Educational Development Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 19, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Negative Sentiment: Revenue and active brand partners declined sharply in the fourth quarter, with net revenues falling to $4.2 million from $6.6 million and average active PaperPie brand partners dropping to 4,500 from 9,400 year over year.
  • Negative Sentiment: The company reported a net loss of $3.1 million in Q4, including a $1.0 million tax expense driven by a one-time $1.5 million valuation allowance adjustment.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Management is in the middle of a turnaround plan centered on inventory replenishment, including new titles and best-selling out-of-stock items that are now starting to arrive and are expected to support future sales.
  • Positive Sentiment: The March join special added almost 1,400 new brand partners, which management said shows renewed interest in the business and could help improve recruiting and sales momentum in fiscal 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: EDC ended the year with $7 million of cash flow from inventory reductions, reduced inventory to $37.7 million, and secured a new $2 million line of credit with no covenants to support growth.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Educational Development Q4 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Speaker 4

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Educational Development Corporation's financial and operating results for its fiscal fourth quarter and full year results. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. On the call today are Craig White, President and Chief Executive Officer; Heather Cobb, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer; and Dan O'Keefe, Chief Financial Officer. After the market closed this afternoon, the company issued a press release announcing its results for the fiscal 2026 fourth quarter and year-end results. The release will be available after today on the company's website at www.edcpub.com. Before turning to the prepared remarks, I would like to remind you that some of the statements made today will be forward-looking and are protected under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Speaker 4

Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied due to a variety of factors. We refer you to Educational Development Corporation's recent filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the company's financial condition. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Craig White, the company's President and Chief Executive Officer. Craig, please go ahead.

Operator

Thank you, Alan, and welcome everyone to the call. We appreciate your continued interest. I will start today's call with some general comments regarding the quarter, then I will pass the call over to Dan to run through the financials. After which, Heather will provide an update on sales and marketing and IT projects, and then I will provide an update on our plans for fiscal 2027. Much of our fourth quarter was focused on our turnaround plan of selecting and ordering critical inventory. During the quarter, we began a conservative purchasing plan to replenish some of our best-selling out-of-stock items, as well as purchase new titles. To remind everyone, it takes anywhere from four to six months from the time we issue a purchase order until the product is received and available for sale.

Operator

I am pleased to report that we have received some of these replenishment and new titles, and I've seen the excitement this has created in both our sales divisions. We are still expecting most of these new titles over the next few weeks and plan to showcase them at our annual convention in June. Heather will talk more about this in her marketing update. As I've said before, our turnaround plan was not an overnight change, but a carefully developed plan for growth over the next few quarters and years. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Dan O'Keefe to provide a brief overview of the financials.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Craig. To start, our fourth quarter summary compared to the prior year fourth quarter, net revenues for the quarter were $4.2 million compared to $6.6 million. Average active PaperPie brand partners totaled 4,500 compared to 9,400. Loss before income taxes were $2.1 million, a $600,000 decline over the prior fiscal fourth quarter. Income tax expense for the quarter was $1 million due to a one-time valuation allowance of $1.5 million. Net loss for the quarter totaled $3.1 million, a decline of $1.8 million over the prior year fiscal fourth quarter. Loss per share totaled $0.37 compared to a loss per share of $0.16 on a fully diluted basis. Next to the fiscal year summary compared to the prior year.

Speaker 1

Net revenues of $22.9 million compared to $34.2 million. Average active PaperPie brand partners totaled 5,800 compared to 12,300. Earnings before income taxes totaled $5.3 million, excluding the gain on the building sale of $12.2 million. The loss before income taxes were $6.9 million. Income tax expense was $3 million, with an effective tax rate of 56.5% due to a one-time valuation allowance of $1.5 million. Net earnings totaled $2.3 million. Earnings per share totaled $0.27 compared to a loss of $0.63 last year on a fully diluted basis. Now for an update on our working capital.

Speaker 1

Inventory levels decreased from $44.7 million at the beginning of the fiscal year to $37.7 million at the end of the fiscal year, generating $7 million of cash flow from inventory reductions. At the end of the fiscal year, the company had approximately $1.3 million of cash on our balance sheet. I would also like to mention some unusual accounting adjustments made during the fourth quarter. First, due to our accounting policy surrounding classification of long-term inventory, coupled with our decline in sales, we made a $3.6 million reclass of inventory during the fourth quarter from current inventory to long-term inventory. The reclass had no P&L impact, as it only means that we have a longer-term supply of titles we continue to sell each month based on current sales volumes.

Speaker 1

As sales increase, we expect more and more inventory to be reclassed from long-term inventory to current inventory. Due to our historical losses prior to the fiscal 2026, our operational expectations during our turnaround period, we evaluated the need for a valuation allowance offsetting our net deferred tax assets. Based on this evaluation, we recognized a one-time valuation adjustment of $1.5 million to offset our net deferred tax assets. This adjustment had no cash flow impact, had a direct impact on our fourth quarter tax expense, net earnings, and earnings per share. When the company returns to profitability, this valuation adjustment will be reversed.

Speaker 1

The reversal will have no cash flow impact, but will have a direct impact to our tax expense, net earnings, and earnings per share. This concludes the financial update. I'll now turn the call over to Heather Cobb for a sales, marketing, and IT update. Heather?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Dan. While our current results reflect the challenges of the past two years, we remain confident in both the direction of our strategy and the opportunity ahead of us. One of the clearest drivers of future growth for our business is growth on our PaperPie side through the brand partner community. As our active brand partner count increases, we count on that momentum to positively impact sales, customer engagement, and overall business performance. For that reason, much of our sales and marketing focus in fiscal 2027 is centered on attracting, onboarding, and retaining new brand partners while also continuing to engage existing leaders and teams.

Speaker 2

We were encouraged by the response to our March join special, which produced meaningful engagement, adding almost 1,400 new brand partners, showing that there is still strong interest in our opportunity when paired with the right timing, messaging, and product excitement. We have additional strategically timed initiatives planned throughout the year that are designed to support both recruiting and sales activities. At the same time, we are being intentional about protecting the long-term value of our products and our brand. We believe there is an important balance between offering thoughtful promotions or sales that meet consumer expectations while avoiding excessive discounting that can weaken our overall brand perception over time. Our strategy moving forward is focused on creating excitement and urgency in purposeful ways while continuing to reinforce the quality, educational value, and uniqueness of our product offering.

Speaker 2

We also believe we are well-positioned within a growing cultural shift toward more intentional and analog experiences. Parents and families are increasingly looking for opportunities to disconnect from constant screen time and reconnect through hands-on learning, reading, creativity, and meaningful interaction. That trend aligns directly with who we have always been as a company. Our mission of creating the story of tomorrow through people, purpose, and products continues to resonate, and we believe our educational books, games, and learning resources meet an important need in today's marketplace. As Craig mentioned earlier, the arrival of new titles and replenishment inventory has already generated renewed excitement across both of our sales channels. Combined with our continued investment in technology and enterprise-level initiatives, we believe we are building a stronger foundation for long-term growth.

Speaker 2

Our IT and marketing teams are actively developing tools and platform enhancements designed to simplify how brand partners share our products while also creating a more seamless and enjoyable customer experience. Upcoming initiatives include a variety of platform enhancements focused on improving product discovery, streamlining and personalizing the customer journey, expanding functionality for both brand partners and customers, and supporting long-term engagement and retention. While we continue to adapt to changes in consumer behavior and the direct selling landscape as a whole, our overall strategy remains consistent. Increase our retail presence, strengthen the brand partner experience, provide exceptional products that support literacy and learning, and create sustainable growth through community, connection, and product sharing. One of the best ways that we do that, and Craig referenced it earlier, is through our national convention that happens each year.

Speaker 2

Next month, we will have several hundred brand partners come into Tulsa to hear from speakers like Rory Vaden, 2 of our Kane Miller author and creators, and we'll spend an entire weekend focusing on solving the problem of disconnection with a way to connect with both their customers, new hosts, and next team member. We understand that turnarounds take time, and we are encouraged by the progress that we are making and confident in the path ahead. Our team remains deeply committed to the mission of this company, and we believe that that commitment, combined with strategic execution and renewed sales force growth, positions us to build momentum throughout fiscal 2027 and beyond. Now, I will turn the call back over to Craig.

Operator

Thank you, Heather and Dan. As Dan mentioned, we had some unusual adjustments during the quarter, expect these to improve our results in the future with the execution of our turnaround plan. During the last couple of years, we have been challenged to operate our business under restrictions from our bank. I am excited about the position we are in today and the plan for growth in fiscal 2027. We need to execute on our plan that increases sales and therefore cash, we're putting the most focus on increasing our brand partner counts and retaining existing brand partners. Over the last two years, our sales force has been anxious and waiting to see what will happen. A major factor for the reduced activity has been the lack of new products for them to get excited about for the last two years.

Operator

As I mentioned initially, we have already received a few of these new titles and are seeing the sales excitement from both of our sales channels. We have continued to work with our book vendors and are very excited about what has recently been presented to us for release in the new year. As always, and as you heard extensively from Heather, increasing our brand partner count is a big part of our overall strategy, and that means putting consistent effort toward attracting Gen Z. This new generation is challenging, not just for our company, but all companies in the direct selling industry to revise their recruiting and engagement methods. Many of our recent IT initiatives are focused on getting Gen Z to join as new brand partners by making it easier to do business with us.

Operator

They work and shop differently, and we are well-positioned to meet them where they are. These are revisions to our existing model, but certainly not an overhaul. We are evaluating programs and systems that haven't brought enough of a return and trying new tactics in new markets. We are embracing AI not as a strategy to eliminate or replace employees, but to become more effective so that as we grow, we do not have to hire as many new employees. We are already seeing returns in system development or coding and basic inquiries through support tickets. I also want to make sure everyone understands that we expect to generate cash flow from inventory reductions to fund operations. Having said this, we executed a new agreement for a $2 million line of credit with our new bank to ensure we have the cash needed for growth.

Operator

Although we are currently not using the line and have a higher cash balance than we had at year-end, this line ensures we can capitalize on new opportunities. Also, at the end of the fiscal year, as the next step in our turnaround plan, we executed a strategic restructuring of our office and warehouse staff, including executive pay reductions, a small reduction in force, along with other expense reductions. Lastly, I want to thank all of our shareholders for their patience, our employees, customers, and brand partners for their commitment to our mission, and our vendors for their willingness to stick with us. I am confident in our collective ability to emerge stronger and more resilient than ever before because I really believe we are tackling our growth plan from a position of strength.

Operator

While we are doing what we had to do to satisfy the bank, we are also thinking and planning for when we are out from under their control and continue to build. Now that we have provided a summary of some recent activity, I will now turn the call back over to Alan for question and answer. Alan?

Speaker 4

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Igor Novorotsev of Larus Capital. Your line is already open.

Speaker 3

Hello, thank you for taking my question and pronouncing my last name correctly. I have a few questions. I unfortunately cannot see for some reason your balance sheet on your press release. Could you talk a little bit how much inventory was reduced in this quarter? As related to this, how much was the cash flow from the inventory reduction or from operations?

Speaker 1

Hi, Igor. This is Dan O'Keefe. I'm sorry, I don't have that information for you right now. We will be filing the 10-K later today, and you can obviously glean that from the 10-K coming out.

Speaker 3

Okay, fair enough. Would it be fair to say that the cash flow still stayed positive in Q4?

Speaker 1

Well, Q4 is typically our softest quarter. That and the summer months, which is Q2, are our two softest quarters of the year. I would say that cash flow, you know, when you look at inventory reductions and our earnings before losses for the quarter would have been close to netting even.

Speaker 3

Okay. fair enough. I'll just wait for your 10-K. my next question is, I appreciate that you take a revolving loan just in case, and that's actually nice to know. Hopefully that points towards the improvement of your business. Are there any covenants on your revolving loan that if your business improves enough doesn't allow you to buy stock back or pay a dividend to the shareholders, or there is no such covenants?

Operator

There are no covenants with the new $2 million line of credit.

Speaker 3

Okay. Excellent. Again, it's a little bit too early. I understand you just removed your biggest problem as the overhang from the loan. Did you have already made any improvements to your inventory or your operations in this quarter or that you basically just didn't have a time or given that this is the weakest quarter traditionally, we will not see the results until the next quarter?

Operator

Okay. We touched on it briefly, but once we sold the building and knew we were gonna be able to resolve all of our debt with our previous bank, we executed a phase 1 of our purchasing plan, which is a very conservative half a million in purchases, which was executed in the 4th quarter. We're kinda just now seeing new titles come in. As we see the results of selling these new titles, we've already kind of started our phase 2, which is another half a million. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 3

Oh, yes, somewhat. Okay. Sorry, someone there was adding something, I believe.

Operator

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Yep.

Operator

No, that was it.

Speaker 3

No, can I just continue? Is it okay?

Operator

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I just run a quick numbers on your revenue per partner. I know that's an interesting trend. In the last 2 quarters, your revenue per partner actually increased. Like, if you do the comparable revenue per partner, it's actually increasing, and despite that the account of the non-partners is falling, the revenue is increasing. Is that because there is something operationally changed about the partners or simply the partners that remained are the most active ones?

Speaker 2

That's a great question. One of the trends that we're seeing that tends to mean slightly higher sales per brand partner is the growth in our in-person events that are happening, whether that's book fairs inside schools or in-person booths and things like that, which even goes back to what I mentioned in my report of moving from digital to analog. Some people are having even more in-person, in-home parties, which we haven't done in several years. We believe that that trend, that you are referencing points back to the growth of these in-person events.

Speaker 3

Okay. That's great to know. My last question, and hopefully it's not a long question, given that you have such a large inventory, do you consider any of your inventory unsellable, or you try to basically go for some inventory put through liquidation channels? You think that it's just slow-moving and it will just take time, but everything is potentially sellable still?

Operator

Yeah. We consider everything sellable still, and that's why I wanted to reiterate the move to long-term inventory. It's not that we're gonna have to write off anything at all. It's still all good sellable inventory. It's just gonna take a little longer. That being said, you know, we make mistakes in purchasing every now and again. It happens very, very rarely. We're kind of exploring the remainder market, but the returns are just not worth it. While we're looking into it's very unlikely that we'll participate in the remainder market. Yeah. We're looking at other creative marketing ways to move this inventory, and it's more of a kinda one-off here and there of the things that are, you know, more highly inventory.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you very much. I'll get back in the queue and maybe I'll ask questions if nobody else is asking.

Operator

Okay. Perfect. Thank you, Igor.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from Paul Carter of Capstone Asset Management. Your line is already open.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks very much. Hi, everybody.

Operator

Hello.

Speaker 5

Craig, your comment about exploring the remainder market, that was the first time I've heard you say that. Can you provide some numbers around that? Like, what percentage of your long-term inventory are you thinking about creative marketing ways such as that?

Operator

Yeah, no. The creative marketing ways were as opposed to the remainder market. We looked into it. It's just not worth our time. We're just gonna find other ways. As an example, just some quotes that we got back, we get, like, 2% of the retail price. It's just not even remotely worth it, so we're not gonna participate in that.

Speaker 2

Paul, I'll jump in too and say that in our meetings, one of the points of conversation that was important to us that may be important to you is, using our time and energy and resources on this as a potential short-term or one-off strategy didn't seem like our best use of resources. Since this wasn't going to be an ongoing strategy for us, once we discovered that it wasn't going to be worth it, we just aren't really pursuing it.

Speaker 5

Okay. Fair enough. Maybe, more to the point is of my question is sort of how much of your $37.7 million of inventory you would characterize as inventory that you don't necessarily, you know, that you would want to maybe get rid of if you could, obviously not through the remainder market. Obviously, you looked at the remainder market because you felt there was a sufficient amount of inventory that maybe you weren't going to move within the next few years. Can you just give some numbers around what that is?

Operator

No. It's roughly in the neighborhood of $500,000. I mean, it's not even a big part of our inventory.

Speaker 5

Okay. Okay. No, that's great. Then, Craig, you mentioned in the press release that throughout fiscal 2026, you continued to run promotions with discounted pricing, prioritizing cash flow, et cetera. I know that was obviously driven by the bank. Was that the case in Q4? Or maybe sorry, I missed a little bit of the earlier comment, so maybe you already touched on this. What was your gross margin change year-over-year in the fourth quarter compared to last year?

Speaker 1

Yeah, we haven't disclosed gross margin yet, Paul. I don't have that information right in front of me. I'm thinking back to the fourth quarter, Heather. Did we run some promotional sales in December, January, and February?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Well, I mean, there's always some sort of, you know, saving shelf type promotions. It's not one of the quarters that we typically do large sales. I will say that oftentimes our Black Friday sale trickles over into the fourth quarter just because of when the date falls on the calendar. That, that can have some impact there.

Speaker 5

But would you say that the-

Speaker 2

Yeah

Speaker 5

whatever promotional activity you have been experiencing obviously is not, you're not feeling the pressure of the bank anymore, that level of promotional activity is kind of back to quote normal, would you say?

Speaker 2

Yeah. That's kind of what I was alluding to when I talked about, you know, trying to meet consumer expectations, which even on the other side of it, as a consumer, I like to shop a good sale. You know, putting out there the fact that our books are so reasonably priced, with an average price point hovering right around, if not below $10, not discounting ourselves in the value that we can offer even at regular price. We're trying to temper that by not throwing as many large scale promotional sales out at them, but more falling in line with the traditional timing of a Black Friday sale or, you know, a summer blowout or something like that. That's kind of expected, but not negatively impacting our business side of things.

Speaker 5

Okay. Then just lastly, regarding your brand partner count, admittedly 4,500 is lower than I would have thought at the beginning of the year if you'd asked me a couple of years ago. That's obviously a pretty low number when looking at your history. It sounded like the March joint special that you mentioned, you were receiving positively. Is it kind of fair to expect that the current quarter, average active brand partner count might be higher than 4,500?

Speaker 2

The fourth quarter that we just reported on or the current quarter that we're working in?

Speaker 5

the quarter we're in right now, the March, April quarter.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I mean, as always, and you're familiar with how this works, we constantly have ins and outs of people coming. We have been energized and hopeful about what we saw with what happened in March, and are focusing even more than normal on, you know, not only bringing those people in, but also retaining them. I do think that we will see more of a balance shift to more coming and staying than we have leaving.

Speaker 5

Okay, great. That's it for me. Thanks very much, everybody.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Paul.

Speaker 4

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you have a question, please press star one. There are no further questions at this time. I would hand over the call to Craig White for closing comments. Please go ahead.

Operator

Yeah, I mean, it looks like maybe Igor jumped in late. Do we want to? I'm happy to take his question.

Speaker 4

Sure, no problem. I'll go ahead and select Igor Novorotsev of Larus Capital for the next question. Your line is already open.

Speaker 3

Oh, thank you so much. Sorry, I jumped in a little bit late. Yeah, just have a couple of follow-up questions. Now that you're gonna start getting finally new titles, what kind of gross margin you're thinking about if you just set the old titles aside? Just purely for the new titles, what would you consider like for your new business as acceptable gross margin?

Speaker 1

Well, you know, hopefully getting back to more business as usual, if we're not discounting. When we've talked about discounting to satisfy the bank, we're talking about 40%, 50%, 60% discounting, and that's absolutely not normal. If we do, you know, kind of some normal discounting to meet customers' expectations, it's gonna be in the 10%-15% range. Our gross margins are gonna be getting closer back to business as usual.

Speaker 3

What was your traditional margin like over the years?

Speaker 1

Igor, we have kind of a pretty simple model. As Heather said, our average book is $10. The average cost, landed cost of that book is $2.50. When we sell it through the retail division, like Barnes & Noble or Ingram or one of our retail customers, we sell that $10 book to them for $5, and they sell it for 10 to their customers, and they make $5, and we get $5 on that $2.50 book. When we sell it through PaperPie, we typically sell it for the retail price of $10, but we pay out commissions to the salespeople and overrides to the leadership team of about $5.

Speaker 1

In both sales channels, we get $5 for a $10 book that costs $2.50, and we have $2.50 to run our business on.

Speaker 3

Great. This is very, very helpful. My other question is.

Speaker 1

Did we lose you, Igor?

Speaker 2

Oh, it-

Speaker 1

I think he dropped off.

Speaker 2

I think we lost him.

Speaker 1

Well, all right. Somebody let Igor know he can email me.

Speaker 4

Sure. There are no further questions at this time. I would hand over the call to Craig White for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Operator

Yeah. I have nothing else to add. I appreciate everyone's questions and interest in the call, thank you for joining us. Have a good day. We'll talk to you in July. Thanks.

Speaker 4

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.

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