Welcome to KinderCare's second quarter earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. It is now my pleasure to introduce Jason Terry, KinderCare's Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Terry, you may begin the conference.

Thank you and good afternoon everyone. Welcome to KinderCare's second quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me from the company are Chief Executive Officer Tom Wyatt and Chief Financial Officer Tony Amandi. Following Tom and Tony's comments today, we will have a question and answer session. During this call, we will be discussing non-GAAP financial measures. The most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of the differences between the GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are available in our earnings release. and within the supplemental earnings presentation, both of which are posted on our investor relations website at investors.kindercare.com. A reminder that certain statements made today may be forward-looking statements. These statements are made based upon management's current expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company and involve a number of uncertainties and risks which are explained in detail in the risk factor section of our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other filings with the SEC. Please refer to these filings for more detailed discussion of forward-looking statements and the risks and uncertainties of such statements. The actual results of operations or financial condition of the company could differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are made as of today and, except as required by law, KinderCare undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise. I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Tom Wyatt.

Thank you, Jason, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to share updates on our second quarter performance review today. We delivered results largely in line with expectations, along with a few bright spots that reinforce the progress we are making. During the quarter, we remained focused on the priorities we outlined earlier this year, strengthening execution across our centers, simplifying day-to-day responsibilities of our center leaders, and positioning the business for long-term growth. Revenue was down slightly compared to last year as we began optimizing our footprint during the quarter. This is partially offset by continued growth in champions and KinderCare for Employers. And our premium brand, the CRIMS School, continued building on the progress we've seen this year. Same center occupancy for the quarter was just under 69% and benefited from our optimization work. We're encouraged by the progress we're continuing to make and we know there's more work ahead. I'll begin with our flagship brand, KinderCare. Improving our enrollment trend within our largest brand is going to be the result of more consistent performance over time. The actions we took to enhance our targeted marketing are helping us connect with more prospective families. At the same time, we are simplifying the responsibilities of our center directors to give them more time to lead their centers, support their teachers, and engage with families in meaningful ways. Those day-to-day interactions are the heart of great family experiences, and over time, they help convert interest into enrollment and retain families longer. That's how operational improvements translate into better results. We put a renewed emphasis on our small group enrichment programs called Learning Adventures. These incremental programs expand learning in our classrooms in areas like phonics, STEM, and Spanish. Family Response continues to exceed our expectations as revenue from these programs has almost doubled from a year ago. We're expanding these offerings across more centers and into additional seasonal programming, giving families even more opportunities to extend their child's learning experience beyond our core curriculum, which we believe is a key differentiator. We're also investing thoughtfully to expand our geographic footprint where we see attractive long-term potential and strong demand for high-quality early education. During the quarter, we entered our 42nd state with a new center in Bentonville, Arkansas. We also opened a center in Ridgefield, Washington, a thriving community often described as a childcare desert. Both centers expand access to childcare where it's needed most. We're applying that same discipline approach to CRIMS schools, our premium brand, expanding into markets where we see growing demand. Just after the quarter ended, we opened the CRIM School at Great Park in Irvine, our first CRIM location in California. The school features modern learning environments, elevated amenities, and personalized educational experiences. This is an important milestone and expands CRIM into a large and very attractive market. We are pleased with enrollment in our summer camp programs at CRIM, where enrollment increased approximately 26% compared to last year. It's another encouraging sign that our repositioning efforts are gaining traction. As we grow this brand, we're focused on delivering differentiated educational experiences that families value. Turning to champions, we delivered another strong quarter of double-digit revenue growth, extending our streak to four consecutive quarters. That growth reflects both the addition of 85 net new sites since Q2 of last year and improved productivity across our existing sites. Summer programming at Champions is going well and reinforces our relationships with families and our school district partners. We're expanding into additional schools within our existing districts while bringing our before and after school programs to new districts. Within KinderCare for Employers, We're continuing to see organizations look to partner with us to meet their employees' childcare needs. During the quarter, we welcome several new partners across a range of industries, reflecting continued demand for our employer-sponsored childcare solutions. It's an area of the business we're excited about, and we expect it to remain an important part of our growth strategy. We're also encouraged by the opportunity we see in tuition benefits. Our large national footprint gives us a clear advantage in offering child care benefits to employers across 42 states. And we are able to connect more families with high quality care in the communities where they live and work. We believe that combination positions us well as employer demand for child care solutions continues to grow. Our breadth and flexible platform allow us to partner with employers in a variety of ways. For example, We have supported public safety employees in Dallas by providing 24-hour childcare during the World Cup this past quarter. Just another example of how we can tailor our childcare solutions to meet the needs of employers and communities. Quickly touching on the policy environment, the overall direction has been encouraging. We continue to see steady bipartisan support at all levels as federal policy has remained supportive. and many states are expanding childcare access. For instance, New York recently announced a massive investment of $1.7 billion into ECE programs. California announced it will add another $220 million toward 20,000 new mixed delivery childcare spaces. And New Hampshire is creating a childcare tax credit incentivizing employers to be a part of childcare solutions. We applaud these leaders for listening to the needs of the working parents. As a national provider serving working families across the country, we're continually evaluating how we best serve them. That means expanding into growing communities like Bentonville, Ridgefield, and Irvine. It also means thoughtfully consolidating centers where demand has shifted. This is an important part of how we manage our presence across the country. As part of the ongoing evaluation of our center footprint, we've identified several consolidation opportunities that we believe will better align our centers with the communities we serve as families' needs and local demand for childcare have evolved over time. While the majority of our centers continue to perform well, some are no longer in the best locations to serve communities. As a result, we're consolidating those centers, and as of today, We are approximately two-thirds of the way through this work, including 49 center closures completed during the second quarter. Those centers represented about 3% of our total center footprint and were primarily from our fourth and fifth quintile, and on average were below 37% occupied. These decisions are never easy, and we evaluate every center individually. Our priority is minimizing disruption for families, teachers, and the communities we serve. And wherever possible, we help families and employees transition to nearby locations. We're encouraged that both family and employee retention have exceeded our expectations through this process. We believe that the result will be a center footprint that's better aligned with where our families live and work today, and it will allow us to focus our people, our resources, and Investments where they can have the greatest impact for families. As we complete the remaining consolidations this year, you should expect some quarter to quarter variability in our financial results. We believe that's a responsible tradeoff because these actions will strengthen KinderCare and better position us to serve families, continue investing in high quality early education and support long term access to high quality child care. Looking ahead, our priorities remain the same. We'll continue improving execution across the business. We will continue to invest where we see the greatest opportunities. And we will continue supporting our center teams so they can deliver the best possible experiences for our families. We're encouraged by the progress we're making, confident in the actions we're taking, and excited about the opportunities ahead. Tony will now provide more details on our financial results.

Thank you, Tom. I'll start with our Q2 results and then discuss our outlook for the remainder of the year. Second quarter revenue was $698 million, down slightly from $700 million the prior year. Enrollment pressure was partially offset by strong performance in Champions and contributions from KinderCare for Employers, Learning Adventures, and our newer centers. While current performance remains below prior year levels, The year-over-year gap has narrowed significantly, and the underlying trend continues to improve. Overall, same-center revenue decreased by $14 million, or 2%. This was mainly driven by lower enrollment and $11 million impact from closures, $5 million of which was our footprint optimization work. Higher tuition rates and strong performance from centers newly included in the same-center cohort helped offset a portion of the enrollment headwind. Total enrollment declined by 4% year over year, reflecting both ongoing pressure and impact from our center consolidation action. Pricing contributed approximately 2.6% to ECE revenue during the quarter. While we see positive developments overall in subsidy reimbursement rates, we expect the benefit to remain modest through the current state budget cycle. The consolidations provided a 70 basis point benefit to same center occupancy for the quarter, which was 68.6% down 240 basis points from last year. Champions revenue in the second quarter increased 13% year over year driven by a mixture of new site openings and higher average revenue per site. Along with KinderCare for employers, these B2B businesses are broadening our revenue mix and supporting our overall growth strategy. We opened five new centers and acquired five new centers during the quarter. Cash consideration for the acquisitions in Q2 was about a half million dollars funded completely out of the $45 million in free cash flow generated in the quarter. New and acquired centers this year have contributed approximately $2.6 million in revenue year to date. As Tom mentioned, we closed 49 centers during the quarter and expect that number to reach 80 to 85 by the end of the year, with the majority of the remaining happening in the fourth quarter. On an estimated annualized basis, the optimization work would represent approximately a $57 million revenue headwind and an $8 million benefit to adjusted EBITDA. We estimate annual rent expense would decline by approximately $7 million and occupancy would improve by roughly 150 basis points once the work is fully completed. As we discussed earlier, you'll see some quarter-to-quarter variability in our financial results as we complete the remaining consolidations, and we've reflected those expected impacts in our updated outlook for the remainder of the year. To help investors better understand the optimization work, we've included a supplemental slide summarizing the impacts of consolidations completed to date and our expectations for the remaining work this year. Continuing down the income statement, reported a net loss of $8.8 million and reported a loss of 7 cents per share for the second quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $63 million for the quarter, down from $82 million a year ago, reflecting the impact of lower occupancy on operating leverage. About $5 million of the decline was driven by adjustments to our insurance and legal reserves. Adjusted net income was $9.9 million, and adjusted EPS was $0.08, compared to $26 million and $0.22, respectively, in the prior year period. The quarter also included footprint optimization-related impacts, primarily impairment expense and accelerated depreciation, along with other transition costs, including about a half million in severance expense. While our optimization work has near-term financial impacts, we expected to better align our center footprint and support stronger returns on capital over time. SG&A was 10.5% of revenue, down 76 basis points from last year. We remain focused on managing expenses while investing in the highest priorities. Interest expense was $18 million for the quarter, down from $20 million in the prior year, driven by our repricing last year. We expect to see favorable comparisons for the remainder of this year as well. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended this quarter with $174 million in cash and $188 million of available capacity under a revolving credit facility. Net debt to adjust the EBITDA is approximately three times. We expect modest increase in that ratio over the balance of the year as we complete the remaining consolidations and fund costs associated with exiting leases. Our balance sheet provides the flexibility to complete the remaining optimization work. Today, we have line of sight to approximately 36 lease exits, representing approximately 20 to 25 million of expected lease exit payments. Those payments are reflected in our updated free cash flow outlook. The remaining leases are at varying states of negotiation, and their timing and ultimate resolution will vary by location. We'll continue to update investors as we gain additional visibility into the associated cash impacts, some of which may extend into 2027. Looking ahead, we are updating our full-year outlook to reflect the expected impact of our footprint optimization work. For the full year, we now expect revenue between $2.66 and $2.7 billion, adjusted EBITDA between $200 and $220 million, and adjusted EPS between $0.05 and $0.15. included in our updated outlook is approximately $8 million of incremental insurance related to our actuarial analysis on our workers' comp and general liability self-insurance. For our revenue growth assumptions, we are maintaining our occupancy to be down approximately 3% as reduced capacity from the optimization work partially offsets enrollment pressure. We now expect tuition contribution to revenue growth of approximately 2.5% for the year, primarily reflecting the slower pace of state subsidy reimbursement rate increases than we previously expected. We expect the revenue growth contributions from champions in B2B to be 1%, with new centers and acquisitions to both remain consistent at about 50 basis points each. Consolidations are now expected to represent about 1.5% headwind to revenue growth this year. We expect CapEx this year to be between $120 and $130 million. Free cash flow is expected to be less than $10 million, primarily reflecting elevated cash costs associated with the footprint optimization work. For modeling purposes, assume our effective tax rate to be 27% for the year. To provide better transparency as we move into the second half, we're providing an outlook for the third quarter. We expect revenue to be between $660 and $680 million and adjusted EBITDA to come in between $44 and $48 million. Occupancy for Q3 is expected to be in the mid-60s. We'll continue to provide updates on the financial impact of the remaining consolidations throughout the balance of this year. By completing this work in 2026, we expect to enter 2027 with a better line center footprint, improved occupancy trends, and a cost structure that better supports sustainable long-term growth. To wrap things up, our priorities for the second half are straightforward. We remain focused on discipline execution, completing our footprint optimization work, and investing in the opportunities that matter most. We believe those actions will position as well as we enter 2027. Now, let's go ahead and open up the line for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Josh Chan with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead. A reminder to mute and unmute yourself locally as needed. Josh your line is open. Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Silber with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks so much. Can you hear me?

Hello? It seems like Jeff can't hear us.

Yeah, can you hear me now? Both lines are open. Thank you. Okay, can you hear me? Okay, I'm going to ask a question assuming that you can hear me. I'm just trying to get a little bit more color on the impact of the center closures, and forgive me, I came on the call late. If you hadn't, I guess, you know, done all these center closures, you know, what would have been the impact In terms of guidance going forward, would it have been maintained, changed in any way, any color you could give would be great? Forgive me, we can't hear you at all.

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