On Friday, Xcel Brands (NASDAQ:XELB) discussed second-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.

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Summary

Xcel Brands reported a revenue of $1.1 million for Q2 2026, down from $1.3 million in Q2 2025, primarily due to the divestiture of the Judith Ripka brand.

The company is focusing on influencer-led brands, leveraging the changing landscape of AI-driven search and social media to drive brand awareness and sales.

Xcel Brands plans to launch new influencer-led brands throughout 2026, with a goal to reach 100 million followers across its brand portfolio.

The company expects each influencer-led brand to generate approximately $7 million per year in royalty income by 2030.

A net loss of $2.5 million was recorded for Q2 2026, an improvement from a $4.0 million loss in the prior-year quarter, with non-GAAP net loss adjusted to $1.3 million.

The company's balance sheet reflected stockholders' equity of approximately $12 million and unrestricted cash of $400,000, with $12 million in debt.

Xcel Brands highlighted the strategic importance of its capital-light model, which does not involve manufacturing capital, inventory, or markdown exposure.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Welcome to Xcel Brands' second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. 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, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Please be advised that reproduction of this call, in whole or in part, is not permitted without prior written authorization of Xcel Brands.

As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Seth Burrows from the company. Seth, you may now begin.

Seth Burrows, Investor Relations

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Welcome to the Xcel Brands second quarter 2026 earnings call. We greatly appreciate your participation and interest. With us on the call today are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert DeLorean and Chief Financial Officer Jim Herring. By now, everyone should have had access to the earnings release for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. In addition, we filed our quarterly report on Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday.

The release and the quarterly report will be available on the company's website at www.xcelbrands.com. This call is being webcast and a replay will be available on the company's investor relations website. Before we begin, please keep in mind that this call will contain forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from certain expectations discussed here today.

These risk factors are explained in detail in the company's most recent annual report filed with the SEC. Xcel does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. The dynamic nature of the current macroeconomic environment means that what is said on this call could change materially at any time. Finally, please note that on today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP diluted EPS, and adjusted EBITDA.

Our management uses these non-GAAP metrics as measures of operating performance to assist in comparing performance from period to period on a consistent basis and to identify business trends related to the company's results of operations. Our management believes these financial performance measurements are also useful because these measures adjust for certain costs and other events that management believes are not representative of our core business operating results, and thus they provide supplemental information to assist investors in evaluating the company's financial results.

These non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation or as alternatives to net income, earnings per share, or any other measures of financial performance calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. You may refer to the attachment to the company's earnings release or the Form 10-Q for a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures. And now I'm pleased to introduce Robert DeLorean, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Bob, please go ahead.

Robert DeLorean, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Seth. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I would like to start today's call with a brief update on recent developments since the Q1 filing of our quarterly Form 10-Q and our outlook for moving forward. After that, our CFO, Jim Herring, will discuss our financial results for the quarter in more detail. To begin, we continue to work hard with all of our licensing production partners, talented influencers, and strategic retail partners to drive our business.

Also, over the past 12 months, we announced the formation of our new influencer-led brands with Cesar Millan, Gemma Stafford, Jenny Martinez, Coco Rocha, and Shannen Doherty. As I previously mentioned on our last call, we launched two of these brands toward the end of Q1 and expect the balance to launch this fall, except for one that will launch in 2027. These influencer-led brands grew the social media following in our brand portfolio from 5 million to over 46 million in less than one year.

Our investor community has asked: Why is this important? What is the earnings and value potential of influencer-led brands, and why are we so excited about influencer-led brands? The answer is AI is changing a lot in business today. A recent AI-related event came in May of this year: Google changed search and AI mode became the default. Ranked links are no longer the primary discovery surface. The search box was redesigned for the first time in 25 years.

This comes with very broad and significant implications, especially in certain industries. This has had a dramatic negative impact on informational queries such as product comparison articles and buying guides like those published by magazines, but left transactional and branded search intact. This means that the middle of the classic marketing funnel has been significantly diminished, perhaps eliminated. Therefore, we are left with just the top of the funnel that drives awareness and the bottom of the funnel to drive conversion of sales.

Retail search is absorbing the discovery that the middle of the funnel used to handle. This is a redistribution of where discovery happens, not a disappearance of it. Video content is not being replaced; it is being cited. YouTube accounts for 23% of all AI overview citations, the single largest source, and brands cited inside an AI answer earn about 120% more organic clicks per impression than uncited brands on the same query. So if the top and the bottom of the funnel survive, then significant awareness comes from video and social sources, and conversion comes from retail search and the retail shelf space.

Also, an AI answer engine can compress an article or text, but it cannot compress a video demonstration. Attributable authorities, such as YouTube content featuring a credible voice in a category, are highly citable; anonymous editorial is not, and an AI system builds answers from sources it can attribute. To put this in the context of Xcel's strategy, a named expert with two decades of broadcast history and a significant social media following is exactly the kind of source that creates attributable content that AI engines use to answer questions about products.

The game has moved from ranking to being the source the answer is built from. This is exactly why we are creating brands with people like Cesar Millan, Jenny, Gemma Stafford, and other influencers. Influencers like Cesar and Gemma have names customers associate with expertise and are highly visible to AI platforms. Also, in the case of Cesar and Jenny Martinez, they reach both English- and Spanish-speaking consumers, and we build that content bilingually from the start rather than translating it afterward.

More than 60 million U.S. residents speak Spanish at home, and we do not see a competitor in these categories that is positioned to match that. In summary, awareness that already exists is awareness you don't have to buy. We believe that we are now on the ascent of the company. We will continue to build the brands that we launched this year, and based upon our pipeline of new influencer-led brands, we are on track to reach 100 million followers across our brand portfolio.

I should be clear, though: a follower count is an input, not a result. What compounds is what we own—our product designs, the existing awareness of our brands, the content library we produce, our retail search presence, and the licensee supply chain network behind each brand. We began wholesale shipments with our licensees for two of our influencer-led brands during the first quarter, and on-air programming commenced for them on QVC and HSN in the second quarter.

The other influencer-led brands will be shipping and launching throughout the rest of 2026 in interactive TV and with e-commerce retailers like Amazon, followed by brick retailers. It's important to note that there is a product design and development period of approximately 12 to 18 months from the time we execute an agreement with an influencer when products first are offered for sale, depending upon category and where the goods are produced. I should add that our TV and streaming content reaches well over 100 million households and generates tens of millions of media impressions per month.

All of this generates added top-of-funnel awareness for our brands. We are pleased with the progress and category diversity of our brand portfolio, and we believe revenue growth is in front of us. I would also remind everyone that this model is capital light by design. We deploy no manufacturing capital, we carry no inventory, and we take no markdown exposure. Our revenue is derived from a royalty on licensees' or retailers' sales. Finally, in summary, as mentioned, our investors and licensing partners have asked why we are so excited by the influencer-led brand opportunity.

Last quarter we discussed the size of the influencer-led brand market, which is reported by Goldman Sachs as expected to exceed $2 trillion by 2035. That, coupled with recent changes in search, is why we are focused on these types of brands. As we mentioned last quarter, we believe we have fully entered the fast-growing market and will continue to penetrate it over the coming years. We believe that each of our eight existing brands has the potential to generate, on average, $7 million per year in royalty income by the end of 2030 based upon the proven experience of our team and platform, our influencer-led brands, and the macro changes in our industry being driven by AI. Lastly, the revenue and EBITDA exit multiples for fast-ascending influencer-led brands are significantly higher than those associated with legacy brands. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to our CFO, Jim Herring, to cover our financial results for the quarter.

Jim Herring, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Bob, and good morning, everyone. I will now briefly discuss our financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. Revenue for the second quarter of 2026 was $1.1 million compared with $1.3 million for the prior-year quarter, and we were $2.3 million for the first six months of this year compared with $2.7 million for the first six months of last year. These year-over-year decreases were primarily attributable to the divestiture of the Judith Ripka brand.

We continue to explore opportunities to sell certain of our legacy brands and closed the sale of our Judith Ripka brand at approximately six times gross royalty income in the second quarter. This is consistent with the sale multiple of our formerly owned brand Isaac Mizrahi and is further confirmation of the value of our brands. Now turning back to our second quarter results, direct operating cost expenses were essentially flat from the prior-year quarter at approximately $1.9 million, and for the current six-month period direct operating costs were $4.0 million, a decrease of $200,000 from the prior-year period.

It should be noted that the prior-year quarter included an expense reduction of approximately $500,000 for an employee retention credit refund. Excluding this prior-year non-recurring expense reduction, direct operating expenses decreased by approximately $500,000 and $700,000 from the prior-year quarter and six-month period, respectively. Looking at our other costs and expenses, which were all non-cash in nature, the prior-year quarter and six-month period notably included approximately a $300,000 and a $500,000 equity method loss and other related charges and adjustments for our equity investment in IM Topco, which we later disposed of in the fourth quarter of 2025. Interest and finance expense were approximately $0.9 million for the current quarter compared with $2.3 million in the prior-year quarter. For the six-month period, interest and finance expense was approximately $1.5 million in the current six-month period compared with $2.9 million in the prior-year period. These year-over-year decreases were primarily driven by a $1.9 million loss on the early extinguishment of our debt in the prior-year periods relating to the April 2025 refinancing of our term debt.

As previously discussed, a majority of the interest due under our current debt will be paid in kind, meaning that it will accrue and will not require cash payment until 2027. Overall, we had a net loss for the current quarter of approximately $2.5 million, or minus $0.40 per share, compared with a net loss of $4.0 million, or minus $1.66 per share, in the prior-year quarter. After adjusting for certain cash and non-cash items, results on a non-GAAP basis were a net loss of approximately $1.3 million, or minus $0.21 per share, for the current quarter, and a net loss of approximately $0.9 million, or minus $0.37 per share, for the prior-year quarter.

Adjusted EBITDA loss for the current quarter was approximately $480,000 compared with a loss of $300,000 in the prior-year quarter. For the second quarter EBITDA, when excluding the non-recurring expense reduction in the prior-year quarter referenced above, adjusted EBITDA improved by approximately $320,000. For the six-month period, we had a net loss for the current six months of approximately $5.0 million, or minus $0.82 per share, compared with a net loss of $6.8 million, or minus $2.84 per share, in the prior-year period.

After adjusting for certain cash and non-cash items, results on a non-GAAP basis were a net loss of approximately $2.7 million, or minus $0.44 per share, for the current six months, and a net loss of approximately $2.3 million, or minus $0.95 per share, for the prior-year period. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the current six months was approximately $1.2 million compared with a loss of $1.0 million in the prior-year period, and again, the comparison year over year would be an improvement of $300,000 when excluding the non-recurring item mentioned prior.

Once again, as a reminder, our earnings press release and Form 10-Q present a full reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Now turning to our balance sheet and liquidity, the company's balance sheet on June 30, 2026 reflected stockholders' equity of approximately $12 million and unrestricted cash and cash equivalents of approximately $400,000. In addition, the balance sheet included approximately $12 million of debt.

In April, we repaid a portion of our variable interest rate term loan debt and entered into $3 million of senior secured notes at a fixed interest rate. During the current quarter, we paid $450,000 of the senior notes, predominantly with the proceeds of the Ripka brand sale. As previously discussed, in January 2026 we entered into a committed equity line facility giving us access to up to $15 million of funding over the next two years for working capital and potential acquisition opportunities, all at our discretion.

And with that, I would like to turn the call back over to Bob.

Robert DeLorean, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jim. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator.

OPERATOR

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question at this time, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. There are no questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. DeLorean for closing remarks.

Robert DeLorean, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, operator. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for your time this morning. We greatly appreciate your continued interest and support in Xcel Brands. As always, stay fit, eat well, and be healthy.

OPERATOR

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our conference call for today. You may all disconnect, and thank you for your participation.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.