Dorel Industries Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Dorel Industries' first quarter 2026 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star and then one using a telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference, you may reach an operator by pressing star and zero. Before turning the meeting over to management, please be advised that this conference call will contain statements that are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded today, May 8th, 2026. I'd now like to turn the floor over to Martin Schwartz, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for the REL's first quarter earnings call for the period ended March 31st, 2026. With me today are Jeffrey Schwartz, CFO, and Jason Kwasnick, Vice President of Finance. We'll take your questions following our comments. Please note that all figures mentioned during this call are in U.S. dollars. The REL Juvenile delivered a solid first quarter earnings demonstrating resilience in a volatile global environment marked by geopolitical uncertainty, foreign exchange headwinds, and rising input costs. Strong growth and improving profitability across Europe and international markets, including export, Australia, and Latin America, helped offset softness in the U.S. business. Disciplined cost management supported performance despite margin pressure from currency movements. while continued investment in innovation and strong global customer engagement reinforced the strength of Dorel's juvenile diversified portfolio and its positioning for substantial growth. Dorel home results improved meaningfully compared to both prior year and last year's fourth quarter, but this was due only to substantial reductions in overhead and operating expenses. Sales were disappointing due to the lack of success in certain traditional furniture categories. As evidenced by the recent announced closure of three competing Canadian-based furniture manufacturers, the furniture industry remains very difficult. This is forcing us to be even more focused on exiting categories and channels where our competitive advantage is limited and continue with a product line that minimizes our overhead. This will allow us to return to profitability and provide a clearer foundation for future success as the year progresses. As always, Jeffrey will walk you through our results, but first I want to add some color to our press release, starting with the juvenile segment. The juvenile segment delivered another quarter of improved earnings with markets outside of the U.S. leading the way. This was the case through most of 2025 as well. despite all markets facing challenges brought on by various geopolitical events. These conditions were generally made worse in the first quarter with the heightened tension in the Middle East at the end of February. There is no question that when costs rise for consumers, as they have around the world with the surge in oil prices and the general uncertainty brought on by recent events, it impacts consumer behavior. This impact was most acute in the U.S. market, and the positive momentum we saw in the fourth quarter last year slowed down, reflecting continued softness in the juvenile category, following tariff-related disruptions, heightened promotional pressure, and cautious consumer spending. We have responded by aligning the cost structure to a lower demand environment. While the U.S. market remains challenging, we continue to focus on targeted innovation portfolio optimization, and selective customer programs to support longer-term recovery. This evidenced by recognition from several industry organizations. Namely, Forbes recognized Maxi Cosi Casea as the best smart baby swing. Wired featured Maxi Cosi Cani 4-in-1 car seat as best baby gear. And Consumer Reports recognizing the Seat C-Pro 360 Baby Monitor, the Starling Bassinet, and the Iora Bedside Bassinet as category leaders. Recognition like this, while satisfying, does not always lead to higher sales. But fortunately, in this case, it only reinforces that our teams are doing a great job with our Maxi Cosi brand and is leading to positive financial results. This is our flagship brand around the world with a growing presence in North America. And in the quarter, sales were up over 20% versus prior year, and now represents over 40% of the juvenile segment sales. Outside of the US, the picture is very positive. The strength of our various divisions has allowed us to overcome many of the same challenges in the United States. In Europe, the REL juvenile delivered a strong quarter with organic revenue increasing. driven primarily by robust demand for Maxi Cosi car seats across specialty retail, mass merchants, and e-commerce platforms. Notably, in Portugal, Maxi Cosi received a 2026 Consumer Choice Award in both the baby stroller and car seat categories. This marks the brand's first win since entering the Portuguese market four years ago, demonstrating successful market penetration and growing consumer trust in a competitive European market. Other standouts in our international markets include Australia, New Zealand, which delivered robust double-digit revenue growth, and in export markets like China, Turkey, and South Korea, supported by continued leadership in rotating car seat technology and strong customer execution. Latin America markets continue to execute structural improvements. In Chile, the company advanced its deliberate shift towards higher margin digital and distribution channels, while rationalizing its physical retail footprint. Peru delivered strong revenue growth supported by direct-to-consumer performance, while Mexico recorded significant year-over-year growth across all major customers and product categories. Brazil remains a consistent contributor to revenues and earnings as they continue to lead the local market in innovation and design. And finally, in March, the REL Juvenile hosted its annual Global Customer Conference in Portugal, bringing together more than 240 customers from around the world. The event highlighted the company's parent-centric design philosophy and showcased major product innovations, including the launch of the new Maxi-Cosi Coral Go, as well as new collections and the proprietary SlideTech 2 technology. Interactive product hubs encourage hands-on engagement and real-time feedback, reinforcing strong customer confidence and generating positive commercial momentum, particularly within the nursery furniture portfolio. And now for the rail home. As we discussed in detail in our year-end conference call in March, we concluded 2025 with the majority of our restructuring complete with certain legacy costs being targeted for elimination in 2026. These last steps were identified as critical to us returning to profitability by the end of 26, and they remain so. However, the slow start to the year has forced us to re-examine our business model and we expect further changes to be successful and profitable again. Our core Costco business remains strong, but getting certain traditional everyday living furniture categories back to the sales level that we expected is not working. Therefore, beyond the needed elimination of our legacy costs, we will now focus on less categories and work with our long-term retail partners on known winning product categories. We will focus on items and channels with the quickest return and the lowest cash requirements. As of now, our teams continue to work on what that will look like, and it is expected that by the end of the second quarter, we will have a clearer picture of what the future looks like. I'll now ask Jeffrey to review the financials.

Jeffrey Siedman- Thank you, Martin.

For the first quarter, Durell's revenue decreased by $52 million, or 16.4%. The revenue decline was all in-home, partially offset by revenue improvements on the juvenile side. In the juvenile, the improvement in revenue was in all regions except for the United States. The operating loss in the quarter for the first quarter for the company was $6.2 million compared to $14 million in 2025. If we exclude restructuring costs, the operating loss decreased by 8.9 million from last year to 3.6 million this year. I just want to point out on financing expenses that if we look at the cash interest payments this year, they rose from 7.4 million last year to $9 million this year. There are obviously other charges, but the rest of the charges are non-cash for the quarter. If we go into the juvenile business a little bit more, the first quarter revenue was $223 million, up just over 3% from last year. The revenue, as we talked about, the revenue was in all the regions except the U.S., so We were very, very satisfied with the operations happening in Europe, in Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico. And we also have a very fast-growing export division, which covers all the markets that we don't have a physical presence in. All of that is going extremely well, at least at plan, if not better. The only areas in Q1 that was below plan was the United States. That was really affected by a general weakness in the U.S. consumer hard goods market caused by all the things that I'm sure everybody knows about high prices on oil and gas and consumer confidence and all of those things which are leading to that. In addition to that, during the quarter, we did have significant price discounting by a number of our competitors, which also made it difficult for the quarter. As we go forward, we're seeing things balancing out now and going back a little bit to normal. We do have sensitivity, of course, in the juvenile business towards cost increases, resident freight, all of that. We do have some hedged phone hedging or locked-in contracts in some of that area. Although we are sensitive to it, we are not expecting huge material impacts for the rest of the year. We will have to adjust by adjusting prices in certain areas depending on what areas have the costs, but But overall, we're pretty still bullish on that business going forward. If we look at the gross margin in the quarter, 26% decline of 130 basis points from last year. The bulk of that was a negative foreign exchange impact, primarily the euro, which we can read at the end of the quarter. Since then, the euro has actually bounced back, as most currencies have. gotten stronger versus the U.S. dollar since the end of the quarter. So we think a lot of that is going to be reversed. The operating profit was $3.6 million versus $3 million, but if you take out restructuring, $5.3 million versus $4.2 million. We flip over to home now. Home is obviously a concern point for everybody. The decline of 57% to 45 million was lower than we expected. Now, a lot of it was an intentional reduction that we announced at the year-end meeting. As we tried to go forward with a large part of the existing businesses, the Costco business, which is furniture adjacent, you know, as people know, it's not quite furniture. And then the actual furniture business, which was a smaller part. Well, the Costco business, although a bit short in the quarter, is still solid and is still, you know, a core part of this. The other part of the business, trying to maintain all of the furniture product is proving a little bit more difficult than we hoped. And we're reacting and deciding whether or not, you know, we want to carry the overheads associated with the various different product lines and making decisions to exit a product line if it's going to cost us more in overheads as we try to become a very light expense business on the home side. You know, the loss decreased by 5.6 million for the quarter. And, again, all of that. You know, if we look, first of all, if we exclude restructuring, the operating loss decreased by 6.2 million to 4.9 million, but that's still, in our eyes, way too high, obviously. We have significantly reduced our footprint, and we're looking at ways to continue to do that going forward. With that, I'll pass it back to you, Martin.

Okay, thank you, Jeffrey. For our outlook, driven by our success outside the U.S. market, the juvenile segment performed well in the quarter. Looking forward, we expect the sales and earnings to improve in the U.S., and coupled with our ongoing success in Europe and other markets, this gives us confidence that we will have a strong second half. Expectations are that adjusted earnings for the full year 2026 will exceed prior year. While we are seeing some upward pressure on the cost, we are actively engaged with strategic suppliers and addressing other costs to mitigate these headwinds. At the REL Home, we are prudently reassessing the business to identify our path forward. We intend to leverage our excellent retail partnership in making choices on categories that make sense for them and improve our portfolio mix going forward. Costco remains a leader in its product categories, and this has been particularly true as uncertainty around the tariffs meant retailers were exploring alternate sources of supply, and we were able to work with them from multiple jurisdictions. Fortunately, the work done last year in reducing our footprint to what it is today allows us to make any needed changes relatively quick. While this is not likely to impact the second quarter, we expect that we can deliver profits in the home segment in the medium to long term. With that, I'll ask the operator to open the lines for questions, and please limit your questions to two in the first round. Operator?

We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star and then one on your telephone keypads. We hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up the handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. We'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. And our first question today comes from Cheryl Zhang from TD Callen. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, good morning, Jeffrey. This is Cheryl. Thanks for taking our question. So my first question is on Juvenazu, very strong growth there in Europe and Australia. Is there anything you can point to that enable MaxiCozy's outperformance in those markets? And I'm curious, who are you getting shares from in those markets?

Well, it's definitely the product pipeline. We've been talking about it for a couple of years now. Our market share has been growing significantly in car seats in Europe, for example. And it's based on our technology, our innovation. What we do in Europe tends to flow through to most of the rest of the world, and that's why we're seeing so much of it. What I'm excited about is the pipeline is still full. We still have a lot of new stuff coming out. Later this year, I mean, I would say every quarter we're introducing something actually to the market. But, you know, we know what's coming for the rest of the year. We know what's coming in the first quarter of next year. We've shown it to a number of our accounts. Everybody's excited. So it's really innovation and product is driving all of that. Market share is coming from most everywhere. Gains. It's not one particular place or person, but, you know, again, excited about that. We're also looking forward to starting to bring more of our European-based products into the U.S., which we were doing a hybrid in the past, where we would take some European ideas and make sort of American product with it. And now we're going to go more to... to the actual European product adapted for American standards.

Okay, that's very good color. And on the home side, I'm wondering if you can give us an update on the restructuring program and what is remaining?

It's a good question. I mean, we have a, we are, I would say, on schedule with everything we wanted to do, you know. that we came up with sort of the decisions. It is on schedule. There are a few legacy costs, some buildings that we're still paying rent on that we need to exit, and we're working very much on that. That's going to be a key element. We are still selling off the old inventory. We call it the non-go-forward inventory. However, as we look at new product lines, we need to sort of reevaluate, is there more inventory that needs to be kind of put in a non-go-forward bucket? You know, that's sort of the area. And are we looking at new facilities? You know, we're re-looking at everything to see if there's more things to add to the original restructuring program. There's a bit of a work in progress.

Okay, got it. Thank you. And last one before I recue, just given the ongoing industry softness and the challenging macro outlook, how do you feel about the home segment returning to profitability by year-end, or do you feel like it's more likely a 2027 event?

You know, a lot of it, we know that the Costco business is profitable, like in and of itself, right? That's the bulk of it. We also are looking at an expansion of, we'll call it juvenile and youth furniture within our juvenile business. So some of what we used to call home furnishing is moving over to juvenile under its current overhead structure, which is great. meaning we don't need any or very little headcount. We need very little warehousing. All of that stuff is there. Those two areas are profitable. What's going to hold us back might be the legacy costs. How fast can we get out of those costs? And therefore, can we get to the profitability by the end of the year? That's our goal. That's what we think we can do. And that's where the effort is. But we know that the businesses that we're really holding on to are profitable businesses. It's just there's still costs that need to be dropped.

Okay, got it. Thank you very much. I'll turn it over.

Okay. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and 1. Our next question comes from Stephen McLeod from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Thank you. Good morning, guys. I just wanted to follow up on the juvenile outlook. And you talk about just some of the upward pressure you're seeing on costs. And I'm just curious, you know, how are you managing those costs? Will those come through in higher prices? or you talk about a couple of things in the press release as long as you get a bit more detail?

Yeah, I mean, that's like live. It's happening as we go. There are certain items we're going to need price increases on. There are certain items that we think that we can make it through without a price increase. There are... You know, there's currency. I mean, there's so many things moving. So we're still it's a real live thing. But, yeah, I would expect to have some price increases around the world. Definitely. Some markets are easier than others. But, you know, we'll have to deal with it. I mean, how long, you know, how long are these cost increases going to last? We don't know about that either. Right. So it's really dynamic. But we feel that with the momentum of the brand, the Maxi Cosi brand is is keeping us well anchored and and also as the innovation hits the market it allows us you know a little bit more price um control but yeah it it's i i can't give you a hard number because we're we're in it like every day yeah that that makes sense definitely uh very dynamic

Um, but that's helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Um, and then just on the home business, um, you know, you talked a lot about Costco being, um, you know, a very steady product line and sales were good in the quarter, um, profitable. Um, like how big of home is, is Costco?

Well, you know, the question becomes the theoretical number that we thought it would be, or what the actual number is, which is more. I mean, it is, it is. Yeah. It's, it's weird what we're doing. I'm going to not give you a hard number because we're still in the process of taking things apart. But it's, you know, it's north of 70%. You know, it's, And that number could be more as, again, as we move some of our furniture over to the juvenile, then it, it, it just takes, it shrinks the home pie. It doesn't shrink the rails pie, but. Right. But it's the bulk. I mean, it's, it's the bulk. Like I said, we're having, I mean, you, I'm sure you see what's going on. And particularly in Quebec with, with the furniture industry, it's, What I find very interesting is all of these furniture companies, they're not just filing and trying to restructure and regroup. They're all just closing.

Yeah.

Yeah. They're not even fighting anymore. They said we're done. I find that really interesting how that's different than a lot of other things. So it's really tough out there, the traditional furniture, and we don't want to fight a losing battle, not when we have a great business in the juvenile. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. And then just trying to frame the home business from where you were at Q4, the challenges you're seeing in the traditional furniture side, are they more intense than you would have expected from Q4? Like has there been kind of a change in the backdrop over the last few months?

Yes. Yes, we're finding it is still the stuff that we had in the past been competitive on and been able to move is tougher than we expected, yes, on the traditional side.

Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. Okay, no, that's super helpful, Jeffrey. Thank you so much.

And with that, we'll be concluding Actually, one moment. We do have a follow-up question from Cheryl from TD Cowen. Please go ahead with your follow-up.

Thanks so much. Just a quick question. I think in the prepared remarks you noted that you have some hedging and fixed price contracts in place. I'm curious if you can comment on what input costs are covered there and how much of your exposure is hedged and when do you have those hedging rolling off?

I mean, we have contracts. I'll give you an example. I mean, we don't have that. I can't give you hard numbers, but we have contracts like on freight, for instance. Now, that doesn't mean that freight is not going to have surcharges on top of that. But generally, we're not buying open freight pricing. And that allows us, you know, protects us to a certain extent. You know, we've We have some inventory that we've got on resin that's going to last us for a little while. So, again, if this continues to go up and up and up, no, you know, it's not going to be enough to stem. But if this is, let's say, a two- or three-month issue or a four-month issue, you know, I think we'll be okay there. So, you know, I wouldn't – I can't give you a hard number.

Okay, understood. That's very helpful. Thank you.

And, ladies and gentlemen, with that, we will be concluding today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Martin Schwartz for any closing remarks.

Okay. I just want to thank everybody for joining us today, and I just wish you a good day and a great weekend. Thank you.

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.