, while the Pro V1 transition is anticipated to unfold similar to prior every other year launches. In summary, golf industry fundamentals are in good shape. Participation is durable and positive trending. and we are pleased with our momentum and new product pipelines as we look to the future. As always, we appreciate the commitment and good work of our associates and supportive partners as we work together to provide golfers with leading product and service experiences. Thanks. If you're interested this morning, I will now pass the call over to Sean.

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone. We had a solid second quarter and first half to start 2026, driven by continued momentum and Titleist golf equipment, including the successful launch of our GTS drivers and fairways. Second quarter net sales were up 14%, and adjusted EBITDA was $209 million, up $66 million from last year's second quarter. These results include IEPA tariff refunds, which represented an approximately $38 million benefit to adjusted EBITDA, For the first half of 2026, net sales increased 9.5% and adjusted EBITDA increased 25%. Excluding the net refund benefit, adjusted EBITDA increased 12% in the first half, ahead of our expectations of high single-digit growth in both net sales and EBITDA during the first half, as second quarter GTS metals shipments were greater than anticipated. Gross profit in the second quarter of $446 million was up $92 million compared to 2025. The increase reflected the portion of the net IEPA tariff refund recognized in gross profit, as well as higher sales volumes and average selling prices in Titleist golf equipment, partially offset by approximately $11 million of incremental tariff expense in the quarter versus prior year. Second quarter gross margin of 54.4% was up 520 basis points, while first half gross margin was 50.9%, up 230 basis points versus prior year. Excluding the net tariff refund benefit, first half gross margin was 48.1%, down 50 basis points year over year. It's worth noting that the first half tariff expense was approximately $29 million more than the first half of 2025. SG&A expense of $246 million in the quarter increased $24 million from 2025 as we continue to invest in our fitting network, IT systems, and A&P to support new product launches and future growth, as well as recognizing higher incentive compensation expense related to tariff refunds. Interest expense of $12 million in the quarter was down $3 million due to a decrease in interest rates, as well as interest income on tariff refunds Our effective tax rate in Q2 was 23.6%, up from 19.9% last year, primarily driven by changes in our jurisdictional mix of earnings and a reduced income tax benefit related to the U.S. deduction on foreign-derived intangible income. Moving to our balance sheet and cash flow highlights. The strength in our balance sheet and cash flow supports the continued execution of our capital allocation strategy. Our focus remains on investing in the business to support long-term growth and returning capital to shareholders. Our net leverage ratio at the end of Q2 using average trailing net debt was slightly below two times, lower than the first quarter level of 2.3 times than our stated leverage target of 2.25 times. Inventories were flat when compared to last year's second quarter, and we remain comfortable with our inventory quality and position. First half cash flow from operations increased $76 million from the first half of 2025, driven in part by tariff refunds received in Q2. Capital expenditures were $37 million in the first half of 2026, up $12 million from last year, as we continue to invest strategically in additional golf ball manufacturing capacity and increased club assembly to support the sustained strength of demand for our products around the world. We still expect full-year free cash flow to meaningfully improve year-over-year, converting it roughly 40% to 50% of adjusted EBITDA. Through June, we returned roughly $57 million to shareholders with $31 million in cash dividends and $26 million in share repurchases. Today, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.255 per share payable on September 18 to shareholders of record on September 4, 2026. Moving to guidance, we are raising our full-year outlook to reflect our solid first-half results and the one-time benefit from the net IEPA tariff refunds. We now expect full-year sales to be in the range of $2.65 billion to $2.75 billion, up 4.1% at the midpoint. On a constant currency basis, we are expecting net sales to be up between 3.4% and 4.3%. This outlook reflects continued strength in our Titleist golf equipment segment, partially offset by softness and wearables, specifically in Asia. We now expect full-year adjusted EBITDA to be $450 to $470 million. This outlook includes a full-year net IEPA tariff refund benefit of approximately $30 million. We continue to work on the implementation of our new cloud-based ERP system and still expect full-year SG&A growth Excluding incremental ERP expenses to be generally in line with our sales growth projections for the year. As it relates to tariffs, we now expect approximately $54 million of tariff expense in 2026, which is $16 million lower than our original estimate of $70 million. As we discussed last quarter, we expect this benefit to be largely offset by higher product costs and freight costs, primarily driven by energy-related supplier cost increases including synthetic rubber pricing in golf ball manufacturing and tungsten costs in golf clubs. Looking at the second half, our outlook reflects continued strength throughout our business. That being said, the timing impacts of the accelerated GTS Metals launch, which shifted a meaningful amount of Titleist golf equipment sales and earnings into the first half, creates a more challenging comparison in the back half of the year. As a result, we expect second half net sales to be down low single digits and adjusted EBITDA to decline when compared to second half of 2025, with the impact more pronounced in the fourth quarter. Overall, we're pleased with our first half execution, the performance of the accelerated GTS Metals launch, and the position of the business heading into the back half of the year. We remain focused on supporting the dedicated golfer, investing for long-term growth, and maintaining a disciplined capital allocation approach. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Cameron for Q&A.

Thanks, Sean. Ben, could we now open up the lines for questions?

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Simeon Goodman with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. My first question is, if you look at golf clubs, which grew $82 million in Q2 on constant currency, I don't know if you said this or not, or you're willing to quantify, but how much is attributable to the timing of pulled up launches? And then how do you think about the rest of the business in that regard?

Yes, I mean, Sean, we didn't quantify it. Again, we're just highlighting, as we did on the last call, the impact. Obviously, very pleased with north of 40% growth in the quarter, certainly a little better than we expected in terms of timing. And, you know, as we look into the back half, hopefully with the guide we've provided, you can understand that, at least for clubs, we'll see continued growth. Performance in Q3, but the more pronounced comp on clubs will be in Q4, given the accelerated timing if you're comping against the 24 GT launch.

Okay. And actually, my follow-up is related to that. And again, I missed some of the prepared remarks, so hopefully this is not redundant. But if we look, the Q2 was much better on sale. The second half, this looks like it's just a street modeling issue because you didn't help us figure out what that launch would look like exactly. So can you talk about your plan and the sequencing of the year, second half versus first half, and if any of the pluses or minuses? It sounds like it's all pluses and there's just some timing mismatch in how the street modeled, but that's what I'm looking to clarify.

Yeah, just to clarify, again, last quarter, given the early performance of the launch, we had guided everybody to the high single digits in terms of revenue growth. You know, obviously it delivered better than that on the top line for the company. So, again, the timing was slightly better than expected. As we look at the back half of the year, again, we feel very good about the full year outlook in terms of 4.1% at the midpoint, almost 4% constant currency and how that converts. So, very pleased. Again, you know, we Your next question comes from the line of Joe Altobello with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Please go ahead.

Hey, everyone. This is Mitch Ingles on for Joe Atabella. My first question is on the $38 million of net IPA, IEPA tariff refunds in 2Q. You're guiding $30 million for the year. So can you help bridge us between those two figures?

Sure. Happy to, Mitch. It's just a function of our updated outlook. If we take the 460 at the midpoint in terms of EBITDA, Our incentive plans are tied to adjusted EBITDA, so based on the new outlook for the year, we'll be expensing the incremental incentive comp over the nine-month period. So the 38 reflects what was booked in Q2. The remaining eight that nets us to 30 will flow through in the second half. You know, the good news is, you know, all of the tariff refunds were submitted. They've all been received. So I don't expect any incremental refunds in the back half of the year to be material at all. And again, that's a credit to the team in terms of our ability to submit quickly and receive those refunds on a timely basis. But more than you asked, but we will ratably book that incentive comp expense over the back half of the year, which causes the net down to $30 million.

Got it. That's helpful. And then my follow-up is on the GTS launch. How would you characterize the channel inventory today? Do you still say you like where they are right now?

Yeah, I'll take that, Mitch. So it's a good opportunity for us to sort of lean into our custom fitting efforts. So much of what we do in golf clubs nowadays is through custom fitting. And so... The idea of channel inventories, they tend to run pretty steady state. The larger question that we think about often is our ability to meet at once custom demand, which is in good shape. I will say lead times are a little bit longer than our typical lead times, but I think that's just a function of demand. So where we are inventory-wise in the channels, feel very good about it. and again, part two of that is our team's doing a nice job meeting at once demand from our global fitters. Thanks, Mitch.

Next question, please. Your next question comes from the line of Randy Connick with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks, guys. Good morning. I guess on the quality over quantity theme on Foot Joy, continued improvement on ASPs, just can you give us some perspective on kind of where we are with margins in that business, just kind of where they've kind of peaked out, where they troughed out, where we are today, kind of any opportunity to continue this quality theme of improving out-the-door selling price and just managing the inventories better and better to provide a more profitable segment going forward as you've done in the last few quarters. Just curious on where we are there.

Yeah, Randy, maybe Sean and I'll come at this two ways. First off, my comments is much about favorable mix shift towards premium performance, both in footwear and apparel, fewer closeouts, and just an overall More premium favorable mix within the segment, which is delivering healthy margin trends with the caveat of tariffs. And if you look at our business and what was hit the hardest, it would clearly be foot choice. So that's the overall theme when we talk about the structure is improving, and it is. We've got a bit of a headwind that we've dealt with vis-a-vis tariffs. But the team is doing a nice job moving through that. Again, if there's a common theme within foot joy, we're seeing a continued trend and shift towards the more premium end of the line.

Yeah, and just, Randy, to add to that, and you'll see it when we file the queue, on a reported basis, foot joy's operating margin improved year over year by, I think, 100 basis points in the first half. If you normalize for the refunds and the are the net tariff refund. I think it actually improved by 170 basis points. So certainly pleased with the operating income margin profile of FootJoy and its improvement.

That's great. And then we all know that the United States is super strong. I think I saw in the release that Korea is slightly positive. I think that that area of the world has been down previously. So can you just give us a refresher on international markets, just what you see out there and what you see ahead?

Yeah, so I would say Korea, Japan, first off, starting with rounds of play, you know, total rounds are up in those markets, which is obviously a positive. The theme we're seeing in 26 mirrors largely what we've seen the last year or two. In our case, balls and clubs, the equipment segment has done quite well. Where we've seen challenges are wearables, apparel, footwear, and also gear. So it's a little bit of a tale of two markets in the sense that equipment, strong, healthy, vibrant, growing, and we've seen some challenges across the wearables line. That played out last year. That continues to play out this year. And just by... by way of calling out Korea. Korea's historically had an outsized apparel market. It's one of the largest apparel markets in the world. So when it rode up, it was a great thing, and it's been correcting for the last year or so. But moving around the board, Europe and for us, you may recall a year ago, rounds of play were up dramatically in the first half and for the year. They had a very mild spring, got off to a fast start, so Europe had a very strong year last year. Rounds it down across the UK and the mainland, but again, net-net up over its normalized run rate. That said, we're pleased with our business in the region. You saw the numbers and healthy growth. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Randy.

Thanks. Operator, next question, please.

Your next question comes from the line of Gregory Miller with Truist Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. First question, I'd like to ask you about material costs and how they've trended relative to your prior expectations.

You know, they've moderated a bit, Greg. You know, in terms of synthetic rubber, again, still slightly volatile in light of the oil markets. You know, I think the cost of tungsten has moderated slightly relative to where we were maybe 90 days ago. You know, we continue to see slightly elevated, you know, distribution, freight in, freight out, et cetera. So continuing to monitor, continuing to manage supply as best we can in light of the macro environment. You know, so it's, you know, marginally better than maybe where it was 90 days ago, but still a lot of uncertainty.

Okay, thanks. My second question, I wanted to ask for an update in terms of your capex spend as it relates to the plant equalization, given that your evolved plants are running at very high capacity levels at this point. I'm just curious if you could provide us the latest in terms of your progress in that front.

Yeah, yeah, and you're right. We are running at near full capacity in our plants. We've been in the midst over, really started four or five years ago, of adding capacity, notably in cast urethane and converting lines into more cast urethane capacity. So we feel very good about the work we've done the last four or five years that have allowed us to deliver the results we're delivering today. but we see in the next year or two continued expansion mainly within cast urethane in both our Massachusetts and Thailand ball plants. So I don't see our capacity as a constraint today and we're optimistic on the good work that's happening. I will just add it takes a while, right? So when you make the decision to add capacity It can take 12 to 18 months to get new lines up and running just from a machinery standpoint. So we're far down field on wave one and we're in flight on wave two in terms of managing and adjusting our capacity with a shift and tilt more towards cast urethane, which in our case is the broader Pro-V1 lines. Great.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Greg. Operator, next question, please.

Your next question comes from a line of Matthew Boss with JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. So, David, could you speak to larger picture health of the golf industry versus company-specific execution, meaning on the 20% growth in total golf equipment, if there's a way to elaborate on underlying demand and reception to the GTS Metals launches, and performance on the ball side relative to initial plan. I think that that would be helpful just to pull out any launch timing benefit. And then secondly, any changes at all to your underlying plan in the back half across segments, again, outside of any launch timing shifts.

Yeah. Hi, Matt. Here we go. So I'll start with high level view of the game. We talked about Rounds of Play, up low single digits, up 4% in the U.S., far and away the largest market. A couple of call-outs that I found interesting vis-a-vis Rounds of Play would be the National Golf Foundation carves up the country into eight regions, and every region is up year-to-date, which is unusual because typically you've got an outlier weather pattern that's going to affect one region over another. So I think that speaks to the structural health of the game. The other piece I'd add is they track public and private access, public play, which is about 75 or so percent of total rounds in the US is up at a greater rate than private play. Again, I think a sign of broad-based health of the game. And then we always track and we pay close attention to just the cost of public play. And you can imagine it's a wide range. It's up about 4% year-to-date. NGF has it at about $47 per round. So while up, there's still affordable golf out there. So high level, and that's a U.S.-centric comment. Game is healthy. Now to our business, Matt, obviously very pleased on many fronts, and I would say the highlights would be in the equipment segment, right? Anytime we can grow our ball business on a year following a Pro V1 launch, that's a positive. That's happened this year. Ball sales up 6%. We feel great about that. Really, I called it out on my remarks, the ability and good work of our team to move a launch from Q3 into Q2, on one hand, it sounds simple. It's anything but because it affects product development timelines, supply chains. Assembly, et cetera, et cetera. So our team did a really nice job. So very pleased on the ball side of the house, very pleased on the club launch side of the house and the early response. And then separate from that, if I look at our wearables business around the world, Foot Joy, Titleist Apparel in Asia, shoes around the world, and gear business steady with some pockets of softness that I called out. Matt, that's a very high-level view of our business, and I would lean into we're particularly pleased with the strength and early success of balls and clubs equipment in the first half of the year. Now, in terms of what maybe has changed for back half of the year, you know, I think Sean called it out, and we're trying to be very prescriptive to help you do the modeling around what really is the outlier, and that's going to be clubs, right, I think. Balls, Footjoy, Gear, etc. should be fairly similar to last year's in terms of their modeling and their growth. The outlier for us in the second half is really a club story, and that's a function of we moved a lot of volume from Q3, Q4 last year into Q2 of this year. So really high level. Gave you a lot of information there, I realize. Any follow-ons to that? Did I get at your question, Matt?

Yeah, you did. The only follow-on is just outside of any timing launches. If we're looking at that golf equipment segment in the back half of the year, just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything outside of launch timing that's changed in your plan.

No. Matt, this is Sean. It's largely as we described. It's a shift from... Q3 into Q2 for the club's business. Everything else is as expected.

Great caller. Best of luck.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to David Maher for closing remarks.

Thanks, everybody. As always, we appreciate your interest in a Kushnet and look forward to following up in following the third quarter. Have a great rest of summer.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.