Sally Beauty’s Adjusted Earnings Rise More Than 10% in Q4 2026
Key Facts
Sally Beauty Holdings reported results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, posting GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.60, up 22% year over year. CEO Denise Paulonis said the company ended the year with "positive momentum," citing growth in quarterly sales, operating earnings and adjusted earnings per share. The results paint a mixed picture of performance, with earnings per share rising while gross margin fell to 51.9%. That was a decline of 30 basis points from the same period a year earlier. The results also showed divergent sales performance across the company’s two segments during the quarter.
GAAP gross margin was 51.9%, down 30 basis points year over year, while diluted earnings per share rose 22% to $0.60. The contrast puts reported earnings growth alongside margin pressure, without changing the direction of the annual increase in earnings per share. Paulonis said quarterly sales, operating earnings and adjusted earnings per share grew, and described the year-end performance as positive. The quote did not specify the size of the increase in adjusted earnings per share. The published figures therefore highlight growth in GAAP profitability alongside a decline in gross margin.
By segment, Sally Beauty sales rose 1.6% to $550.315 million in the fourth quarter, compared with the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year. By contrast, Beauty Systems Group sales fell 0.8% to $402.212 million. The divergence shows that sales growth in the Sally Beauty segment was offset by a decline in the other segment during the same quarter. The figures available here did not detail the reasons for the differing sales trends between the segments. The year-over-year comparison for each segment remains an indicator of uneven performance within the company.
Global e-commerce sales rose 8% to $113 million in the fourth quarter. Those sales represented 12% of the company’s net sales for the period, illustrating the online channel’s contribution to the business. E-commerce growth places the channel among the components that recorded annual increases in the quarter. The company did not specify in the available quote how much e-commerce contributed to overall sales growth. The results came in a quarter that management described as ending the fiscal year with positive momentum.
For fiscal 2027, the company expects consolidated sales of between $3.77 billion and $3.81 billion, and comparable sales growth of between 1% and 2%. It also set a range for adjusted diluted earnings per share of between $2.20 and $2.30. These estimates provide a framework for the company’s targets in the next fiscal year, following mixed results between the two segments and a decline in margin in the final quarter. For the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Sally Beauty expects sales of between $945 million and $955 million and adjusted earnings per share of between $0.48 and $0.52. These ranges offer the company’s first numerical indications for the period ahead.
The company announced on October 28, 2026, that it would hold a conference call and webcast to discuss its fourth-quarter and fiscal-year results on November 10 at 7:30 a.m. Central Time. It also scheduled its virtual annual shareholder meeting for January 25, 2027, at 9:00 a.m. Central Time, and set November 27, 2026, as the record date for determining shareholders eligible to vote. The results filing shows a share price of $19.49 and a 6.44% increase, without specifying when the price was measured in the excerpt. That figure alone does not establish the closing price or the trading range during any particular session. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, the company reported consolidated sales of $947 million, up 1.3%, and adjusted earnings per share of $0.55, an annual increase of 10%.