American Outdoor Brands, the owners of Grilla Grills, just closed out their fiscal year 2025 at the end of April. With their fiscal calendar, their the first grill company to report any early indications of how the grill season started off.
They’ve been focused on innovation across their brands, most recently at Grilla Grills with the Pie-Ro pizza oven. That’s helped drive revenue growth of 10% for 2025.
Our performance this year is the direct result of our relentless commitment to innovation. By continually introducing differentiated IP protected products that resonate with outdoor consumers, we have not only fortified the strength of our brands, but also deepened our partnerships with key retailers who seek instant turnkey access to a portfolio of brands that drive foot traffic and pull through.
Brian Murphy, President and CEO, American Outdoor Brands
Some of the growth they saw in their most recent quarter though might have been artificial. They have tariff exposure both on imported steel and aluminum, and from IEEPA tariffs. Ahead of the implementation of the tariffs they saw retailer pull-forward to get in front of cost increases.
As Brian indicated, retailers accelerated their order placements in the last few weeks of our fourth quarter. We believe this effectively pulled forward approximately 8,000,000 to $10,000,000 of net sales we had originally included in our fiscal twenty twenty six outlook.
Andy Fulmer, CFO, American Outdoor Brands
Given the pull ahead they saw in ordering and the uncertainty with the consumer and tariffs, it led them to suspend their guidance for the next fiscal year.
That said, the macro environment remains uncertain and tariff policies continue to evolve and the impact of those factors on consumer behavior, particularly in the back half of the year remains unknown. In addition, we believe many retailers across the consumer goods landscape have built up their inventories in anticipation of tariff driven price increases from suppliers. As a result, we would not be surprised to see a more conservative posture from them, focusing on optimizing current inventory levels and closely monitoring consumer demand. Given this uncertainty, alongside the acceleration of orders from fiscal twenty twenty six into our fiscal twenty twenty five results, we are suspending our previously issued net sales guidance for fiscal twenty twenty six. This decision reflects prudence, not a change in conviction.
Andy Fulmer, CFO, American Outdoor Brands
Acquisitions
Outdoor cooking companies have had it rough over the past few years. After the crash from the Pandemic, they went into a weak consumer environment followed by high tariffs. There’s no doubt that many brands are struggling for survival right now.
For those that have access to capital, it may be a great time to buy at low valuations. American Outdoor Brands entered the outdoor cooking sector with the acquisition of Grilla Grills, and M&A is still a big part of their playbook.
We absolutely pride ourselves in having a clean balance sheet and capacity to go do some deals. We’ve been waiting very patiently. We didn’t get caught up in the flurry that probably was very exciting to get caught up into a few years ago knowing that at some point, things would have to level out. And so we’re in a great position to continue to look at acquisitions. We are seeing a pickup in volume, less so banker-led deals, more companies that we have facilitated a direct relationship with, who are just honestly, out of their skis. They’re struggling with their supply chain side. They’re struggling with maintaining shelf space. They’re struggling with innovation. And I think there’s a lot — they see that there’s a lot we can bring to the table there as an acquirer.
So we actually have quite a few ongoing conversations currently. And a number of those would make nice tuck-in acquisitions for us at very, very attractive prices. So certainly, there’s opportunity there. But again, like we always do, we don’t go after everything. We want to be very cautious and make sure that 1 plus 1 equals 3 or more.
Brian Murphy, President and CEO, American Outdoor Brands