BUILD-A-BEAR WORKSHOP INC (BBW)

Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

Cautionary Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The following Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements except as required by the federal securities laws. Our actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, those detailed under the caption “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026, as amended by Amendment No. 1, as filed with the SEC, and include the following:

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Business Overview

Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc., a Delaware corporation, was formed in 1997 as a mall-based, experiential specialty retailer for children. Build‑A‑Bear has evolved to become a leading global "retailtainment" brand on a mission to add a little more heart to life. At Build-A-Bear, guests are invited to create personalized furry friends through a unique stuffing, dressing, accessorizing and naming process, accentuated by a memorable Heart Ceremony that creates moments of connection for people of all ages. Over the years, Build‑A‑Bear has grown into a multi‑generational phenomenon, positioned at the intersection of pop‑culture trends. Beyond its signature retail experience, our brand also offers pre‑stuffed plush, gifting, partnerships with best‑in‑class licensed and collectible characters, and original storytelling through Build‑A‑Bear Entertainment, LLC.  Build‑A‑Bear’s current brand platform and message, “The Stuff You Love,” crosses ages and cultures while celebrating nearly 30 years of helping people mark life’s meaningful moments.

The Build-A-Bear brand has high consumer awareness and positive affinity, and we leverage our brand strength to expand the footprint of our retail experience locations through a range of store sizes, formats, and locations, including tourist destinations. In addition to growing our corporately-managed store footprint, we are also growing through partner-operated and franchise locations, particularly for our international expansion. Our ongoing digital transformation, which touches our e-commerce business, consumer loyalty program, and digital content, has led to omnichannel growth over the past several years. Build-A-Bear's pop-culture appeal plays a key role in expanding our total addressable market beyond children to teens and adults with sports licensing, collectible and gifting offerings, as well as to categories beyond plush.

As of August 1, 2026, the Company had 674 global locations through a combination of its corporately-managed, partner-operated, and franchise models. This reflects 379 corporately-managed locations,  including 337 stores in the United States (“U.S.”) and Canada and 42 stores in the United Kingdom ("U.K.") and the Republic of Ireland, 177 partner-operated locations in which we sell our products on a wholesale basis to other companies that then, in turn, execute our retail experience, and 118 international franchise locations, all under the Build-A-Bear Workshop brand. In addition to these locations, we sell products on our company-owned e-commerce sites and third-party marketplace sites, our franchisees sell products through sites that they manage as well as other third-party marketplace sites and other parties sell products on their sites under wholesale agreements. For fiscal year 2026 year-to-date, the Company achieved net new unit growth of 12 experience locations, comprising four corporately managed locations and nine international franchise locations, partially offset by one fewer partner-operated location compared with the prior fiscal year.

We operate in three segments that share the same infrastructure, including management, systems, merchandising and marketing, and generate revenues as follows:

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Results of Operations

Fiscal 2025 Overview

Our performance continues to reflect the success of our strategy which has allowed us to put the building blocks in place to develop a powerful platform to support our initiatives to deliver consistent profitable growth. We believe our elevated omnichannel business model, which includes a highly profitable e-commerce and experiential retail store base, complimented by diversified revenue streams and disciplined expense and balance sheet management, puts us in a solid position for continued future success. We delivered a full year pre-tax profit of $67.2 million, which was the highest in our company’s 28-year history. In response to a variety of external pressures including tariffs, changes in consumer shopping habits resulting in the rapid rise of the digital economy and shifting mall traffic patterns, we remained focused on accelerating and expanding our key initiatives by investing in and executing plans to improve operations and profitability. We believe that the majority of our positive performance was driven by the disciplined execution of our strategic initiatives, including leveraging our financial management to invest in growth initiatives, to contribute to an increase in total revenue of $33.4 million in fiscal 2025. We ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of $26.8 million with no outstanding borrowings on our credit facility. During fiscal 2025, the Company returned $39.0 million to shareholders through $27.5 million in share repurchases and $11.5 million in dividends.

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The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, selected statement of operations data expressed as a percentage of total revenues, except where otherwise indicated. Percentages may not total due to immaterial rounding:

Fiscal Year Ended January 31, 2026 Compared to Fiscal Year Ended February 1, 2025

Total revenues. Net retail sales were $486.0 million for fiscal 2025, compared to $460.3 million for fiscal 2024, an increase of $25.7 million or 5.6%, compared to the prior year. The components of this increase are as follows:

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The retail revenue increase was primarily the result of an increase in sales from corporately-operated retail locations through growth in the number of transactions, as our traffic outpaced national retail traffic data, and the opening of a net seven new corporately-managed locations in the fiscal year. The increased sales were partially offset by a decrease in web demand for the year.

Commercial revenue was $38.8 million for fiscal 2025 compared to $31.4 million for fiscal 2024, an increase of $7.4 million or 23.5%, primarily due to increased sales volume from our wholesale accounts through our partner-operated retail model.

Revenue from international franchising was $5.1 million for fiscal 2025 compared to $4.7 million for fiscal 2024. This $0.4 million or 8.5% increase was primarily due to having more stores in operation in 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 and the timing of product shipments.

Retail gross margin. Retail gross margin was $272.8 million in fiscal 2025 compared to $253.1 million in fiscal 2024, an increase of $19.7 million or 7.8%. As a percentage of net retail sales, retail gross margin increased to 56.1% for fiscal 2025 from 55.0% for fiscal 2024, or 110 basis points as a percentage of net retail sales. The increase in gross margin was the result of lower merchandise and freight costs partially offset by higher occupancy and tariff and related costs, net of mitigating actions.

Selling, general and administrative. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $229.2 million or 43.3% of consolidated revenue for fiscal 2025 as compared to $206.2 million or 41.5% of consolidated revenue for fiscal 2024. The increase in overall expense was driven by higher store-level wages due to minimum wage increases, higher corporate payroll and other costs and general inflationary pressures.

Interest income, net. For fiscal 2025, we had $0.8 million of interest income compared to $0.9 million of interest income in fiscal 2024.

Provision for income taxes. The provision for income taxes was $15.0 million in fiscal 2025 compared to $15.4 million in fiscal 2024. The 2025 effective rate of 22.3% differed from the statutory rate of 21% primarily due to state income tax expense partially offset by the benefit of the foreign-derived intangible income (FDII) deduction and discrete benefits related to settlement of prior period positions. The 2024 effective rate of 22.9% differed from the statutory rate of 21% primarily due to state income tax expense partially offset by the benefit of the FDII deduction.

Fiscal Year Ended February 1, 2025 Compared to Fiscal Year Ended February 3, 2024

Fiscal 2024 has a 52-week fiscal compared to fiscal 2023 which was impacted by an additional week as it was a 53-week period.

Total revenues. Net retail sales were $
460.3 million for fiscal
2024, compared to $
456.2 million for fiscal
2023, an increase of $
4.2 million or
0.9%, compared to the prior year. The components of this increase are as follows:

The retail revenue increase was primarily the result of an increase in sales from corporately-operated retail locations through growth in the number of transactions, as our traffic outpaced national retail traffic data, and the opening of a net nine new corporately-managed locations in the fiscal year. The increased sales were partially offset by impact of the 53rd week in 2023 and a decrease in web demand for the year.

Commercial revenue was $31.4 million for fiscal 2024 compared to $25.4 million for fiscal 2023, an increase of $6.0 million or 23.5%, primarily due to increased sales volume from our commercial accounts through our partner-operated model.

Revenue from international franchising was $4.7 million for fiscal 2024 compared to $4.5 million for fiscal 2023. This $0.2 million or 3.4% increase was primarily due to having more stores in operation in 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.

Retail gross margin. Retail gross margin was $253.1 million in fiscal 2024 compared to $249.3 million in fiscal 2023, an increase of $3.8 million or 1.5%. As a percentage of net retail sales, retail gross margin increased to 55.0% for fiscal 2024 from 54.7% for fiscal 2023, or 30 basis points as a percentage of net retail sales. The increase in gross margin was the result of lower merchandise and freight costs partially offset by higher occupancy expenses.

Selling, general and administrative. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $206.2 million or 41.5% of consolidated revenue for fiscal 2024 as compared to $199.0 million or 40.9% of consolidated revenue for fiscal 2023. The increase in overall expense was driven by higher store-level wages due to minimum wage increases and higher outside services.  These higher expenses were partially offset by decreased advertising expense.

Interest income, net. For fiscal 2024, we had $0.9 million of interest income compared to $0.9 million of interest income in fiscal 2023.

Provision for income taxes. The provision for income taxes was $15.4 million in fiscal 2024 compared to $13.5 million in fiscal 2023. The 2024 effective rate of 22.9% differed from the statutory rate of 21% primarily due to state income tax expense partially offset by the benefit of the foreign-derived intangible income (FDII) deduction. The 2023 effective rate of 20.4% differed from the statutory rate of 21% primarily due to the reversal of the valuation allowance in the U.K. partially offset by state income tax expense.

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Non-GAAP Financial Measure - Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization

We believe that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization ("EBITDA") provides meaningful information about our operational efficiency by excluding the impact of differences in tax jurisdictions and structures, debt levels, and capital investment. Additionally, this measure is the metric used for portions of the Company's incentive compensation structure. This measure is not in accordance with, or an alternative to, GAAP. The most comparable GAAP measure is income before income taxes, or pre-tax income. EBITDA should not be considered in isolation or as a substitution for analysis of our results as reported in accordance with GAAP. Other companies may calculate EBIT and EBITDA differently, limiting the usefulness of the measures for comparisons with other companies. The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the components of EBITDA (dollars in thousands):

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