Conference Transcript - YETI 2026-06-03

Peter Benedict, Analyst — Wedbush Pacific Crest

I'm Peter Benedict, Senior Retail Consumer Products and Services Analyst. Really pleased to welcome the team from Yeti back to the conference. Yeti is a premium brand, effectively. It's known, I think, most for creating products that bring distinctive design, improved performance, and really unmatched durability across several categories, drinkware, coolers and equipment bags, and others. Their sales are expected to hit around $2 billion this year. They have a robust balance sheet with net cash, significant free cash flow generation. The stock carries a market cap of just under $4 billion. Here to talk with us today, CEO Matt Reintjes, and then recently appointed CFO Scott Bomar. We have the head of IR, Arvind Batia, who's out in the room. There will be a breakout session afterwards, so if you want to continue the conversation, the Astro One Room. We're going to kick straight into Q&A here. So guys, again, good morning. Thanks for making the trip. I want to start with maybe a look back here over the last few years, Matt. A lot has gone on. There's been some organizational redesign. There's obviously been supply chain changes. Maybe just talk a little bit about how you've positioned the company now for growth going forward from a leadership standpoint. We think about categories and we think about regions, and then maybe we'll get into specific roles like the CFO.

Matt Reintjes, CEO

Yeah, perfect. Thanks, Peter. Thanks for having us, and thanks for coming in this morning. Your intro is great. I think you kind of covered it for us. I was hoping we could sort of spike the ball with the intro. But I'll say a couple things. It has been a busy few years. I just wrapped my 10th year at Yeti in September. and to think about where we've come from a U.S., really Texas-based business, to building a global brand. It's been pretty exciting. And I think over the last three years, the biggest change that we've evolved is how we think about our product organization, how we think about our go-to-market, our regions. And so really what we've done is we've broken our product groups up into three discrete groups. And with the idea and intent that with focus drives impact and it also drives speed to value. And so our three product groups, we have a drinkware group that wakes up every day and cares about drinkware. We've got a gear and equipment group that focuses on things like hard coolers, protective and storage cases and boxes, which we mentioned on the last couple of calls. We're excited about what we're seeing there. And then a soft cooler and bags group, which you've seen over the last few quarters, the impact and result of what we're doing in soft coolers and bags with incredibly talented teams below each one of those. Our soft coolers and bags business is run by a gentleman named Lane Rigney. Lane was the longtime CEO of Osprey. And prior to that, Lane and I had an overlap at Camelback. our gear equipment business is we think about, I'm going to talk about our drinkware business for a second, our drinkware business is run by Hannah Mara, she's been with us for a number of years, has really been leading the vision around the expansion, redefinition, and growth of drinkware, and if you look at what we've talked about through 2024 and 2025 was the strategy we were driving in drinkware was relevant diversification. So you think about things that we've been powering that business, stackables, sports hydration, this early entrance into premium cookware, even with the most recent carbon steel, has really been led by HANA and team. And underneath gear and equipment, which goes to our legacy of hard coolers, Bill Harmon, who joined us from a company called Goal Zero, but a long time view into expansion, consumer products, outdoor, durable, performance, all things that fit our brand has been great. And then you combine that with we've established three very clear regions in America's region, EMEA region, APAC region with a leader over each, deeply experienced leaders over each of those three groups who are come from different backgrounds of scale and build up. So in the Asia-Pac region, it's much more of a build and opportunity. In Europe, it's an amplify. And in the U.S., it's continuing to drive depth, growth, scale, and opportunity. So we're incredibly excited about the structure we have to go support the strategy of where we're going with this brand.

Peter Benedict, Analyst — Wedbush Pacific Crest

That's great. And Scott, you joined earlier this year. So maybe give us a sense, you know, where you came from. Why did you come to Yeti? What did you see as the opportunity?

Scott Bomar, CFO

Yeah, I spent the last 20 years working at Home Depot in a variety of different roles. sort of half my time there was operational, half my time in a variety of different finance functions. When I looked at this opportunity, what I saw with Yeti was, you know, of course, first put your finance hat on. It's a strong, clean balance sheet of the financial resources to invest to do the things that are required to continue to grow the business. But mostly I just saw several very clear, actionable, tangible growth vectors and opportunities that are right there for this brand with broad shoulders to go tackle. and the resources and capabilities to tackle it. And so looking at those two things together just felt like a terrific opportunity. And in my 90-odd days there, it just has done nothing but reaffirm that belief that I had from the initial onset. And you just see, every day we get a new opportunity comes across the desk about here's a particular application of the Yeti brand in a different market or through a different product lens that's right there for us to go get. And it's just really exciting. I think there's just a terrific runway for this business for many years to come.

Peter Benedict, Analyst — Wedbush Pacific Crest

Yeah, and, you know, it's interesting. I think as we look back over the last several years, I feel like some of those growth vectors have maybe been held back a little bit because of all what's been going on from a tariff perspective. I mean, you had even COVID and supply chain, all the disruptions. Maybe talk, Matt, a little bit about how you've now positioned the supply chain and the sourcing mix, which is now kind of going to allow you to go after those growth vectors and not just be focused on, you know, where are you making it, where are you getting it from, what's it cost, that kind of thing.

Matt Reintjes, CEO

Yeah, I think it's – so we started our supply chain transformation over the last few years, and I would say that's largely complete from a diversification, an optionality, And importantly, the supply chain we shifted through some of the tariff time really was focused around we want to be in the best place to make our product with the highest quality, driving cost, driving availability, and really driving speed to innovation. And so I would say the significant heavy lifting part of that work is complete. We have a much more diverse supply chain today than we did three years ago. definitely 10 years ago um and so now it's about applying uh pressure and speed uh to chase that opportunity but if i step a little bit further back obviously we went through covid um we were with strong growth uh the brand was was really uh scaling the way we wanted going into covid we went through covid and and really accelerated that um so the the the growth performance was strong the thing that during that covid period that was most impacted was the innovation engine it was the thing that was most disrupted and so we were able to drive the business performance but the innovation pipeline and the execution was more challenged we couldn't access our factories the teams couldn't travel to it and so really that opened up for us in 2022. well if you look at what started to happen in 2024 and 2025 in the acceleration the expansion diversification of our drinkware the expansion of our soft coolers into our our day trip the expansion of our camino totes driving further bags portfolio expansion driving for the hard cooler all those things happened coming out of our ability to get back build on our supply chain work with our our partners and so that pace really over the last 24 to 36 months has been a result really of being able to put our team back on the task and the opportunity we see in front of us, and at the same time, we're expanding our global audience, we're expanding our global footprint, and that's why I talk about that three by three structure at the beginning.

Peter Benedict, Analyst — Wedbush Pacific Crest

Yeah, so growth, obviously, the theme here, your recent results, I think, started to kind of get the attention of the market. You had a nice beat in the first quarter. I think sales were up 8% year-over-year. You had strength in wholesale, which was up close to 20%. Coors and Equipment, 11, even Drinkware was up 5%. And your profits beat by, I think, more than 40%. So maybe just talk about the performance in 1Q, the demand signals that you're seeing. I think you were seeing them last year, but they didn't really show up, and so it was a little frustrating, right? The stock didn't behave. But just talk about what you're seeing there on that front.

Scott Bomar, CFO

Yeah, maybe I'll take it out on that. So look, I think you're right. We had been seeing strong demand signals for a number of quarters. It wasn't a brand new thing. But Q1 was an acceleration from Q4, which was an acceleration from the balance of 2025. You know, again, there's always going to be lumpiness. We have a reasonably sized wholesale business, so sometimes you get orders around the edge of a quarter, and they fall in one quarter versus another. So you get a little bit up and down there. 2025 was characterized by increasing demand signals. However, we had this imbalance between sell-in and sell-through where some of our wholesale partners were drawing down on inventory. And so we were seeing the customer's affinity for the products and the satisfaction they had with what we're putting in front of them. We just weren't seeing any of the financial results because the sell-in was trailing what we were seeing from a true demand signal perspective. But we saw a breadth of performance in Q1, and we're really excited about that. There's a couple little fits and starts there where we had a little softness in corporate sales. We had some timing items that affected the international business. But even through all of that, when we looked where we see the customers' demand signals, they're really voting with their wallet. They're happy with the products we're putting out there, and we're seeing strength across our consumer base, which is why we were able to deliver the quarter and also reaffirm and slightly increase the guidance for the balance of the year.

Peter Benedict, Analyst — Wedbush Pacific Crest

The growth pillars going forward, one of the things that we're excited about is you're going to be hosting an investor day in September. down in Austin. I think a lot of investors are kind of waiting for that, looking to that as a way to kind of get some confidence in the growth algo. We see innovation, we see distribution opportunities, we see internationals, a lot of ways to go here. But I want to start kind of with the brand, because at the end of the day, the brand is what's so critical here. And I think through all of the ups and downs, I guess, of the last few years, it feels like the brand has been as relevant, if not stronger, than ever. So let me talk about what you think the brand stands for. How do you measure the health of the brand and what's kind of the permission structure you think the market is giving you in terms of where you can go with innovation?

Matt Reintjes, CEO

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot in there, so you may have to prompt me if I miss any. I'll start with product, which is not what you said, but our product is all rooted in durability performance and design. And I think product and brand for us are so inextricably kind of interrelated or interwound. Without great product, a brand can only work so hard and it can only sustain for so long. And I think that's one of the things that Yeti's done for 20 years now is drive great products, great desirability for product, and then amplify buy a brand, a brand on top of it. When I think about our brand and our definition of our brand, we have this idea that's built for the wild and the definition of the wild in 20 years ago was hunting and fishing in the Texas Gulf Coast. We were just talking before we came up here, the division one women's lacrosse championship was pretty wild and there were some athletes on that field that we've equipped with product that outfit the work they do, the grind, the kind of hard work that happens off the field. And so our definition of wild and what it could be is really evolved. While we still show up at fishing events, we're also at climbing events, and we're at surfing events and skate events and equestrian events and western lifestyle. But what's made this brand special is I think we have an incredible discernment of who our audiences are, what's important to them, how our product can support what they're doing, and we show up for them. We don't buy our way into places. We don't hang banners. It's really a connected authenticity, to use a word that probably gets overused too much, but it's really about a realness. And Peter and I were talking a little bit earlier of a story. I mean, take something, Formula One's as commercial as commercial gets. And Oracle Red Bull Racing is one of the flagship, if not the flagship, brands within Formula One. We have a partnership with the Oracle Red Bull Racing team, but it started from a basis of they had a need. They had a need at Milton Keynes, and they were trying to focus on their sustainability and eliminate single-use, and we make incredible cups. So there was a nice synergy there. Well, then that parlayed into a need within the garage with the bolties the bolties need to keep the engines from overheating the way they do that's with dry ice they didn't have a great storage solution for dry ice to put into these blowers to blow through the engines they're very practically yeti cooler they fill with dry ice we worked with our engineers made a special scoop for them then we became part of the kit we became part of the team so it was much more than a sponsorship deal trying to draft off somebody else's brand or somebody trying to associate with our brand it's really a purpose a purpose driven thing and I'd say all the time we make our marketing dollars work really hard because we do it in an incredibly nuanced way it's why you've heard us talk in the past about communities and pursuits and these audiences and so we can show up at a surf event and we're welcomed in or a skate event or a climbing event or a back country skiing event or you know a cooking live fire and I think that's really the stacking of what the brand's been built on but it's not about evolution because evolution means you're sort of leaving behind where you are for us it's really about stacking these uh these bricks on top of each other and i want us to be as relevant to the audiences that we spoke to 20 years ago as we were then today and then the the newer audiences and that's why we've talked a lot about sport i think what's happening in sport right now is one of the most dynamic things about the money going into sport, the focus on sport at all levels, from youth up to professional. And we're making sure that we're not only invited in, that our products are relevant and being used there, but that we can be deeply ingrained. And that's a global thing. So we're not chasing big headline sponsorships. We want to show up on the ball field on the weekend. We want to show up on the sidelines. we want to be in the collegiate locker rooms we want to be on the uh on the sidelines of i mean two recent ones the nwsl if you watch an nwsl match uh we're on the sidelines and partner with the nwsl uh love volleyball um if you watch any love we've been involved in in love early on because we see those things that not only have relevance but they also have a real influence that water falls down yeah i mean it's really unique uh there aren't only probably a handful of brands that that can really resonate with audiences across all those pursuits and feel kind of authentic um you know it's interesting even within some of the newer categories you know

Peter Benedict, Analyst — Wedbush Pacific Crest

i remember a year ago we were down in austin speaking with you guys and lane who runs the bags business was talking about one of the things he found so interesting about yeti was I guess within the bags world there are specific kind of brands that fit you know the bikers like a certain brand and the hikers like a certain brand and it's hard to kind of play across but he's like they all like yeti and so he sees a huge opportunity in the bags business that's leading me to my next question which is we know there's more innovation coming in hard coolers and we know there's more innovation coming in drinkware well what about these non-legacy categories talk a little bit more about bags and then where you see the portfolio going yeah i know

Matt Reintjes, CEO

i'll bridge it to um i think two things we continue to see growth opportunity and what would what any people would define as our as our legacy and if you really looked into take drinkware what drinkware was in 2014 was two cups drinkware today covers the range of tumblers to something like I'm holding a stackable cup, to food transportation all the way up to this kind of newer edge of us in cast iron and carbon steel skillets. So we see that opportunity. The other one is the U.S. for us, while we talk a lot about the international global growth opportunity, the penetration, the continued penetration opportunity in the U.S. of use cases, consumers, places we can sell, we think is really attractive, and you saw that on display in Q1. As you move into these newer categories, underdeveloped bags, and I would include soft coolers in that, we think is significantly underpenetrated for what it can be. And if you heard us call out our day trip, which is our day thermal bags, have had an incredible run over 2025 and 2026. And I think it's the mix of use case, price point, audience expansion that fits within that. The Camino tote has had a really nice pickup. It's been one of our, frankly, it's been one of our best products for a really long time. and it gets found by audiences that find additional use cases for it. But when you think about the breadth of opportunity within bags and soft coolers, you can move up and down the price stack, you can move up and down the use case. And so earlier this year we launched our Scala hiking backpack. It's a multi-day hiking pack. To what Peter said, it's a space where you need to break into the club, the product needs to back up. It's not just, you don't buy your way in, a brand doesn't push its way in, that's a little bit of Lane's point. I think what we saw with the Scala reception from that audience was a validator that then sets a halo for things that we can do in broader applications. So we think about bags in terms of three big groups, think about everyday, things you commute with, things you move around with. If you go through the airport, 100% of people have a bag of some sort, either piece of luggage, backpack, duffel bag, multiples in many cases. So that environment is a really large TAM where we think there's an opportunity to continue to differentiate but also own. So every day, then you go to travel, travel the main piece I just talked about. And then the third one is adventure-pursuit-specific type packs like these day packs. And so we're attacking the market opportunity across all three of those, not just domestically, but the global opportunity that we see. So I think there's a good, long runway. And as you said, I think what we've seen are the proof points of willingness, acceptance, realization of Yeti taking its durability performance and design and transitioning into that.

Peter Benedict, Analyst — Wedbush Pacific Crest

I think you've also seen some good acceptance internationally. it's about 20% of your sales right now, expected to grow 18% to 20% this year, I know the majority of that is Canada, Australia, but you're into the UK, you're into Germany, Japan, some other things on the horizon. Maybe talk a minute about the international opportunity, how you go into these markets, product, channel, distributors, what's the playbook here?

Matt Reintjes, CEO

Yeah, I mean, we've said before, the playbook, we've seen the playbook travel, and that doesn't mean a carbon copy of exactly what we did in the US. But the elements that we've seen, I'll start structurally and then I'll maybe move through to brand. Structurally, we've seen receptivity to e-commerce in the markets where it makes sense and it's relevant marketplaces, building out referential wholesale, so the places where people go to find new things and find cool and then building into broader based wholesale that we've seen that we saw that in australia we saw it in canada we're we've seen it and are continuing to see that opportunity in the uk as we started in surf shops and boat yards and now we're moving into broader broader sporting goods and then moving further in into the urban urban cities so from a from a go to market the the mix may look a little different the way the markets develop may look a little different, but the relevance of how you intersect the consumer, his state sound. The product portfolio, as we've transitioned the product portfolio to global, we're leveraging our same product portfolio that we've developed, but it's the assortment within that that's changed. Simple things, size, space, and some markets are more important, so that leans towards, and some just stylistic, 30-plus ounce drinkware, less a globally relevant product, something like I'm holding, which is eight ounce and fits under an espresso machine, more relevant in some markets, and so we're finding that nuance. Color's another thing. Different markets have different color needs and desires, so we look at that. But I would say from a brand perspective, the brand playbook absolutely is working. We didn't take and export the brand as it was 10, 15 years ago at Yeti. We exported the brand with the playbook we have where we could be relevant to what was mature and relevant in that market. So places like Central Europe, hiking, backcountry skiing, adventure sports, those things we push a little bit harder to. In the UK, it could be equestrian, rural lifestyle, cooking, live fire. And so those sport, those have all been things that we have a broad enough playbook that fits underneath this brand that we can actually draw the right analogy. In Japan, food, beer, surf, hike, snow sports, all those play in Japan.

Peter Benedict, Analyst — Wedbush Pacific Crest

Yeah. So I think one of the unlocks of the stock late last year starting to show this return to growth, but also you kind of teased out the phase one of the long term algo, which was a high single digit to low double digit revenue growth, which at the time the stock was in the mid 30s. And I think it was reflecting like low single digit at best. And so we're seeing another move in the stock right now. Now, I think the September Investor Day is going to be a lot of interest in terms of, okay, what is that? How do you get there? But more so also, what does that mean for margins? Is there a big investment cycle that has to maybe be laid out here in order to achieve that? Or are there productivity levers here that will allow you to kind of fund that growth? So maybe just you're not going to give it all away, but maybe some breadcrumbs here is how you're thinking about margins and profitability as part of this longer-term view.

Matt Reintjes, CEO

We definitely want some people to come eat some barbecue instead of this. So we shouldn't give it all away right now.

Scott Bomar, CFO

Yeah, we definitely won't give it all away. But yeah, I look forward to seeing you all in September. Look, as we build the building blocks, I think one of the important parts of this business model is it is a diversified model. Diversified product set, diversified go-to-market channels and geographies, which provides this foundation of multiple building blocks to help get us all the way to that high single, low double digit algorithm. As we think about margins, look, Matt and I talk about this virtually every day. yes expansion globally requires investment there's things we'd like to do from a marketing perspective but we have to look for ways to continue to drive efficiency and productivity in the business to fund that we think there's opportunities to do that and so we think we can have a balanced perspective we don't expect some big investment cycle that's going to peel our profit profile in an adverse way We intend to continue to find those areas of productivity to fuel the investment. And we do think there's opportunity for upside margin expansion, and we'll lay that out more clearly in September.

Peter Benedict, Analyst — Wedbush Pacific Crest

That's great. Lastly, just around kind of maybe capital allocation, $130 million in net cash, $200 million plus of free cash flow. Let's talk about stock buybacks. You increase your authorization. How should we think about that? You've done ASRs in the past. I don't know if the plan is to be more just consistent with that, or those, and then M&A. I know we have three minutes left, but let's head on those.

Scott Bomar, CFO

Yeah, capital allocation, look, our principles are the same, right? We are going to continue to look for areas to drive the business forward. You know, we like execution of returning capital to shareholders through the form of share repurchases simply because we think it's a great return for our shareholders. And we see the prospects in this business and think that's a great way to return capital to those that invest in us. And, you know, Matt, you want to handle the M&A question?

Matt Reintjes, CEO

Yeah, I would just say, I mean, obviously, start with buybacks because the ratio of what we've done in buybacks to anything related to inorganic innovation is, obviously, buybacks are the priority. I think when you think about the idea of us doing something inorganically, I think we've got enough proof points out there of now you sort of get what we're trying to do. When we see something where there's something that's undersized, an under-known brand, has a technology capability, in some cases talent, that we can bring in to accelerate something that's on our roadmap. Most things are doable with time and doable with resource, and we have an incredibly talented and capable engineering, innovation, product development team. but for us to go jump on something faster so you look at the shaker bottle we closed that deal we had a yeti version with a new material package which allowed for it to be dishwasher safe we had a new lid design back in the market late in late in 2025 we took some dna from the backpack acquisition that dna is being pulled through wholly new yeti products and accelerating that So we look at it more as a jumpstart and accelerant versus a consistent ongoing strategy. I would say it's an opportunistic, but we see everything that's out there in the market. So we're really discerning about what we think is additive to what we're trying to do, which is build this brand.

Peter Benedict, Analyst — Wedbush Pacific Crest

Yep. All right. Great. Well, we're up on time, but again, ask for a room for the breakout, but join me in thanking the team from Yeti. Thank you.