Leggett & Platt, Incorporated (LEG) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Feb. 12, 2026 4:54 PM ETLeggett & Platt, Incorporated (LEG) Stock

Q4: 2026-02-11 Earnings Summary

EPS of $0.22 misses by $0.01

 | Revenue of $938.60M (-11.15% Y/Y) misses by $136.50K

Leggett & Platt, Incorporated (LEG) Q4 2025 Earnings Call February 12, 2026 8:30 AM EST

Company Participants

Ryan Kleiboeker – Executive VP & Chief Strategic Planning Officer
Karl Glassman – President, CEO & Executive Chairman
Benjamin Burns – Executive VP & CFO
J. Hagale – Executive VP & President of Bedding Products
R. Smith – EVP, President of the Furniture, Flooring & Textile Products and President of Specialized Products

Karl Glassman
President, CEO & Executive Chairman

Thank you, Ryan, and good morning, everyone. Early last year, we shared our 2025 priorities, which included strengthening the balance sheet, improving operational efficiency and margins and positioning Leggett & Platt for profitable long-term growth. Thanks to the tremendous efforts by our teams, we delivered on those priorities and made significant progress to position the business to accelerate when residential end markets turn. We have substantially completed the restructuring plan we launched in early 2024, reflecting strong execution and disciplined follow-through. The actions taken over the past 2 years delivered greater EBIT benefit at lower cost than originally expected. These improvements are sustainable, and we expect they will contribute to improved profitability and cash flow generation, which will allow us to reinvest in growth and return capital to our shareholders. Although the 2024 restructuring plan is essentially complete, we continue to identify opportunities to improve our cost structure and enhance profitability across our businesses. We also took meaningful steps in 2025 to simplify our portfolio and ensure focus on our core operations. Notably, we divested our Aerospace business in the third quarter. After-tax proceeds from that transaction were used to retire our outstanding commercial paper and accelerate our deleveraging efforts, moving us meaningfully closer to our long-term leverage target of 2x.

Our teams also did outstanding work in 2025 to further strengthen our foundation for long-term profitable growth. A few highlights include the continued growth of our semi-finished products, particularly Eco-Base and pre-foam-encased ComfortCore and bedding products. We also made significant progress on filling key roles to expand our competencies, especially in Specialty Foam, where we are working to diversify and expand the customer base. Automotive made progress in building our innovation pipeline and establishing greater intimacy with our OEM and Tier 1 customers to strengthen our position in seating comfort and in-car motion systems.

Our Home Furniture team opened a facility in Vietnam to better serve our customers who have relocated to this growing region of furniture production, and in Textiles, we have continued to penetrate new specialty markets such as medical nonwovens, where we are poised to introduce additional new products in 2026.

Our Geo Components team saw growth in our retail business, where we continue to gain share at major home improvement retailers.

As we turn to demand trends and expectations for 2026, our residential markets, which account for roughly half of the company’s revenue, remain in a multiyear depression with demand well below average cycle levels. While we cannot predict the timing of demand recovery, we are confident that we are well positioned to capitalize on the incremental volume when it materializes.

In Bedding, trade rod and wire sales benefited from metal margin expansion and strong domestic demand last year, while our mattress-related businesses faced another year of soft demand in addition to specific customer challenges. We believe the U.S. mattress market was down low single digits in 2025. Domestic production was down high single digits, but second half performance improved after a tough start to the year.

Demand in our Bedding Products segment is expected to be down low single digits in 2026 due to volume declines in Adjustable Bed and Specialty Foam as we lap customer program changes that began in 2025. However, U.S. Spring is anticipated to perform in line with the U.S. mattress market and domestic production, which we expect to both be flat to up low single digits in 2026.

In the Specialized segment, we expect automotive volume in 2026 to reflect the impacts of a challenging industry backdrop. In North America, demand faces inflationary pressures as automakers seek to recoup a portion of tariff-related costs. Exports from China are expected to continue pressure multinational OEMs in Europe, especially as the Chinese EV manufacturers face near-term demand headwinds in their domestic market. Overall, these dynamics support our expectation to perform in line with broader market trends from down 1% to 2% as we balance regional pressures with disciplined execution across the business.

Excluding Aerospace, our 2026 Specialized Products segment comparable sales are expected to be flat to slightly above 2025. Anticipated currency benefits are expected to offset the effects of lower volume and pricing year-over-year in both automotive and hydraulic cylinders.

In our Furniture, Flooring and Textile Products segment, we saw continued soft demand in our residential-focused businesses, Home Furniture and Flooring, while Work Furniture and Textile saw modest growth year-over-year. We anticipate further demand uncertainty in our residential markets, but expect to see growth in textiles, both in our Geo Components business and nonresidential markets in Fabric Converting.

As we move through 2026, we will continue to prioritize balance sheet strength, operational efficiency and margin improvement and build on the progress we’ve made over the last couple of years to position the company for profitable long-term growth. In Bedding, we will focus on diversifying our customer base in Specialty Foam, further integrating our foam and innerspring capabilities while growing component content and improving our ability to support the omnichannel needs of our bedding customers.

Benjamin Burns
Executive VP & CFO

Thank you, Karl, and good morning, everyone. Fourth quarter sales were $939 million, down 11% versus the fourth quarter of 2024, resulting from sales weakness at a certain customer and retailer merchandising changes in Adjustable Bed and Specialty Foam as well as continued soft demand in residential end markets, customer supply chain disruptions in Automotive and lower demand in Hydraulic Cylinders. Growth in Textiles and Work Furniture, along with higher trade wire and rod sales partially offset demand declines.

Looking at sales by segment, Bedding products decreased 11% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. Additionally, Specialized Products declined 21%, mostly due to the Aerospace divestiture and sales in Furniture, Flooring and Textile products were down 3%.

As Karl mentioned earlier, we have substantially completed the restructuring plan in 2025 and significantly exceeded our original expectations. We expect a full run rate of approximately $70 million of EBIT benefit and total cost of $80 million, half of which were noncash costs. We also expect cash proceeds from real estate sales of $70 million to $80 million, $48 million of which have already been realized with the remaining balance expected in 2026.

Moving to guidance. 2026 sales are expected to be $3.8 billion to $4.0 billion or down 1% to 6% versus 2025. 2025 divestitures are expected to reduce sales 3%. Volume is expected to be flat to down low single digits with volume at the midpoint, down low single digits in Bedding Products, down low single digits in Specialized Products and flat in Furniture, Flooring and Textile Products.

Inflation and currency benefit combined are expected to increase sales low single digits. 2026 earnings per share are expected to be $0.92 to $1.38, including approximately $0.02 to $0.11 per share impact from restructuring costs, primarily related to cost improvement and footprint optimization opportunities identified across the company that are currently being evaluated. $0.05 to $0.08 per share impact from costs associated with the unsolicited offer from Somnigroup and $0.11 to $0.25 per share gain from sales of real estate.

Karl Glassman
President, CEO & Executive Chairman

Thank you, Ben. In closing, I want to thank our employees around the globe for your efforts in transforming the company in 2025. Together, we executed our restructuring plan, strengthened our balance sheet and positioned Leggett & Platt for long-term success. While near-term demand uncertainty remains, we are confident in our ability to execute our strategic priorities and create long-term shareholder value.

Before we begin Q&A, I want to acknowledge the current discussions between Leggett & Platt and Somnigroup. As we announced in January, we have entered into a customary nondisclosure agreement and 6-month standstill. We do not intend to make any further public comments and will not be answering any questions related to these discussions on this call.

With that, operator, we’re ready for Q&A.

Susan Maklari
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division

Okay. All right. That’s helpful color. And then turning to Bedding and the outlook there. You mentioned that you expect springs to be flat to up low single digits, it sounds like, for this year. Just generally speaking, as you think about the Bedding market and the demand there, how much of a recovery do you think we can see if we don’t have housing that really starts to come back? How important is that? And what does it mean in terms of the near-term potential path for the industry versus where we could be longer term?

Karl Glassman
President, CEO & Executive Chairman

Yes, Susan, great questions. I’ll ask Tyson to answer all of that. I do want to remind you and the rest of the investors that there is no expectation of macro market recovery in our 2026 forecast. We’d like to see it. We’ve been guilty as have some others of forecasting a strong back half. We’re not doing that. So to the degree that, that impact takes place, it would be upside to the midpoint of our guidance. But Tyson, why don’t you unravel that?

J. Hagale
Executive VP & President of Bedding Products

Sure. Good morning, Susan. I agree with Karl. We’ve definitely been tired of just hoping that a recovery is coming. And you mentioned one of the big macro factors being housing and the continued headwind that we face there. But that’s a big one, obviously. It’s not the only one. Generally, consumer confidence and how people are feeling about discretionary purchases is a big deal. And then just general affordability, which goes into housing for sure, but also across the board, whether people are spending the money on insurance, gas, food, all of those things are a big deal. And just seeing where things stand today, that’s why we don’t feel good about building any type of recovery into guidance. Essentially, what we thought about in the bedding market for 2026 is a continuation of what we really saw in the back half of the year. The first half of 2025 was pretty tough. And so really just a more seasonal pattern in 2026 is really carrying off the back half of 2025. And that’s where we get to a flat to up low single digits is really just lapping the early struggles that the market had in 2025. Relative to our business, and you mentioned U.S. Springs, that’s where we have the tightest correlation to the market. And we’ve had some ups and downs through 2025 and in prior years relative to our performance against the market. And I think we talked about this in the third quarter, but it’s true for us and our customer base, performance is mixed across the industry, and we still see a lot of choppiness. We were impacted in the fourth quarter. And we’ve had some other periods where this has happened as well, where we’ve had some consolidations happen, and we had one at the beginning of the fourth quarter that was related to some financial distress with one of our partners. And that was the biggest impact that we had in the U.S. Spring versus the market. But generally, and we saw this in the second and third quarter, we’ve closed the gap and have been performing pretty close to market. And we feel good about in 2026, where we’ve had some content gains and have some more coming as we’ve had more products introduced in some of our comfort products and comfort layers, and we think that helps us manage our business along with the rest of the market.

Keith Hughes
Truist Securities, Inc., Research Division

Okay. And then I guess a question for Karl as a little historical perspective on mattress sales. The last 3 or 4 years have been just so difficult for the industry. Have you ever seen anything like this in your career or anything approached like this in your career? And I think you’ve talked about affordability, but what do you think is the issue for the entire industry in terms of getting these sales going?

Karl Glassman
President, CEO & Executive Chairman

Keith, you know you’ve been around a long time when you get asked the question from a historical perspective.

Keith Hughes
Truist Securities, Inc., Research Division

I am old, but I didn’t want to say that.

Karl Glassman
President, CEO & Executive Chairman

As a matter of fact, once again, you’re accurate. No, I’ve never seen anything like this. There’s — interestingly enough, when we track data back to the early ’70s, and I was not in the industry — well, I guess I was — anyway, no, that typically, in any kind of macroeconomic step down, Bedding goes into the cycle first and comes out of it earliest. So if there’s — even in the Great Recession, so you had their 2.5 years of softness, you saw real strength coming back out of it, and it was a leading indicator of recovery. So we’ve never seen anything of this duration, this magnitude, probably overused phrase of pent-up demand, but it feels like it’s building. We think that normal consumption — normalized consumption in the U.S. should be in the 34 million to 35 million mattress range. We’re probably just sub 30 million on an annualized basis and have been there for a while. So it feels good once the consumer becomes confident and Housing is unleashed, but we just have no ability to predict when that happens. So in the interim, Tyson and the team are doing an outstanding job. First, the restructuring effort was really important, getting that successfully completed and behind us. And then now working with customers on innovation, product development and the opportunities are significant. We feel pretty good about the year. But Keith, to your point, I have been around a long time. We’re manufacturing, a manufacturer that is unit sensitive. When additional volume goes through these assets, that are now rightsized via restructuring, it will get really good, really quick through a value chain that starts at a steel mill, walks through a wire mill and then into a spring plant. So the volume will be fantastic. It will be on the high side of our contribution margins. We just can’t make a call as to when it happens.

Alexia Morgan
Piper Sandler & Co., Research Division

Okay. And then lastly, can you discuss your view on mattress industry trends for Q1, like any early reads you have quarter-to-date? And then looking longer term, can you elaborate on growth drivers for the Bedding segment specifically, and when you expect those to start to contribute?

J. Hagale
Executive VP & President of Bedding Products

Sure. I’ll jump in on the first part. The big weather events that we’ve had over the last several weeks have certainly been impactful. We’ve heard that from our customers and just seeing between retail activity and what we’ve heard with foot traffic, but also facility closures and impacts there. So we expect there will be a catch-up, and we’ll all be looking to President’s Day and see what the activity is like there. But the weather impacts certainly have had some impact on the business early in the quarter. And we talked about it, I think the big drivers being housing, consumer confidence and general affordability are the big factors that we’re watching to point to a recovery.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4869765-leggett-and-platt-incorporated-leg-q4-2025-earnings-call-transcript?mailingid=44105363&messageid=2800&position=rta_analysis_rc2_news_popular_ticker_main_3_textlink&serial=44105363.550&source=email_2800