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Torrid Holdings Inc. (CURV)

Q4 2025 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 19, 2026

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to Torrid Holdings Inc.'s fourth quarter fiscal 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Chinwe Abaelu. Thank you. You may begin.

Chinwe Abaelu

Management

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining Torrid Holdings Inc.'s call today to discuss our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of fiscal 2025, which we released this afternoon and can be found on our website at investors.torrid.com. With me today on the call are Lisa Harper, Chief Executive Officer, and Paula Dempsey, Chief Financial Officer. Ashlee Wheeler, Chief Strategy and Planning Officer, is also present and will be participating in the Q&A session. Before we get started, I would like to remind you of the company's safe harbor language, which I am sure you are familiar with. Management may make forward-looking statements, including guidance and underlying assumptions. Forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements containing the words expect, believe, plan, anticipate, will, may, should, estimate, and other words and terms of similar meaning. All forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions as of today, March 19, 2026. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For further discussion of risks related to our business, see our filings with the SEC. This call will contain non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in the earnings release furnished to the SEC and available on our website. I will now turn the call over to Lisa Harper.

Lisa Harper

Management

Thank you, Chinwe, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. On today's call, I will review our fourth quarter and full-year 2025 performance and discuss the substantial progress we have made over the past two years. We have optimized our channel, product, and pricing platforms. With these foundational elements now in place, I will outline our primary focus for 2026, which is accelerating customer file growth through retention, reactivation, and acquisition. Finally, I will turn the call over to Paula to discuss the financials in detail and our outlook for the year ahead. I am pleased to report that for 2025, we reached the top end of our net sales outlook, delivering $1,000,000,000, and exceeded the high end of the adjusted EBITDA range, achieving $63,600,000. For Q4, we registered net sales of $236,200,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $5,100,000. These results reflect early progress in our strategic initiatives. Throughout the year, we made deliberate decisions to strengthen our foundation, optimizing our store footprint, launching our sub-brand strategy, pausing and relaunching our footwear category, and, later in the year, sharpening our product assortment around core franchises, fabrications, and silhouettes. The trends we experienced in Q4 give us confidence we are moving in the right direction and position us well for comparable sales growth in 2026. From a category perspective, we saw strength in dresses, demonstrating growth for four consecutive quarters. We also saw acceleration in sub-brands, and a turnaround in knit tops, which comped positively for the latter half of the fourth quarter. Jeans and activewear both gained momentum and are poised for growth in 2026. Additionally, we reintroduced footwear with great success, having paused the category to resource it in the elevated tariff environment. We sold out of the limited assortment in record time, and look forward to being…

Paula Dempsey

Management

Thank you, Lisa. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I will begin with a review of our full-year 2025 results and our fourth quarter financial performance, then walk through the strategic progress we have made on our multiyear transformation and close with our outlook for fiscal 2026. Fiscal 2025 was a year of intentional structural change. We delivered full-year sales of $1,000,000,000 in line with our guidance and an adjusted EBITDA of $63,600,000, slightly ahead of expectations. Most importantly, we achieved this while simultaneously executing a significant transformation of our physical footprint, proactively managing an estimated $50,000,000 in gross tariff headwinds, and maintaining the inventory discipline that leaves us entering fiscal 2026 in a balanced inventory position. The headline result is this: we enter 2026 with a fundamentally stronger operating structure. Turning to the fourth quarter, net sales were $236,200,000 compared to $275,600,000 in the prior year. Comparable sales declined 10%, which includes 460 basis points of negative comp impact due to the temporary pause of the shoe business. Gross profit was $70,900,000 versus $92,600,000 last year, and gross margin was 30% compared to 33.6% in the prior year, reflecting promotional activities, product mix, and deleverage on a reduced sales base. SG&A expenses declined by $11,400,000 to $62,400,000 compared to $73,800,000 a year ago. As a percentage of net sales, SG&A leveraged 40 basis points to 26.4%. This is a meaningful proof point. Our cost structure is coming down drastically, supporting our EBITDA margin expansion, which is precisely the outcome our store optimization program was designed to produce. We expect this leverage to continue and accelerate through fiscal 2026 as the full benefit of our rationalized footprint flows through. Marketing investment decreased by $1,900,000 to $13,500,000. Net loss for the quarter was $8,100,000, or $0.08 per…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star and the number 2. If you would like to remove your question from the queue, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Janine Hoffman Stichter with BTIG. You may proceed.

Janine Hoffman Stichter

Analyst

Hi. Congrats on the progress. Was hoping to hear a little bit more about the learnings from the first year of sub-brands at 12% of sales next year. I think at one point, you had talked about it being 25% to 30% of the assortment. Is that still the right number? Just trying to reconcile those two figures.

Lisa Harper

Management

Hi, Janine. We are still very happy with the progress in that business. I think that we have made a decision to be more conservative about the growth cycle of that business. We are still happy the margin is a benefit overall. Some of the brands are incredibly strong. I would say out of the five brands, I would highlight Festi, Nightfall, and Retro as being very consistent performers, with Festi particularly being the number one sub-brand and with the largest opportunity for expansion. Belle Isle has a very high level of seasonality, so we are adjusting that, as it sells better in the first half of the year than the back half of the year. And we are still exploring the opportunity with Lovesick, which is the younger-oriented brand. We are still feeling very bullish and have seen very positive momentum in that business. We think that it will expand a little bit more in the front half than the back half, really because we will be lapping in the back half a full presentation of all brands, and we launched them sequentially in the first half of last year. I think I had said earlier in the mid-twenties as a mix. I think we will be more in the mid-teens as we play. I think we talked about going up to about $110,000,000 estimated opportunity this year. We are still very happy with how they are performing, and we will be testing some additional store-in-store opportunities as well as potential pop-ups later this year for sub-brands. As we see the stores performing better with the store optimization program, it gives us some room to add some of those businesses to stores, very judiciously, but to expand that opportunity.

Janine Hoffman Stichter

Analyst

Okay, great. And then maybe just on the retention and lapsed customer reactivation, what have you learned about the reasons why some of these customers have not stayed with the brand? And maybe just elaborate more on the communications that you are going forth with now to reactivate those lapsed customers. Thank you.

Ashlee Wheeler

Analyst

Hi, Janine. We have heard time and time again from lapsed customers that one of the primary reasons for spending less is economic pressure and price, which we have addressed through opening price point. In the prepared remarks, Lisa expanded on opening price point as an initiative that now represents about 30% of the business and will expand to be closer to 40%. We are seeing incredible response to that. We are seeing it as a vehicle to reactivate customers through a more approachable value pricing as well as acquire new customers that way. We are seeing it drive frequency among existing customers as well. Beyond that, we recognize with the 7,000,000 customers in our lapsed file who are marketable through our owned channels, we have enormous opportunity through more advanced targeted segmentation and personalization of messaging, using product affinity as a starting point as well as other demographic and price preference signals among that population to get them back into the brand.

Lisa Harper

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Dana Telsey with Telsey Group. You may proceed with your question.

Dana Telsey

Analyst · Telsey Group. You may proceed with your question.

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Can you talk a little bit about the cadence that you saw of sales during the holiday season, quarter-to-date what it looks like, any thoughts on how the shaping of this year is going with tariff expenses, what you have built into the model on margins with the puts and takes, and lastly, the return of footwear—how you expect that to come back, impact on margins? And are there other categories, Lisa, that you are looking to that could be sales drivers going forward? Thank you.

Lisa Harper

Management

I am going to do this backwards, and I am going to take the category conversation, and then I will talk about tariffs and categories, and then I will let Ashlee go through the rhythm of the business. We do have, obviously, tariff pressure in the first quarter, as everyone does, and we think we have managed this well, even with other types of supply chain challenges. We have very, very good relationships with our vendors, and they have been great partners with us, and so we have been able to manage that pretty consistently. From a category basis, the shoes are—just to remind you, when the tariffs came, we were running a pretty much, I would say, even EBITDA business in shoes from that specific shoe business, but we had a very high level of attachment to it. So we were keen on reengineering it to make sense both from a margin perspective as well as the customer acquisition modality and attachment to other types of products. We tested the new vendor structure and the new look and feel and quality of the product in November, and it was a resounding success. We are very happy with the results. We have some inventory coming in in the first half of the year, but we still have substantive headwinds, I would say, in the first quarter and second quarter related to footwear. We will be back in stock in the June–July time period, and we expect to have a benefit in that business in the back half. The way that we have tested it and the way that we are rolling it out allows us to expand margin in footwear as well as recapture the associated sales from customers who come to the brand through footwear. Other categories that we see expanding, outside of the OPP—which actually touches many of the categories of the business—I think denim, non-denim, tops, dresses, and sweaters in the back half. The other categories would be active. We have a fleece program rolling out that we think will be very advantageous, and then the expansion of OPP in some of these broader categories as we move forward. Those would be the bulk of the categories for expansion. Ashlee will go through the business rhythm.

Ashlee Wheeler

Analyst · Telsey Group. You may proceed with your question.

Sure. Hi, Dana. We are pleased with fourth quarter, as communicated. Holiday performed as expected. We really saw improvement in the business in January. If you recall, we talked in our third-quarter call about chasing goods into core franchises and core fabrications, particularly in our tops business, and those goods arrived in late December or January selling, and we immediately saw the business turn in those categories. Our knit tops business, as an example, which is the second-largest department in our portfolio, started to comp positive as a function of those chase receipts. We continue to see really positive momentum in the categories that we have chased into, further supported by opening price point. As for the shape of 2026, footwear, as Lisa communicated, will continue to be a headwind in the front half of the year. The largest headwind will be felt in the first quarter, abates a little bit in the second quarter, and then will provide a benefit on a year-over-year basis starting in the third quarter when we launch the boot business in a fulsome way. Additionally, in the back half of the year, we will see the launch of two bras that will support expansion in the Curve business as well as some additional fleece programs and knit dressing capsules. So there is more to come in the back half of the year.

Lisa Harper

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Brooke Roach with Goldman Sachs. You may proceed.

Brooke Roach

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. You may proceed.

Good afternoon, and thank you for taking our question. Lisa, I was hoping we could dive a little bit deeper into your marketing plans for the year, specifically around pricing, promo, and loyalty. What is changing in the loyalty program as you look to reactivate lapsed customers and increase dollars per spend on active customers today? And how does that tie into your plans for Torrid Cash and marketing? Thank you.

Lisa Harper

Management

Great. We have talked a lot about price, beyond the opening price point. As we survey our customers, more than half of our customers articulate that one of their reasons for lapsing would be their personal financial situation and that they would like to see more price parity in terms of both channel and opening price point in our core businesses. We have talked a lot about that, and that is moving forward. I would say the biggest shift that we will see this year in promotion is that we are putting less pressure on Torrid Cash redemption. That has been dwindling over time, and we have reset our expectations for the redemption in those categories. We will be able to pull back on our reliance on that piece. I think the other piece for us for the customers is price-point messaging versus percentage-off messaging, and I think all of those things are working well. We also have a lot more multiples in our promos right now—multiples in bralettes and knits and woven tops—those types of things that have tested very well for us and are exceeding our expectations. So promos will shift out of much reliance on Torrid Cash, a bit more into everyday opening price point opportunities and price parity between channels, which we also think is important. Loyalty has been pretty consistent for us. What we are looking to build in the loyalty piece is a bit more frequency. Retention is not as much of an issue there as we think we have opportunity in driving a bit more frequency among those loyalty customers with better segmentation. We just did a special sale for them a couple of weeks ago that we delivered in a very different way than we normally deliver. It was very well received, and the conversion on that was quite good. We are testing different tactics to highlight their loyalty levels and giving them more attention. We have also reinstituted the Icon level of our loyalty program, which is the top of those customers, so that we ensure that we continue to get very robust feedback from the loyalty customers. Some of the decisions that we have made are very much driven by the feedback that we get from our customers with every level of communication, every touch point that we have. I would say that we feel like there is a grassroots version of marketing that will augment what we do in more of the paid spend, and I will let Ashlee talk a little bit more about that.

Ashlee Wheeler

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. You may proceed.

Hi, Brooke. We recognize that we have an enormous amount of opportunity to leverage our owned and organic channels, particularly to reactivate customers but also to drive frequency among our existing loyalty members through really precise targeting and personalized or segmented content and messaging in a way that we have not historically. We have an enormous amount of data on our customers, with over 95% of them participating in our loyalty program. It gives us a great advantage to communicate to them in a more personalized way, and that is going to be one of our key focuses for the year. Additionally, we have reentered direct mail as a modality, an additional touch point. A portion of that will be allocated to loyalty customers or actives as a frequency-driving touch point, and we will really leverage that in a more powerful way toward acquisition and reactivation.

Brooke Roach

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. You may proceed.

Great. And then just one follow-up for Paula. As you look on a multiyear basis, do you think that double-digit EBITDA margins are achievable? And if so, how should we be thinking about the core drivers of achieving that recovery in margin rate? Thank you.

Paula Dempsey

Management

Hi, Brooke. Yes, I do believe so. Our plan has up to 150 basis points of EBITDA margin increase in fiscal 2026, and that is really through leveraging our SG&A platform. As we progress throughout the year, we are going to see that leverage increase more and more. Even with the Q1 guidance that we have provided, you will see us starting to leverage SG&A, and at the end of the year, you are going to see that gap increase and, therefore, drive that to the bottom-line profitability. So yes, 150 basis points of leverage this year is very much a possibility, and for that to continue to grow in the next few years is probably a good assumption.

Brooke Roach

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. You may proceed.

Great. Thanks so much. I will pass it on.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Corey Tarlowe with Jefferies. You may proceed.

Corey Tarlowe

Analyst · Jefferies. You may proceed.

Great, thanks. Lisa, I guess high-level strategic question. 2025 sort of felt like a defensive year, closing stores. What do you think more is left on the defensive side of the equation as opposed to when do you feel like you can really get to playing offense? And is that the way to think about what 2026 should be? And I have a follow-up.

Lisa Harper

Management

Hi, Corey. I do think about us pivoting into a more offense-oriented approach. I think what we have done to restructure the channel expense base, to expand product, and now refine—what we are talking about in terms of segmentation and refocus on owned and organic marketing efforts—is a great opportunity for us and should expand the customer file this year. We are also seeing the reinvigoration of the loyalty interest in the business through sub-brands. We are seeing those aspects of the business. I feel great about product. OPP is working very, very well and will expand. Sub-brands are working well and expanding. We have cut a substantive amount of fixed expense from underperforming stores. The stores that are open right now are exceeding our expectations in terms of their performance. We are starting to see that turn and have actually put a little bit more pressure on store sales as we move through the year, which we think is a better mix in terms of the margin opportunity there. My message overall is intended to share that we have accomplished this store closure very effectively and executed that very well. We have integrated and introduced OPP through multiple categories of the business and are pleased with how that is working. Our store profitability is improving. We are bringing back footwear. We are expanding other categories of the business. We do feel like we are in the position to start reaping the benefits of this as we move through the year.

Corey Tarlowe

Analyst · Jefferies. You may proceed.

Got it. That is helpful. And then just as a follow-up, how are you thinking about pricing and promotions for 2026?

Lisa Harper

Management

One of the things that helps us with OPP is we actually generate a similar out-the-door price point as well as an enhanced margin, as we are cost-engineering these products due to volume opportunities. As I mentioned, Torrid Cash has less pressure on it this year, as we are moving into more aligned, integrated channel promotions that are more price-pointed. The last piece is targeted promotions throughout segmentation efforts that we think, early on, are showing nice results. So a much more targeted opportunity, using those promotions to reactivate and build frequency of our customers, and using the OPP product on one end and the sub-brands on the other to really engage a broad swath of our customers and build the basket. We are seeing early results in segmentation to be positive, early results in segmentation in the loyalty program to be positive. Being more personalized and surgical about those messages, both from a product and promotional basis, is what the business needs, and we are prepared to do that this year.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Dylan Carden with William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Dylan Carden

Analyst · William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Hi. Can you guys hear me?

Paula Dempsey

Management

Yes.

Dylan Carden

Analyst · William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Awesome. I just want to ask a general question about your consumer. How are they behaving? How have they changed over the last six months? Are you expecting anything from refunds? Any changes in the performance of different demographics?

Ashlee Wheeler

Analyst · William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Performance within the customer file from a demographic basis has been very consistent. We have seen consumer behavior, or our customers' behavior, be very consistent as well. As Lisa talked about earlier, when we survey customers, the most frequent response we get is related to price or economic pressures that she is feeling, and we have been able to answer that with opening price point in a very effective way.

Dylan Carden

Analyst · William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Gotcha. So on the refunds, do you expect that to lift any of your OPP sales or anything on that front that you are embedding in the outlook?

Ashlee Wheeler

Analyst · William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

We are encouraged with the trends of the business we are seeing now. Whether or not that is related to tax refunds, I cannot say for certain, but we are encouraged by the trends that we are seeing in the business so far this quarter.

Lisa Harper

Management

I would say we do not have anything outsized embedded into the guidance related to accelerated tax refunds.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time, which now concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Lisa for closing comments.

Lisa Harper

Management

Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to sharing the progress in the business as we move forward and we release Q1. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's conference. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.