Rocky Brands, Inc. (RCKY) Q3 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Rocky Brands Inc. Third Quarter Fiscal 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Brendon Frey of ICR.

Thank you, and thanks, everyone, for joining us. Before we begin, please note that today's session, including the Q&A period, may contain forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based on information and assumptions available at this time and are subject to changes, risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially. We assume no obligation to update such statements. For a complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties, please refer to today's press release and our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025. In addition, the company may refer to certain adjusted non-GAAP metrics on this call. Explanation of these metrics can be found in the earnings release filed earlier today. I'll now turn the conference over to Mr. Jason Brooks, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rocky Brands.

Thank you, Brendon. With me on today's call is Tom Robertson, our Chief Operating and Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will take your questions. We are very pleased with our third quarter results, which exceeded our expectations across the board. Sales increased approximately 13%, marking our second consecutive quarter of double-digit top line growth and an acceleration from the 12% gain we delivered in Q2. Encouragingly, demand was broad based with several of our brands upon double digits, led by Durango, Muck and XTRATUF. At the same time, another solid performance from our Lehigh CustomFit business, combined with our strong sell-through on our own branded websites fueled a 20% increase in retail sales, while Wholesale, our largest segment, was up approximately 12%. Tom will go through the numbers in more detail shortly, but I wanted to highlight that when you exclude the positive net impact from tariffs, we saw a nice sequential improvement in gross margins. Q3 gross margins increased approximately 200 basis points from the second quarter into the low 40% range, which, along with increased sales drove profitability higher than planned and higher versus a year ago. Now let me walk you through our third quarter brand performance. XTRATUF again grew double digits, led by another very strong quarter of direct-to-consumer sales. Wholesale sales was up high single digits with top accounts in the quarter coming from drivers mix, including our largest authorized Amazon partner, key sporting goods and national outdoor retailers and independents across Western lifestyle and marine. While Q3 wholesale growth moderated from recent quarters, this was largely timing related to combine with our decision to cut off sales to certain international distributors that we discovered had been diverting product to the U.S. marketplace sites. XTRATUF's core styles continue to shine, including the Duck Camo ADB, the ADB Sport, we started shipping fall orders in the third quarter, including the kids ADB Sport, the new insulated outdoor ADB collection, new 9-inch legacy styles and a men's ADB sport in a popular Macio pattern. And we just wrapped up our Spring/Summer 2027 booking window with strong orders for new products, including our new sandal program. Muck delivered its strongest quarter of the year. Three new collections, the Explorer, the Outmax and the Woodland Pro added meaningfully to the change in sales year-over-year. Our Arctic collection also contributed to the brand's performance as earlier in-stock inventory allowed retailers to stock up ahead of the winter. Women's remained our fastest-growing segment, led by the Originals, the Muckster II, our Chicken Boot and the continued sell-through of the Rainscapes. We supported the Explorer and Outmax launches with social and digital campaigns, including creator and influencer partnership that went viral. By channel, hardware continues to expand with the national hardware co-op that added styles to its warehouse program and the sporting goods benefited most from our new fall collection. Durango delivered an exceptional quarter. Strong new product shipments, store count additions and fresh assortments at large retailers drove growth in key accounts which also benefited from our larger orders from key Western retailers. Sporting goods and outdoor accounts refreshed assortments around a new Shyloh item with strong early sell-through and the key farm and ranch retailer added doors, allowing us to capture additional share. Our field business grew nicely as multiple regions posted double-digit growth with September particularly strong. Demand remains robust among Hispanic retailers, where we added multiple new doors, particularly in the Southwest, and our field team reports that retail business is improving. Newness is fueling momentum. Spring 2027 bookings are up nicely versus last year, led by Workhorse Light, Rebel USA and the Cattleman. Our fall 2026 product is now landing at retail, and we're watching Workhorse and Rebel Pro, our 2 highest booked collections. Georgia Boot sales declined year-over-year, impacted by timing and difficult comparisons. Last year's third quarter included large bulk orders from a key account that did not repeat, while this year, several new products launched and shipped in Q2, which contributed to our outstanding second quarter. Beyond those factors, the field environment remains cautious as inflation and higher fuel costs have led to smaller baskets and more conservative inventory decisions among independents. Importantly, there are clear bright spots. Georgiaboot.com was up double digits for the second consecutive quarter as increased digital investment through new customers and demand grew for new products like our BOA styles and the Wedge SuperLyte. In the key accounts, the planned Wedge expansion into several hundred more doors at one of our largest farm and ranch customers is now driving fill-ins and replenishment. A large work in Western retailer delivered significant growth beyond the BOA Carbon Flex Wedge and other new launches and other key account plans to add the Carbon Flex Wedge in Q4. Spring 2027 begins shipping soon with multiple new BOA styles, a new work platform built around SuperLyte and a new version of the Eagle Light, one of our top-selling styles. We're also increasing our focus on USA made product with new styles planned for early 2027 and have partnered with BOA on a first-to-market design that will give retailers and consumers a differentiated story. Rocky Work, Outdoor and Western collectively grew low single digits, driven by DTC sales. Western was the highlight as the expansion of our Ride LTE collection continued to revive the category that has underperformed in recent seasons. Our #1 boot for the quarter was the Ride LTE style with Duck Camo shaft, combining 2 of our most important categories. Rockyboots.com grew low double digits with all the categories up double digits, led by work and our e-commerce partners continue to report strong online sales. While prolonged record heat across the South and Midwest delayed the start of the fall season, our wholesale business rebounded as the third quarter progressed and fall weather arrived, strong preseason bookings, a recovery of at-once business and new and expanded retail programs, all contributing to an improving trend to start the fourth quarter. Commercial military sales were below last year and below plan, primarily due to temporary shortages in raw material that impacted available inventory, a situation that has been rectified along with a down market overall as the government fiscal year came to an end in September and the budget expenditures were diverted to more technical hardware and other categories in support of ongoing military operations. That said, there was some bright spots with the team securing 2 bids, including one with the U.S. Air Force and one with an international government customer, both of which are expected to ship in early 2027. Public Service delivered a small gain as the team worked through the new NFPA requirements. With our best-selling fire boots now modified and recertified, the fire category exceeded last year and is well positioned heading into the wildland fire season and a strong Q4. Our USPS collection also exceeded last year and is now in a strong inventory position. Moving to our Lehigh B2B CustomFit business. Sales grew low double digits versus last year, driven by new customer acquisition and retention of existing business. We continue to add quality brands to broaden our assortment and strengthen our ability to serve customers across industries. Our partnership with Boule also continued to expand with increased adoption of prescription safety eyewear and wellness products reinforcing the value of bringing multiple PP categories together in Lehigh's managed program. Subsidy utilization and average subsidy dollars continue to trend upward as employers stayed committed to employee protection. While tariffs and inflation continue to create cost uncertainty, customer demand remained resilient and Lehigh's customer growth and broader portfolio helped offset these pressures. I want to thank all of our team for their hard work. Your efforts and execution are what allowed us to deliver strong third quarter results and provide the business with good momentum heading into the holiday season. I'm confident we are positioned to deliver a strong finish in 2026. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom. Tom?

Thanks, Jason. After achieving our highest growth rate in more than 3 years last quarter, we exceeded that mark this quarter. And like Q2, gross margins and profitability benefited from tariff tailwinds in IEEPA refund compared with the tariff headwinds in the year ago period. As I go through the Q3 financials and outlook, I will at times discuss results excluding the net impact of tariffs to provide transparent look at the underlying performance of the business. Reported net sales for the third quarter increased 13.3% year-over-year to $138.8 million, which surpassed our expectations. By segment, wholesale sales increased 11.8% to $99.6 million. Retail sales increased 20% to $35.4 million, and contract manufacturing sales were essentially flat at $3.8 million. Turning to gross profit. For the third quarter, gross profit was $62.5 million or 45% of net sales compared to $49.3 million or 40.2% of net sales in the same period last year. This quarter, our gross profit margin included recognition of approximately $2.5 million in IEEPA refunds and $3.5 million from sell-through of inventory in our free trade zone that had no incremental tariffs. Excluding these onetime gains, Q3 2026 gross margins were 40.7%. Gross margins by segment, excluding this year's net tariff benefits were as follows: wholesale margins declined 90 basis points to 39.2% versus 40.1%, with the change driven by primarily a product and brand mix. Retail margins were up 330 basis points to 48.2% from 44.9% and contract manufacturing margins were up 300 basis points to 9.9%. Operating expenses were $44.3 million or 31.9% of net sales in the third quarter of 2026 compared to $37.5 million or 30.6% of net sales last year. Excluding $700,000 of acquisition-related amortization in the third quarter of this year and last year, adjusted operating expenses were $43.6 million and $36.8 million, respectively, in Q3 2026 and Q3 2025. As a percentage of net sales, adjusted operating expenses were 31.4% this year and 30.1% in Q3 last year. The increase in operating expenses as a percentage of net sales was driven primarily by higher outbound and logistics expenses due to increased fuel costs as well as a higher mix of retail segment sales, an increase in digital advertising spend and higher performance-based compensation expense based on the year-to-date results. Income from operations was $18.2 million or 13.1% of net sales compared to $11.7 million or 9.6% of net sales in the year ago period. Adjusted operating income improved to $18.9 million or 13.6% of net sales compared to adjusted operating income of $12.4 million or 10.1% of net sales a year ago, driven by the recognition of the IEEPA tariff refund and free trade zone benefit in Q3 this year. For the third quarter of this year, interest expense was $2.0 million compared with $2.6 million in the year ago period, reflecting the decrease in debt levels year-over-year. On a GAAP basis, we reported net income of $12.8 million or $1.69 per diluted share compared to net income of $7.2 million or $0.96 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2025. Adjusted net income for the third quarter of 2026 was $13.4 million or $1.76 per diluted share compared to adjusted net income of $7.8 million or $1.03 per diluted share a year ago. Turning to our balance sheet. At the end of the third quarter, cash and cash equivalents stood at $2.3 million, and our debt net of unamortized debt issuance costs totaled $116 million, a decrease of 16.6% since September 30 of last year. Inventories at the end of the third quarter were $189.7 million, down 2% compared to $193.6 million a year ago and up 4.7% compared to the end of 2025. Now to our outlook. Based on the third quarter performance and current visibility into the remainder of the year, we are raising our guidance. For 2026, we now expect revenue to increase approximately 10.5% over 2025, up from our prior guidance of 8.5% increase. With respect to margins, expenses and EPS, we are adjusting our guidance based on higher sales in addition to changes from the impact of tariffs and projected performance-based compensation. Starting with gross margin. Our prior guidance was for gross margins to be approximately 40%, which excluded the benefit from the $20 million IEEPA tariff refund. Included in the 40% projection was additional cost headwinds from adjusting our manufacturing and sourcing plans to meet demand with expedited shipping, higher inbound freight costs and increased component costs due to higher oil prices. Normalizing the net impact of tariffs and the free trade zone benefit for 2026, gross margins are projected to be approximately 41%. Based on our updated forecast, we now expect to accrue higher performance-based compensation in the fourth quarter, and therefore, operating expenses as a percentage of net sales is still expected to increase slightly year-over-year. This all translates into EPS on a reported basis of approximately $5.30 compared with our prior guidance of approximately $5. On a net basis, EPS is still projected to be approximately $4 per share. Our prior guidance only excluded the net tariff benefit from refunds, while we are now excluding the free trade zone benefit in order to provide a better view of our underlying performance. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Janine Stichter with BTIG.

Congrats on all the momentum. I want to start off by asking on gross margin. It sounds like it came in for the quarter a bit ahead of your expectations. Maybe speak to what's driving that. And then as we think longer term to where gross margins could go kind of sitting in the 40% range, low 40s right now. There's obviously still some headwinds in the business, whether it's freight or other areas. Are there -- where do you see that settling into long term? And then on inventory, I think you said down 2%. Are there areas where you don't feel like you have enough? I just would love to hear your thoughts on the inventory positioning.

Yes. Let me starting with third quarter gross margins. They came in better than expected. I think we had better full price selling. We usually are a little cautious there. So full price selling, particularly in the wholesale channel helped drive those margins. Also, the mix benefit was greater. So we saw higher -- more DTC business than we had originally projected. If we were to go back and look at this time last year, we could just launched our websites on new platforms. And so we were worried about anniversarying the sales increase we saw last year. But we continue to see strong growth even in the comparisons in the prior year. Your second question about go-forward margins, right? So we have -- and we've talked about this on calls before -- sorry, go ahead.

No, that's correct.

On a go-forward basis, we've cut out before is we're kind of seeing mid-single-digit increases in the cost of our product, whether that's driven by the oil prices and the component cost, but also the inbound freight costs. And so we've been doing a lot of consideration here internally about pricing for 2026 -- or for 2027, I apologize. And so we're continuing to evaluate that. We are still in the school of thought that we will see incremental tariff increases here after the election. So we'll know more here within the next couple of weeks. So TBD on next year's margins, but we think that long term, that target of 40% is still a good number to use for modeling purposes. Your last part on inventory. So inventory down a little bit. If you think about the composition of inventory, our pairs are actually up from where they were last year. We have a little bit less tariff costs given some of the craziness that happened with tariffs in the middle of late spring, early summer last year. There are certainly areas that we would like to have more inventory and have it here quicker. So you're continuing to see us use expedited shipping to get products here to meet demand for the fourth quarter. So we could probably use a little bit more inventory in certain areas, but we do have inventory pairs up. And then we're also, as we talked about on the last call, making investments in raw materials to kind of give us faster lead times, particularly for our Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico operations.

Yes. And just to add on, Janine, for example, in my prepared remarks, I talked about commercial military and needing some additional product there. We are in a better place today, and I believe we will get into even a better place here in Q4. So as Tom referenced, there's a couple of different areas that we could definitely use a little bit more inventory, but I think we're in a really good place with it right now.

Got it. And then maybe just one more for me. There's a lot of noise right now just in terms of the Western market and how it's performing. It sounds like for you, it's going very well. You called out Shenzhen Durango, and I think Rocky, you said Western was the highlight. Maybe just any thoughts you have on what the Western retail market looks like right now?

Yes. I think you heard us right. We are seeing a really good -- I don't know if I call it a resurgence or if it just kind of pivoted, but we are having good success with Durango. As I mentioned in my remarks, we did not have -- we have not had Rocky Western do very well, probably in the last 6, 8 months. But we've introduced some new product there that seems to be really resonating with the consumer. So I think we're excited about it and feel very confident in that marketplace. We're having tremendous success with a couple of really big Western retailers in the marketplace. And -- so we're going to continue to drive that business and try to find ways to continue to grow it as we see fit. Tom, do you have anything to add?

Yes, I think Jason touched a little bit on in his prepared remarks, but we're getting shelf space gains here in store count additions, particularly for the Durango Western space. So we're going to continue to drive that and try to drive long-term growth.

Our next question is from Jonathan Komp with Baird.

Maybe first question, Tom, could you give a little more color on fourth quarter, if you're willing to just expectations supporting the revenue growth? Any more color by channel as you think about it? And maybe stepping back on the revenue strength, would you say you're being surprised more by sell-in activity or indications of sell-through? Or any more color you could share overall or even across some of the categories, observations?

Yes, certainly. Yes. So the guidance for the year is at that 10.5% and so we -- that would imply kind of an 8-ish percent overall sales increase in the fourth quarter. I think that's going to be split. Obviously, I think retail segment will continue to grow at a slightly higher rate than our wholesale business. But I want to make sure to call out, if you think about last year, for the fourth quarter for our DTC business, we kind of had a perfect storm of weather, really snow blanket in most of the geographies we play in right during Cyber Week. And so we know that we've got very difficult comparisons, particularly for the Muck brand in the fourth quarter from a DTC perspective. So I think that kind of explains maybe a little bit of moderation in the growth of the retail segment in Q4. But really, we're going to -- we plan to see the wholesale continue to grow, maybe not quite at the same rate that we saw this quarter. And then important to call out, too, that our military contracts are kind of winding down here in the fourth quarter. So you'll see a couple of million dollar decrease in our contract manufacturing sales in the fourth quarter.

And Jon, I'd just add on to there. I think we're feeling very comfortable about not just the sell-in, but the sell-through, right? We work very closely with a lot of our retail partners and our bookings look great for Q4, but our at-once business is still doing well, too. So I feel like our products are just resonating at retail right now. And so the retailer is booking it and checking and doing fill-ins on a pretty regular basis.

That's really helpful. Maybe switching to the cost outlook. Tom, you had some helpful color, again, what you're seeing for 2027. Would you say that the cost inflation backdrop and product costs and maybe overall cost, is it looking any more inflationary than you were thinking a few months ago, just given where oil and freight and other indicators are tracking? And is that making it more or less likely that you go ahead with pricing or take a different level? Just trying to get a sense of how things are changing since it doesn't sound like your confidence in the underlying earnings going into next year is really -- or gross margin really is any different here?

Yes. I mean I think we've seen -- we've continued to feel the pressure of oil prices, right? I would tell you container pricing got worse for us in the third quarter. But there's also some seasonality to that. Usually containers are more expensive in the third quarter. And so I think hopefully, we'll see oil prices come down here over the -- by the time we get to 2027. A big driver for cost is going to be any kind of changes with one tariffs, as I called out earlier. And so we will be taking pricing. We're just kind of in a wait and see with what tariffs do here over the next couple of weeks. But I still, like I said earlier, I think that 40% gross margin target is kind of the target moving forward, and we'll take pricing to help preserve that.

Great. And maybe last one for me. Just stepping back and looking at 2026, it looks like you've had some unique drivers of gross margin upside, even if they're temporary. And you certainly have found ways to spend some of that upside productively within SG&A and operating expenses. As we think forward into 2027, is it an easier environment to drive operating leverage, especially G&A costs on a lower revenue growth? Or just how should we think about that?

Yes. I mean I think the goal for us is always to kind of drive operating leverage as we go into the next year. And I think we'll be successful on that. I think the net tariff impact, just to put a bow on that a little bit for the year, we're thinking about the net positive tariff impact, I should say, is approximately like $13.5 million, right? So we won't have that next year, obviously. But given our order book that we already have for spring, we're continuing to see some of the growth that we've experienced in 2026. So the goal will be to leverage that from an operations standpoint as we move into 2027.

And is there a framework or way to think about so excluding the net tariff benefit, which you won't have. So really thinking underlying operating leverage, what type of growth you might need or where the leverage point stands? And that's it for me.

Yes. So Jon, we're going to give more guidance on 2027 at the next earnings call. I think right now, we're really piecing the puzzle together with 2027, where we're going to see that growth. So obviously, if XTRATUF continues to grow at the pace it's growing this year with that being our most profitable gross margin brand, we'll be able to leverage more. And then also with the mix of sales, whether it's continued to come from our direct-to-consumer business. So TBD on that, and we'll get you some more clarity when we get to the next earnings call.

Our next question is from Bill Dezellem with Tieton Capital Management.

Would you please quantify the sourcing variances that impacted gross margin in the quarter, please?

Yes. So obviously, we define the tariff variances. The sourcing variances were approximately high 6 figures.

Great. And then relative to your comment that you increased the digital advertising spend in the third quarter, would you provide a holistic perspective on what's happening there and how we should be thinking about that going forward?

Yes. So we've kind of changed our school of thought from a digital advertising perspective, and we are targeting more of a CAC kind of methodology, right? And so we are spending certain dollars varies by brand to acquire new customers and also looking at the ROA, obviously. And so we probably spent between an extra $1 million to $2 million in digital marketing spend in this quarter. I would anticipate that number to increase in Q4 as that is the biggest time for our e-commerce business.

And it really drove significant increases in all the brands, double digit in every brand.

Yes, you're looking at like a low 30% growth on our DTC branded websites.

And Jason, you may have just highlighted this, but is that specific to a small group of brands? Or is it literally across the entire portfolio?

Yes, I think that all brands were up pretty meaningfully. The only area of softness was in commercial military. But again, that was limited by the inventory -- raw material constraints that we had with getting inventory in the warehouse to sell online.

That's helpful. And is this $1 million to $2 million increase taking from a different part of the advertising budget? So is the shifting dollars within the overall advertising bucket? Or is this truly incremental to spending and what you'll do in Q4 incremental also?

I'm sorry, Bill, could you repeat that real quick?

Yes. So we're trying to understand if the $1 million to $2 million extra that you spent on digital, if that's incremental to the total advertising spend or if it's simply a shift within the advertising line item?

I would say it is mostly incremental, but there's certainly been a shift away from more traditional marketing that we do, but mostly incremental.

And then the same thing in the fourth quarter that, that will also be incremental that you are planning?

Yes. The majority of it will be. But I want to -- the great thing about this is it's not like traditional advertising. So if we stop seeing the success, we can turn it off. tomorrow. Like it's a really great new way where before you'd have to pay for a billboard and you're like, well, if that billboard doesn't produce what we need it to produce, then you still have to pay for it. But this is something that we have a lot more control over immediately.

Yes. I mean these metrics are watched throughout the day.

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Jason Brooks for closing comments.

Thank you very much, Max. I just would like to thank the entire Board of Directors, our partners here at Rocky Brands and then the entire Rocky Brand employees for helping make Rocky Brands the best it can be. We're excited to finish 2026 and excited about where we're heading in 2027 and the future. So thank you all very much for your support and efforts, and we look forward to finishing a great 2026.

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