Roots Q3 2025 Earnings Call - Solid Growth and Margin Expansion Despite Dynamic Retail Conditions

Elliot, Conference Operator: Good morning. My name is Elliot, and I’ll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Roots’ third quarter earnings conference call for fiscal 2025. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then the number two. On the call today, we have Megan Roach, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Leon Wu, Chief Financial Officer.

Before the conference call begins, the company would like to remind listeners that the call, including the Q&A portion, may include forward-looking statements concerning its current and future plans, expectations and intentions, results, level of activities, performance, goals or achievements, or any other future events or developments. This information is based on management’s reasonable assumptions and beliefs in light of information currently available to Roots, and listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such information. Each forward-looking statement is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. The company refers listeners to its third quarter management’s discussion and analysis dated December 9th, 2025, and/or its annual information form for a summary of the significant assumptions underlying forward-looking statements and certain risks and factors that could affect the company’s future performance and ability to deliver on these statements.

Roots undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements made on this call. The third quarter earnings release, the related financial statements, and the Management’s Discussion and Analysis are available on SEDAR+, as well as on Roots’ investor relations website at www.investors.roots.com. A supplementary presentation for the Q3 2025 conference call is also available on the Roots’ investor relations site. Finally, please note that all figures discussed on this conference call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. Thank you. You may now begin your conference.

Megan Roach, President and Chief Executive Officer, Roots: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I will begin with a summary of our results for the third quarter of fiscal 2025. For the quarter, revenue was CAD 71.5 million, representing a 6.8% increase compared to the same period last year. Direct-to-consumer sales rose 4.8% to CAD 56.8 million, and comparable sales were 6.3%, driven by strong traffic online and conversion in stores. On a two-year stack basis, comparable sales growth stands at 12.1%. Partners and others also recorded a robust quarter, with sales increasing 15.3%, due partially to earlier orders from our Taiwanese partner and strong growth in our B2B channel. Our direct-to-consumer gross margin was 65.4% and improved 140 basis points, reflecting continued progress in reducing markdowns, improving product mix, and strengthening our supply chain discipline. Our Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 7.5 million, compared to CAD 7.1 million last year.

And excluding the impact of the DSU revaluation, Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 7.6 million, compared to CAD 7 million last year, an increase of 7.3%. Overall, our Q3 demonstrates that our strategy is working. We delivered improved execution across merchandising, marketing, and operations, while continuing to invest in the long-term health of the brand. The broader retail environment remained dynamic during the quarter, and we experienced an unusually warm fall. Despite these conditions, our brand continues to resonate, as evidenced by our strong sales and strong new customer acquisition during the quarter. Our performance reinforces the importance of Roots’ brand strength, heritage, and commitment to high-quality, comfortable clothing that serves as differentiators in this market environment. Over the last year, we have continued to strengthen our go-to-market process, and our merchandising strategy has gained momentum.

During the quarter, we delivered strong results across multiple collections, including our new Roaming travel capsule, which features modern basics with technical product attributes, and Clouds are ultra-plush, minimal logo sweatshirts and sweatpants. Style productivity has also improved this year, reflecting tighter assortments and more disciplined vibes, as well as our investments in AI-driven allocations. Each year, we are making measurable progress in enhancing our product architecture and elevating our offering. However, we continue to believe meaningful opportunities remain. Our brand-building efforts remain a core driver of our long-term value and an important part of our multifaceted growth strategy. Q3 marketing efforts centered on new store openings in Vancouver and Toronto, our fall/winter product launches, and our enhanced campus presence with the University of Toronto. These activations exceeded our expectations on engagement and traffic.

In the third quarter, we also continued our testing in paid media, with increased spending across the full marketing funnel. As we enter the fourth quarter and look to 2026, these earnings will help further fine-tune our marketing efforts and create more disciplined creative testing. We are looking closely at the impact of agentic AI and customer product discovery and continuing to adapt to this changing landscape. We also saw strong storytelling through our brand ambassadors, reinforcing Roots as a brand that connects people to nature, community, and a sense of belonging. Our omnichannel strategy continues to strengthen our connection with our customers, with the goal of enabling customers to shop Roots wherever, however, and whenever they choose. The 6.3% increase in comparable store sales in the quarter, which is 12.1% on a two-year stack basis, reflects the positive impact of this strategy on performance.

In our retail channel, we saw strong conversion wins driven by improved product storytelling, disciplined inventory management, and refreshed visual merchandising, combined with enhanced sales associate training and scheduling. Our paid media efforts have also driven substantial traffic to the e-commerce channel, which we are focused on converting in the fourth quarter. In addition, increased personalization and search in product merchandising, the integration of wish lists, more functionality such as filters, and improvements in the shoppability of our landing pages will support both revenue and the customer experience in the fourth quarter and beyond online. As our results highlight, our strategy remains consistent and focused. We are strengthening our core franchises, expanding into complementary categories, and increasing the clarity and differentiation within our assortments. We are also elevating the brand through collaboration, heritage storytelling, and more targeted marketing.

We are also enhancing our omnichannel experience with a focus on convenience, speed, and personalization, and we are driving operational excellence across the business. I would now like to comment on early Black Friday trends in the fourth quarter. We’ve seen good engagement with our products and marketing efforts, with consumers responding positively to curated offers in our core franchises and gifting categories. Early in the holiday season, we continue to experience positive trends. Our Seth Rogen partnership has been resonating well with consumers, who understand the strong alignment between our brands and have enjoyed the witty, light, holiday approach to the campaign. Before I conclude, I would like to thank Roots employees across Canada for their commitment and hard work, and our customers for their ongoing loyalty to the brand. Roots is a brand with strong heritage, a clear purpose, and significant long-term potential.

We remain focused on discipline execution and on creating long-term sustainable value for all stakeholders. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Leon Wu, for a detailed review of our financial results.

Leon Wu, Chief Financial Officer, Roots: Thank you, Megan. And good morning, everyone. The past quarter marked the fifth consecutive quarter of growth in top-line sales, gross margin, and profitability, while we continue to reduce our year-over-year net debt. The ongoing momentum reflects the collective efforts of our multi-pronged product, channel, and marketing functions, working in lockstep to offer the best Roots experience to our global customers. I will now share some more details on the key elements of our results. Sales in Q3 were CAD 71.5 million, increasing 6.8% as compared to CAD 66.9 million in Q3 2024. The growth in our total sales was driven by both our direct-to-consumer and partners and other segments. Our DTC segment sales were CAD 56.8 million in the quarter, growing 4.8% relative to CAD 54.2 million last year. Our comparable same-store sales grew 6.3% in the quarter and 12.1% on a two-year stack basis.

The continued DTC sales growth reflects a strong omnichannel experience offered to our customers. We have seen a strong response to the investments made into our store renovations and data-enabled technology that offers an elevated and more personalized brand experience. This was further supported by the curation of new seasonal styles that amplified and complemented our core product offerings and authentic marketing moments. As Megan mentioned, these initiatives have contributed positively towards our traffic, conversion, and customer account metrics, underpinning our ongoing DTC sales growth. Our partner and other sales were CAD 14.6 million in Q3 2025, up 15.3% compared to last year’s sales of CAD 12.7 million.

The growth in the segment was driven by earlier orders by our wholesale operating partner in Taiwan for the upcoming holiday and spring selling season, a portion of which was fulfilled in the fourth quarter last year, as well as higher domestic wholesale sales of custom Roots branded products. Total gross profit was CAD 43.4 million in Q3 2025, up 8.1% as compared to CAD 40.2 million last year. The growth in gross profit dollars was driven across both segments and highlighted by the gross margin expansion in the DTC segment. Total gross margin was 60.8%, up 80 basis points compared to last year. Our Q3 2025 DTC gross margin was 65.4%, up 140 basis points compared to 64% last year. The DTC gross margin expansion was driven by growth in our product margins, resulting from continued improvements to our product costing and lower discounting.

The unfavorable year-over-year foreign exchange on US dollar purchases in the next quarter was offset by improvements in freight costs. SG&A expenses were CAD 38.2 million in Q3 2025 as compared to CAD 34.5 million last year, an increase of 10.6%. The largest increases in our SG&A expenses were driven by a combination of increased investments in marketing and higher personnel-related costs, along with higher variable selling costs resulting from stronger sales. As referenced over the last few quarters, we have increased our marketing investments in 2025, with the goal of supporting both in-year sales growth and long-term multi-year brand uplift. Proportionate to the size of the fourth quarter, which represents our largest selling period, we are expecting to invest an incremental CAD 2 million-CAD 3 million in marketing dollars in Q4 2025.

The incremental spend will be across a range of initiatives across the full marketing funnel, balanced between top-of-funnel investments to build long-term brand equity with benefits through the future years and more immediate bottom-funnel sales-driving activities. We have seen great results thus far in how our marketing contributes towards brand momentum over the last few quarters. As we look forward, we are constantly reflecting on the results of each initiative and will leverage the learnings from this year to refine our marketing strategy, with the goal of maintaining momentum while focusing on the most effective and efficient initiatives.

Additionally, SG&A increased by CAD 0.7 million of higher non-cash stock option expenses and costs related to changes in key personnel, CAD 0.3 million as a result of higher U.S. tariffs on sales to U.S. customers as the U.S. duty-free de minimis exemption was eliminated in August, and CAD 0.1 million from the unfavorable revaluation of cash-settled instruments under our share-based compensation plan, which is directly tied to increases in our share price. During Q3 2025, we generated CAD 2.3 million of net income, down 4.5% as compared to CAD 2.4 million last year. This equates to CAD 0.06 per share in both years. Excluding the impacts of our DSU revaluation expense headwinds resulting from our share price appreciation, our net income would have been CAD 2.4 million, improving 1.5% compared to last year. Our Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 7.5 million, increasing CAD 0.4 million or 5.3% compared to CAD 7.1 million last year.

Adjusted EBITDA would have grown by 7.4% without the aforementioned DSU revaluation impacts. The strong improvement in our profitability reflects the sales growth and margin expansion achieved during the quarter. Now turning to our balance sheet and cash flow metrics, which also reflects the strong results for the quarter. Our Q3 ending inventory was CAD 66.6 million, increasing 10.3% as compared to CAD 60.4 million last year. Approximately CAD 0.7 million of the increase was driven by the higher U.S. dollar foreign exchange paid on our inventory. The remaining year-over-year increase in inventory was driven by improved inventory positions ahead of the peak holiday selling period and higher in transit inventory to support sales for the next year. Our Q3 free cash outflow was CAD 4.6 million, improving from an outflow of CAD 6 million last year.

The year-over-year improvements in free cash flow were driven by sales growth and ongoing management of working capital, partially offset by higher capital investments during the quarter. Due to the seasonality of our business, we typically see cash outflows as we build up our working capital ahead of our peak season before generating larger cash inflows through the upcoming holiday selling period. During Q3, we repurchased 415,000 common shares for CAD 1.3 million under our normal course issuer bid. As of the end of the quarter, we were eligible to repurchase up to 325,000 common shares under the current NCIB program, which is in effect until April 10, 2026. Net debt was CAD 44.1 million at the end of Q3 2025, down 5.9% as compared to CAD 46.9 million at the same time last year. Our net leverage ratio, measured as net debt over trailing 12-month Adjusted EBITDA, was approximately 1.9 times.

With that, Operator, you may now open the call for questions.

Elliot, Conference Operator: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. First question comes from Brian Morrison with TD Cowen. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Brian Morrison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Good morning, Megan. Good morning, Leon.

Leon Wu, Chief Financial Officer, Roots: Morning, Brian.

Megan Roach, President and Chief Executive Officer, Roots: Good morning.

Brian Morrison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Megan, you commented, and you said in the transcript that you continue to experience positive trends. Maybe just, I know you don’t want to go into detail, but maybe just talk about the consumer behavior you’ve seen going into Black Friday and as you approach the holidays. Are you seeing any change in maybe the basket size or the AUR? And then lastly, is there any bifurcation of consumer you’re seeing with respect to income demographics or by region?

Megan Roach, President and Chief Executive Officer, Roots: Thanks, Brian. Nice to hear from you. I would say overall, the trends from a Black Friday perspective, I think, are really reflecting the overall economy that we see today, right? So I would say that from a consumer perspective, we’re definitely seeing people shop earlier. So I think that Black Friday, for a lot of people, is pulled forward into early November. And I think we’ve seen a continuation of some of the discounting trends kind of post-Black Friday, which reflects changes in the economic environment as we see it today. Our consumer continues to be strong, and so we were happy to see those positive trends overall. I would say fundamentally, the consumer continues during this time period to look for both uniqueness as well as deals, and that’s something we’ve seen kind of year-over-year that trend continues.

That’s been a trend we’ve seen for the last number of years also. So I think fundamentally, the consumer is, as you’ve seen broadly from a market perspective, continuing to reflect a current economic reality. And our consumer has continued to be positive, which is good for us. I think our product categories are uniquely positioned from a heritage perspective, comfort perspective. I think the fact that we have sustainability in our products now is very unique to us also. So we’ve been happy to see the positive reaction that consumers have had to our overall product selection. And I think getting in front of those consumers also early, as well as with the right type of marketing, has been helpful to us.

Brian Morrison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Right, and you can see in-store the uniqueness and expansion of the product breadth. I guess in terms of marketing, you addressed this on the call, but I think you said CAD 2-3 million additional in Q4. Maybe, can you just talk about when you look forward to next year? I think you’re still in the assessment phase, but maybe talk about the options. Is the plan to wean off marketing a little bit, or do you maintain full steam ahead to further stimulate top-line growth in order to drive operating leverage? Maybe just talk about how you’re looking at that for next year.

Megan Roach, President and Chief Executive Officer, Roots: Yes, absolutely. So what I would say is I think we want to continue to trade through December. We still have quite a lot of the month left to go. Typically, at this point in time, we have kind of almost half of the quarter left. So there’s still a lot of time to go from that perspective. And I think the marketing efforts that we have put into the fourth quarter, we want to continue to evaluate those on a full-year basis. That being said, I think when we look holistically at what we’re trying to accomplish, we’re obviously this year doing a bit more of a mix between that top-of-funnel awareness building brand growth perspective, which will help us over a multi-year basis, and then that short-term conversion-driving activity.

So that blend has obviously shifted a bit this year to have a little bit more of that top-of-funnel approach to it. So when we look into next year, really what we’re looking at is really making sure that we go through all the marketing we’ve spent this year, have a fantastic understanding of what generated immediate return to us, and what we think is important to drive longer-term value from a brand perspective. Roots is in a unique position because we do have significant awareness across the country. We have 80% plus. In some cases, we see 90% plus awareness, depending on the surveys we look at from a brand perspective.

So a lot of what we’re attempting to do from a marketing perspective is really not to drive awareness for the brand, but it’s really about making them aware of the things that we have today, how the brand has changed, the broad collection that we have. And also, we’re also looking at different channels. So if you think about the changes that are happening with the ChatGPTs, the Geminis, the AIs of the world, obviously making sure that we have the right investments we put behind, making sure our website, our brand broadly is searchable and findable on those platforms is really important to us. And so I think that our marketing investments as a whole are continuing to reflect the changing reality of how you have to in front of consumers.

So I won’t give you direction in terms of what the marketing dollars look like overall for next year, but I would say that this year was definitely a year we were testing and learning across a multitude of different things. And so we will be tweaking our marketing overall from a mixed perspective next year as we take those learnings and apply those to thinking about both short-term and long-term growth.

Brian Morrison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay. That’s helpful. And then last one, maybe, Leon, the gross margin, product costing, it seems to be an ongoing strength here. I get the lower promo contribution to gross margin, but how are you achieving ongoing product costs? Is it sourcing? Is there more room to go? Maybe just comment on that.

Leon Wu, Chief Financial Officer, Roots: Yeah. I mean, for the sourcing, we really built out a robust process over the last few years in terms of understanding how we procure our products from overseas. And one of the main drivers of it is understanding with our vendors how we continue to maintain the quality of our products, but then source it with buying deeper or buying earlier to bring the product at a better cost. Another area that we have achieved a lot of the sourcing gains recently has been shifting where the manufacturer is coming from. So where there’s more duty-favorable countries to source from to bring into Canada, that is also helping us gain a lot of the margins.

Brian Morrison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Is that a function of tariffs on the U.S. onto China as well?

Leon Wu, Chief Financial Officer, Roots: No. So the tariffs for the U.S. that we reference is just related to the U.S. e-commerce part of our business, which is a smaller part of our overall business. In Canada, we pay import duties to bring goods from overseas, and that has slightly different tariff structures or duty structures than the U.S. But on the U.S. side, again, it’s a small part of our business.

Brian Morrison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Yeah. No, I’ll take it offline. I think I was going somewhere else with that, but I appreciate it and then look forward to seeing strength in the Q4 results. And wish you both a prosperous holiday season.

Leon Wu, Chief Financial Officer, Roots: Great.

Megan Roach, President and Chief Executive Officer, Roots: Thank you.

Elliot, Conference Operator: As another reminder, if you’d like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. We have no further questions, so I’ll now hand back to Megan Roach for any final remarks.

Megan Roach, President and Chief Executive Officer, Roots: Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. For those of you celebrating, we wish you a wonderful holiday season, and we look forward to updating you on our fourth-quarter results in the new year.

Elliot, Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, today’s call is now concluded. We’d like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.