Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (HVT) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Greetings, and welcome to the Havertys Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Tiffany Hinkle, Assistant Vice President of Financial Reporting and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter earnings call. I'm here today with our President and CEO, Steve Burdette; and Executive Vice President and CFO, Richard Hare. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's conference call may contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those made or implied in such statements, which speak only as of the date they are made and which we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include economic and competitive conditions and other uncertainties detailed in the company's reports filed with the SEC. A replay of this call will be available on our Investor Relations website this afternoon. For commentary about our business, I will now turn the call over to Steve.

Thank you, Tiffany. Good morning, and thank you for joining our 2026 second quarter conference call. Q2 was a strong quarter, and I want to lead with the headline. We doubled earnings per share and delivered our fourth consecutive quarter of positive written and delivered comp sales. Net sales for Q2 were $194.9 million, up 7.7%, with comps up 8%. Total written sales were up 12.6%, with comps up 12.3%. Gross margin expanded 60 basis points to 61.4% from 60.8% last year. Pretax income was $7.4 million, or 3.8% of sales, compared with $4.3 million, or 2.4% of sales, a year ago, and earnings per share came in at $0.32 versus $0.16 a year ago. Richard will cover the impact of our recent stock buybacks, LIFO, tariff refunds and expectations for future tariff refunds in his discussion. Written sales grew double digits every month of the quarter. Our Memorial Day promotion was up 9.7% for the 4-day period and up 14.1% for the 2-week period. Traffic increased slightly, and closing percentages held steady during the quarter. But the standout was average ticket, which rose 14% to over $3,800, led by design average ticket, which was up 15.7% to over $8,800. Design accounted for 36.5% of our business as it continues to drive our custom special order business, which rose 23.6%. Customers love being able to choose exactly the right fabric or leather in their preferred color from our vast assortment. Every merchandise category was positive for the quarter, with double-digit increases in upholstery, bedroom, dining and occasional, and mid-single-digit growth in mattresses and decor. Our merchandising and supply chain teams continue to execute our merchandise plan, keeping assortments nimble and best sellers in stock to meet customer demand. In May, I traveled with our merchandising team to our Vietnam factories to further strengthen our partnerships with our key suppliers. While in Vietnam, I had the opportunity to meet our newly expanded Havertys Vietnam quality team in person. The team plays an essential role in Havertys' success, and I came away more energized about our capabilities and our opportunities. We reduced inventories from $106.9 million at the end of Q1 to $100.5 million at the end of Q2. That result shows what supply chain, distribution, merchandising and store operations can accomplish working as one team, driving sales while improving inventory turns. We expect to end Q3 in the $95 million range, with a 5% swing either way, depending on product flow and sales. This will position us to meet our customers' delivery expectations and achieve our sales goals. On the tariff front, the new Section 301 tariffs that replaced the Section 122 tariffs on July 24 came in at 10% and 12.5%, giving us more confidence heading into the balance of the year. As expected, the Section 232 tariffs on upholstered wood furniture remained at 25%. We are actively managing 3 cost pressures related to fuel increases that will impact our margins and expenses throughout the remainder of the year. One, beginning in mid-August, we will see roughly a 25% to 30% increase in our container rates due to the increased bunker fuel rates. Two, if diesel fuel remains above $5 a gallon due to continued geopolitical pressures, we will continue to see increases in our transportation and delivery fuel expenses through year-end. And three, the additional impact that the fuel increases will have on our product input costs for the remainder of the year. We expect the tariff refunds already received, along with the potential future refunds from third-party suppliers, to help us offset some of these cost pressures. This will give us flexibility to be more selective with any retail price adjustments as we remain committed to our full year gross margin guidance of 60.5% to 61%, excluding any additional tariff refunds. Our marketing, creative and media plans remain consistent as we continue to use connected TV, broadcast TV, social media and other digital channels. We continue to utilize direct mail to showcase for our customers what our designers can do to bring their homes to life, focusing on winning new customers. A new customer spends 50% more than a repeat customer, so that shift carries real value. Our second annual Thank You loyalty e-mail campaign, which ended in early June, rewarded our repeat customers for their patronage of our brand. Appealing to both sets of customers, new and repeat, is vital to our overall growth. Organic traffic to the site continues to improve as we strengthen our organic visibility in both SEO and GEO, and that helped drive written e-commerce sales up double digits for the quarter. Our marketing dollars were slightly down for the quarter as we continue to leverage these expenses. Our use of 60-months-no-interest financing was consistent with last year, though the cost of these programs continues to tick up. We will stay aggressive with our credit offerings during the promotional periods so that we meet our customers' financing demands and stay competitive in each of our markets. We are encouraged by the momentum of AI across the business. During the quarter, we expanded our use of AI beyond marketing, supply chain and IT development into additional customer-facing and operational areas, including home delivery, customer chat and sales, and designer communications with customers. We believe these capabilities will become another point of differentiation by improving both how we execute and how we serve our customers. We ended the quarter with 129 stores. During the quarter, we opened 2 new locations, one in St. Louis, Missouri, and one in Nashville, Tennessee, and both are running ahead of budgeted traffic and volume expectations. We plan to open 6 new stores in the second half of the year, with one being a relocation. Fredericksburg, Virginia, will open late in Q3. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will open in early Q4 and will mark our entry into our 18th state. Snellville, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, will relocate in mid-Q4. McKinney, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, opens in mid-Q4. And then Baytown and Richmond, Texas, both suburbs of Houston, open in late Q4. We finalized the closing of our San Angelo, Texas, store on June 30, and plan to close College Station, Texas, on August 31. We will continue to evaluate our existing leases and locations so that we are reinvesting our capital to create the biggest return for our shareholders. We expect the year to end with 133 stores. We continue the refresh of our mattress departments and design centers, which showcases two of the biggest opportunities for growth in our stores. We will have just over half the stores complete by year-end, with the remainder to be finished in 2027. We are optimistic about the remainder of 2026, and here's why. Our customers remain resilient at the upper end of the market. We are opening six new stores in the second half of 2026. We have had 4 consecutive quarters of positive written and delivered comp sales. Our marketing plans are reaching our customers with a message of design and confidence in our brand. Our design business continues to grow, with meaningful upside still ahead in average ticket and customer engagement. Our merchandising team is committed to introducing new products faster, creating excitement for both our teams and our customers. Our supply chain network, in combination with our fantastic suppliers, allows us to deliver quality products on time. Our investment in training and coaching our teams, paired with AI, is driving productivity. Our inventories are in excellent shape with low markdowns. Our distribution, home delivery and customer service, which are all Haverty team members, provide our customers with consistent professional service. And then finally, we are heading into our biggest holiday of the year, Labor Day, with momentum. I want to thank our roughly 2,400 team members across 17 states for the hard work, dedication and passion they bring to serving our customers' home furnishing needs. Our people remain one of the most important assets and a true differentiator against our competition. That expectation was set decades ago by Clarence Haverty, who created our motto that we live by today. Remember, our reputation is in your hands. At the point of contact with the customer, you are Havertys. I will now turn the call over to Richard.

Thanks, Steve, and good morning. In the second quarter of 2026, net sales were $194.9 million, a 7.7% increase over the prior year quarter. Comparable store sales were up 8% over the prior year period. Our gross profit margin increased 60 basis points to 61.4% from 60.8%. Excluding the impact of approximately $1.5 million in IEEPA tariff refunds recognized in cost of sales in the quarter, our gross profit margin was 60.7% in the second quarter of 2026 compared to 60.8% in the prior year quarter. Further, excluding the impact of LIFO, a $496,000 expense in the second quarter of 2026 and a $100,000 expense in the prior year quarter, our adjusted gross profit margin was 60.9% in both periods. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased $5.8 million, or 5.4%, to $113.2 million. As a percentage of sales, these costs approximated 58%, down from 59.3% in the prior year's quarter. We experienced an increase in selling expense primarily due to higher commission-based compensation and third-party credit costs, an increase in administrative expenses, primarily from higher salaries, performance-based incentive comp and related benefits, and also an increase in delivery and transportation costs. Other income expense in the second quarter was $74,000 and interest income was approximately $923,000 during the second quarter of 2026. Income before income taxes increased $3.1 million to $7.4 million. Our tax expense was $2.1 million for the second quarter of 2026, which resulted in an effective tax rate of 28.5% versus 37.8% in the prior year period. The primary difference in the effective tax rate and the statutory rate is due to state income taxes and the impact of vesting of stock awards. Net income for the second quarter of 2026 was $5.3 million, or $0.32 per diluted share on our common stock, compared to net income of $2.7 million, or $0.16 per share, in the comparable quarter last year. During the second quarter, we received $2.1 million in IEEPA tariff refunds related to our direct import program. Approximately $1.5 million was recorded as a reduction to cost of goods sold, $140,000 was recorded as a reduction in inventory, $67,000 was recorded as interest income, and the remainder was rebated to certain supplier partners. Excluding the impact of the IEEPA tariffs on our income statement, our net income for the quarter was $4.2 million or $0.25 per diluted share. Now turning to our balance sheet. At the end of the second quarter, our inventories were $100.5 million, which was up $4.3 million from year-end and up $7.2 million versus Q2 of 2025. At the end of the second quarter, our customer deposits were $43.3 million, which was up $7.8 million from year-end and up $4 million from the Q2 2025 balance. We ended the quarter with $104.3 million of cash and cash equivalents. We have no funded debt on our balance sheet at the end of the second quarter, and we have credit availability of $100 million following the June amendment of our revolving credit facility, which increased our borrowing capacity from $80 million to $100 million. Looking at some of our cash flow usage, CapEx was $13.1 million during the first 6 months of 2026, and we paid out $10.6 million of regular dividends year-to-date. We purchased approximately 723,000 shares of common stock for $16.6 million year-to-date, including 600,000 shares repurchased in June for approximately $13.9 million in a privately negotiated transaction, and we have approximately $1.8 million of remaining authorization under our buyback program. Our earnings release lists out several additional forward-looking statements indicating our future expectations of certain financial metrics. I'll highlight a few, but please refer to our press release for additional commentary. Our 2026 guidance includes tariffs currently in effect as of August 4, 2026, but excludes future IEEPA tariff refunds that may be received for our indirectly sourced products. We are closely monitoring the tariff developments to manage our exposure and minimize the impact on our business. We expect our gross margins for 2026 to remain between 60.5% and 60.1% (sic) [ 61% ]. We anticipate gross profit margins will be impacted by our current estimates of product, freight and LIFO expenses. Our fixed and discretionary type SG&A expenses for 2026 remain in the $307 million to $309 million range. The variable type costs within SG&A for 2026 are expected to be in the range of 18.7% to 18.9%. Our planned CapEx for 2026 are approximately $34 million; anticipated new or replacement stores, remodels and expansions account for $27.7 million. Investments in our distribution network are expected to be $3.2 million and investments in our information technology are expected to be approximately $3.1 million. Our anticipated effective tax rate for 2026 is expected to be 26%. This projection excludes the impact from vesting of stock awards and any potential new tax legislation. This completes my commentary on the second quarter financial results. Operator, we would like to open the call up for any questions at this time.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Anthony Lebiedzinski with Sidoti & Co.

It's really nice to see the solid results for top line and bottom line as well. So just curious, I know you touched on the written same-store sales, said that you had double-digit increases in every month of the quarter. Just wondering if you could also talk about the delivered same-store sales, how those progressed during the course of the quarter?

Yes. Anthony, I'll take a stab at it and then Steve can supplement. So just on the written business, April was -- this is for the whole company, 10.6% increase. May was 15.7% and June was 10.2%. So as Steve said earlier, double digits every month was terrific. Delivered business, a lot of momentum picking up during the quarter. We were up approximately 4% in April, approximately 8% in May, and approximately 11% in June.

Got you. Just wondering if you saw any notable regional differences in your operating area? Or was it more or less kind of consistent?

Anthony, this is Steven. Yes, it's pretty much across the board. I mean, every district was up. It was great to see. We continue to have strength out of the Midwest, which continues to do well. Our Eastern district has done well. Florida and Texas have more difficult comparisons, but they were all positive. Every district was positive. So it was a very encouraging quarter.

Got you. Okay. Based on your average ticket comments, it sounds like, obviously, this is driven more by pricing. And as far as your confidence level as far as the average ticket going forward here, how would you characterize that as far as your ability to continue to improve that average ticket?

Yes. Anthony, the real exciting thing is, yes, it is driven somewhat by pricing, but we're getting more units per ticket, and that's overall as a company and as in the design tickets. And so we're in that mid-single-digit range of increasing units per ticket. And that, in combination with our pricing, is driving that increase in average ticket. And I feel good about it. I see solid gains that we can continue to have there. And I think we have huge opportunity still with design as we're still only attracting about high teens percentage of our customers that are using design. We think that number, as I've always said, it can be somewhere in that 25-plus percent range. So we still have a potential upside there going forward.

Got you. All right. And then just last question for me. In terms of the increased guidance for variable SG&A, you pointed to higher selling expenses. Can you be a little bit more specific as to what you're seeing in terms of cost pressures?

Yes. As Steve mentioned it earlier, it's primarily third-party credit costs. So we're -- the usage, we're monitoring, but it's just a little bit more expensive this year than it was last year in terms of the rates we're being charged.

Our next question comes from Cristina Fernandez with Telsey Advisory Group.

Congratulations on a good quarter. I had a couple of questions. The first one is, can you talk about the traffic trends you saw during the second quarter? I assume there was some improvement from the first quarter that was hurt by weather. And broadly, what are you -- I mean, are you seeing the consumer sort of go back more to furniture stores in the past couple of months?

Yes. As I commented in the notes there that, yes, traffic did turn back positive. It was negative in the first quarter. We did say there were other reasons for that. As you pointed out, the weather and then the breakout of the war, Epic Fury at the end of February and early March. But we did see a nice bounce back in traffic, and it was pretty consistent throughout the quarter and came in slightly positive. So we're encouraged by that.

And you talked about the affluent consumer, which is most of your consumer doing well. When you look at the range of price points that you sell, are there any noticeable trends, meaning, are higher price points selling better or the improvement you're seeing broad-based?

We're not really seeing anybody shy away from it. I mean we carry the price points. The higher-end price, points design is doing extremely well with the special orders and the higher-end products. So the higher end of our line is continuing to do well. We've got a mix of good, better, best, and they all serve a need and meet our customers' demand. So we're seeing it across the board. There's just a constant lift there.

And then I had a question on the tariff refunds. Should we assume that the bulk of the refunds is what you already received, those were the, I guess, first party or the ones based on your direct sourcing? Or it was still to come from the third parties, a similar amount or perhaps bigger?

Cristina, so the tariffs we received so far that we talked about were -- you're correct. Those were the directly sourced tariffs. And I think that concludes all the -- we don't expect any more directly sourced tariffs. On the indirectly sourced, those involve multiple parties. Negotiations are in progress right now to determine what amount we'll get. It could be 2 or 3 more parties involved with this. Some of our vendors incurred legal fees. So that could impact the amount. It is ongoing. Big picture, I don't expect it to result in a materially different amount from the direct, plus or minus $1 million to $1.5 million. So we'll just have to wait and see, and we will record that once we receive it. And we hope to get something in this calendar year for the indirects.

Okay. And then the last question I had was on the fixed SG&A through the first half, those are running up around 2%. Your guidance is for those -- that line item to increase sort of 3.5%. I assume that's mostly tied to the store openings. So is that back half weighted that increase or fourth quarter weighted? Or should we see a step-up in both the third and fourth quarters?

Yes. There is a step-up in the third and fourth quarters. Some of that is rent and occupancy cost. That's primarily the big area there in terms of the non-variable G&A cost. And that guidance remains -- our guidance remained -- didn't change on that. The same guidance we gave out in the first quarter. Yes, it steps up in the back half.

We reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Tiffany Hinkle for closing comments.

Thank you for your participation in today's call. We look forward to talking with you in the future when we release our third quarter results. Have a great day, everyone.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.