Kohl's Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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March 11, 2025
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Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Coles Corporation Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Results Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Trevor Zabotny, Senior Manager of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Trevor Novotny
Senior Finance Manager, Investor Relations at Kohl’s

Thank you. Certain statements made on this call, including projected financial results and the company's future initiatives, are forward looking statements. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause Kohl's actual results to differ materially from those projected in such forward looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those that are described in Item 1A in Kohl's most recent annual report on Form 10 K and as may be supplemented from time to time in Kohl's other filings with the SEC, all of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference. Forward looking statements relate to the date initially made, and Kohl's undertakes no obligation to update them.

Trevor Novotny
Senior Finance Manager, Investor Relations at Kohl’s

In addition, during this call, we may make reference to non GAAP financial measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted diluted earnings per share and adjusted free cash flow. Please refer to the cautionary statement regarding non GAAP measures and reconciliation of these measures included in investor presentation filed as an exhibit to our Form eight K as filed with the SEC and available on our Investor Relations website. Please note that this call will be recorded. However, replays of this call will not be updated. So if you are listening to a replay of this call, it is possible that the information discussed is no longer current, and Kohl's undertakes no obligation to update such information.

Trevor Novotny
Senior Finance Manager, Investor Relations at Kohl’s

With me this morning are Ashley Buchanan, our Chief Executive Officer and Jill Timm, our Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Ashley.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Kohl's fourth quarter earnings call. I would like to start today by saying thank you to the Kohl's organization and our Board of Directors for giving me a warm welcome to Kohl's. I'm very excited to lead this great company. And as you will hear today, I believe Kohl's has a substantial opportunity to build on its solid foundation and position the company for future success. I have been in the retail industry for nearly twenty years now.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

I have held leadership positions at Sam's Club, Walmart and most recently served as the CEO of the Michaels Companies for the past five years. I love the fast pace of the retail industry and the challenge of meeting changing customer expectations during the ongoing retail evolution. To stay ahead, we need to take a data informed approach to listen to the customer and meet them where they desire to be met. My review of the business is still ongoing, but today I want to share my initial takeaways and discuss a few opportunities that we have identified to reposition ourselves for improvement in 2025 and to lay the groundwork for future progress and initiatives. Jill will then address our fourth quarter and year end performance.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Since joining Coles in mid January, I have taken time to analyze our current business trends, review our strategic framework and assess our operational structure. I've been engaging with teams across the company, visiting numerous stores and most importantly getting to know our customers' perceptions and expectations of Kohl's. It is very clear to me that Kohl's is built on a solid foundation that includes operating more than 1,100 conveniently located stores nationwide, serving over 60,000,000 customers with 30,000,000 of those customers being Kohl's loyalty members. With this foundation in place, Kohl's had tremendous opportunity to build on our strength, address key areas of opportunity and better serve our customers more consistently every day. Kohl's customers expect great product, great value and a great experience.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Over the past few years, we have implemented a significant amount of change across our assortment, value strategies and store experience in an effort to attract new customers. While the intention of this strategy to engage a new customer has been important, it has also caused friction with our core customer. We need to reprioritize our initiatives to deliver on these key tenants to better serve all of our customers, both new and existing. When examining recent performance, we have fallen short of fully delivering what our customers want and expect from Kohl's. Most of what we need to do is in our control and can be achieved by setting a clear vision and holding ourselves accountable to executing at a higher standard.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

As you will see from the financial guidance we're giving today, I want to set the expectations that this turnaround, while very achievable, is going to take some time. Progress starts with the actions we are taking in 2025 to address opportunities and better serve our customers. This marks the initial phase of actions from our ongoing assessment. Let me now discuss a few areas of focus. First, offer a curated more balanced assortment that fulfills needs across all our customers.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Second, reestablish Kohl's as a leader in value and quality. And third, deliver a frictionless shopping experience. Let me begin with offering a curated, more balanced assortment that fulfills needs across all our customers. As we are working through our merchandise strategies, our goal is to drive improved assortment clarity across all categories with a purpose behind each brand and each product. Recently, our focus has been heavily weighted on new products to attract new customers and we have deemphasized the products and categories that our core customers love.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Kohl's began to recognize us in 2024 and immediately began to refocus attention on categories where we had lost traction, including fine jewelry, petites and proprietary brands. Now we are encouraged with the improved trends we are seeing with the majority of the cut recovery still ahead of us. While we readjust these categories, I want to be clear. We will also continue to prioritize our key growth categories that are resonating with our customers, including Sephora, Home Decor and Impulse. We have built solid momentum in these categories in 2024 and know there is additional growth potential in each of these areas.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

We are working diligently to find the right balance within our assortment and will deliver what our customers want and expect from Kohl's. Second, reestablish ourselves as leader in quality and value by offering great product at great price and enhancing our promotions to drive even more value. We will start by rebalancing our assortment to match customer needs by elevating our focus on our proprietary brands. These brands provide quality, value and exclusive reason to shop at Kohl's. They resonate with our core loyal customers and we have an opportunity to reengage this customer by unlocking the full potential of our proprietary brand.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Khos has amazing proprietary brands such as Sonoma and Flex that our customers love. They serve an important purpose in our value proposition, offering lower price points on great products for our customers. Strengthening our proprietary brand offering is key to our success. We will build on brands like Sonoma Flex, enhancing our current brand portfolio to become a destination for affordable quality products that you can only get at Kohl's. We will also look for opportunities to introduce new products that fill a purpose for our customer and drive productivity with our merchandise portfolio.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Our national brands also play an integral role in our commitment to quality and value. Key national brands bring a known sense of quality in their assortments. We know our customers love national brands and they trust to buy these brands at Kohl's knowing they got a great deal. Kohl's has historically delivered additional value through exceptional promotions, coupons and Kohl's cash. Promotions have always been a key part of our value proposition.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Over the years, our list of excluded brands on our coupon has grown too large with the percent of sales that are excluded from coupons reaching an all time high in 2024. This has created confusion and frustration with our loyalist customer. We are in the process of reversing some of these exclusions to simplify the experience and allow our customers to shop with our promotional coupons more consistently. In addition to promotions, our customers want more clarity in our price and value messages. We will continue to work to simplify our messaging by reducing the complexity of our offers as well as amplify our great prices as we have seen this start to resonate with our customers.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Our goal is to offer quality products at great prices across our entire brand portfolio, so our customers can more clearly see the value they're getting with their purchase. Making these pivots will allow us to simplify our promotions and clarify our value messaging to create a better shopping experience. We believe this is our third priority, enhancing our omnichannel platform to deliver a frictionless experience to our customers. We want our customers to have a consistent experience across all channels, restoring trip assurance for key items, increasing inspiration in store and online and providing more consistent store and digital experience so our customers can easily shop Kohl's at any store or online in any platform. We can improve the customer experience from more consistent in stocks for high volume items, particularly in our basic and essentials.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

We will continue to manage inventories highly, but need to restore trip assurance for our customers through greater buy depth and supply chain agility. The optimization of our store layout will be done through a combination of productivity and adjacency analysis. This will provide clarity to the customer of the purpose of each brand. We will also thoughtfully improve category placement to create an easier shopping experience for customers to find their frequently purchased items and discover new and relevant choices. Achieving a successful omni channel platform requires both the store and digital business to work together in tandem.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

While our store and digital business do have some synergies, there are many aspects in how we operate that we can do better. We have identified opportunities in our omnichannel business and some of the initial work is already underway. While it's too early to share any details, we're excited about the opportunity to leverage technology. We'll have more to share later in the year as we develop these plans. The goal of all this work is to make shopping at close a more enjoyable and reliable experience.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Importantly, while these areas will be the focus in our near term, it is also my expectation that every associate in our organization has a commitment and a role in driving operational excellence. Simply put, we will work to create a more efficient organization that will focus on reducing costs to allow us to invest in our future growth. We know that part of setting up the business for future success is to have a high level of discipline on managing costs. To summarize my comments today, I'd like to reiterate my takeaways. First, Kohl's is a strong company built on a very solid foundation.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

With over 1,100 stores serving more than 60,000,000 customers, the opportunity that lies ahead of us is substantial. Kohl serves an important role in the retail landscape and we have the ability to better execute and serve our customers. Second, we have identified areas that are repositioning us for improved results as they better align with our customers' want and expect from Kohl's, including offering a curated or balanced assortment that fulfills needs across all customers reestablishing Kohl's as a leader in value and quality enhancing our omnichannel platform to deliver a frictionless experience And last, this will take some time. I want to be realistic in how we are setting our expectations. My full review of the business and go forward strategy is still ongoing.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

The actions we are taking in 2025 are a step in the right direction, but there is more work to be done to unlock the full potential of this company. We will have the details on additional initiatives later in the year. And I'll hand over the call to Jill.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Thank you, Ashley, and good morning, everyone. I'll provide details on our fourth quarter performance and then discuss our guidance for 2025. Net sales declined 9.4% in Q4 and 7.2% for the year. Comparable sales decreased 6.7% in Q4 and 6.5% for the year. The variance between net sales and comparable sales in Q4 is primarily due to the fifty third week last year, which we previously stated was worth $164,000,000 From a channel perspective, our store comparable sales declined 3.1% in Q4 and were down 5.6% for the year.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Store sales benefited from strong average transaction value and saw improvement throughout the quarter with January having the strongest performance. We experienced underperformance in our digital business during Q4 with comparable sales declining 13.4% in the quarter and down 8.7 for the year. Digital sales were pressured from softness in home, particularly in legacy home, which overpenetrates into our online business. We also saw headwinds in our digital conversion in Q4. Part of the conversion headwind was due to an online inventory suppression issue that impacted our availability.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

We have corrected this issue and are seeing an improved conversion and performance quarter to date. Turning to line of business results. Nearly all lines of business improved their comparable sales performance versus Q3. Sephora continued to be a strong sales driver with comparable beauty sales increasing 13%, an acceleration from the third quarter. Fragrance, Fast and Body and Skincare continued their outperformance in the quarter.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Our expanded offerings of gift sets resonated extremely well with our customers. And we continue to see brands such as Sol de Janeiro, Laneige, YSL and Summer Fridays perform especially well in the quarter. In addition, our accessories business excluding Sephora had a flat comp for the quarter. This was driven by our investment back into jewelry with strong performance in fashion and bridge jewelry as well as fashion accessories and our impulse business. We have made good progress on rebuilding our proprietary brand inventory position through the quarter.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

As we receive fresh receipts in our proprietary brands, we saw a relative sales lift throughout the quarter. This helped deliver a notable comparable sales improvement in our apparel businesses when compared to Q3. We expect these businesses to continue to improve in 2025 as we rebalance our inventory. Last, we continue to see collective outperformance in our key growth categories, including impulse, gifting, home decor and baby gear. However, this outperformance was not enough to offset our legacy home business, which remained challenged in the fourth quarter.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Our kitchen electrics, floor care and bedding continued to underperform. Moving down the P and L. Other revenue was $222,000,000 in Q4, a $24,000,000 decrease versus last year. The decrease was driven by a decline in credit revenue due to lower revolving credit balances and lower late fees. Gross margin in Q4 was 32.9%, an increase of 49 basis points.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

The year over year increase was driven primarily by optimizing our promotional events as well as lower digital penetration. For the full fiscal year 2024, gross margin increased 50 basis points to 37.2%. SG and A expenses in Q4 decreased 4.5% to $1,500,000,000 deleveraging approximately 148 basis points versus last year. The decrease to last year was driven primarily by lower spending in stores, marketing and supply chain. For the full year, SG and A decreased 3.7%.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Depreciation expense was $183,000,000 in Q4 and was $743,000,000 for the full year. As compared to last year, depreciation expense declined $4,000,000 and $6,000,000 respectively, driven by reduced technology capital spend. Interest expense in Q4 was $74,000,000 and $319,000,000 for the full year. Relative to last year, interest expense decreased $8,000,000 in Q4 and $25,000,000 for the year, driven by the retirement of $113,000,000 of debt in Q2 this year. Our tax rate was 17% in Q4 and was 12% for the fiscal year.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Adjusted net income for the quarter was $106,000,000 and adjusted earnings per diluted share was $0.95 For the year, adjusted net income was $167,000,000 and adjusted earnings per diluted share was $1.5 During the fourth quarter, the company announced the closure of 27 underperforming stores and one e commerce fulfillment center. These measures are part of the company's ongoing effort to increase efficiency and support the health and future of its business. The impact of this decision resulted in a one time charge of $76,000,000 and earnings per diluted share of $0.52 and have been excluded from the numbers discussed. Moving to our balance sheet and cash flow. We ended the year with $134,000,000 of cash and cash equivalents.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Inventory was up 2% compared to last year, driven by our investments to rebuild our proprietary brand inventory. Operating cash flow was $596,000,000 in Q4 and $648,000,000 for the full year. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $99,000,000 and $466,000,000 for the year. In 2024, we retired 113,000,000 of bonds and returned $222,000,000 to shareholders through the dividend. We ended the year with $290,000,000 outstanding on our revolver.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Now let me provide details on our outlook for 2025. As you heard from Ashley this morning, Kohl's is a solid company with substantial opportunity, but this will take time. We have undergone a lot of change over the last couple of years. Some changes were positive, while other changes led to some missteps. As we approach 2025, our guidance outlook recognizes both the time needed to make the necessary changes as well as the uncertainty in the macro environment.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

For the full year, we currently expect net sales to be in the range of a 5% decrease to a 7% decrease versus 2024. Comparable sales to be in the range of a 4% decrease to a 6% decrease. Comp sales will have an approximately 90 basis point benefit from net sales due to store closures. Operating margins to be in the range of 2.2% to 2.6% and earnings per share to be in the range of $0.1 per diluted share to $0.6 per diluted share. Now let me share some additional guidance details.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

We expect other revenue to be down 12%. The decrease is due to an accounting change that requires us to move a portion of our credit expenses from SG and A to net against credit revenue as well as lower accounts receivable balances driven by sales underperformance in 2024, especially by our credit customer gross margin to expand 30 basis points to 50 basis points driven by continued inventory management, increased proprietary brand sales and optimizing promotional offers SG and A dollars to be in the range of down 3.5% to down 5%. These savings will be driven by our Q4 actions resulting in lower store payroll and supply chain costs as well as lower marketing expenses and a benefit from a portion of the credit expenses moving into other revenue as I previously mentioned. Depreciation and amortization of $730,000,000 dollars interest expense of $315,000,000 and a tax rate of 18%. As we anticipate the new initiatives to take time to have an impact, we expect a sales build throughout the year.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

And although we are pleased with our start to Q1, there's a lot of quarters still ahead of us. Given the uncertainty in the macro environment, we will stay prudent and expect Q1 comparable sales to be at the low end of our sales guidance range for the year, with the remaining metrics balanced by quarter. Next, I would like to discuss how we are prioritizing our capital allocation for 2025. In 2025, our focus will be rebuilding our cash balance, reducing our reliance on the revolver and capitalizing on opportunities to further reduce our debt and overall leverage. We will be addressing our July 2025 maturities this spring with the intention to refinance the debt.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

We expect capital expenditures to be in the range of $400,000,000 to $425,000,000 CapEx in 2025 will include investments to complete the rollout of Sephora, expand impulse queuing fixtures and omni channel enhancements. Additionally, we'll be opening two small stores in the first quarter. Given our priority to rebuild the cash balance, the Board has made the decision to reduce the dividend. Although we remain committed to returning capital to shareholders, this reduction allows for greater balance sheet flexibility. This morning, the Board declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.125 per share payable to shareholders on April 2.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

With that, Ashley and I are happy to take your questions at this time.

Operator

Our first question comes from Mark Altschwager from Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Mark Altschwager
Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. And Ashley, welcome. Thank you. Ashley, could you talk us through your assessment of what has been working, what hasn't been working with the merchandising strategy, where you believe you can effect the most change in the near term, what might take longer to implement?

Mark Altschwager
Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

And just bigger picture, what gives you confidence that Coles can return to growth?

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Yes. Thanks for the question. What I saw, obviously, before I took the job was when I assessed the entire business, I just saw opportunity, right? I saw an opportunity around the products we offer, the value that we're offering and the quality of the product, how we allocate, how we run the stores and most importantly how we do an omnichannel experience. We had a lot of friction to the customer piece.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

And I thought a lot of the issues really were probably self inflicted over many years of the decisions. And you could just see what I saw from a customer base that we have a very loyal customer. I mean, when I toured stores, all I heard was how much they love Kohl's. And what I realized is that we're kind of making it hard for them to love us a little bit, right? And with that being said, you could just see the opportunity in front of us as far as how we offer the customer value and product.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

And I just knew that we could do better and I think the customers expect us to do better. And and then I think the last thing that really kind of got me was I was amazed at our associates in the field, how committed they were and how they were just truly customer focused. So that's I mean, that's actually very harder to create, I think, in retail sometimes. So it's this very dedicated associate base that really wants to serve customers. And so I know if you have that and you can offer the right value proposition, I knew it could turn.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

It's going to take a little time. The things I laid out, they're really short term and tactical in that sense. I'm still creating the long term strategy and the greater value proposition. But if you look at the three things we laid out, they're kind of no regret moves. I mean, really leaning into our proprietary brands, which our customers come to expect from us, reimplementing some of the categories we got out of.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

The categories we and the category we put in were the right ones. They attracted new customers. It was really I think in the execution of how we did it. We took away really productive space and product, which I think we could have done it probably a little bit differently and done both. So and then if you look at how we do omni channel, it's clear in our results that there's a bifurcation between us and our peers on our particular ecom business are performing.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

I was really pleased actually in the fourth quarter. We saw pretty good trends in our store base, which is kind of an anomaly in the retail landscape. That being said, we have solid bifurcation in the e comm business, which given my experience, I feel very confident over time that we can adjust that trend and get back in line with what we expect.

Mark Altschwager
Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

Thank you for that. And just a follow-up, I guess, either for Ashley or Jill. What are the implications from a margin perspective as you aim to elevate the quality of the private brands while also broadening the brand inclusion with the promotional offers? And on the promotional offer side, what has been the feedback from your brand partners initially? Thank you.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Well, I mean, if you look at Howard I mean, we started the proprietary private brand and it's really been Q4 before I got here and the customer was resonating. We kind of lost Trip Assurance on basically the key basics. So it's not really private versus national. It's really just reserving, I would think, from an inventory level, what our customers expect our core customers around our proprietary brands. So and how do we get there from a discounting perspective?

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

How we do promotions and where we put our markdowns? I think there's a lot of opportunity and particularly how we allocate product and where we send product. There's a lot of opportunity on the efficiency of that. And we could take a lot of costs out of that and put that into the price point. But over time, if you just look at it, our mix of what has been excluded from the coupon has gotten too high and that's clear.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

I mean, without a there's really little doubt from the customer perspective, particularly our core loyals customer that we've excluded too many brands from that, which then has an impact on obviously how they view value from us. And I don't think I think we can do both and we've done it in the past. If you look at the mix between proprietary and national brands, obviously proprietary brands have better margin mix. We've been I guess creates a lot of fuel for productivity on price. So, it's going to take a lot of time to get there because I mean if you think about it, we've already bought pretty much through Q3.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

So, I'm not saying this is an overnight piece, but I'll know how we get there over time as the mix changes and we can drive natural brands while we increase our proprietary brands.

Mark Altschwager
Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

Thank you and best of luck. Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Dana Telsey from Telsey Group. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Dana Telsey
CEO and Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

Hi, good morning everyone. Ashley, welcome to Kohl's. And as you think about the store profile, we just heard about the 27 store closings that was announced like a month or so ago. How do you think of the store base? What are you looking for?

Dana Telsey
CEO and Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

We always knew that they were profitable stores. What's the right mix to be both size and number? And then as you look at the merchandise assortment, given the reset that's going on, and we've been through active, we've been through numbers of different things, what do you want the mix to look like and what kind of margins do you think is attainable for the business? Thank you.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

I mean, there's very, very few stores that are not for all profitable. So we're really blessed in that sense. We have a very productive prototype, particularly our main 80,000 plus prototype. It's very productive and very profitable. As we look at so I don't really see obviously, we always do have healthy evaluation every year of our store base.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

But going into it, there's very, very few that are not profitable at this point. So with that being said, if you look at inside the box, right, how we allocate space among categories and products and adjacencies, I think we've lost a little bit of discipline on that part and there's a lot of opportunity. I mean, just a simple thing we've done just recently before I got here is realigning casual pants next to the dress pants and you saw an increase, right? It's just the traditional how the customer shops and the adjacency piece. As far as margin piece, I'm not going to give you the forecast portion.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

But like I said, it's a very productive box. I mean, we're still thinking through the smaller format piece as how we the build out cost and the productivity of that. Obviously, we built several in the last few years. I think it's still a work in progress on the $33,000 The $55,000 actually are doing pretty well. I still have a lot of opportunity I think on how we do the build out and the return.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

But we're still learning. But our work works are still the 80,000 and it's a highly productive prototype.

Dana Telsey
CEO and Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

Got it. Thanks. And just any comments on your customer, what you're seeing from the customer, how they performed exiting the fourth quarter and what you're looking for them going forward? Thank you.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

I mean, if you break down the customer, I think from a macro perspective, you see a pretty decent bifurcation among income level. We don't see it too much geographically per se. But when you look at income level, if you're making less than 50, that consumer is pretty constrained from a discretionary standpoint. If you're making less than 100, it's also pretty challenging. And you see that very clearly in numbers.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

And obviously, we hear the inflation numbers, they're coming down or 2% to 3%, but they're still pretty elevated from a particularly from a grocery and rent perspective over the last few years because they haven't actually deflated. So and I'm not sure wages have kept up with that. So in that if you're in that income cohort, which we do have a decent portion of our customer base in that, it's a headwind from a macro perspective. You definitely see that in them. They're seeking out value.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

You see it in the mix of the product we're selling. You see it in the promotions that we are doing. They're definitely seeking value. I don't think we're an anomaly in that if you listen to the other retailers that have come before us and now they keep talking about people are looking for value. And that will probably expand probably across income cohorts over the next probably three or four months, I would assume.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

And I think that's really how we're positioning ourselves, which I'll let off in quality and value, which I think will resonate with our customers, particularly in this time.

Dana Telsey
CEO and Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

Thank you.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

You

Operator

Our next question comes from Oliver Chen from TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Oliver Chen
Managing Director - Retail, Luxury, New Platforms Sector Head at TD Cowen

Thanks so much. Hi, Ashley. We were curious about which initiatives would be earlier versus later. And what's your take on what might be more difficult to achieve versus lower hanging fruit? And Jill, you've had the experience of many changes at Coles over the years as well as management.

Oliver Chen
Managing Director - Retail, Luxury, New Platforms Sector Head at TD Cowen

What are your thoughts about how this may be different and comparing it and contrasting it to aspects of the past? And Jill, as we model free cash flow, it's certainly less than last year. Are there puts and takes in networking capital and CapEx that we should know about to help inform the decline? We're modeling like less than half of the free cash flow this year versus last. Thank you.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Yes. I mean, like I referenced, it's going to take some time. Obviously, the three things I laid out in 2025 are, I call them almost tactical short term no regret moves. I mean, it's a long lead time business. The main base has been around.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

We're looking at nine months in some cases to get product in. So the things that we have the changes that we are implementing will take a little bit of time, right? We probably won't even see the initial thing until next year. Obviously, there's a lot of things around how we operate the store from a cost perspective, how we do promotions, how we do some of our pricing and the proprietary mix are more short term. The longer term piece around the value proposition and how we go to market, we're still developing.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

But like I said, this is a long lead time business. And so it takes a little bit of time to turn the ship, just the nature of how the product flows and it works.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

And in terms of free cash flow, Oliver, I think what we're going to see this year is obviously we came into the year with our inventory up a little bit as we're building back into our proprietary brands. We talked on the call that January was actually our strongest month. We said we had a strong start to February. So as we build back into that brand portfolio, we're seeing it really resonate with customers because it does give them value. So as we're doing that, we're not going to get as much benefit out of inventory, particularly in the front half of the year.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

We'll continue to work that down and I'll expect by for the full year inventory turn will be flat, which does mean our receipts will have to be down, but you'll see that be a progressive decline in receipts as the year moves on. So you won't get as much of a working capital benefit from inventory in 2025 as you did in 2024.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Okay.

Oliver Chen
Managing Director - Retail, Luxury, New Platforms Sector Head at TD Cowen

And Jill, what's your context for the nature of what needs to be done now relative to your experience?

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Yes. I think that how Ashley has outlined it, some of the steps we took were probably a little too far and we really, polarized our core customer and they're the ones who took some of the brunt from it. You see that a little bit on the credit side, particularly in the credit revenue. That customer really came to look for value, wanted to use their coupon, wanted the familiarity of brands that we actually took away from them. They over penetrated in jewelry or petite.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

So some of those actions, I think, were harmful to that poor customer. So we need to move back and build that brand love with them again. What I would say is we did bring in a lot of new customers. I mean, obviously, support was helpful from that perspective and we're driving those customers into our loyalty program. But we really just really need to establish that, we have a great experience when you come to the store.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

We have Trip Assurance so that we have that depth of inventory. When you come to the store, you can get what you're looking for. And we have the brands that you've come to love and look at for Kohl's from a value perspective. So I think again, just some of the basics, but I think as we moved farther away from that, that was what really became harmful and it really became in that core customer from our perspective that we have to bring back in.

Oliver Chen
Managing Director - Retail, Luxury, New Platforms Sector Head at TD Cowen

Okay. And finally, just to follow-up, Ashley, as you think about value intensely, what's the interplay between supply chain speed and agility relative to value? I think we're in a permanent phase of like unprecedented levels of volatility, which may require shorter lead times, but I know you're often balancing that against price and transport costs. Thanks.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

I mean, it's a really good question. Obviously, I mean, what I've noticed over the last, I call it, three to four years is the semi shocks seem to be more frequent over time, particularly from a supply chain and the way the world supply chains are becoming kind of rethought and obviously rebuilt. I was very pleased when I got here that Kohl's is actually kind of on the forefront of supply chain diversity and product assurance. I mean, they started really back in 2018, diversifying their supply base, which I would say is probably two to three years ahead of most people that I'm aware of. So I was very pleased that there was a really strategic plan dating all the way back probably to 2018 of having kind of a diverse and agile supply chain.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

And one of my biggest, I guess, impressive parts is how well our supply chain actually works here at Kohl's. It is a well oiled machine. There's a lot of opportunity on the allocation part from, say, at the corporate side. As far as the supply chain piece, I've been very pleased with how this that part of the company operates. And like I said, I think it was they saw the dominoes falling well in advance and around how getting supply chain diversity around security and supply.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

So not really over indexed in the individual country, which has been quite helpful.

Oliver Chen
Managing Director - Retail, Luxury, New Platforms Sector Head at TD Cowen

Thank you. Best regards.

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Binetti from Evercore. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Michael Binetti
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking our question. Just a couple of tactical ones. Could you maybe help us can you speak to the expectations going forward for Sephora this year in both same store sales or store additions? I guess secondly, could you explain the comment that the changes the last few years have caused some friction with the legacy existing core Coles customer?

Michael Binetti
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Maybe your answer was embedded in a couple of the other answers you had here. I just wanted to ask specifically what you saw with that comment. And then also elaborate a little bit on the comment of how you're addressing promotions where there's a lot of efficiency, that you can take costs out, but push those savings into the price point just so we understand a little bit more tactically, what you mean by that. Thanks.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Yeah. So I think this year, we will complete we opened 140 stores in 2024. We'll complete our rollout this year in 2025 for the remaining stores. Those will all be small shops though because they're going to go into our smaller format stores. So the contribution from Sephora will become less.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Now we're excited that we actually saw a 13% comp in the quarter. It actually accelerated from Q3. So we continue to see it really resonate with our customer, particularly it's a trip driver for that customer. It's a new customer coming in and we see that customer about 35% of the time buying something else that while they're at Kohl's. So we have a big opportunity to continue to expand that basket.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

And I think that's where a lot of that opportunity lands. The newness continues to resonate. We called out a lot of great brands and I know we have newness as we come into 2025 as well that will help continue to drive that, but obviously won't have the continued contribution of having new store openings. So you'll see a little bit less of that contribution to the overall comp in 2025 just because you have less new stores opening this year than you did last year.

Michael Binetti
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Okay.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

And part two of that question, On the core customer piece, if you look at so when we added these initiatives over time, we took away, I would call it highly productive, highly incremental product. I mean, Sephora went in, it was actually wildly successful, brought in a new customer base, did all the metrics that you would expect it to do. And they've been a fantastic partner. It went into the jewelry section, right, which if you look at the way jewelry works, there really is no substitute. You come in for it.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

It's not like you're going to go buy, well, I'm going to go buy a shirt now. It was highly incremental and actually highly productive. Labor intensive, but highly productive. Instead of just moving that and I would say removing duplicative or duplicated product elsewhere or less productive space on the floor, it was just gotten rid of, right? Well, that's a core customer that really there's no other place for it to go.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

And then you replicate that among petites, big and tall. And you have this kind of a rolling piece of where the ideas that were put in were right. I think it goes back to how you reallocate the space from a data perspective, and making sure you're looking at penny profit incrementality. Because petite, again, it's 100% incremental because you can't really find that product anywhere else because of the size fit piece. So, the ideas were good.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

I think we could have done both if you look in retrospect, obviously, easily when you're sitting here in my chair years later. But it definitely caused friction over time with our core customer that was used to that product, even though we attracted different customers.

Michael Binetti
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Got it. And then the promotion comment?

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

And your question on promotional comment, it was?

Michael Binetti
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

I just wanted to see if you could elaborate on the comment that you see an opportunity to make the promotions efficient, take some of the costs out and push that, those savings into the price point. Just for us spreadsheet folks, what does that actually mean a little bit more tactically on a retail floor? Thanks.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Well, probably my comments probably won't help you with your spreadsheet. But, from philosophically though, if you look at what we promote, how we promote it, the depth of what we promote it and the efficiency and the incrementality of it, you get a little bit of a peanut butter spreading across many categories where some are actually way more elastic than others too. We tend to give away a lot of, I'll call it, markdowns at the register. If you look at tactically how we do it, the customer comes in, is not asking for that deal and we tend to give it to them. And so if you think about those two components, you're spending a lot of money at the point where the customer really doesn't is not asking for that as opposed to then putting it into things that are highly elastic that the customer is really looking for.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

So, there's some interesting ways that we operate and it's just a legacy way of doing it. It's pretty typical sometimes when you see it in retail, but you can take that money and probably get a higher return that the customers recognize more versus probably just at the register. Okay.

Michael Binetti
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

All right. Thanks a lot, guys. I appreciate the help.

Operator

Our next question comes from Ashley Helgans from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Ashley Helgans
Senior Vice President at Jefferies & Company Inc

Hi. Thanks for taking our questions.

Ashley Helgans
Senior Vice President at Jefferies & Company Inc

So

Ashley Helgans
Senior Vice President at Jefferies & Company Inc

to start, maybe you could just talk about, what sort of kind of consumer health level is embedded in the guide for this upcoming year? And then Ashley for you, how are you thinking about the right mix of private label versus national brands? Thanks.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Sure. I think overall, we know that there's a lot of uncertainty with the customer and we try to definitely take a prudent approach with our guidance. So really our outlook both recognizes the time needed that we have to make the necessary changes that we've outlined today as well as the uncertainty that consumer is facing in the macro environment. And And I think that's why we came out a little bit lower to make sure that we were addressing that uncertainty and the time needed. So I would say it's incorporated in everything we gave you today.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

It's a very common question. What's the right mix and what is your target? In my twenty plus years, I have found that to be a very dangerous thing to actually throw out, particularly to merchandisers here in retail because you can tell them to hit a target and they will hit a target. What I would say would be the customer will decide the mix in the end. I think there will always be a place for high quality, high value proprietary brands and then putting that in front of the customer along with pretty quality national brands that people recognize.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

And then you let the customer decide. Historically, when you set kind of artificial targets that this category is going to be 20% or 30%, I think it kind of takes the customer lens out and you're kind of forcing that upon the customer a little bit. So ultimately, I think the customer decided I used to get the question all the time like what does your e com mix want it to be? What's your store mix want it to be? Whatever the customer our job is to meet the customer wherever they want to be met, and we can do a better job of that.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

But I won't give a target because then they'll just hit it. What I want them to do is offer great products at great values and then let the customer decide, and then tell them effectively. I know that sounds like probably not what you're looking for, but that's really the answer that is deserved for this organization for sure.

Ashley Helgans
Senior Vice President at Jefferies & Company Inc

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator

Our next question comes from Chuck Grom from Gordon Haskett. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Chuck Grom
Senior Analyst at Gordon Haskett Research Advisors

Hey, thanks very much. Regaining traction with lost customers can be hard and oftentimes can take a long time. I'm curious what steps you're taking to improve on this front. You talked about rebuilding the private brand mix. I'm just curious what else you can do to go back to those customers.

Chuck Grom
Senior Analyst at Gordon Haskett Research Advisors

You have a big file. How are you attacking that? And is there a cost associated with that as well?

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Yes. It's good. I mean, obviously, it's easier to keep a customer and regain it historically, right, in retail. First, we actually have to make the changes. I'm going to start with that.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

We actually have to go back to proprietary brands. We have to put the categories back effectively in the store base. We have to get the brands that our customers want back on the coupon. And then we have to effectively tell them. The great news is we have a large, very large customer file that's still existing.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

We have a large database of active and deactivated customers that we can still reach out to. That part will take a little time. I don't think there's that much incremental cost associated with it given our marketing budget, but that part will take a little bit of time. You have to do the first part before you can tell them. I think the worst thing you could do is tell them there's something different when it hasn't changed yet, which you can see that in the history of retail to be very a precarious situation.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

So, for us, it's about getting the proposition right and then bringing them back, not in the reverse order.

Chuck Grom
Senior Analyst at Gordon Haskett Research Advisors

Okay. Fair enough. And then on the store fleet, you're closing 27 stores. A lot of your peers are more aggressive on that front. I'm curious, like what was the logic behind the 27?

Chuck Grom
Senior Analyst at Gordon Haskett Research Advisors

And I guess, why not close more stores? And I guess, are you prohibited because of the Sephora deal to closing stores, so that's why you're not getting more aggressive on that front?

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Yes. Chuck, I'll start. I think we've always talked about the fact that our fleet is incredibly healthy and we didn't have a lot of stores that were underperforming. We're generating four wall cash, four wall profit out of the vast majority of all of our stores. There's really not a need to close the stores.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

I look at these 27 stores as hygiene and that's something we should be doing all the time. We look at it annually, we look at the stores that are underperforming and we're closing those regardless. There's no limitations on which we could close and what makes the most sense. I think as we come up in the next several years, we have a lot of leases coming due, which then affords you an opportunity to relook at should we be relocating that store, downsizing that store, closing that store. But typically, because we're generating profit and cash in these stores, it's a pretty easy decision to continue moving forward.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

As Ashley mentioned, we could make the four walls more productive inside them. But as it sits today, there's just not a reason to have to make a lot of closures. In fact, I think as you look forward, we're testing into these small store formats. We've talked a lot about the $55,000 and $35,000 So it's more about where and how can we expand once we figure out the four walls of our box to say how can we get into some of these more rural markets that we know, we have opportunities to serve with our format.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Matthew Boss from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Matt Boss
Matt Boss
Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan

Great. Thanks. So, Jill, could you speak to the overall health and composition of inventories exiting the fourth quarter? And then just with the cost structure, maybe if you could speak to further areas of rationalization or is 1% to 2% still the comp required for SG and A leverage in the model?

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Sure. I think from an inventory perspective, I feel really good with the health. Although it was up 2% as we mentioned, we made that investment back into our proprietary brands and also actually into some of the brands we exited like jewelry, we did have a strong presence of that in the fourth quarter. We thought resonate with our customers and as we talked about we saw a flat comp in accessories without Sephora by going back to that category. So I think as we move into the first quarter, we have an opportunity both with Valentine's Day and Mother's Day to take advantage of that category.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

So I feel good with the health and the composition of the inventory. Like I mentioned, we're going to continue to rationalize our receipts based on the sales guidance we gave today and for the year looks for our turn to be flat. But I feel like we've done everything we need to do from a health of inventory as we entered into the year to set us up well for '25. In terms of the cost structure, obviously with the guidance, down, we're down 3.5% to 5%. So we are showing both in 2024 and 2025, we've cut costs at a more aggressive rate than the typical 1% to 1.5% comp leverage point that we've given you.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

So I think if you run your model, you'll see we'll be well beyond that with the guide that we gave for 25%. So I think as we look at these opportunities, we continue to we closed an EFC, we closed the 27 stores, we've done some headcount rationalization as well. So we continue to look for big ways to optimize. As we move into 2025, we have some other areas such as lowering our marketing costs. We've talked about, you know, moving that A2S goal down year on year to become more efficient there.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

So we'll continue to lean into that. And always looking for ways to optimize our store payroll. We still have two fifty stores with self checkout. So as we test and learn there, how can we become more efficient from that labor pool as well. And then as we have been rationalizing down the inventory, that also alleviates labor both in our distribution and in our stores.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

And so those type of items will continue, as we move into 2025. So I think the point that I like looking at is one to one half comp, but we've clearly done better than that in 2024 and the guidance we gave for 2025.

Matt Boss
Matt Boss
Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan

Helpful color. Best of luck.

Operator

Our last question today will come from Brooke Roach from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Brooke Roach
Brooke Roach
Vice President - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

Good morning and thank you for taking our question. Ashley, I was hoping we could follow-up on Mark's question and speak to the process of reversing the brand exclusions on the coupon program. What does that look like in practice? And are you seeing any headway on brand conversations in getting those exclusions removed? And then for Jill, I was hoping you could provide some additional color on what you're seeing in your credit business, excluding the accounting change.

Brooke Roach
Brooke Roach
Vice President - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

How is the co branded partnership scaling? And how should we be thinking about the contribution from balances and your credit customer health? Thank you.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

That's a great question. I mean, we're currently in the process of evaluating every brand. Obviously, some brands that we've carried have always been excluded. I'm not going to sit here and say that we're taking them all off. Actually, they'll always be very large national brands that will always be excluded.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

I won't name them, but those are but there were over the last, I don't know, several years, there have been many, many brands that didn't ask to be excluded. We excluded them unilaterally, if that makes sense. And you do a little bit every year over the last three to four or five years, and it adds up pretty quickly. And those are really the brands I'm talking about. Our larger from the larger brands that's always been excluded, I don't really see a change in that value proposition.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

But there's hundreds upon hundreds of brands that we unilaterally did, that our customers over time added up and say, well, this is becoming too excluded when you add up all the product. And those are the ones we're actually looking at. And it doesn't really require that much of a conversation because they didn't ask for it and sometimes they actually have asked us to repeal it. So those are the easier ones. Obviously, we'll have strategic conversations, joint business planning with our much larger national brands and see where they are strategically.

Ashley Buchanan
CEO at Kohl’s

I don't see that those worlds will change that much in the short term. But those are between they're really on joint business planning together and how we drive our brand and their brand together. But over time, we've just excluded unilaterally a lot of brands and those are the ones that I will actively look at on a more immediate basis.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

Sure. And in terms of credit, as we called out with our sales being softer, we saw that softness more in our core customer, particularly in our credit customer. So that has been the softness that we've talked about in our credit revenue line as that AR balance has kind of continued to be reduced as the sales have down. We have less revolving balances. So that I think as we projected, we go back into 2025.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

The SG and A shift obviously makes that revenue look lower in 2025. Without that shift, our credit revenue would be better than the sales comp guide that we had given from a decreased perspective. In terms of the co brand, we actually just fully completed, the co brand conversion to CAP1 in February. So that's been successfully completed from that perspective. We did see though that we gave a little bit less line increases with this last cohort than we had done with the original cohort we had done.

Jill Timm
Chief Financial Officer at Kohl’s

And when we do that, we feel a little bit less spend. As the, I think, macro environment gets better, that provides us an opportunity to have a line increase, which will help generate more sales from that perspective. But I would say right now, we have an opportunity in front of us to really generate more sales for that core customer in general, which would then help lift our total credit revenue as we move forward. But obviously in the guide, we're looking at, this being a little bit better than what we had seen from a total sales perspective ex the SG and A shift.

Brooke Roach
Brooke Roach
Vice President - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator

We are out of time for questions today. This will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Kohl's Q4 2025
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