Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. (SBH) August 11, 2026 Conference Transcript

Okay, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for attending our conference. I'm Susan Anderson, one of the Canaccord's consumer analysts, and we're very excited to have here Sally Beauty, and in particular to host President and CEO Denise Polonis and CFO Adrienne Lee. For those of you that are not familiar with Sally Beauty, the company has a portfolio of beauty stores that spans across the consumer and professional channels with a unique focus on hair color, as well as many other things beauty. With that, I'll turn it over, Denise, to give you a little rundown of Sally Beauty.

Great. Thank you, Susan. We appreciate you hosting us today, and we're very excited to talk about the Sally Beauty Holdings story. What I want to start with is a little bit about who we are. Susan mentioned it well. We are quite a differentiated beauty company spanning both consumer and professional markets, which is a key source of differentiation for us. We operate a strong omni-channel business, but we also operate 4,300 stores globally that span both Pro and consumer service. And it's a highly resilient model. The hair color category, which represents over 40% of the business on both sides of our business, is highly resilient because it's a staple. People don't think about that as discretionary beauty spend. They think about it as needed beauty spend. Once you start coloring your hair, you generally don't stop that trend. And we are the largest source of professional level hair color to service 61% of U.S. women who color their hair. On top of that, very strong cash flow generation gives us ample opportunity to reinvest in the business for growth, which we're excited to share with you today, as well as return value to our shareholders. So who are we? In total, we're about a $4 billion company. We posted $1.90 EPS last year, which was 12% growth with very healthy cash flow of over $200 million a year. That trend has continued three quarters into our fiscal 26. We continue to generate modestly positive comp with an EPS up 9% and our free cash flow year over year up an additional 18%. A great business for us to be able to continue to invest behind. So who are we at the core? You'll see us talk about two brands, our Sally brand and our Cosmoprof brand. Our Sally brand is how we go to market retail. It's 3,000 stores. It's about 10% e-commerce penetration. Those stores are about 1,800 square feet, very efficient small boxes. Our pro business that operates under the name Cosmoprof is about 1,300 stores, 15% e-commerce penetration, and 550 full-service sales consultants. What's unique about the stylist community is 70% of stylists generate and operate their own independent business. So for where some businesses you would think a B2B business would not operate storefronts, we're quite efficient in that that is the core source of how people utilize a hand-to-mouth kind of cash business. They come in and buy what they need to service their customers for a week or a day, and we'll come back and repurchase again with that convenience of being able to come into a store to do it. And as I mentioned earlier, we service two distinct but very related markets in servicing hair color as the primary differentiator of our model. And where I mentioned that 61% of women color their hair, what's amazing is the way that they do it. Out of that 61%, only 11% only go to a salon. 25% only DIY. And that middle 25%, which is just such a fun segment, is the customer who says, I'll go a few years to my stylist. I'll go a few times a year to my stylist. And in between, I'll touch it up myself. So we can capture both sides of that equation when we do our business. But in addition to that, that allows us to serve beauty on a pro-beauty services side, which is a large addressable market, and tap into a broader beauty and strength of the beauty category, leveraging color into beauty in the market. And we'll talk about some of those places we're doing that today. So let me talk a little bit about Sally, then a little bit about B&G, BSG. I'll hit a couple of points about our key strategies driving growth, and then Adrian is going to bring us home with some of the financials. So for Sally, what really differentiates Sally as a retail concept? First of all, extremely convenient way to shop. While only about 10% e-commerce penetration, we participate in all All the marketplaces that you can think of, including DoorDash and Uber Eats. And our e-commerce business is heavily serviced from our stores, with 70% of our e-commerce sales actually being distributed through inventory that exists in our store base today. We have an extremely loyal consumer. 80% of our sales come from those in our loyalty program, which is about 15 million active known customers in the U.S. And we've seen nice new customer growth over the past quarters as our performance marketing, our CRM, and personalization initiatives have really taken hold. And finally, on this page, I'll hit on leadership and color expertise. What's particularly unique about our business is while we have small, mighty boxes, the associates in those stores are trained to help people use our products effectively. We've then translated that into an online service called Licensed Colorist on Demand, where at a click of a button for free, you can connect with a licensed colorist, video, audio, chat, show them a picture of what you want, what color correction you need. They're going to walk you through everything that you need to do, and we're proud to see that we now do 5,200 of those consultations a week, with those customers having a much higher lifetime value as we've tracked that program for the last few years, And excited in the way that we can support that customer with their DIY needs. When we think about the Sally portfolio, as I mentioned earlier, a little over 40% of the business is hair color. Another 23% is hair care. What we're really excited about is our opportunity to hit a broader total addressable market when we think about participating now in new categories like fragrance and men's and nails. And we're starting to dip into skin as well as we see that opportunity to take our core customer into some new categories and new sets for us. In particular, I'd call out fragrance, where we tested it in 1,000 stores going into holiday last year, saw such great results. We ramped it up to 2,000 coming out of holiday and are now set up for a wonderful season ahead. Our own brands are also a key source of differentiation. On the Sally side, 35% of our sales come from our own brands, where margins in that business are 10 percentage points or more higher than our vendor-branded product. But in addition to the margin, what's extremely important is this has people saying, why Sally and only at Sally? Ion, our largest owned brand, is over a $300 million brand in and of itself. And we're excited to keep building on this and offering great value to our customers in very well-known own brand space. And then finally, while to date, so many of our initiatives around performance marketing and assortment and assortment expansion, as well as digital, have been driving 3.5% growth last quarter, we're looking to the future and looking about how we reinvent the store experience, which we're calling Sally Ignited. So these stores, if you went into one of our stores today, it feels a little bit more like a drugstore. It's a supply house. It's high gondolas, maybe not that exciting and appealing to wander the store. It's very functional for what people need to get in, get great customer service, and get out. Our new concept, as you can see the pictures here, much more specialty beauty experience, much more for a reason to somebody to come in and linger, cross shop across categories, experience nail if they've not done it, an impulse section as they check out, things that as we're watching our first 80 stores that we are testing right now, we're seeing higher dwell times, we're seeing increased frequency, we're seeing more cross category baskets. And in this past quarter, those stores nicely comped above the fleet. So a great trajectory that we're on, and we'll make more decisions as we come to the end of our fiscal year on the expansion program here, but see the really opportunity to continue to drive growth with the remodel program. Turning to the BSG side of the house, this is our pro-distribution, wholesale distribution side of the house. You will all hit on a few things that are here that are very unique. First of all, we are the largest distributor to pro-stylus in the U.S. We know every stylist that is out there, and while that stylist population is relatively flat, they are incredibly sticky and high value. Our average customer spends over $800 with us a year, you know, and is a regular frequent visitor to our stores or to our e-commerce sites and experience. This is also a place where color matters. So we sell 20 color brands, over 3,000 shades, and when stylists shop, they're very sticky with their color category, and then they sample and dabble across shampoos, conditioners, other hair care products. So we win them in with color, and they stick with us for the breadth of the rest of the assortment. And as I mentioned, this is definitely a category killer distribution model where color and care and all things hair are the dominant space here. So 84% of the business is hair color and hair care, with some nice additional businesses in nail and styling tools. What we're particularly excited about right now is expanding into pro-distribution of skin and spa. When we think about that space, we can target both our existing salon customers who are coming in and shopping with us, but there's a population of estheticians who uniquely service that skincare side of the community, that by bringing in pro brands like Matter of Fact and Image, we're giving them that same convenience of shopping that our stylists on the haircare side have today. And so we look forward to that expansion coming into the business. And as I mentioned earlier, we are a house of brands. This is a business that is not an own brand business. It is very much a pro business that we're out there with, and you can see some of the great brands that we participate with today. The most interesting and new addition to our portfolio on the color side has been Danger Jones, a very well-regarded brand that started as Vivid Color and has expanded into Core Color as well. And then I think the part that I'll close on on BSG is a reminder of why this business is so unique. So we know 100% of the customers that shop with us, they have to be professionally licensed to come in and shop at wholesale prices. That is the moat that we defend with our vendors in terms of being able to purchase. With 70% of these stylists working independently, a large B2B model is not what works for these customers. They like the independence as well as the interaction with other professionals when they come into our stores or engage in our education programs, and they are looking for help and support to manage their business end-to-end. So they ask us advice about how to price services. They ask us advice about how to re-retail product, all the things that can help them grow their business. And then when we put these two businesses back together, why are we better together? We are able to take the power of two $2 billion businesses into a $4 billion business in how we negotiate with our brands and our relationships with our manufacturers, the level of expertise we have, particularly tied to hair. And then when you think about a back office of shared technology, analytics, supply chain, this spans both of our businesses. And technology has been a very important investment vehicle for us of late, where investments behind planning and allocation have made our inventory efficiency stand out. It's also been places where with digital growth, our total digital growth has been positive comping for 11 quarters. Our Sally digital business has comped 20% plus for the last eight quarters. That investment in shared technology is reaping a lot of benefits for us right now. So when we think about our growth strategy and what it's founded on, it is these five items. I'm going to hit the first four and then turn it over to Adrienne to talk a little bit about how we maintain a very efficient operating model. But we'll start with understand and activate the customers. On both sides of the business, we are heavily invested in CRM and personalization. We're heavily invested in marketing partnerships and brands. We are right now in the midst of ColorFest, which is an opportunity to celebrate all things color. We're doing that with a series of road trips as well to historically black universities and colleges across the South to get our brand out and in front of people, leaning into those types of special occasions and stand out to bring new customers into our portfolio. Our new customer acquisition grew 6% last quarter, and we think that's a great trend that we're on. We are accelerating all of that customer acquisition as well through our licensed colorist on demand program that I already mentioned, as well as paid search influencers, and the strength of our marketing mix model and the efficiency that we're getting from there. We feel great about how that's driving more customers into our box. And when we get with assortment, assortment's a key part of the world to us. We've already talked about that a bit. In addition to own brands and the new brands and products we bring in, on the BSG side of the business, an incredibly important part of this is the opportunity to gain new territories and channel expansion. So this is a business that has been rolled up from small distributors over time. We sit in a very unique position being the largest player out there to be able to continue that and inquire small companies as family companies and offices might decide to step away from that distribution business. And then finally, as I mentioned before, our focus on digital. Digital is not a means to an end. That penetration today across the whole portfolio is about 12%. We anticipate that will continue to increase as customers choose to invest behind it. But we just launched new apps in both of our businesses that are performing very well. Marketplaces has been a wonderful source of growth. As I mentioned before, the efficiency and profitability of this business on the Sally side, 70% of the distribution tied to digital is coming through our stores. So a very invested and friendly model. And on the pro side, that attachment to the app lets us deepen customer engagement with more education opportunities directly related to their app. And then bringing it home. While the trajectory of the business has been healthy and we're excited about over the last few quarters, there's only more to come. Our remodel program with Sally Ignited is just getting started. We look forward to accelerating that growth as we move into fiscal 27 and beyond. That investment in skin and spa distribution on the pro side of the business and how we can add a new customer population of estheticians coming in and shopping with us. And then we're innovating our happy beauty concept. If you haven't seen much about that, please go to our website and read more information. But this is in value beauty play that is particularly mall-based. Teens, tweens, and moms, very targeted towards indie brands that you'll see on TikTok and Instagram and others combined with Korean skincare and beauty, but at great affordable price points. It's a very different foray and hits categories that our core Sally business model does not naturally address, and we look forward to understanding how that will grow in the future. And with that, I'm going to turn over to Adrienne to talk a little bit about the financials.

Great. Well, thank you, Denise. And as you mentioned, I'll spend my time talking a bit about our fifth pillar of kind of optimization and then some recaps on our financials. Excuse me. So a few years ago, the company embarked on an official program called Fuel for Growth. This program was really set aside to improve margins, but also to give us the cash to invest in growth. What we're really excited about is the program will come to kind of the end of its life at the end of FY26 and deliver against its target commitment of $120 million of annualized savings. So once again, this was a program that was set in force to help drive margin as well as help fuel top-line growth initiatives. Pardon me. The other, excuse me, we have a very resilient business model and have been driving positive earnings. You'll see here, and Denise mentioned, year-to-date fiscal 2026, we've had 9% adjusted EPS growth, and then you'll see the NICE growth along the last several years. On top of this earnings growth, the company's been able to deliver consistent cash flow. And so if you'll look at our free cash flow chart, which is on the right, you'll notice we've seen free cash flow growth. In fiscal 2026, year-to-date, our free cash flow growth has been 18%. So what's exciting about our free cash flow and our growth in cash flow is obviously it allows us to invest in the business. I started the conversation with talking about how we needed to generate cash to fuel the top line. And then it also allows us to continue our capital allocation priorities and something we're really proud of. So we have our positive earnings growth, consistent cash flow, and a really healthy balance sheet. One of the targets we put out externally was we wanted our net debt leverage to be 1.5 to 2 times. What I'm really excited about is at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2026, we were at 1.4 times, so slightly below this ratio and feeling really good about kind of us delivering against that target. And then also, if you look at the chart on the right, you'll see our maturities are pretty far out there. So again, really healthy debt ratio, and our maturities are out further. So kind of all in, as I talked about our EPS momentum, our cash flow, our healthy balance sheet, we've put forth our long-term algorithm of 1-3% top-line growth, 50% gross margin, 50% plus gross margin, all leading to a 3-5% operating growth. So this gives us, I think, the right, as Denise said, I should say, the growth drivers that we have in the business, as well as our strong gross margin and our cash flow generation gives us a lot of confidence to deliver against this algorithm. And in addition to delivering against the algorithm, our strong cash flow and, as I said, our healthy balance sheet really allow us to continue to invest in the business, which is our top priority, and Denise mentioned kind of our ignited concept and digital footprint, but also allows us to continue our capital allocation priorities, which was reducing our debt profile. Again, I mentioned that 1.4 times levered, and also return cash to shareholders through our share repurchase program. So I think a really healthy place to be. So thank you. And I think with that, Susan?

So if anyone in the room has any questions, feel free to go ahead and ask. Maybe I will just kick it off.

Oh, go ahead. You mentioned that you do a lot with hair color, but can you speak to what you do with hair masks or serums or treatments? Like, is that a growing category?

Yeah, absolutely a growing category. So, on the pro side of our business, 40% of the business is hair color. 40% is everything called hair care. So, that's going to be shampoos, conditioners, hair masks, serums, treatments. On the retail side of the business, that hair care is 26% of our business. The similar trends exist in both those. People are looking for problem solving and solutions. So in particular, masks and serums are outpacing the growth of core shampoo, conditioner, and certainly leaning into brands where they show particular strength there, whether that's a ColorWow, a K18, or many others.

And maybe I'll just follow up with that on just the pro side. If you could talk about the addition of the Derma products, how many stores it's in now, where it's going to, and just kind of the results you've seen from that so far.

Yeah, absolutely. So last year, we launched into 250 out of 1,300 of our pro stores, Image and Matter of Fact, which are two core pro Derma brands. We just recently expanded to another 250 stores. We've seen nice high double-digit growth as we've been in that business. It's a very exciting place for us to be. We're only tapping the beginning of that, though, because most of that growth has come from our core stylist population buying that assortment in our stores and in our environment. We've recently launched a heavy marketing campaign with estheticians to get them coming in. So with that additional 250 stores and more places to shop, we think that we're on a great trajectory. We've complemented it with some more mainstream skincare brands, which would include things from Moroccan Oil and Amica as well. So there's a nice assortment when you go into the store to shop from.

And then, go ahead.

I have a question. So, and I'll talk with you, I guess, like offline also, but how do you position yourself with all of these things? Like maybe against like a Blue Mercury or a Sephora or something where people go in for hair treatments? Like you seem to have, you know, some about the same amount of stuff.

Yeah, so when we think about the Sally Beauty side of the house, which is certainly more a DIY side of the house, what's very unique is the customer base that we serve spans all demographics from an age perspective, ethnicity perspective, but we do primarily serve a middle to lower income consumer on the Sally Beauty side. So on the color side of the business, they're really looking for the pro color assortment. So these are tubes of color. These are not boxes of color. They're the equivalent to what pros are using on folks' hair, where they can get that experience at home and uniquely positions us. And from a care and styling tools perspective, our own brands really resonate with people for the value that they provide. So what we can do to offer what can accommodate Sephora or other at a $50 plus price tag, what we can bring to a customer for $18 or $20 is where we see a lot of the value equation. And then uniquely with our stylist population who's buying all those same pro brands that might be sold retail at a Sephora, our pros are getting those at wholesale prices, and part of their business is using them, and they go down the drain, and part of them is also reselling to their customer base. So all that same great assortment, but the way that they can serve their customers the best.

Maybe if you could just talk about the Licensed Colorists on Demand initiative that you guys have had in place, which I believe has helped to drive sales in the Sally Beauty store.

Absolutely. You know, so from our website, whether you're on your phone or on your computer, you can click through one button that says talk to a specialist or talk to a licensed stylist. And with that, you're going to get connected to literally a licensed stylist who might be doing this as a second job. They might be doing it because they no longer can work behind a chair. They will coach you through whatever outcome that you're trying to get, recommend the right products, create a shopping list for you where you can either hit a buy button and have instructions as well on how to accomplish that outcome, Or you can take that list into a store and shop. But we're doing 5,200 of those consultations a week. The majority of those consultations continue to be new customers coming into the box. And the engagement that we see in terms of lifetime value is a notably higher value customer than who might come into us through a different vehicle. Thank you so much, Denise and Adrienne.

Great. Thank you.

Appreciate it.