Greetings, and welcome to the Xponential Fitness, Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Patricia Nir. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining our conference call to discuss Xponential Fitness' Third Quarter 2025 Financial results. I am joined by Mike Nuzzo, Chief Executive Officer; and John Meloun, Chief Financial Officer. A recording of this call will be posted on the Investors section of our website at investor.xponential.com. We remind you that during this conference call, we will make certain forward-looking statements, including discussions of our business outlook and financial projections. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from such expectations. For a more detailed description of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, filed with the SEC and subsequent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligations to update the information provided on today's call. In addition, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures in this conference call. We use non-GAAP measures because we believe they provide useful information about our operating performance that should be considered by investors in conjunction with the GAAP measures that we provide. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures is included in the earnings release that was issued earlier today prior to this call and in the investor presentation available on our website. Please note that all numbers reported in today's prepared remarks refer to global figures, unless otherwise noted. As a reminder, in order to ensure period-over-period comparability and consistent with our reporting method since IPO, we present all KPIs on a pro forma basis, meaning, for the full KPI history presented, we only include brands that are under our ownership as of the current reporting period. For the period ended September 30, 2025, this includes BFT, Club Pilates, Pure Barre, StretchLab, and Yoga6. I will now turn the call over to Mike Nuzzo, CEO of Xponential Fitness.

Thanks, Patricia, and good afternoon, everyone. First, I'd like to thank the entire Xponential family for welcoming me on board. As I said when I started, Xponential is uniquely positioned to thrive as a successful consumer business. Having completed my first 90 days, I've had the opportunity to deep dive into our business, connect with many of you, and gain a clear understanding of both our strengths and the areas where we can improve. This period has reinforced my belief in the power of our brands and the dedication of our franchisees. I want to again highlight three foundational elements: First, Xponential is in a great space. Boutique fitness has substantial momentum and long-term growth potential as consumers continue to invest more in their health and wellness routines. Second, Xponential has strong studio brands that are loved by members and are led by passionate and committed franchisees. Third, Xponential has made progress in building a team and a supporting foundation to start driving stronger growth and financial returns. Importantly, given the three recent divestitures, we have a more optimized brand portfolio. With this, I am convinced we can provide better franchisee support with a more appropriate level of infrastructure consistent with our smaller brand portfolio. I'll discuss recent actions we have been taking to address this. Let me walk through these elements in more detail. First, the industry. It is estimated that a record 247 million Americans engage in an exercise routine in 2024, up by over 25 million from just 2019 and representing the 11th consecutive year of growth. Within the space, the global boutique fitness market is expected to reach $60 billion by 2030, fueled by a growing demand among all age groups for specialized community-focused experiences. The sector's emphasis on holistic health and strong engagement will likely continue to fuel growth that outpaces the overall fitness industry. These trends bode well for Xponential. Secondly, we have strong brands and an excellent network of franchisees. I have spent time with many of our franchisees over these past few months, and their commitment to driving their local businesses, ultimately fueling our success, is clear. Each of our brands has unique attributes that contribute to their performance. Club Pilates, with over 1,200 locations across North America and over 150 locations internationally, is our flagship brand and the scaled leader in the category. Club Pilates studios generate the strongest new unit economics I have ever seen. For example, our recent two vintages of Club Pilates openings, the 2023 and 2024 cohorts, have shown record year one revenue ramps, exceeding the previous three vintages at month 12 by an average of 27%. This demonstrates the brand's continued popularity and significant growth opportunity ahead. Yoga6 and Pure Barre are complementary studio concepts that have a healthy owner-operator franchisee structure and continue to generate impressive sustained organic growth. They both also exhibit strong retention driven by an almost obsessive member base, which we love, of course. StretchLab and BFT have all the attributes to return to and exceed their historical levels of performance. BFT, born in Australia, has a compelling offering in the high-intensity interval training space. Currently, we have a cross-functional team focused on refining our go-to-market approach in the U.S. to drive better individual studio economics, member awareness, and market density. StretchLab's assisted stretch model is a great complementary addition to a weekly workout routine. I've experienced the benefit firsthand. After exhibiting solid AUVs a few years ago, recent StretchLab revenue trends have been pressured as Medicare Advantage plans, a strong source of member flow, have scaled back on stretch as a covered benefit. Based on what I've learned, there are meaningful opportunities to improve every element that impacts member acquisition and retention. I expect us to make steady progress across both brands as we position for 2026. Importantly, following the recent divestitures of CycleBar, Rumble, and Lindora, we now have a more streamlined brand portfolio, which brings me to my third key area of focus and probably the most significant opportunity for the company. While Xponential has a foundation in place to support franchisees and members, there is substantial opportunity to improve without adding additional cost. The five major areas of focus are: marketing, operations support, unit growth and licensing, innovation and efficiencies, and cost savings. I have been dedicating significant time to strengthening each of these core functions within a more streamlined portfolio. This is not about adding additional cost. Rather, it's reallocating and refining how we operate to drive greater focus and efficiency. Let me walk you through each aspect of our tactical approach. First, in the area of marketing. Our new leadership team in marketing is enhancing our corporate capabilities in digital media, CRM, search, and social to augment franchisee local marketing efforts. We have launched a pricing study focused first on Club Pilates, which will serve as a framework for our other concepts. All our corporate brand websites are being refreshed to improve our member journey from initial contact to conversion and retention. We are also addressing lead management system and process deficiencies to help strengthen our top-of-funnel KPIs across our portfolio. In the fourth quarter, we are making additional marketing fund investments to launch a national brand campaign for Club Pilates, expanding our reach through new performance channels like podcasts, YouTube TV, and CTV. Overall, we are improving our corporate marketing engine with a clear focus to drive organic growth. These improvements are designed to help support our brands optimize performance and strengthen our connection with both prospective and existing members. Second, operations support. We launched our initial field support teams with a laser-focused mission to provide best practices to studios and franchisees on all the ways to enhance local studio financial performance. We are working closely with franchisees to gather feedback, improve processes, refine our approach, and ensure these teams are effectively supporting our studios. On the retail front, the transition to the outsourced model is well underway. We expect the implementation to be largely complete by year-end, and we are looking forward to delivering a much more efficient retail experience for both our corporate teams and franchisees. In the area of unit growth and licensing, we've made swift progress in ramping up our improved real estate and license sales support capabilities. We are working closely with a leading outsourced partner in franchise real estate to implement best-in-class site selection practices, including leveraging the latest AI-powered market assessment tools. These improvements are designed to ensure that we're making smart, data-driven decisions that support long-term success. In addition, we are taking steps to attract more established operators, along with private equity into the existing franchisee base, particularly for Club Pilates. I'm also excited to share that during Q3, we successfully completed the franchise disclosure documents registration process across brands and states. In international markets, we continue to add locations focused on Club Pilates and BFT, and I look forward to working with the team on ways to accelerate our growth within key strategic geographies in both Europe and Asia. On the innovation front, we are focused on generating new class content and member engagement within our current portfolio, and see substantial upside within each of the brands. For example, in Club Pilates, we recently launched our first new class in several years, Circuit, which incorporates more intense athletic movements while still being accessible to even beginners. In Yoga6, we are refining our class offering menu for 2026. Both Circuit and new planned classes in Yoga6 will have appeal across age groups and feature strong social media attributes. This month, we also defined a new Club Pilates studio design, a big request from our franchisees. At a corporate level, we are making sure that our innovation and marketing teams are closely aligned, such that new content continuously fuels the marketing engine, driving engagement and retention. I believe we are just scratching the surface with our abilities to bring innovative leadership to the space. Finally, efficiencies and cost savings. One of my key learnings these past 90 days was that we needed to move quickly to rightsize our corporate organization, both as a result of the divestitures and in an effort to more broadly streamline the organization. As a result, in October, we executed a reduction in force across most of our corporate departments, which was a difficult but necessary task. This is expected to result in annualized SG&A savings of about $6 million. We will continue to identify ways to optimize our operations while upholding our commitment to providing the best service to our franchisees and members. I want to be clear that the initiatives here are clearly multifaceted. While we are acting with the requisite immediacy, the full impacts will unfold over the ensuing quarters. We intend to measure progress and adjust as needed, ensuring that the changes we implement are both effective and sustainable. With that, I'll turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Mike. Good afternoon, everyone. We ended the quarter with 3,066 global open studios. This quarter, we opened 78 gross new studios, 57 in North America and 21 internationally. There were 32 global studio closures in the third quarter or about 1%, representing an annualized closure rate of 4%. In the third quarter, the company sold 49 licenses, of which 16 were in North America and 33 were international. Our base of licenses sold and contractually obligated to open is over 1,000 studios in North America, and we also have over 700 international master franchise obligations. Approximately 40% of our global licenses are over 12 months behind their applicable development schedules. Third quarter North America system-wide sales were $432.2 million, up 10% year-over-year. This was driven primarily by growth from net new studio openings. Notably, about 90% of system-wide sales growth came from a higher mix of actively paying members with the remainder driven by higher pricing and mix shifts. Same-store sales were down 0.8% for the quarter and up 5.4% on a two-year stack basis. Same-store sales trends in Q3 were driven by a confluence of factors, and we are in the process of examining them in detail. At a high level, we've identified lead flow and member conversion issues across the portfolio that we are working to address, some of which were likely accentuated by our implementation of additional member privacy safeguards earlier this year. At a more granular level, StretchLab continues to be impacted in part by brand positioning challenges and the Medicare Advantage coverage reductions. Meanwhile, at Club Pilates, as you all know, we are benefiting from a stronger sales ramp in newer cohorts. While this is great for studio economics, it means that recent cohorts are already near capacity when they enter the same-store sales calculation, translating to lower same-store sales contributions. As Mike alluded to, we are reviewing all elements of corporate and studio-level operations to compete better and more profitably. Our North America run rate average unit volumes climbed to $668,000 in the third quarter, up 2% from $654,000 in the prior year period. The increase in AUVs was largely driven by a higher number of actively paying members and higher pricing for new members. Given the consistent level of demand for our brands and Club Pilates in particular, we believe there is an incremental opportunity to increase revenues through enhanced pricing methodologies, including new price tiers, disciplined cancellation policies, and new package offerings. On a consolidated basis, revenue for the quarter was $78.8 million, down 2% or $1.7 million from $80.5 million in the prior year period. 73% of revenue for the quarter was recurring, which we define as including all revenue streams, except for franchise territory revenues and equipment revenues, given these materially occur upfront before the studio opens. Franchise revenue for the quarter rose 17% year-over-year, or $7.4 million to $51.9 million, driven primarily by the catching up of franchise territory license terminations and by royalty revenues due to a higher effective royalty rate driven by new studio openings. The company will continue to terminate licenses at elevated levels in the fourth quarter, noting terminations can take time given requirements around notification timelines. Equipment revenue was $7.5 million, down 49% year-over-year or $7.2 million, reflecting a 41% decline in global installation volume compared to the prior year period. Merchandise revenue of $4.8 million was down 27% year-over-year, or $1.8 million, reflecting lower sales volumes. As a reminder, in Q4, we will begin the implementation of our outsourced retail strategy with FitCo, which is expected to contribute improved margin expansion in 2026 and further optimize non-core operations and reduce working capital commitments. Franchise marketing fund revenue was $8.8 million, an increase of 3% year-over-year or $0.3 million, primarily due to continued growth in system-wide sales in North America and increased average unit volumes from our installed base of studios. Lastly, other service revenue, which includes sales generated from rebates from processing studio system-wide sales, brand access partnerships, company-owned studios, XPASS, and XPLUS amongst other items, was $5.9 million, down 6% or $0.4 million. The decrease was primarily due to lower brand access fees. Turning to our operating expenses for the quarter. Cost of product revenue was $10.2 million, down 41% or $7 million year-over-year. The decrease was primarily driven by the lower volume of equipment installations and merchandise sales during the period. Cost of franchise and service revenue was $7 million, up 45% or $2.2 million year-over-year. The increase was largely driven by the increased recognition of associated commission expenses from the catching up of franchise territory license terminations. Selling, general, and administrative expenses were $24.7 million, down 47% or $21.5 million year-over-year. The decrease in SG&A was primarily due to a decrease in legal expenses driven by non-recurring insurance reimbursement and lower restructuring charges from lease liability settlements. During the quarter, we received $10 million in cash reimbursement from our professional insurance policies related to the SEC investigation that was concluded without action in July, as well as other defense costs from other active inquiries. There was an additional $10 million insurance receivable recorded for SEC investigation and franchise matters as of the end of the quarter, noting that the receipt of these recovery payments in future periods will have no impact on GAAP earnings or EBITDA. At present, through the third quarter, we have entered into and paid lease settlement agreements of approximately $32.7 million. As of September 30, 2025, we have approximately $8.8 million of lease liabilities yet to be settled. We expect most of the remaining liabilities will be settled during the remainder of 2025. Depreciation and amortization expenses were $3.7 million, down 13% or $0.5 million compared to the prior year period. Marketing fund expenses were $9 million, up 40% or $2.6 million year-over-year, afforded by higher system-wide sales and associated marketing fund revenue contributions. Acquisition and transaction expenses were $3.1 million, down 16% or $0.6 million from the prior year period. This includes the contingent consideration activity, which is related to the Rumble acquisition earn-out and is driven by the share price at quarter end. We mark-to-market the earn-out each quarter and adjust our accruals accordingly. Note that this earn-out will persist despite the recent divestiture of the brand. We recorded a net loss of $6.7 million in the third quarter or a loss of $0.18 per basic share compared to a net loss of $18.1 million or a net loss of $0.29 per basic share in the prior year period. We continue to believe that adjusted net income is a more useful way to measure the performance of our business. A reconciliation of net income and loss to adjusted net income and loss is provided in our earnings press release. Adjusted net income for the third quarter was $19.3 million or adjusted net income of $0.36 per basic share on a share count of 35.1 million shares of Class A common stock. Adjusted EBITDA was $33.5 million in the third quarter, up 9% or $2.7 million compared to $30.8 million in the prior year period, primarily driven by increased margin from license terminations and increased royalties in our franchise revenues. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 42% in the quarter, up from 38% in the prior year period. Turning to the balance sheet. As of September 30, 2025, cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash were $41.5 million, up from $32.7 million as of December 31, 2024. For the nine months ended September 30, 2025, net cash provided by operating activities was $17.6 million, which includes $2.8 million in lease settlements. Net cash used in investing activities was $2.3 million with $4.3 million used to purchase property and equipment and intangible assets, offset by $2 million in proceeds from the disposition of brands. Net cash used in financing activities was $6.6 million, which primarily includes $5.9 million in net borrowings on long-term debt, $5.7 million in payments on preferred stock dividends, $3.4 million in payments on promissory note liability, and $2.3 million in payments for taxes related to net share settlement of restricted stock units. Total long-term debt was $376.4 million as of September 30, 2025, compared to $352.4 million as of December 31, 2024. The net increase in total long-term debt is largely due to the company drawing additional debt in the first quarter of 2025 for general working capital purposes and associated fees, offset by quarterly principal payments. As previously communicated, the company is actively exploring multiple work streams to refinance our term loan in advance of its coming current in May of 2026. Let's now turn to our outlook for 2025. We are reiterating guidance for net new studio openings, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA. We are taking a more conservative approach to North American system-wide sales given current business conditions and to account for the divestiture of Lindora. Note that guidance and year-over-year comparisons for system-wide sales and net new studio openings exclude CycleBar, Lindora, and Rumble in both periods for comparability. We now project North America system-wide sales to range from $1.73 billion to $1.75 billion, representing a 12% increase at the midpoint. We continue to expect 2025 global net new studio openings, which is net of closures, to be in the range of 170 to 190, representing a 37% decrease at the midpoint from the prior year. We expect the number of closures to be approximately 5% of the global system this year as a percentage of total open studios. Total 2025 revenue is expected to be between $300 million and $310 million, unchanged from previous guidance and representing a 5% year-over-year decrease at the midpoint of our guided range. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range from $106 million to $111 million, unchanged from the previous guidance and representing a 7% year-over-year decrease at the midpoint of our guided range. This range translates into a 35.6% adjusted EBITDA margin at the midpoint. We continue to expect total SG&A to range from $130 million to $140 million. When further excluding the one-time lease restructuring charges, brand divestitures, and regulatory legal defense expenses, we are expecting SG&A of $110 million to $115 million and a range of $95 million to $100 million when further excluding stock-based costs. As a reminder, in the fourth quarter, the company hosts its annual franchise conference, which has a net $3.7 million expense in the period. Regarding the marketing fund, in the fourth quarter, we expect to see marketing fund spend exceed marketing fund revenue by approximately $5 million, largely driven by the nationwide branding campaign for Club Pilates. In terms of capital expenditure, we now anticipate approximately $6 million to $8 million for the year or approximately 2% of revenue at the midpoint. This compares to previous guidance of $10 million to $12 million or approximately 4% of revenue at the midpoint. For the full year, we continue to expect our tax rate to be mid- to high single digits, share count for purposes of earnings per share calculation to be 34.8 million, and $1.9 million in quarterly cash dividends related to our convertible preferred stock. A full explanation of our share count calculation and associated pro forma EPS and adjusted EPS calculations can be found in the tables at the end of our earnings press release as well as our corporate structure and capitalization FAQ on our investor website. We continue to anticipate our unlevered free cash flow conversion to be approximately 90% of adjusted EBITDA as we require minimal capital expenditure to grow the business. We continue to expect that our anticipated interest expense in 2025 will be approximately $49 million, tax expenses to now be approximately $5 million, including the cash usage for tax receivable agreement and tax distributions to pre-IPO LLC members, and approximately $8 million in cash dividends related to our convertible preferred stock, resulting in levered adjusted EBITDA cash flow conversion of approximately 35%. This concludes today's prepared remarks. Thank you all for your time today. We will now open the call for questions.

Our first question comes from Chris O'Cull with Stifel.

John, I know Club Pilates comps had moderated last quarter, I think, to the mid-single-digit range. Can you provide an update on how that played out in the third quarter and then maybe current trends you're seeing in Club Pilates specifically?

Thanks, Chris. Yes. In Q2 of 2025, it moderated closer to the mid-single digit, which we said was around 5%. In Q3, we did see it come into the low single digit or about 1% in the third quarter. As we explained on the call, what we're really seeing is your installed base of studios now getting to what we believe is full maturity given the current operating structure and number of members and pricing that they have, which is around about $1 million AUV. As we add new units, what we're seeing is these new units are coming on pretty efficiently and getting up to that kind of, let's call it, $900,000 to $1 million AUV very early in the first 12 months of operation, which means as they move into the 13-plus month, they're not really comping like they used to because now the whole system is almost at that $1 million AUV. That's one of the phenomenons that we're talking about is just the efficiencies of the ramp in Club Pilates. Because they're at full capacity, they're not really comping beyond the $1 million.

Yes, Chris, and I'll add a couple of points as well. Yes, it's a great brand. Obviously, strong AUVs and a great ramp, high productivity. We should still expect to grow organically. Obviously, we're happy with where we were in the first half of the year. I would say that in an increasingly competitive space, we have to do better at helping our franchisees compete better. In the script, we talked about a lot of the areas that we're focused on. John and I also called out some of the deficiencies in our lead generation and member conversion capabilities, and we're focused on addressing those. Beyond that, we've got to up our game in marketing and studio ops support. I think the team is galvanized around that, and we're excited to support what is a really great brand.

That leads to my follow-up question though is given that Club Pilates is at record high utilization, I guess, and that you're looking into this enhanced, I think you call it enhanced pricing strategies to drive revenue. I guess my question is two parts. First, how do you balance the push for higher prices with the risk of alienating members in a more unpredictable, let's say, macro environment? Then secondly, instead of focusing on pricing, how much opportunity is there to drive growth to fill the significant off-peak capacity hours that exist, I guess, outside of the morning and evening rush?

Yes. I think you're hitting on a couple of really important topics. I think the quick answer is the best way to do it is to bring in an expert who has done pricing analyses and work and support for brands across the country. That's exactly what we kicked off in the quarter. I've worked with this group in the past. I think what they do a really good job of is really digging into the data in a way where we're getting into deep analysis around the members and the usage and the packages and the pricing structure. It's a very multifaceted approach. It's just not saying, take our tiers and increase them by a specific fixed amount. We're really getting into the science of this. We're also getting some great feedback from our franchisees and taking their observations and their learnings at the local studio level. I expect we'll come out with a really thoughtful approach to pricing and packages and intro promotions to maximizing the use of our studios. I'm excited about this work, and I think it's definitely something that will help us in 2026.

Our next question comes from the line of Randy Konik with Jefferies.

Mike, can you elaborate on your comments about private equity becoming more involved with the franchisee base? What does that mean in terms of specific brands and regions? What vision do you have for this development? Additionally, you mentioned pricing adjustments in response to another question. What efforts are underway regarding studio density and determining the right distance between Club Pilates locations? It seems there’s potential for more units rather than just adjusting prices, considering that these locations appear to be highly productive. They might be approaching maturity, which could suggest the need for more units closer together. Please share your thoughts on both the private equity involvement and the density issue.

Yes. Thanks, Randy. You're hitting on the two topics that occupy the unit growth part of our strategy and the team. As far as PE, I would say that specifically in Club Pilates, we've had some really great experiences with larger scale operators, and I think in general, we are looking to grow with the operators we have and potentially look at opportunities to bring in larger scale operators to other geographies in the U.S. Private equity has done very well in this space, and so we're having really good productive conversations with them. I'm happy with what the team is doing on that front. There may still also be opportunities with the other brands around larger scale operators, and we certainly are looking into that as well. On the real estate side, this is what I was specifically referencing when it comes to partnering with an experienced third-party real estate partner and the use of pretty sophisticated location selection technologies so that we can feel good about being able to place studios in proximity to other studios, but still not having the negative impact of meaningful cannibalization. You're probably familiar, there are a lot of great systems out there. We feel like we've got one that will work really well for us and be able to allow us to maximize our network of studios within specific geographies.

Could you share your thoughts on portfolio construction? Many investors I've talked to seem to appreciate the reduction in the portfolio and the decrease in the number of concepts and modalities. Do you believe this is the right set of concepts? Are you considering further reductions in the future? Please provide your perspective on our current portfolio and any necessary adjustments, if any.

Yes. I won't speak to any future considerations. I'm obviously still learning about each of the brands. I do agree that having a smaller portfolio like we have today and the divestitures that we've done have helped us and will help us. It will allow us to be more focused as we ramp up a lot of the business capabilities that I was talking about. I also see a lot of complementary aspects to the portfolio that we have. I see a lot of opportunities around leveraging best-in-class things that are happening in one brand and applying them to another brand. I think pricing is a good example of that. I'm happy with the portfolio we have. I think we've done some really good work around the divestiture side, and I'm excited to dive in with each of the brands to drive growth into 2026.

Our next question comes from the line of John Heinbockel with Guggenheim Partners.

Mike, when you talk with franchisees about the Club Pilates economic model, is the assumption still based on the old ramp rather than the quick ramp to $1 million AUV? If that's the case, theoretically, you could pay more rent and absorb higher costs, but there would be no guarantee of maintaining the $1 million AUV. How has the model changed, or if this ramp continues, what is the potential upside for ROI?

I believe the ramp-up we've observed is due to the strength of our brand and the solid presale activities we have developed and enhanced over the years. As a larger business, we are effectively executing new studio builds. This varies based on the specific studio location, but I feel confident that we can improve with every new group of studio openings. Our real estate team is doing excellent work, particularly with the new systems we are implementing, allowing us to make better-informed decisions about site locations. We will continue to refine our approach and improve over time. There is still potential for enhancement in our launch marketing strategies, but it's a positive challenge to adapt our model for a stronger startup.

As a follow-up on the retail operations field consultants, what is the current status of that ramp-up? Now that you've narrowed it down to five brands, they can focus on fewer brands and issues, but where do you see the biggest opportunity to address execution gaps across the brands?

Yes. The field team right now is about 20, and we'll be doing a few more over the next couple of months. They are going to be working directly with our franchisees and our studios around a system called ProfitKeeper. The focus of that is how to improve studio level economics. I know when you start out with something, it always morphs into something that's a little different and a little better and a little evolved. I anticipate this doing the same thing. I also think there's an opportunity, and I've seen this in other retail settings and studio settings, and you've probably seen it too, where you can identify opportunity, in this case, opportunity studios, and you can focus their attention, of course, supporting all of the brands and all of the units, but around a very defined group of studios that you know has the potential to perform better and create some analysis, some feedback, even some friendly competition that makes a system like that work pretty well.

Our next question comes from the line of Joe Altobello with Raymond James.

I guess first question on Club Pilates. What's the purpose of the national ad campaign? I ask that because normally, you're looking to build brand awareness, right? You've already got pretty high brand awareness, I would think, and you already have record high utilization. Do you guys see more upside to that utilization rate?

This was talked about when I first started, and I dug in with the team, and we've modified the approach a little bit. Most of what will be hitting on the brand campaign will take place over Q4. The way I would think about it is it is us putting incremental dollars to certainly a creative part of it, but around new channels that we typically do not use in performance marketing. We identified some of those channels. Some of them are traditional media, some of them are new media, CTV, YouTube, podcasts, so what I really like about it, and I think this is going to help us as we get into 2026, is we'll be able to understand the efficacy of each of these investments in these new channels, and then what it provides for us is new ways as we get into the year, if we want to put more dollars behind a particular brand, we know the channels that have the best chance to perform. I think that's what we're really getting as a huge benefit from this work.

Just to clarify, so there are benefits to other brands. This is testing around marketing concepts behind Club Pilates, but it could have benefits for StretchLab, etc.?

Well, this particular campaign is solely for Club Pilates. I think what I was trying to communicate was it will be testing out channels and the efficiency and effectiveness of new channels that we currently haven't done much work in. That learning will help us if we want to apply this investment or apply these channels to other brands as we get into 2026.

Just to follow-up on that. John, earlier, you mentioned 40% or so of your backlog is still 12 months behind on a development schedule. How does the accounting work for that in the fourth quarter? Because if I look at your EBITDA guide, obviously, you're calling for a pretty sharp decline year-over-year in the fourth quarter. How should we think about that accounting impact?

Yes. When a license is sold, the entire sale amount is recorded as deferred revenue on the balance sheet. Any commissions paid are also deferred as costs. Terminating a license accelerates the recognition of both the deferred revenue and commissions in the profit and loss statement. In the third quarter, we experienced a significant margin benefit from this acceleration of license terminations. Moving into the fourth quarter, we expect a steep decline in performance due to several factors. First, we anticipate fewer terminations in the fourth quarter compared to the third, which represents about a $4 million challenge for us. Additionally, we will incur approximately $4 million in expenses related to our franchise conference for that quarter. There's also the $5 million allocated for the marketing fund for Club Pilates brand awareness, contributing to the challenges in the fourth quarter. When considering these expenses, which total around $8 million, you can see how they impact the adjusted EBITDA from the $33 million in the third quarter. While there might be some terminations in the fourth quarter, they will not reach the levels we saw in Q3.

Our next question comes from the line of Jonathan Komp with Baird.

John, if I could just follow-up on the last point. I think I heard it, was it $4 million of benefit from terminations in Q3? Then if 40% are still non-current, that seems like a pretty high number, maybe like $900 million or so. Could you share any insight on sort of the outlook for those? Can you get any of those back to current? Any view of why the 40% hasn't come down? I think that's been a consistent number as you have been terminating some.

Thank you, Jon, for your question. During COVID, nearly all of our backlog fell into delinquency because franchisees paused on signing new leases due to studio shutdowns. Earlier this year, we stopped terminating licenses while our new COO assessed the situation with our franchisees. The terminations we've made result from that assessment, identifying which franchisees will not move forward. When comparing the backlog from Q2 to Q3, we have significantly decreased the number of delinquent licenses, though about 40% of the remaining licenses still fall into that category. Of our total backlog of approximately 1,800, around 44% is from Club Pilates, and we are optimistic those franchisees will proceed. StretchLab accounts for about 20%, Yoga6 is around 12%, Pure Barre is approximately 5%, and BFT is about 20%. We've experienced growth in Club Pilates, and we believe those units will eventually be operational, although they are currently behind schedule. For StretchLab, improvement in average unit volume (AUV) should encourage franchisees to develop further. It's essential to note that we assessed the licenses against comparable brands from the previous period. Looking ahead to Q4, we anticipate further license terminations, which should reduce the delinquent percentage as franchisees move forward. The delinquency in our backlog is a result of the pandemic, but it does not mean the licenses won't eventually be opened; they are simply progressing on a delayed timeline. Yes. Regarding system-wide sales, we continue to forecast between $1.73 billion and $1.75 billion. You can expect system-wide sales to increase sequentially from Q3. One factor contributing to this is our promotional Black Friday marketing programs aimed at boosting package sales and attracting new memberships in the fourth quarter. System-wide sales will show sequential growth. For comparable sales, after a negative 1% comp in Q3, we anticipate a range of 0 to low single digits in Q4, depending on the effectiveness of our marketing initiatives. When looking at revenue from Q3 to Q4, we expect overall revenue to decrease sequentially. This decline is primarily due to the absence of the increased terminations seen in Q3, which will have a significant impact on revenue. While we anticipate a rise in royalty production in the fourth quarter, the one-time terminations will lead to lowered revenue in Q4. However, compared to last year, we expect revenue to be higher. In Q3 of 2024, we achieved approximately $80 million, and we expect to be consistent with that figure for Q4 this year.

Yes. On the KPI question, the good news about a business like this is it's got some pretty straightforward KPIs. Weekly, we're looking at leads, new members, classes, retail sales, cancellations, average studio sales on a year-over-year basis each week, and we look at it compared to the previous four weeks and eight weeks. We're getting a sense for momentum and where we stand. We're in a pretty good rhythm when it comes to measuring the business and addressing it.

John, let me correct what I just said too. The revenue in Q3 of 2024 is around $80 million. Adjusted for the terminations, you're probably going to be down sequentially from Q3 of '24 to Q4 of '25.

Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Mayers with Lake Street Capital.

First one for me, just kind of on the topic of innovation that you guys are looking to drive at some of the concepts. Is this a concept-wide nationwide thing? Is it more so just specific franchisees at certain locations maybe need help driving member growth? Just kind of walk us through some of the innovation there and how we should be thinking about that?

Yes, Ryan, good question. When it comes to class content, we approach it from a nationwide rollout standpoint. Again, we'll test and we'll perfect and we'll get it to the point where we're ready to launch it, but we will launch it on a nationwide basis, understanding that some franchisees may not be able to implement it right at the time that we launch it. The other thing that we'll increasingly do is have that innovation work feed our marketing and driving awareness around new class content is a great way to do it. This is something that I think all the brands will benefit from, and we'll put together a schedule for each of them to dive into it next year.

Then just on the topic of pricing, I mean, how should we think about what the membership churn currently is and maybe more specifically at Club Pilates, where you guys are looking to drive price and then maybe just kind of the concept as a whole, just so we can think about sort of the membership base that potentially is turning out there? Is it elevated? Or what's kind of that historical level there?

Ryan, I'll take that one. As far as Club Pilates is concerned, we haven't seen a shift in cancellations or churn within the brand. It's a trend that's remained fairly stable. I think what you're starting to see is just the actual total member per studio. It is up when you look at it compared to the same quarter prior year, but it's just kind of getting to that capacity where we're not adding at the same rate that we did historically. Churn overall has remained stable. Even when you look at memberships where they've been temporarily frozen, we haven't seen any real shift in that either. It's more of a top of the funnel kind of just, I guess, signal that is the rate of growth has kind of slowed down a little bit. Overall members per studio has remained fairly constant.

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mike Nuzzo for closing remarks.

Well, thanks, everybody, for joining today's call. We look forward to connecting with many of our franchisees. We have our annual convention in Las Vegas in the next couple of weeks, and we look for more opportunities to give you insight on the business. Thanks a lot.

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.