Earnings call transcript: La-Z-Boy Q2 2026 beats EPS forecast, stock surges

La-Z-Boy Incorporated (LZB) reported its second-quarter earnings for fiscal year 2026, surpassing Wall Street expectations. The company posted an adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.71, significantly higher than the forecasted $0.54, marking a 31.48% surprise. Revenue came in at $522.48 million, slightly above the anticipated $517.63 million. Following the earnings release, La-Z-Boy's stock experienced a notable rise, climbing 18.89% to $35.33 in premarket trading. This positive movement comes after the stock had fallen over 31% in the past six months, according to InvestingPro data, with shares trading at a P/E ratio of 13.5.

Key Takeaways

• La-Z-Boy's EPS outperformed expectations by 31.48%, reflecting strong financial management.
• Revenue slightly exceeded forecasts, indicating steady demand despite industry challenges.
• Stock surged nearly 19% in premarket trading, signaling investor confidence.
• The company is focusing on core business and strategic realignments to enhance efficiency.
• Expansion of retail network and partnerships with major retailers like Costco.

Company Performance

La-Z-Boy demonstrated robust performance in the second quarter of fiscal 2026, with total delivered sales reaching $522 million, a slight increase from the previous year. The company's focus on core operations and strategic initiatives, such as exiting non-core businesses and expanding its retail presence, has positioned it well in a challenging furniture market. The company's rebranding efforts and new product launches have been positively received, contributing to its competitive edge.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $522.48 million, a slight year-over-year increase.
• Adjusted EPS: $0.71, up from $0.54 forecasted.
• Operating income: $37 million (adjusted), with strong cash flow of $50 million.
• Cash and equivalents: $339 million, with no external debt.

Earnings vs. Forecast

La-Z-Boy's Q2 2026 earnings significantly exceeded forecasts, with an EPS surprise of 31.48%. This performance is a continuation of the company's positive trend in beating earnings expectations, reflecting effective cost management and strategic business decisions. The revenue surprise, although modest at 0.94%, underscores the company's resilience in a volatile market.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, La-Z-Boy's stock soared 18.89% in premarket trading, reaching $35.33. This surge reflects strong investor confidence, driven by the company's better-than-expected financial results and strategic initiatives. The stock's movement is notable compared to its 52-week range, with a low of $29.03 and a high of $48.31, indicating a positive market sentiment.

Outlook & Guidance

La-Z-Boy has set a positive outlook for the upcoming quarters, projecting Q3 sales between $525 million and $545 million. The company anticipates an adjusted operating margin of 5-6.5% and plans to open 15 new La-Z-Boy stores and 3-4 Joybird stores in the fiscal year. Strategic initiatives are expected to improve operating margins by 75-100 basis points, despite a projected $30 million reduction in net sales due to business exits.

Executive Commentary

CEO Melinda Whittington emphasized the company's focus on core businesses and agility in navigating the challenging market. "Our iconic brand, well-positioned manufacturing base, strong balance sheet, and talented team provide the foundation for sustained sales growth and margin expansion," she stated. CFO Taylor Liebke highlighted the importance of reinvesting in the business as the best use of cash resources.

Risks and Challenges

• Ongoing industry challenges with fluctuating consumer demand.
• Potential impacts from strategic exits of non-core businesses.
• Competitive pricing pressures in the furniture market.
• Economic uncertainties that could affect consumer spending.
• Supply chain disruptions that may impact production and delivery.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about La-Z-Boy's tariff strategies, inventory management, and retail network expansion. The company clarified its approach to exiting non-core businesses and emphasized its commitment to enhancing operational efficiency and growth through strategic partnerships and retail expansion.

Full transcript - La-Z-Boy Inc (LZB) Q2 2026:

Conference Operator: Greetings. Welcome to the La-Z-Boy Fiscal 2026 second quarter conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to your host, Mark Becks, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development of La-Z-Boy Incorporated. You may begin.

Mark Becks, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development, La-Z-Boy Incorporated: Thank you, Holly. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us to discuss our fiscal 2026 second quarter. Joining me on today's call are Melinda Whittington, La-Z-Boy Incorporated's Board Chair, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Taylor Liebke, SVP and CFO. Melinda will open and close the call, and Taylor will speak to segment performance and the financials midway through. After our prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. Slides will accompany this presentation, and you may view them through our webcast link, which will be available for one year. A telephone replay of the call will be available for one week, beginning this afternoon. I would like to remind you that some statements made in today's call included forward-looking statements about La-Z-Boy's future performance and other matters. Although we believe these statements to be reasonable, our actual results could differ materially.

The most significant risk factors that could affect our future results are described in our annual report on Form 10-K. We encourage you to review those risk factors, as well as other key information detailed in our SEC filings. Also, our earnings release is available under the News and Events tab on the Investor Relations page of our website, and it includes reconciliations of certain adjusted measures, which are also included as an appendix at the end of our conference call slide deck. With that, I will now turn the call over to Melinda.

Melinda Whittington, Board Chair, President, and Chief Executive Officer, La-Z-Boy Incorporated: Thank you, Mark. Good morning, everyone. Yesterday, following the close of market, we reported solid October-ended second quarter results. We were pleased to once again deliver modest sales growth, particularly in our wholesale segment, where we also again delivered margin expansion, continuing to create our own momentum in what remains a choppy market. Highlights for our second quarter included total delivered sales of $522 million, up slightly from prior year. In our retail segment, delivered sales increased slightly, and total written sales increased 4%, with written same-store sales improving sequentially over the last two quarters. In addition, we opened five new company-owned stores in the quarter, bringing our total to 15 new company-owned stores over the last 12 months. In our wholesale segment, delivered sales grew 2%, once again led by growth in our core North American La-Z-Boy wholesale business.

We made continued progress on our distribution and home delivery transformation project with the consolidation of two additional distribution centers. Our GAAP operating margin was 6.9%, and adjusted operating margin was 7.1%. We generated strong operating cash flow of $50 million for the quarter, triple last year's comparable period. We announced a 10% dividend increase, marking our fifth consecutive year of double-digit increases. Overall, our operating performance for the second quarter was solid in the midst of a choppy landscape, with sales slightly ahead of the midpoint of our guidance and adjusted operating margin that exceeded our expectations. As I noted, total written sales for our company-owned retail segment increased 4% versus last year's second quarter, driven by new and acquired stores.

Written same-store sales, which exclude the benefit of new and acquired stores, decreased 2% for the quarter but demonstrated a continued sequential improvement in written same-store sales trends over the last two quarters. While consumer trends remain challenging for our industry, we continue to be agile and hone our execution. We saw our strongest results of the second quarter in October, where we achieved positive written same-store sales. However, results in early November remained mixed. For Joybird, total written sales for the quarter were a positive 1% increase versus a year ago, demonstrating significant improvement versus the prior two quarters and driven by strength in retail store performance. We also have made substantial progress against our strategic initiatives, focusing on our core vertically integrated North American upholstery business. We completed our 15-store acquisition in the Southeast U.S. region, expanding our ownership of important growing markets.

We announced the planned exit of non-core businesses, including Kincaid Case Goods, American Drew Case Goods, and Kincaid Upholstery. We announced the proposed closure of our U.K. manufacturing facility. Notably, we expect all of these exits to be substantially completed by the end of our fiscal year. We have strategically realigned our senior commercial leadership, as well as realigned our corporate staffing to more efficiently support our streamlined business. These strategic initiatives are a clear demonstration of our proactive approach to driving our own momentum in what remains a challenged marketplace. We remain agile and committed to strengthening our business to prudently navigate the current environment, while at the same time best positioning ourselves for the next 100 years. To expand a bit more on these important Century Vision strategic initiatives, we were thrilled to complete our acquisition of the 15-store network in the Southeast U.S.

region at the end of October. These acquired stores are located in attractive markets: Atlanta, Georgia; Orlando and Jacksonville, Florida; and Knoxville, Tennessee. Our ownership of these markets will enable new store growth on top of the already high-performing existing store base. This is the largest independent store acquisition in our company's history and will add an estimated $80 million in annual retail sales and roughly $40 million net to the total company on a consolidated basis. Recall, our wholesale segment already manufactured and sold products to this business and therefore already recognized the wholesale portion of these annual sales. Given the strong profitability of this network, immediate sales and profit accretion, and opportunity for further market expansion, this is a very attractive investment for our company.

As an important pillar of our Century Vision strategy, over the last several years, we have maintained a consistent cadence of independent dealer acquisitions, and we see opportunity for a continued pipeline over time, with roughly 40 independent dealers and nearly 150 independent stores still in our network. New store growth is another key lever to growing our retail business, and our strong balance sheet gives us the flexibility to make disciplined investments even in more challenging macroeconomic conditions. We opened five new company-owned stores in the quarter and closed three, and opened 15 new stores in the last 12 months and closed five, as we deliver the most significant period of new retail store growth in our company's history.

Looking back even a bit further, over the last 24 months, we have added 20 new company-owned stores as we continue to expand our La-Z-Boy store network towards our target of over 400 stores. With this recently completed acquisition, company-owned stores now represent 60% of the current 370 La-Z-Boy store network, a significant increase from 45% of the approximately 350 store network just five years ago. We were also pleased to open our 15th Joybird store just last week in Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, one of the Midwest's premier open-air shopping and dining destinations. We remain on track to open three to four new Joybird stores this fiscal year and are pleased at the ramp-up in performance of our Joybird retail stores. In wholesale, our refined channel strategy is also contributing to our sales momentum as we expand our brand reach with compatible strategic partners.

We recently added Living Spaces, a top 100 furniture retailer with over 40 stores across Western US states. We also launched La-Z-Boy product at Costco on floors in over 350 locations, as well as on Costco.com. This follows the addition of Farmer's Home Furniture, and there are over 260 stores in the Southeast in our first quarter. Each of these strategic additions are complementary to our existing distribution and expand our brand reach to even more consumers. Lastly, highlighting our industry-leading service levels, we're proud to once again be named to Forbes' 2026 Best Customer Service List, recognizing our team's passion and commitment to our mission of transforming homes, rooms, and communities for our customers and consumers. We're also capitalizing on the momentum from our ongoing initiatives to continue rolling out our new brand identity, which has been well received.

The response from media, customers, and consumers has been overwhelmingly positive, generating headlines such as, "La-Z-Boy just rebranded to prove it's more than your grandmother's recliner," and "How La-Z-Boy made comfort cool again." We plan to build on this success and continue executing our strategy to drive brand consideration and purchase intent across a broad range of consumers, including millennials and Gen X. On our final strategic pillar, strengthening our foundational capabilities, including building a more agile supply chain, we are making strong progress on our multi-year project to transform our distribution network and home delivery program. This transformation will reduce our distribution footprint from a total of 15 large distribution centers to three centralized hubs. In the second quarter, we consolidated an additional two distribution centers.

As a reminder, the cumulative benefits of this transformation will include an estimated 30% reduction in square footage across our warehouse network, an approximate 20% reduction in mileage of inventory traveled across our network, doubling of our delivery radius from 75 to 150 mi, enabling us to reach even more consumers, and improved inventory productivity and working capital levels, all while improving an already strong consumer experience and, once completed, delivering 50 to 75 basis points of wholesale segment margin improvement, the equivalent of up to 50 basis points on the total enterprise margin. Finally, as I noted earlier, we are taking steps to optimize our portfolio by focusing on our core vertically integrated North American upholstery business. We have announced plans to exit our non-core wholesale case goods businesses, which include Kincaid Case Goods, American Drew Case Goods, and Kincaid Upholstery.

We are currently evaluating alternatives for these exits and will provide more details as negotiations progress. Importantly, we will continue to offer optimized case goods offerings in our La-Z-Boy stores, comfort studios, and branded spaces as they enable consumers to furnish their homes and elevate our design business. We are confident our new structure will further enhance our offerings in the future. In addition, while we remain committed to growing our La-Z-Boy business in the U.K., we have announced the proposed closure of our U.K. manufacturing facility in favor of more financially sustainable sourcing alternatives. We are currently in the required 45-day collective consultation period, as required by the U.K. statutory process. We expect all of these strategic actions to be substantially completed by the end of our fiscal year. We are committed to supporting our customers, our consumers, and our employees through these transitions.

As we announced last month, we also strategically realigned our executive commercial leadership and corporate staffing to focus on our core and enhance operating efficiency. As our industry continues to evolve, it's important we remain agile and evolve our business to position us for continued profitable growth into the future. Collectively, these initiatives sharpen our focus on growing our core business, where we have a leadership position and a right to win with the consumer. They also align with our Century Vision goals of growing double the market and delivering double-digit operating margins over the long term. The furniture industry has experienced tremendous change and challenge in recent years. Despite this, our mission remains the same: to empower our people to transform rooms, homes, and communities. Our iconic brand, well-positioned manufacturing base, strong balance sheet, and talented team provide the foundation for sustained sales growth and margin expansion.

Now, let me turn the call over to Taylor to review the financial results in more detail. Thank you, Melinda, and good morning, everyone. As a reminder, we present our results on both a GAAP and adjusted basis. We believe the adjusted presentation better reflects underlying operating trends and performance of the business. Adjusted results exclude items which are detailed in our press release and in the tables in the appendix section of our conference call slides. On a consolidated basis, fiscal 2026 second quarter sales increased slightly from prior year to $522 million as growth in our retail and wholesale business was partially offset by lower delivered volume in our Joybird business. Consolidated GAAP operating income was $36 million, and adjusted operating income was $37 million. Consolidated GAAP operating margin was 6.9%, and adjusted operating margin was 7.1%.

Retail margin deleveraged due to lower delivered same-store sales, and the impact of investment in new stores was partially offset by stronger wholesale segment margin, which included solid operating trends as well as the 110 basis point benefit of a change in our dealer warranty arrangements during the quarter. Diluted earnings per share totaled $0.70 on a GAAP basis, and adjusted diluted EPS was $0.71, flat versus last year's comparable period. As I move to the segment discussion, my comments from here will focus on our adjusted reporting unless specifically stated otherwise. Starting with the retail segment for the second quarter, delivered sales increased slightly to $222 million. Retail adjusted operating margin was 10.7% versus 12.6% due to fixed cost deleverage on lower delivered same-store sales and investments in new stores.

For our wholesale segment, delivered sales for the first quarter increased 2% to $369 million versus last year, driven by growth in our core North America La-Z-Boy branded wholesale business. Adjusted operating margin for the wholesale segment was 8.1% versus 6.8%, with 160 basis points improvement driven by lower warranty expense due to the change in our dealer warranty arrangements, as well as solid operating trends, partially offset by incremental expenses related to our distribution transformation project and increased advertising expenses. On our wholesale business, we view our North America supply chain as a competitive advantage, with approximately 90% of finished goods produced in the U.S. As such, we are well positioned to navigate the current trade and tariff environment. For Joybird, reported in corporate and other, delivered sales were $35 million, down 10%, primarily due to lower delivered sales volume.

Joybird operating loss increased versus the prior year, primarily due to deleverage on lower Joybird delivered sales. Moving on to our consolidated adjusted gross margin and SG&A performance for fiscal 2026 second quarter. Consolidated adjusted gross margin for the entire company increased 10 basis points versus the prior year's second quarter. The increase in gross margin was primarily driven by lower input costs led by favorable ocean freight and improved sourcing, partially offset by higher supply chain costs, including friction costs related to our distribution and home delivery transformation. Adjusted SG&A as a percent of sales for the quarter increased by 50 basis points compared with last year due to fixed cost deleverage in our retail stores as well as investment in new stores.

This was partly offset by the benefit of a change in our dealer warranty arrangements in the quarter that resulted in a one-time benefit due to a reduction in our ongoing warranty liability. This change has no impact on the end consumer and provides significant improvements in program management and administration. Our effective tax rate on a GAAP basis for the second quarter was largely unchanged at 26.7% versus 26.3% in the second quarter of fiscal 2025. Turning to liquidity, we ended the quarter with $339 million in cash and no externally funded debt. We generated a strong $50 million in cash from operating activities in the second quarter, triple the year-ago period, with improved working capital and higher customer deposits. We invested $20 million in capital expenditures during the quarter, primarily related to new stores and remodels and supply chain-related investments.

We continue to believe that the best use of our cash and highest return on investment is prudently reinvesting back into the business. As such, we remain committed to disciplined investment in new stores, acquisitions, and our distribution and home delivery transformation project to profitably grow our core business. Regarding cash return to shareholders, year to date, we returned $31 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, including $18 million paid in dividends. We repurchased 23,000 shares in the quarter, which leaves $3.4 million available under our existing share repurchase authorization. Subsequent to quarter end, reflecting the confidence in the company's financial strength and long-term growth prospects, the board of directors increased the regular quarterly dividend by 10%. This is the fifth consecutive year of double-digit increases to the dividend.

We continue to also view share repurchases and our dividend as an attractive use of our cash and positive return to shareholders. Capital allocation in fiscal 2026 is tilted more into the business through investments in the recent 15-store acquisition and our distribution and home delivery transformation project. Longer term, our capital allocation target remains consistent to reinvest 50% of operating cash flow back into the business and return 50% to shareholders in share repurchases and dividends. Before turning the call back to Melinda, let me highlight several important items for fiscal 2026 in our third quarter.

We expect fiscal third quarter sales to be in the range of $525-$545 million, a growth of 1-4% year over year, and adjusted operating margin to be in the range of 5-6.5%, reflecting advancement of our Century Vision initiatives, friction costs related to portfolio optimizations and supply chain transformation, and a measured view on the uncertain macroeconomic backdrop. We expect to open approximately 15 new company-owned and independent La-Z-Boy stores during the full fiscal year, of which the majority are company-owned, as well as three to four new Joybird stores. We continue to expect our tax rate for the full year to be in the range of 26-27%. We expect capital expenditures to be in the range of $90-$100 million for fiscal 2026, consistent with prior guidance.

This includes investments for new stores and remodels, our multi-year project to transform our distribution network and home delivery program, and continued manufacturing-related investments. Of note, I want to spend a few moments on the expected financial benefits of our strategic initiatives to hone our portfolio, which Melinda covered earlier. With the combined impacts of our 15-store acquisition, our case goods exit, our proposed closure of the U.K. facility, and our management reorganization, we expect the going annual impact on our enterprise to be an approximate $30 million net sales decrease and a significant adjusted operating margin improvement of 75-100 basis points to the entire enterprise. We expect all of these initiatives to be substantially completed by the end of this fiscal year. At this time, we do not expect these exits to have a material one-time gain or loss to the enterprise.

Lastly, we anticipate adjustments for all other purchase accounting charges for the year to be in the range of $0.01-$0.02 per share. With that, I will turn the call back to Melinda. Thanks, Taylor. We are sharpening our focus on our core businesses and enhancing our agility to navigate the challenging home furnishings environment. At the same time, we're executing on our long-term strategic objectives, and I am more excited than ever about the opportunities that lie ahead. Before I close, I want to welcome the employees of our latest acquisition, and I want to thank all of our employees around the world for their continued dedication to our mission of bringing the transformational power of comfort to more homes. Now, I'll turn the call back to Mark. Thank you, Melinda. We will begin the question and answer period now.

Holly, please review the instructions for getting into the queue to ask questions. Certainly. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Your first question for today is from Anthony Lebiedzinski with Sidoti & Company. Hey, good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the questions.

First, I just wanted to check in with you about if you saw any differences in geographic sales dispersion in your markets, or was it more or less kind of consistent in your operating area? Nothing dramatic, Anthony. Good morning. On any given week, you might see a little bit of choppiness across different geographies, but nothing significant. Canada continues to be more challenged just with trade tariff situation and some of those areas there, so that is maybe a little more bouncy, but nothing dramatic. Gotcha. All right. Yeah, thanks, Melinda. Can you also comment on the extent of your pricing actions? I just wanted to get a better understanding of how do we think about unit volumes in Q2 and your expectations for Q3 as it relates to unit volumes? Hey, Anthony. Good morning.

Yeah, on pricing, we mentioned throughout the year in our playbook to deal with trade and tariff changes, one of our levers beyond just sourcing adjustments or inventory moves is some nominal pricing action. Earlier in the year, we took a round of nominal pricing based on trade policies at that time. Given some changes with the 232 and the sectoral tariffs on upholstered furniture within the quarter, we actually took another round of nominal pricing to help offset, but still well positioned competitively versus our peers. Again, 90% of the products we make are in the U.S., so that other 10% a little bit exposed, but still very well positioned.

In aggregate, through the course of calendar year 2025, we're still in the single digits, which everything we hear from other manufacturers or retailers is at the very low end of what we're hearing is out in the market. On volume per se, directly related to pricing elasticity, hard to piece out in this industry, particularly with everything else going on around traffic and other kind of just general consumer uncertainty. In our quarter, on our main North America wholesale La-Z-Boy business, we saw volume flat year over year, which relatively speaks to our pricing is going well in the market. Thank you, Taylor, for that. Also, in terms of the guidance, you talked about friction costs related to portfolio and supply chain optimization costs.

Can you expand on that and help us better understand the expected impact of this and when should we see less of those friction costs? A couple of things on the friction costs. That is a combination of our distribution and home delivery transformation project we outlined a quarter ago as a multi-year project. I am hugely excited for the benefit to our network, to our consumers, and to the company. Once we are through it, we will improve all of our stakeholders as well as make us more profitable. In that case, you just have to get a little bit more inefficient in the short term to get way more efficient ongoing with some, call it, dual lease costs or other just transition costs as we move out of the, call it, 15 DCs to 3 over time. Manageable, but it is there.

On the strategic initiatives that Melinda had mentioned, our case goods exit, our U.K. shutdown, we expect to be subsequently out of those businesses or those transitions completed by the end of our fiscal year. I am really just talking more about the back half of the year and particularly quarter three as I outline those friction costs as it relates to those two areas. Gotcha. All right. My last question, you mentioned expanding into Living Spaces and Costco. I know last year you expanded more into Rooms To Go. How do you guys think about the opportunity there as far as it relates to expanding to other wholesale partners? Just broadly speaking, how do we think about the opportunity going forward? I think a couple of things.

Our focus over recent years has been very much around making sure we've got the right strategic partners that are going to represent our brand well and that are looking to grow and accelerate and give the consumer the right experience going forward. We certainly see that those that are winning out there in a very tough marketplace right now tend to be the more sophisticated kind of mid-size regional players. A lot of those are the type of partners that we are working with. It's always important that it's compatible distribution, that it's going to reach a consumer that we're not otherwise going to reach in our furniture galleries.

We've had some really good wins, as you noted here in the last couple of months with particularly, as you mentioned, the Living Spaces, the Farmer's down in the Southeast, recent Costco, which just puts more eyeballs on the product. I think going forward, because we want to make sure that distribution is compatible with also growing our own retail, what we'll see is probably as much an expansion of growth with the existing base and really building with those as opposed to lots of big additional new customers. At the same time, the world is always changing, and we're going to make sure we're working with the right partners for the medium term and the long term. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you very much and best of luck. Thanks, Anthony. Thanks, Anthony. Your next question is from Bobby Griffin with Raymond James.

Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess first, Taylor, I just want to make sure I understand the impact here of all the different moving parts. The acquisition of the 15 stores is going to add $40 million of net sales to the enterprise. Then we sold off some of the non-core businesses. I believe in your prepared remarks, you were kind of netting the two against each other. Does that—is it correct to imply that the headwind from selling off the non-core businesses is about $70 million of sales that needs to come out of the wholesale segment? Yeah, your math is correct, Bobby.

No, we're in the process now of evaluating sale or other strategic transactions, but net of, call it this fiscal year, that should be the impact of the entire enterprise is that plus 40 from the retail acquisition, minus 70 from the exit of these non-core businesses. Okay. You would see the corresponding step up within wholesale margins from the savings and the better efficiency. I believe you called it 75-100 is really kind of just a wholesale margin step up, that segment? The 75, it's all bucketed together, Bobby, on the retail acquisition, these wholesale moves on non-core, as well as the, call it, commercial leadership realignment. All of that together is the 75-100 to the entire La-Z-Boy enterprise. Okay. All right. That's helpful. That helps clean it up.

Then secondly, on the tariff aspect, that was some good commentary. I appreciate that. Does the nominal pricing you guys took here in Q2, will that cover for the expected kind of modest step up that we see on January 1 in the 232? Yes. Okay. So you're all covered now based on what we know today from tariffs? We've executed our playbook, and some of it is also adjusting where we make products to more optimize our network for current trade policies, as well as additional nominal pricing we put into market at the tail end of the quarter to both cover the current as well as the expected change on January 1. Obviously, we'll continue to be agile if anything changes between now and then. Overall, we feel really good and well positioned with our 90% of our product made in the U.S.

Yeah, very good. Yeah, you guys got an advantage for a lot of the industry there. I guess just on the other side of things, some questions. Inventories were down pretty big this quarter. Is that just some of the efficiency gain starting to flow through, or just kind of any commentary around that on a year-over-year basis I was referring to? Just great work by our supply chain team on being really tight on our inventory management while also protecting in-stock and service levels. I mean, we continue to get better year over year. Really, it's just the everyday blocking and tackling and just getting smarter. This time, we do have a little bit of a build in the comparator period as we were building some stock to protect ourselves in certain cases on cover availability.

Overall, just great work across organizational getting tighter on our work in capital management. Okay. Appreciate it. Lastly, I guess, Melinda, this is a big acquisition with 15 stores, and really good to see it kind of get over the finish line. Can you just talk about now with some of the organizational changes, the integration of that, and then also on the retail network as we think about kind of the next leg of growth here, where we add from quality of the store base in terms of which ones would, how many remodels would you like to see and kind of opportunities there for the next multi-year kind of journey? Yeah, a couple of things on retail. We will open estimated about 15 this year, and we've talked about continuing the pace of sort of net new stores in the 10-15 range.

We intend to continue that trajectory. As we've talked, we see our way to over 400 stores, and we're about 370 across the network at this point. Those will be more heavily weighted towards company-owned stores as we continue that expansion. From a remodel standpoint, we have invested heavily over the last five-plus years to make sure that our stores across the network, along with our independently owned, are the appropriate reflection of our brand. I feel good about the overall youth of our fleet, if you will. We're going to continue to make sure that that stays that way because it's important that consumers are inspired when they come into our stores, particularly when they're going to come in and participate in design and really think about bringing that product and investing into their home.

We will continue to expand our rebranding across all of our stores over the next several years. We are doing that prudently, just given the time right now. We have had such a great reception to the new branding, and we want to get that out across all those stores. As I say, we are going to do that prudently as we go. The other way to expand the company-owned is, of course, the transactions, like you said. Very pleased with the integration of this big acquisition and how that has all been working together for the company. I think there is still pipeline there. Again, those are our arms-length transactions, but there are still a lot of independently owned out there. I think over time, we will have more opportunity to expand in that way.

I cannot talk about retail without calling out just the fact that super pleased with in-store execution, even in really challenging times. We continue to strengthen that execution. To your point, make sure that we are appropriately but efficiently supporting those operations as well. That kind of speaks to your point on overall reorganization. Really good about how that's going right now with our two commercial presidents and the move of marketing over into the retail organization. We are already seeing some early wins there. Again, important to be as agile and effective as we can be in what is still going to be, I think, a challenging environment here for a while. Thank you. I guess one final one, if I could sneak one more in, is kind of selling the non-core businesses.

As you think about giving your designers in the stores the product portfolio they need, how do you kind of balance that? I guess, is there opportunities on case goods for partnerships, or do you still have some case goods sourcing that could be there? This is just a different non-core business that was sold. Just anything around that aspect. The short answer to your question is yes. Case goods are important to us. What we do best is manufacture and sell custom upholstered furniture. Our case goods offerings are super important to enhance that upholstery experience to ensure that in-store, we have the ability to service the consumer around whole room, and particularly with our design sales.

Even in our branded spaces and our comfort studios with our strategic partners, it's important that we have the right case goods to enhance what we're doing from an upholstery standpoint. That said, it's not our core competency to own the entire design and creation of the case goods or even our right to win with customers on our wholesale case goods business. It's not our core competency. We believe there are better places to do that, and we're excited about sort of reinventing that space, recognizing that change is always a challenge. We are committed to having the right case goods products in our stores to enhance the upholstery side, but do it in a more efficient way and in a way where we have a real right to win on the design side as well. Thank you. Very helpful. Best of luck going forward.

Thank you. Thanks, Bobby. Your next question for today is from Brad Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Hey, good morning. This is Taylor Zeckhan for Brad. Melinda, you give some good color on trends throughout the quarter while also noting that November was a bit mixed. If I recall, I think last year you saw, and the industry saw, improved demand in November post-election. Just given the comparable month was a bit stronger, how are you thinking about underlying demand trends as you head into your fiscal 3Q? Yeah, good morning. Yeah, you're spot on. I think the consumer, first of all, if you just look at in the absolute, the consumer is challenged, and demand remains choppy. We need to be agile and prudent as we deal with that. You're absolutely right that the comparison period for post-election last year is a challenging one.

That is kind of why we are navigating this in a prudent way and looking to make sure that we are efficient in how we are executing, but doing everything we can to reach those consumers that are out there and driving the strongest absolute results that we can. Gotcha. Maybe if I could just follow up on, I do not think I heard much on the prepared remarks, but just curious on what you are seeing out there in the market relative to promotions and maybe what you are thinking about, how are you thinking about promotional intensity later in this quarter and maybe into 2026 as the industry kind of seems to be flattening out? I think to start at the supply side, as Taylor noted, our pricing has been relatively nominal, single-digit. We are positioned very well.

What we've seen from other suppliers, other manufacturers, is significantly higher pricing. That's going to drive cost into the business overall. We're talking double digits, pretty widespread. Some of that is taking time to ultimately shift all the way out to the end consumer, but we are seeing that. At the same time, if I go back to Labor Day, which was our last big tentpole for the industry, we did see sharpened, deeper price points to drive traffic, not overall an absolute bigger discounting, but a lot of, again, traffic-driving kind of deep attention-getting type of activity increased than from what we'd seen, say, like at Memorial Day.

It's a very active marketplace out there and trying to do the right things to drive that traffic and give particularly the increasingly value-conscious consumer an opportunity to take care of their homes and get into our brand, but at the same time, recognize there's still, you talk about that bifurcated consumer, that K-shaped economy. We are still seeing design sales hold up really well and seeing consumers that are coming in ready to do whole rooms and leather and power and all of those big upgrades. It requires some laser precision to navigate that environment. Yeah. That's great. Appreciate the color. Maybe if I can sneak one in for Taylor. Taylor, you made commentary that capital this year and fiscal 2026 would be tilted more towards reinvestment.

As you eye up this exit of these non-core businesses, how are you thinking about capital allocation into 2026 between reinvestments and maybe some return to shareholders? Yeah, good question, Taylor. Right now, a little early to comment to any change in our capital allocation for the year. We're thrilled with where we're at for this year. As we've mentioned, we think our best use of cash when it's prudently reinvested back in business. Last year was a little tilted towards shareholders. Right now, it's a little bit back in the business with this acquisition as well as CapEx on our distribution transformation as well as new store standup. Right now, we're still working through these exits on those businesses that Melinda had mentioned. Any new information as we progress through that, we'll share on capital decisions.

I am thrilled actually with our level of investment back to the business and very pleased to once again return a double-digit increase to our dividend, the fifth consecutive year, which I think speaks a testament to our strong financial footing and confidence in our business moving forward. Understood. All right. Great. Thanks for the additional color here. I'll pass it along. Thank you. Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I will now turn the call over to Mark for closing remarks. Thanks, everyone. Melinda, Taylor, and I will be in our offices to take any follow-up calls. Thanks, and have a great holiday. This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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