Unifi Q3 Fiscal 2026 Earnings Call - Cost Cuts and Cash Flow Beat Signal Turning Point

Conference Call Operator, Unifi: Good morning, and thank you for attending Unifi’s third quarter fiscal 2026 earnings conference call. During this call, management will be referencing a webcast presentation that can be found in the investor relations section of unifi.com. Please familiarize yourself with page 2 of that slide deck for cautionary statements and non-GAAP measures. Today’s conference is being recorded, and all lines has been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Our speakers are listed on page 3 of today’s presentation and include Al Carey, Executive Chairman, Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer, A.J. Eaker, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Al Carey. Please turn to page 4 of the presentation.

Al Carey, Executive Chairman, Unifi: Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our call. We’re pleased to report that our year-long effort to reduce our cost base and improve cash generation is providing results. As a matter of fact, we’re a bit ahead of expectations for Q3. A.J.’s gonna take you through the full story in a few minutes, here are the 3 top headlines. The Madison plant closure is complete. Number 2, the much improved efficiencies in our current plant. 3, we’ve optimized our product lines and SKUs so that we don’t have products that contribute no profitability to our lineup. These actions set us up for improved profitability, especially as revenue begins to pick up and we’re able to see higher levels of capacity utilization.

There was one area that did not see a reduction in cost over the last 12 months. That was the work that we’re doing on product innovations. These products will provide revenue growth for the future. They’re very important. We have begun to get traction with our customers on these products. That’ll move us into a very important priority right now, which is to begin to commercialize these innovations. The innovations are, first, textile to textile recycling. Second, products for categories that are outside of apparel and provide higher profitability. Third, profits with performance benefits that customers and consumers are looking for. Now, Eddie is gonna take you through the full story on that in just a minute. The textile industry has still plenty of headwinds, especially as our customers navigate around the tariff complexities and the oil prices.

We believe those headwinds will diminish and our profits will improve even in the current environment that we’re in right now. I’d like to say one last thing and turn it over to Eddie. We are very proud of our team, the executives, the managers, and the frontline employees as well. Over the last 12 to 15 months, it’s been a rough road, but the team has worked through the challenges collaboratively. There really is a special resiliency about the people from Unifi, and their loyalty has been very evident throughout this entire timeframe. We are grateful for their big efforts over the last several months, and we’re looking forward to returning to growth. Now I’d like to turn speaking over to Eddie and A.J., who will provide you with the full story. Thank you.

Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer, Unifi: Thanks, Al. As Al just noted, this really was a stronger quarter for Unifi, and it clearly highlights the benefits of the actions we’ve taken to realign our cost structure and optimize our operations and improve the conversion margins through portfolio management and of course, targeted pricing that Al inferred. We’ve, you know, we’ve kept our inventories flat. Spend was managed with discipline, and the margin improvement that you see in the numbers in part reflects this strong operational progress. We are a significantly more resilient business today. Despite geopolitical headwinds, we have managed our balance sheet very effectively. Structural changes to our customer contracts, combined with faster commercial decision-making, have positioned us well to be able to respond more proactively to today’s market conditions.

I’m gonna turn the call over to AJ now to walk you through the financial details for the quarter, and then I’ll come back in shortly to discuss our near-term priorities, our innovation progress, and what lies ahead for Unifi. AJ?

A.J. Eaker, Chief Financial Officer, Unifi: Thank you, Eddie, and good day, everyone. I’ll start off by discussing our consolidated financial highlights for the quarter on slide 4. Consolidated net sales for the quarter were in line with our expectations, down 11% year-over-year but up 7% sequentially. Our markets continue to be impacted by geopolitical events as well as trade and tariff-related uncertainties. Consolidated gross profit was $9.1 million, and gross margin was 7% during the period, compared to a gross loss of $0.4 million and gross margin of negative 0.3% for the prior year period. SG&A was $11.2 million during the quarter, a 9% improvement from one year ago, while adjusted EBITDA during the period was $4 million, a nearly $9 million improvement on a year-over-year basis.

These stronger results during the quarter, as Eddie and Al mentioned, reflect serious operational improvements, both on the cost and efficiency side, that we have implemented over the last several quarters now translating into real results. Turning now to slide 5. In the Americas, net sales were down 16% as the region continues to face volume headwinds. Despite the lower sales during the quarter, we did generate gross profit of $3.6 million in that segment. This is the first time we’ve been able to deliver positive gross profit in the Americas for some time now, which further highlights the benefits of footprint consolidation and cost actions we have taken to improve our domestic operational efficiency. Slide 6 displays our Brazil segment, which saw net sales increase by $1 million and gross profit decline just slightly by $0.2 million.

Overall, the performance in Brazil during the period was solid due to a particularly strong March, with both volume and pricing contributing. This March for Brazil was our best sales volume month on record because of cost and price dynamics where the scales tipped in our favor. While this dynamic may normalize soon, we expect to see robust results in the fourth quarter for Brazil. On slide 7, our Asia segment net sales and gross profit declined to $22.6 million and $2.7 million respectively, primarily due to lower sales volumes associated with the tariff uncertainties and pricing dynamics in the region. Margins have continued to hold up well in Asia, given the asset-light model we employ there, and we did see some momentum in the region improve during March, which we are hopeful will continue. Slide 8 outlines our improving balance sheet and capital structure.

During the third quarter, we generated $7.2 million of free cash flow, bringing year-to-date free cash flow to $20.5 million. The positive free cash flow in the third quarter was a major beat against our expectations, as we were originally anticipating that we would experience some cash burn during this quarter. Thanks to our operational improvements and diligence, we experienced a nice increase in cash flow generation. CapEx for the quarter came in at just $800,000, and our CapEx on a year-to-date basis was $3.9 million, a 50% decline compared to the prior year period as we continue to closely manage all spending. Net debt was reduced to $68 million, a stark improvement from recent levels, and our working capital remains balanced, healthy and lower due to our leaner operations in the U.S.

This significant improvement to our balance sheet and capital structure was directly attributable to the hard work that our whole team has executed across the globe over the last few years. We aligned our costs, consolidated our footprint, and drove improved efficiencies, all of which have helped us establish a more efficient manufacturing base in the U.S. Looking at the fourth quarter, we do anticipate a moderate increase in working capital to accommodate a modest increase in sales and the higher cost raw materials purchased thus far. We estimate between $4 million and $7 million of working capital impact to the fourth quarter, which will obviously fluctuate in terms of amount and duration based on current geopolitical events. This concludes my financial review, and I’ll now pass the call back to Eddie.

Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer, Unifi: Thank you, AJ. As you’ve just heard from AJ in quite amount of detail, we are continuing to see the benefits of our operational improvements and the business is demonstrating improved resilience and flexibility in what I’m considering ever in changing business environments. Let’s turn to slide 9 for an overview of our priorities going forward. As we look ahead, our focus continues to remain on returning Unifi to long-term growth and enhanced profitability. In order to achieve this goal, we are keeping our efforts focused on 4 key areas. First, we will continue to build on the operational improvements that we’ve implemented and ensure we don’t lose any of the enhancements to the businesses that we have made. At the same time, we will continue to invest in our capabilities and technologies and reinforce and scale our platform of sustainable solutions.

Next, we have a culture built around innovation, and as Al mentioned, we haven’t given up on those efforts. New product developments will continue to invest and resources necessary to advance the customer adoption of our innovative solutions to support future growth. Finally, we are focused on making sure we do everything we can to navigate the current trade and geopolitical environment that is creating some challenges for us. We are also maintaining a sharp focus on positioning the business to drive more consistent top-line growth as some of these global economic headwinds subside. It is good to see some momentum in a number of our innovative initiatives, especially in the U.S., with what we have called Beyond Apparel.

You’ve heard us talk a lot about the potential we are seeing for our Beyond Apparel business, and while Q3 was still a work in progress, we are seeing real commercial success in Q4. Moving on to slide 10. A key highlight for the last quarter was the global launch of Luxel, a new yarn technology that delivers the look and feel of linen while adding performance benefits like moisture management, wrinkle resistance, and odor control. It’s made with REPREVE recycled polyester, including a minimum of 30% textile to textile recycled contents with our REPREVE Takeback. Luxel is designed to help brands reduce environmental impact while maintaining the look and feel of linen with easy care. The innovation can be used in a wide range of applications from footwear, apparel, and home goods.

Luxel is just another example of how we at Unifi have continued to develop yarn technologies that can replicate the performance of natural fibers and enhance the technical performance beyond what nature can actually provide. In our military and tactical markets, much of the success we are seeing is centered around our Fortisyn brands. We are seeing success here because we offer enhanced strength nylon yarns in natural white or with color embedded into the yarns. In addition, these products can be made with REPREVE Nylon as the base polymer. These advancements that we have made in this market with the performance promise backed up by Unifi’s quality systems alongside a sustainable offering, are finally starting to move into the serious commercialization stage.

Alongside the Beyond Apparel growth of military and tactical, carpeting is getting more traction, and packaging has continued to perform well with volumes growing in both these markets too. We expect to see further growth in the periods ahead. In Asia, we are beginning to see more activity in both REPREVE Takeback, our textile to textile fiber platform, and ThermaLoop, our innovative circular insulation product. In a couple of quarters, I expect to be able to discuss openly which additional brands and retailers have been adopting these offerings once they themselves go public. Turning to slide 11. In February, we released our fiscal year 2025 sustainability snapshot, highlighting progress in scaling our REPREVE recycled materials platform and advancing sustainable manufacturing.

We announced a new goal to recycle 65 billion plastic bottles by 2030 and updated other established goals, such as converting the equivalent of 1.5 billion T-shirts worth of textile waste into REPREVE products. The sustainability snapshot, as we call it, really helps telegraph to the brands and retailers how serious we are about helping them meet their sustainability targets and of course, how committed we are at Unifi to product innovation and building out our already substantial sustainable product portfolio. Turning to slide 12. In April, which is recognized globally as Earth Month, we celebrated our partners through our Champions of Sustainability program, announcing the winners of our ninth Annual REPREVE Champions of Sustainability Awards, recognizing brands and mills who are advancing circularity and responsible manufacturing across the textile industry.

This year’s program introduced new textile waste awards to spotlight partners accelerating circular solutions, reinforcing our commitment to scaling recycled and traceable materials globally. Since the event was held in our main U.S. manufacturing location in Yadkinville, North Carolina, we gave those who attended a view into the production of REPREVE Takeback and the process. Moving to slide 13 for an overview of our outlook and how we anticipate sustaining our financial momentum. For the fourth quarter, we expect to see our Brazil segment benefit financially from the supply chain dynamics that currently exist in the market and will be able to leverage their long supply chain to our advantage in the coming months. In the Asia segment, there is an expectation that we will see increased adoption and resulting revenues from our technologies and circular solutions.

The America segment should improve in terms of volumes and revenues, primarily from pricing actions and our value added Beyond Apparel portfolio. However, we are still facing some demand challenges with our underlying business significantly or specifically in Central America. To wrap up, we are encouraged by the progress that we’ve made, which is now being reflected in our financial results. Our business is in a stronger position today than it has been in some time, and we are continuing to remain focused on ensuring that our operational enhancements translate into sustained financial improvement that will help create value for our shareholders. Before I hand the call over to the operator, I’d like to acknowledge that the improvements to the business was a team effort, and I want to take the opportunity to thank each of the teams in the regional businesses for their hard work and efforts.

With that, let’s open the line for questions. Operator?

Conference Call Operator, Unifi: Your question from the line of Anthony DiClemente with Sidoti. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Anthony DiClemente, Analyst, Sidoti: Good morning, everyone, thanks for taking the questions. Yeah, certainly nice to see the improvement in the earnings results and also the pretty good cash flow in the quarter as well. You know, first, just, can you talk about pricing versus unit volumes in 3Q and how that might change in the 4th quarter here, given the increased input costs and some of the supply chain dynamics? I think Brazil is probably the one where you would probably see the most in terms of pricing actions. Just wondering if you could comment on the quarter that you just reported, and plus also give some more details about the pricing and volume dynamics that you may anticipate here in the 4th quarter.

A.J. Eaker, Chief Financial Officer, Unifi: Sure, Anthony DiClemente, it’s A.J. Eaker. A bit of a mixed bag, I’ll try and go slow on some of that and ask Eddie to help as well. If we start from a year-over-year perspective, we have the majority of decline in the Americas is volume-based. There’s some price and mix in there, predominantly volume. When we look at Brazil, their year-over-year movement, again, Q3 versus Q3, was predominantly price. That was based on a lot of the competitive activity. Lower prices coming from imported product. Third, in Asia year-over-year, we did have a larger pricing impact versus volume impact as well.

Now when we look sequentially Q3 to Q4, like you asked, we do see generally flat volumes in the Americas, but certainly some pricing as we’ve had to make some responsive pricing actions given the movement in petrochemical markets. In Brazil, we will also see a meaningful pricing increase, but also a bit of volume. In Asia, we see a mix of volume and price there, again, partly with petrochemical related inflation and partly with some of the recovery that we mentioned, beginning with the month of March in Asia headed into Q4. I’ll ask Eddie to add on any more there.

Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer, Unifi: Just to He’s covered most of it. I just wanna add one specific thing around the velocity of the pricing. We are in a situation today where much of our pricing is more of our pricing is order to order and not index like it had been in the past. We are able to react more responsibly. We are being careful, of course, to talk to customers and being responsible suppliers. It has been because of the nature of the raw materials and the speed at which they’ve increased, we’ve had to react faster than we normally do. During the quarter four, especially by the time we exit, we expect to be caught up on any raw material increases, unfortunately that we have to pass on.

Anthony DiClemente, Analyst, Sidoti: Got you. Thank you both. Okay, so just to clarify, you expect the pricing actions to essentially fully offset any of the cost headwinds that you are seeing at the moment, right?

Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer, Unifi: I think there’ll be a little bit of lag in the U.S., but primarily most of the cost increases will be passed on as we move through this quarter, and we’re seeing that already.

Anthony DiClemente, Analyst, Sidoti: Got you. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for clarifying that, Eddie. Okay. Then, you know, you know, just in terms of the Asia segment that you highlighted that you expect improved adoption of innovative and sustainable platforms. Can you give, you know, some additional details in regards to that? Then, you know, as far as some of the new products that you have talked about, you know, which, you know, which one do you think has, like, the most potential as far as to make a difference in terms of the sales contributions?

Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer, Unifi: Yeah. Here in the U.S. on the Beyond Apparel, in Q4, we are expecting to see about a $2 million uplift in the quarter from these Beyond Apparel initiatives, which is primarily from our military and tactical Fortisyn programs, our carpeting business and also the packaging business that we have. These are all margin accretive opportunities for us. Especially on the Fortisyn product, we spent a lot of time, we talked a lot about this on the calls, and it takes a long time to get traction, primarily ’cause it’s just such technically a difficult product to make.

Of course the customers are very sensitive to make sure that if they do make a switch, that they’re switching it to a product that can sustain itself and give them the advantages that we’ve described to them. We’re at the point now where we’re getting adoption, and I’m very excited about that. I think the volumes potentially overall for the whole market will increase because of what’s happening with Iran. Overall we are certainly very positive about that market and where it can bring us in the next few quarters. Specifically in this quarter, it’s not gonna be huge, but we’ve got commercial programs that we didn’t have just a quarter ago.

In Asia, you know, it’s a, it’s a mixture of our ThermaLoop, which most of the insulated jackets are made actually in Asia, so we don’t expect to see any of that here in the Americas. We’re starting to get traction. This is the season to make insulation for the fall jacket sales. We have good programs there. We have good programs in our REPREVE Takeback, which is our textile to textile, and also our technology such as TruTemp365 and Thinsulate. They’re also starting to gain traction. Our revenues in Q4 will be up in Asia, primarily driven by our technologies. In Brazil, they actually have increased their ratio of value-added sales, which is in part why the revenues will go up.

Anthony DiClemente, Analyst, Sidoti: Well thanks so much for all that color. You know, this is more of a kind of a longer term, a bigger picture kind of question. As we look at the Americas, certainly it’s your, you know, very asset heavy segment that you have taken out a lot of fixed costs out of the business. Even with lower revenue, you were able to generate a much better gross profit here in 3Q. You know, as the segment recovers at some point, how should the investors think about, you know, gross margin potential here in this segment with better revenue that you may see at some point?

A.J. Eaker, Chief Financial Officer, Unifi: Sure, Anthony. I’ll start that and ask Eddie to add any. We’re certainly proud of what was achieved in this third quarter, again, beating expectations on what the team was able to accomplish in terms of getting cash, cost out and improving efficiencies in the facilities that remain. From a long-term perspective, we certainly want to get back to some of those better levels that were around 10 years ago. Those margin levels were certainly healthy in the Americas and with a lot of what Eddie’s outlined in terms of new programs, new customer penetration and continued efficiencies and cost management in the Americas. We do see that as a relevant goal and an achievable goal when those catalysts do hit.

Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer, Unifi: Yeah, I just wanna add, you know.

We are very, very careful about our spends, more than we ever have been before, and it’s across every part of the organization. It’s a new mindset. What we need is a little bit of volume to really get those margins that A.J. Eaker was talking about. We’d still expect it to come back, especially in Central America. We’re getting the right signals, but we’re still just waiting patiently. While we’re waiting, we still believe we can manage our spends relative to the revenues that we have to continue to give us a positive gross profit in the Americas.

Al Carey, Executive Chairman, Unifi: Anthony, this is Al.

Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer, Unifi: Gotcha.

Al Carey, Executive Chairman, Unifi: I’d add one, Al, this is Al. I’d add one thing to the Central America business. In many conversations with customers, all indications are they’re gonna use Central America for nearshoring because it’s a good option for them not be so dependent on China, and it’s also a good option for a close-in supply chain. We’re just waiting. I think what’s happening in the sourcing organizations of these companies, they’re trying to determine with the tariffs changing so much, is the better deal to buy from the U.S., is there a better to ship from China to Vietnam over to the Central America? It’s gonna happen, but it’s, you know, it’s just been very confusing. It’s, we’re waiting for it to happen. All indications are it will happen.

Anthony DiClemente, Analyst, Sidoti: Understood the effects for all that color. I guess somewhat of a similar question in regards to Brazil. Obviously, the near term picture looks bright there. You know, looking back over the last few years, there has been quite a lot of volatility in the Brazil segment in terms of sales and gross margin. You know, kind of, maybe to just, if you guys could talk about what’s different now, other than just the supply chain dynamics, and how should we think about the longer term opportunities and challenges beyond the current quarter?

Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer, Unifi: Yeah. Thanks for the question, Anthony. You know, the market is still continuing to grow because of the population, because of the general economy down there. We are the only large player down there in their market. We have talked about the dumping that’s been going on from Asia into Brazil. With this dynamic, higher cost dynamic, we are advantaged a little bit. We do expect our margins to become a little bit more stabilized. Like we’ve said on this call, Q4 should be pretty strong, and going forward, we should get back to more normal EBITDA and more normal gross profits in Brazil on that business segment.

The dumping has lessened simply because the Asians appear to be a little bit more constrained from a petrochemical perspective, and they are passing those costs on to the market.

Anthony DiClemente, Analyst, Sidoti: Gotcha. Okay. That’s very helpful context. Okay. Well, thank you very much and best of luck.

Eddie Ingle, Chief Executive Officer, Unifi: Thank you.

A.J. Eaker, Chief Financial Officer, Unifi: Great. Thank you, Anthony.

Conference Call Operator, Unifi: There are no further questions at this time, and this concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.