Live Ventures Q2 2026 Earnings Report

Live Ventures EPS Results

• Actual EPS: N/A
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Live Ventures Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Live Ventures Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2026
• Date: 5/14/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 14, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Live Ventures (NASDAQ:LIVE) is a diversified holding company that acquires, manages and grows businesses across multiple industry verticals. The company focuses on small- to mid-market enterprises in the United States, targeting sectors where it can leverage operational expertise to drive revenue growth and improve efficiencies. Live Ventures’ investment strategy centers on businesses in e-commerce and direct marketing, consumer finance, industrial products and energy services.

Among its key subsidiaries is Hanover Direct, a direct-to-consumer catalog and e-commerce retailer offering apparel, home décor and beauty products. Live Ventures also operates PeopleLoans.com, an online consumer lending platform providing personal loan solutions, and manages industrial and energy businesses that supply specialty materials and services to niche markets. Through these operating units, the company generates revenue from product sales, marketing services and loan origination fees.

Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Live Ventures trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol LIVE. Under the leadership of President and Chief Executive Officer Matthew Raczka, the company has pursued a roll-up strategy, completing a series of acquisitions to diversify its portfolio and expand its geographic reach. Live Ventures continues to evaluate new acquisition opportunities aimed at enhancing shareholder value and strengthening its market position in North America.

Live Ventures Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Neutral Sentiment: Live Ventures reported Q2 revenue of $102.9 million, down 3.8% year over year, as weakness in Retail Flooring and softer housing-related demand outweighed growth in Retail Entertainment and Steel Manufacturing.
• Positive Sentiment: Retail Entertainment delivered strong momentum, with revenue up 14.8% to $21.2 million and operating income growth of 32.8% on broad consumer demand across product lines.
• Negative Sentiment: Retail Flooring remained the biggest drag, with revenue falling 26.2% and operating loss widening by $1.9 million amid continued pressure in new home construction and home refurbishment markets.
• Negative Sentiment: The company recorded a $4 million non-cash goodwill impairment in Steel Manufacturing tied to lower production expectations and market uncertainty, which pushed quarterly operating results into a loss. Management said the charge has no cash or EBITDA impact.
• Positive Sentiment: Despite the weaker quarter, Live Ventures said it ended with $39.8 million in total cash availability and highlighted ongoing cost reductions, debt paydown of about $8 million year over year, and continued interest in acquisitions when attractive opportunities arise.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Live Ventures Fiscal Year 2026 Q2 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question-and-answer session. Now I'll turn the call over to your host, Greg Powell, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Greg.

[Greg Powell, Director of Investor Relations at Live Ventures]

Thank you, Elvis. Good afternoon, and welcome to the Live Ventures Second-Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 conference call. Joining us this afternoon are Jon Isaac, our Chief Executive Officer and President, and David Verret, our Chief Financial Officer. Some of the statements we're making today are forward-looking and are based on our best view of our businesses as we see them today. The actual results could differ materially due to a number of factors, including those outlined in our latest financials, Forms 10-K and Forms 10-Q, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

[Greg Powell, Director of Investor Relations at Live Ventures]

A matter of fact, our Form 10-Q will be filed here in a few minutes for this quarter. We have no obligation to publicly update our forward-looking statements after this call, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, or otherwise. You can find our press release referenced on this call in the investor relations section of the Live Ventures website. I direct you to our website, liveventures.com or sec.gov for our historical SEC filings. I will now turn the call over to David to walk us through our financial performance. David?

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Thank you, Greg. Good afternoon, everyone. Before discussing our financial results, I'd like to touch on a few key highlights from the quarter. During the quarter, our Retail-Entertainment and Flooring Manufacturing segments delivered strong operating income growth of 32.8% and 24%, respectively. However, these gains were offset by a $1.9 million increase in operating loss in the Retail-Flooring segment and a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of approximately $4 million in our Steel Manufacturing segment. Excluding the impairment charge, consolidated operating income would have been approximately $2 million, essentially in line with the prior-year period. Let's now discuss the financial results for the second quarter ended March 31st, 2026.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Revenue decreased approximately $4.1 million or 3.8% to $102.9 million compared to revenue of $107 million in the prior-year period. The decrease in revenue primarily reflects a decline of approximately $7.2 million in the Retail-Flooring segment, partially offset by an increase of approximately $2.7 million in the Retail-Entertainment segment. Retail-Entertainment segment revenue increased approximately $2.7 million or 14.8% to $21.2 million compared to $18.5 million in the prior-year period. The revenue growth was driven by strong consumer demand across all product lines. Retail-Flooring segment revenue decreased approximately $7.2 million or 26.2% to $20.2 million compared to $27.4 million in the prior-year period.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

The decline was primarily driven by lower retail and contractor sales due to the continued headwinds in the new home construction and home refurbishment markets. Flooring Manufacturing revenue decreased approximately $1 million or 3.2% to $30.3 million compared to $31.3 million in the prior-year period. The decline was primarily attributable to continued softness in the housing market. Net of intercompany eliminations, revenue decreased approximately $600,000 compared to the prior-year period. Steel Manufacturing segment revenue increased approximately $1.1 million or 3.4% to $32.5 million compared to the prior-year period. The increase in revenue was primarily driven by higher sales volumes in the fabricated hardened wear, tool, and die businesses, partially offset by lower revenue in the metal forming, assembly, and finishing solutions business.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Net of intercompany eliminations, revenue increased approximately $900,000 compared to the prior-year period. Gross profit decreased approximately $600,000 or 1.6% to $34.6 million compared to $35.1 million in the prior-year period. The decrease in gross profit was driven primarily by the lower revenues in the Retail-Flooring segment. Gross margin increased 80 basis points to 33.6% compared to 32.8% in the prior-year period, reflecting improved margins in the Steel Manufacturing, Flooring Manufacturing, and Retail-Flooring segments, as well as a more favorable revenue mix as the higher margin Retail-Entertainment segment represented a larger share of consolidated revenue. General and administrative expense decreased 2.3% to approximately $27.7 million.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

The decline was driven primarily by targeted cost reduction initiatives in our Retail-Flooring and our Flooring Manufacturing segments, including lower compensation expense and reduced professional fees, partially offset by increased compensation and occupancy costs in our Retail-Entertainment segment. Sales and marketing expense increased 3.4% to approximately $4.9 million, primarily reflecting higher sales and marketing activity in the Retail-Flooring segment. Operating loss was $2 million compared to operating income of $2.1 million in the prior-year period. The decrease was primarily driven by a non-cash goodwill charge of $4 million in the Steel Manufacturing segment. Excluding the non-cash goodwill impairment charge, consolidated operating income would have been $2 million compared to $2.1 million in the prior-year period. Interest expense remained consistent at approximately $3.9 million as compared to the prior-year period.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Net loss was approximately $2.4 million, and diluted loss per share was $0.80 compared with net income of approximately $15.9 million and diluted EPS of $5.05 in the prior-year period. The net loss for the quarter ended March 31st, 2026 includes the goodwill impairment charge as well as a $1.4 million gain related to employee retention credits in the Retail-Flooring segment. The prior-year period benefited from a $22.8 million gain related to the modification of the Flooring Liquidators seller note. Adjusted EBITDA was $5.9 million, a decrease of approximately $600,000 or 8.8% compared to the prior-year period. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to the lower gross profits.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Turning to liquidity, we ended the second quarter with total cash availability of approximately $39.8 million, consisting of cash on hand of $15.2 million and availability under our various lines of credit of $24.6 million. Our working capital was $74.4 million as of March 31st, 2026, compared to $62.1 million as of September 30, 2025. As of March 31st, total assets were $392.5 million, and total stockholders' equity was $92.9 million. In conclusion, this quarter demonstrated both the resilience of our business model and the ongoing challenges in the retail flooring market.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

We are focused on reducing costs and improving operations across our businesses, and we are pleased with the operating improvements in our Retail-Entertainment and Flooring Manufacturing segments. We remain committed to building on that progress in the second half of the fiscal year while driving further efficiencies in our Retail-Flooring business. We will now take questions from those of you on the conference call. Operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator]

If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your phone now and you'll be queued in order. Again, star one for a question, and we'll pause briefly to form our queue. First up, we have Joseph Kowalsky of JD Financial Planners.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Hello, Joe.

[Joseph Kowalsky, Analyst at JD Financial Planners]

Hi. Good afternoon, and thank you for the information. I hope there's not an echo here. I had to actually step out to a different room and had to leave the other phone. I'm just curious about the goodwill impairment. I generally understand accounting, but when it comes to things like goodwill, I always find it a little bit confusing. Could you go into just what exactly that refers to, please?

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Sure. For accounting purposes, you know, there's an annual goodwill test. Ours is in Q4. If there's ever a triggering event that happens before that or outside of that testing period, then you're required to do a kind of a impromptu test. Essentially, because of some of the loss in production that we're seeing, really stemming from a decline in the market, you know, namely, you know, this has to do with in our Steel Manufacturing with our stamping and metal forming business. A lot of what they do relates to appliances and automobiles and things like that. As we're seeing, our customers pull back because sales are lagging on their end, we're coming in lower than what we expected to produce in the period because they're adjusting their volume as they go. Really it's all stemming just from continued uncertainty in the market.

[Joseph Kowalsky, Analyst at JD Financial Planners]

Is that a paper loss, but you still have the revenues coming in?

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

That is correct. It is all just a paper loss. It has no impact on EBITDA. There is no cash aspect related to it. It is just a charge that kinda wipes out the goodwill. You know, in the old days, you used to amortize goodwill down over 15 years for book purposes. GAAP had changed that where you do not amortize it. The only way it ever comes off the books is if, I guess, you run through an impairment.

[Joseph Kowalsky, Analyst at JD Financial Planners]

I understand. Thank you for that. Has the company been considering acquiring anyone at this point, or is the focus on paying down the debt from prior acquisitions?

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Yeah, I think our strategy has remained the same. I think if there are good opportunities that are coming up, we're absolutely interested in looking at those. While there isn't anything out there, we are taking advantage of that time and paying down our debt. I believe our debt was paid down about $8 million from March of last year to the current year, so.

[Joseph Kowalsky, Analyst at JD Financial Planners]

Thank you. Then the final question is, when you are looking for other potential acquisitions, this is similar to a question I've asked in the past, maybe I'm looking at it a little differently. Do you tend to look in the same areas that you currently have companies, or are you looking more to diversify the portfolio into other areas, or does that just depend on what comes up in the market?

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

I think it depends on what comes up in the market, but I think what we've seen is as we begin to establish a presence in a certain market, i.e. like in the steel industry, we start to see more of opportunities just from our presence in that space. We will diversify. If there's something that kinda meets our criteria, then it doesn't matter the industry.

[Joseph Kowalsky, Analyst at JD Financial Planners]

There is actually one final question. You've had a couple of missteps in the past, and I just wonder what you can say you've learned from those missteps as far as acquiring companies in the future. Then I will be quiet and listen. Thank you very, very much.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Well, that's kind of a tough one right there. I just think, really, it's all just around due diligence. Every time there may be a little nuance related to an acquisition that we'll kind of pick up on and then try to fine-tune that kind of going forward. I mean, after every acquisition, I believe we get better. We get a little bit more knowledgeable. All we do is kind of look at, you know, what has happened, do a postmortem type of assessment on acquisitions and find out what worked and what didn't work. Just trying to build on the positives and mitigate those negative aspects.

[Joseph Kowalsky, Analyst at JD Financial Planners]

Okay, fair enough. Thank you very much.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Once again, everyone, press star one for a question. We have no further questions at this time. David, back over to you for any closing comments.

[David Verret, CFO at Live Ventures]

Thank you. I wanna thank everyone for joining our Q2 earnings call. We look forward to seeing you next quarter. Thank you.

[Operator]

That concludes our meeting today. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• David Verret, CFO
• Greg Powell, Director of Investor Relations

Analysts

• Joseph Kowalsky, Analyst at JD Financial Planners