OLLI Ollies Bargain Outlet Holdings Inc

UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

For the fiscal year ended February 3, 2018

For the transition period from                    to                   

Commission file number: 001-37501

(717) 657-2300
(Registrant's telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☒ No   o

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes   o No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No   o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes ☒ No   o

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers in response to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant's knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.   o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes   o No ☒

The aggregate market value of the voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was approximately $2.2 billion as of July 29, 2017, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter. For purposes of this calculation only, the registrant has excluded all shares held in the treasury or that may be deemed to be beneficially owned by executive officers and directors of the registrant. By doing so, the registrant does not concede that such persons are affiliates for purposes of the federal securities laws.

The number of issued and outstanding shares of the registrant's common stock, $.001 par value, as of April 2, 2018 was 62,203,435.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the registrant's definitive proxy statement for the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the “Proxy Statement”), to be filed pursuant to Regulation 14A within 120 days after the end of the 2017 fiscal year, are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Form 10-K.

INDEX

Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1955. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as “could,” “may,” “might,” “will,” “likely,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “seeks,” “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “continues,” “projects” and similar references to future periods, prospects, financial performance and industry outlook. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements we make regarding the outlook for our future business and financial performance, such as those contained in “Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding our business, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, by their nature, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. As a result, our actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include regional, national or global political, economic, business, competitive, market and regulatory conditions, including recently enacted tax legislation, and the following:

See “Item 1A, Risk Factors” for a further description of these and other factors. For the reasons described above, we caution you against relying on any forward-looking statements, which should also be read in conjunction with the other cautionary statements that are included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this annual report speaks only as of the date on which we make it. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings, Inc. operates on a fiscal year, consisting of the 52- or 53-week period ending on the Saturday nearer January 31 of the following calendar year. References to “2017,” “2016,” and “2015” represent the 2017 fiscal year ended February 3, 2018, the 2016 fiscal year ended January 28, 2017 and the 2015 fiscal year ended January 30, 2016, respectively. 2017 consisted of a 53-week period and each of 2016 and 2015 consisted of a 52-week period. References to “2018” refer to the fiscal year ending February 2, 2019, which consists of a 52-week period.

In this report, the terms “Ollie’s,” the “Company,” “we,” “us” or “our” mean Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Our competitive strengths

We believe the following strengths differentiate us from our competitors and serve as the foundation for our current and future growth:

“Good Stuff Cheap”—Ever changing product assortment at drastically reduced prices.    Our stores offer something for everyone across a diverse range of merchandise categories at prices up to 70% below department and fancy stores and up to 20-50% below mass market retailers. Our product assortment frequently changes based on the wide variety of deals available from the hundreds of brand name suppliers we have relationships with. We augment these opportunistic deals on brand name merchandise with directly-sourced unbranded products or those under our own private label brands such as Sarasota Breeze, Steelton Tools, American Way and Commonwealth Classics and exclusively licensed recognizable brands and celebrity names such as Magnavox, Marcus Samuelsson Signature Cookware, Josh Capon, Country Living, Popular Mechanics and Wells Lamont. Brand name and closeout merchandise represented approximately 70% and non-closeout goods and private label products collectively represented approximately 30% of our 2017 merchandise purchases. Our treasure hunt shopping environment and slogan “when it’s gone, it’s gone” help to instill a “shop now” sense of urgency that encourages frequent customer visits.

Highly experienced and disciplined merchant team.    Our 16-member merchant team maintains strong, long-standing relationships with a diverse group of suppliers, allowing us to procure branded merchandise at compelling values for our customers. This team is led by five senior merchants, including Mark Butler, and has 100 combined years of experience at Ollie’s. We have been doing business with our top 15 suppliers for an average of 13 years, and no supplier accounted for more than 5% of our purchases during 2017. Our well-established relationships with our suppliers, together with our scale, buying power, financial credibility and responsiveness, often makes Ollie’s the first call for available deals. Our direct relationships with our suppliers have increased as we have grown and we continuously strive to broaden our supplier network. These factors provide us with increased access to goods, which enables us to be more selective in our deal-making and, we believe, helps us provide compelling value and assortment of goods to our customers and fuels our continued profitable growth.

Distinctive brand and engaging shopping experience.    Our distinctive and often self-deprecating humor and highly recognizable caricatures are used in our stores, flyers, mailers, website and email campaigns. We attempt to make our customers laugh as we poke fun at ourselves and current events. We believe this approach creates a strong connection to our brand and sets us apart from other, more traditional retailers. Our “semi-lovely” stores feature these same brand attributes together with witty signage in a warehouse format that creates a fun, relaxed and engaging shopping environment. We believe that by disarming our customers by getting them to giggle a bit, they are more likely to look at and trust our products for what they are—extremely great bargains. We offer a “30-day no hard time guarantee” as a means to overcome any skepticism associated with our cheap prices and to build trust and loyalty, because if our customers are not happy, we are not happy. We welcome customers to bring back their merchandise within that timeframe for a “no hard time” full refund. We also make it easy for our customers to browse our stores by displaying our products on easily accessible fixtures and by keeping the stores clean and well-lit. We believe our humorous brand image, compelling values and welcoming stores resonate with our customers and define Ollie’s as a unique and comfortable destination shopping location.

Extremely loyal “Ollie’s Army” customer base.    Our best customers are members of our Ollie’s Army customer loyalty program, which stands at 8.8 million members as of February 3, 2018. For 2017, approximately 70% of our sales were from Ollie’s Army members, and we grew our base of loyal members by 19.4% during 2017. Ollie’s Army members spend approximately 40% more per shopping trip at Ollie’s than non-members. We identify our target customer as “anyone between the ages of 25-70 with a wallet or a purse” seeking a great bargain.

Strong and consistent store model built for growth.    We employ a proven new store model that generates strong cash flow, consistent financial results and attractive returns on investment regardless of the economic environment. Our highly flexible real estate approach has proven successful across all vintages, geographic regions, population densities, demographic groups, real estate formats and regardless of any co-tenant. New stores opened from 2012 to 2016 have generated an average of $4.0 million in net sales in their first 12 months of operations and produced an average payback period of approximately two years. We believe that our consistent store performance, strategically-located distribution centers and disciplined approach to site selection support the portability and predictability of our new unit growth strategy.

Highly experienced and passionate founder-led management team.    Our leadership team, directed by our co-founder, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Butler, has guided our organization through its expansion and positioned us for continued growth. Mark Butler has assembled a talented and dedicated team of executives with an average of 25 years of retail experience, including an average of 12 years of experience at Ollie’s. Our senior executives possess extensive experience across a broad range of disciplines, including merchandising, marketing, real estate, finance, store operations, supply chain management and information technology. We believe by encouraging equity ownership and fostering a strong team culture, we have aligned the interests of our executives with those of our stockholders. We believe these factors result in a cohesive team focused on sustainable long-term growth.

Our growth strategy

We plan to continue to drive growth in sales and profitability by executing on the following strategies:

Grow our store base.    We believe our compelling value proposition and the success of our stores across a broad range of geographic regions, population densities and demographic groups create a significant opportunity to profitably increase our store count. Our internal estimates and third party research conducted by Jeff Green Partners indicate the potential for more than 950 national locations. Our new store real estate model is flexible and focuses predominately on second generation sites ranging in size from 25,000 to 35,000 square feet. We believe there is an ample supply of suitable low-cost, second generation real estate to allow us to infill within our existing markets as well as to expand into new, contiguous geographies. This approach leverages our distribution infrastructure, field management team, store management, marketing investments and brand awareness. We expect our new store openings to be the primary driver of our continued, consistent growth in sales and profitability.

Increase our offerings of great bargains.     We will continue to enhance our supplier relationships and develop additional sources to acquire brand name and closeout products for our customers. Our strong sourcing relationships with leading major manufacturers and our purchasing scale provide us with significant opportunities to expand our ever changing assortment of brand name and closeout merchandise at extreme values. We plan to further invest in our merchandising team in order to expand and enhance our sourcing relationships and product categories, which we expect will drive shopping frequency and increase customer spending.

Leverage and expand Ollie’s Army.    We intend to recruit new Ollie’s Army members and increase their frequency of store visits and spending by enhancing our distinctive, fun and recognizable marketing programs, building brand awareness, further rewarding member loyalty and utilizing more sophisticated data driven targeted marketing. We believe these strategies, coupled with a larger store base, will enable us to increase the amount of sales driven by loyal Ollie’s Army customers seeking the next great deal.

Segments

We operate in one reporting segment. See Note 12, “Segment Reporting,” to our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Our merchandise

Strategy

We offer a highly differentiated, constantly evolving assortment of brand name merchandise across a broad range of categories at drastically reduced prices. Our ever changing assortment of “Good Stuff Cheap” includes brand name and closeout merchandise from leading manufacturers. We augment our brand name merchandise with opportunistic purchases of unbranded goods and our own domestic and direct-import private label brands in underpenetrated categories to further enhance the assortment of products that we offer. Brand name and closeout merchandise represented approximately 70% and non-closeout goods and private label products collectively represented approximately 30% of our 2017 merchandise purchases. We believe our compelling value proposition and the unique nature of our merchandise offerings have fostered our customer appeal across a variety of demographics and socioeconomic profiles.

Our warehouse format stores feature a broad number of categories including food, housewares, books and stationery, bed and bath, floor coverings, electronics and toys as well as other products including hardware, personal health care, candy, clothing, sporting goods, pet and lawn and garden products. We focus on buying cheap to sell cheap and source

products as unique buying opportunities present themselves. Our merchandise mix is designed to combine unique and brand name bargains at extremely attractive price points. This approach results in frequently changing product assortments and localized offerings which encourage shopper frequency and a “shop now” sense of urgency as customers hunt to discover the next deal.

The common element of our dynamic merchandise selection is the consistent delivery of great deals to our customers, with products offered at prices up to 70% below department stores and fancy stores and up to 20-50% below mass market retailers. Our product price tags allow customers to compare our competitor’s price against Ollie’s price to further highlight the savings they can realize by shopping at our stores.

Product mix

Examples of our product offerings include:

The following chart shows the breakdown of our 2017 net sales by merchandise category:

Product categories

We maintain consistent average margins across our primary product categories described below.

Brand name and closeout merchandise (approximately 70% of merchandise purchases in 2017)

Our focus is to provide huge savings to our customers primarily through brand name products across a broad range of merchandise. Our experienced merchant team purchases deeply discounted, branded or closeout merchandise primarily from manufacturers, retailers, distributors and brokers. This merchandise includes overstocks, discontinued merchandise, package changes, cancelled orders, excess inventory and buybacks from retailers and major manufacturers.

Non-closeout goods/private label (approximately 30% of merchandise purchases in 2017)

We augment the breadth of our brand name merchandise with non-closeout and private label merchandise. In categories where the consumer is not as brand conscious, such as food, home textiles, and furniture, or when we may not be offering a current brand name merchandise deal, we will buy deeply discounted unbranded merchandise. These extreme value offerings are mixed in the stores with our brand name merchandise. We also have a variety of domestic and direct-import private label merchandise and exclusive products sold under brands such as Sarasota Breeze, Steelton Tools, American Way and Commonwealth Classic. These high quality products are developed in key categories such as housewares, and are designed to create brand-like excitement and complement our brand name merchandise. We also have licenses for private label products that use recognizable celebrity names like Marcus Samuelsson and Josh Capon, or brand names like Country Living, Magnavox, Popular Mechanics and Wells Lamont. We routinely evaluate the quality and condition of these private label goods to ensure that we are delivering our customer a high quality product at a great price.

Merchandise procurement and distribution

Our disciplined buying strategy and strict adherence to purchasing margins support our merchandising strategy of buying cheap to sell cheap.

Merchandising team

Our 16-member merchant team maintains strong, long-standing relationships with a diverse group of suppliers, allowing us to procure branded merchandise at compelling values for our customers. This team is led by five senior merchants, including Mark Butler, and has over 100 combined years of experience at Ollie’s. Our merchants specialize by department in order to build category expertise, in-depth knowledge and sourcing relationships. We believe our buying approach, coupled with long-standing and newly formed relationships, enable us to find the best deals from major manufacturers and pass drastically reduced prices along to our customers. We plan to further invest in and grow our merchandising team in order to expand and enhance our sourcing relationships and product categories, which we expect will drive shopping frequency and increase customer spending.

Merchandise procurement

We believe that our strong sourcing capabilities are the result of our tenured merchant team’s ability to leverage deep, long-standing relationships with hundreds of manufacturers, wholesalers, brokers, retailers and other suppliers. Our merchants maintain direct relationships with brand manufacturers, regularly attend major tradeshows and travel the world to source extreme value offerings across a broad assortment of product categories. We are an ideal partner to major manufacturers because our merchants are experienced and empowered to make quick decisions. Each opportunity is unique and our merchants negotiate directly with the supplier to lock in a particular deal. Our ability to select the most attractive opportunistic purchases from a growing number of available deals enables us to provide a wide assortment of goods to our customers at great bargain prices.

We source from over 1,100 suppliers, and no supplier accounted for more than 5% of our purchases during 2017. Our dedication to building strong relationships with suppliers is evidenced by a 13-year average relationship with our top 15 suppliers. As we continue to grow, we believe our increased scale will provide us with even greater access to brand name products since many major manufacturers seek a single buyer to acquire the entire deal.

Distribution and logistics

We have made significant investments in our distribution network and personnel to support our store growth plan. Currently, we distribute over 90% of our merchandise from our distribution centers in York, PA (603,000 square feet)

and Commerce, GA (962,280 square feet). In order to minimize the amount of time our retail stores devote to inventory management, our merchandise is seeded with price tickets and labeled with a bar code for shipping.

Our stores generally receive shipments from our distribution centers two to three times a week, depending on the season and specific store size and sales volume. We utilize independent third party freight carriers and, on average, load and ship between 70 and 80 trucks per day.

We believe our existing distribution capabilities will support our anticipated store growth of between 350 to 400 stores over the next several years.

Our stores

As of February 3, 2018, we operated 268 stores, averaging approximately 32,500 square feet, across 20 contiguous states in the Eastern portion of the United States. Our highly flexible real estate approach has proven successful across all vintages, geographic regions, population densities, demographic groups, real estate formats and regardless of any co-tenant. Our business model has resulted in positive financial performance during strong and weak economic cycles. We have successfully opened stores in six new states since 2013, highlighting the portability of our new store model. The following map shows the number of stores in each of the states in which we operated as of February 3, 2018:

Store design and layout

All of our warehouse format stores incorporate the same philosophy: no-frills, bright, “semi-lovely” stores and a fun, treasure hunt shopping experience. We present our stores as “semi-lovely” to differentiate our stores from other traditional retailers, and to minimize operating and build-out costs. Our stores also welcome our customers with vibrant and colorful caricatures together with witty signage. We attempt to make our customers laugh as we poke fun at ourselves and current events. We believe that by disarming our customers by getting them to giggle a bit, they are able to look at and trust our products for what they are—extremely great bargains.

We believe the store layout and merchandising strategy help to instill a “shop now” sense of urgency and increase frequency of customer visits as customers never know what they might come across in our stores. We make it easy for our customers to browse our stores by displaying our frequently changing assortment of products on rolling tables, pallets and other display fixtures. Our store team leaders are responsible for maintaining our treasure hunt shopping experience, keeping the stores clean and well-lit and ensuring our customers are engaged. We believe our humorous brand image, compelling values and welcoming stores resonate with our customers and define Ollie’s as a unique and comfortable destination shopping location.

Expansion opportunities and site selection

We believe we can profitably expand our store count on a national scale to more than 950 locations based on internal estimates and third party research conducted by Jeff Green Partners. Our disciplined real estate strategy focuses on infilling existing geographies as well as expanding into contiguous markets in order to leverage our distribution infrastructure, field management team, store management, marketing investments and brand awareness.

We maintain a pipeline of real estate sites that have been approved by our real estate committee. Our recent store growth is summarized in the following table:

We utilize a rigorous site selection and real estate approval process in order to leverage our infrastructure, marketing investments and brand awareness. Members of our real estate team spend considerable time evaluating prospective sites before bringing a new lease proposal to our real estate committee, which is comprised of senior management and executive officers. Our flexible store layout allows us to quickly take over a variety of low-cost, second generation sites, including former big box retail and grocery stores.

We believe there is an ample supply of suitable low-cost, second generation real estate allowing us to infill within our existing markets as well as to expand into new, contiguous geographies. By focusing on key characteristics such as proximity to the nearest Ollie’s store, ability to leverage distribution infrastructure, visibility, traffic counts, population densities of at least 50,000 people within ten miles and low rent per square foot, we have developed a new store real estate model that has consistently delivered attractive returns on invested capital.

Our strong unit growth is supported by our predictable and compelling new store model. We target a store size between 25,000 to 35,000 square feet and an average initial cash investment of approximately $1.0 million, which includes store fixtures and equipment, store-level and distribution center inventory (net of payables) and pre-opening expenses. With our relatively low investment costs and strong new store opening performance, we target new store sales of $3.9 million. New stores opened from 2012 to 2016 have generated an average of $4.0 million in net sales in their first full year of operations and produced an average payback period of approximately two years. We believe that our consistent store performance, corporate infrastructure, including our two distribution centers, and disciplined approach to site selection support the portability and predictability of our new unit growth strategy.

Store-level management and training

Our Senior Vice President of Store Operations oversees all store activities. Our stores are grouped into three regions, divided generally along geographic lines. We employ three regional directors, who have responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the stores in their region. Reporting to the regional directors are 26 district team leaders who each manage a group of stores in their markets. At the store level, the leadership team consists of a store team leader (manager), co-team leader (first level assistant manager) and assistant team leader (second level assistant manager). Supervisors oversee specific areas within each store.

Each store team leader is responsible for the daily operations of the store, including the processing of merchandise to the sales floor and the presentation of goods throughout the store. Store team leaders are trained to maintain a clean and appealing store environment for our customers. Store team leaders and co-team leaders are also responsible for the hiring, training and development of associates. While each store’s sales volume is reviewed to determine the optimal store-level staffing requirements, our typical store employs 16 to 30 associates. Part-time associates generally comprise approximately 60% of the associates in a typical store, with approximately 40% being full-time associates.

We work tirelessly to hire talented people, to improve our ability to assess talent during the interview process and to regularly train those individuals at Ollie’s who are responsible for interviewing candidates. We also devote substantial resources to training our new managers through our Team Leader Training Program. This program operates at 21 designated training stores located across our footprint. It provides an in-depth review of our operations, including merchandising, policies and procedures, asset protection and safety, and human resources. Part-time associates receive structured training as part of their onboarding throughout their first five scheduled shifts.

Our Ollie’s Leadership Institute (“OLI”) is a program that is used to equip associates with the ability to advance their career. Each OLI participant receives an individual development plan, designed to prepare him or her for his or her next level position. Our strong growth provides opportunities for advancement and OLI is focused on preparing eligible candidates for these positions. OLI is our preferred source for new supervisors and team leaders as “home grown” talent has proven to be successful. Since the program was implemented in 2009, our internal promotion rate has increased from approximately 18% to approximately 45% in 2017. We believe our training and development programs help create a positive work environment and result in stores that operate at a high level.

Marketing and advertising

Our marketing and advertising campaigns feature colorful caricatures and witty sayings in order to make our customers laugh. We believe that by disarming our customers by getting them to giggle a bit, they are able to look at and trust our products for what they are—extremely great bargains. Our distinctive and often self-deprecating humor and highly recognizable caricatures are used in all of our stores, flyers and advertising campaigns.

We tailor our marketing mix and strategy for each market, deal or promotion. We primarily use the following forms of marketing and advertising:

Ollie’s Army

Our customer loyalty program, Ollie’s Army, stands at 8.8 million members as of February 3, 2018, an increase of 19.4% from 2016. In 2017, Ollie’s Army members accounted for approximately 70% of net sales and spent approximately 40% more per shopping trip, on average, than non-members. Consistent with our marketing strategy, we engage new and existing Ollie’s Army members through the use of witty phrases and signage; examples include “Enlist in Ollie’s Army today,” “become one of the few, the cheap, the proud” and “Ollie’s Army Boot Camp…all enlistees will receive 15% off their next purchase.” In addition, for every $250 Ollie’s Army members spend, they receive a coupon for 10% off their next entire purchase. Historically, Ollie’s Army members have demonstrated double-digit redemption rates for promotional activities exclusive to Ollie’s Army members, such as our Valentine’s, Boot Camp and Buzzard 15% off mailers, as well as Ollie’s Army Night, a special annual one-day after-hours sale in December for Ollie’s Army members. We expect to continue leveraging the data gathered from our proprietary database of Ollie’s Army members to better segment and target our marketing initiatives and increase shopping frequency.

Competition

We compete with a diverse group of retailers, including discount, closeout, mass merchant, department, grocery, drug, convenience, hardware, variety, online and other specialty stores.

The principal basis on which we compete against other retailers is by offering an ever changing selection of brand name products at compelling price points in an exciting shopping environment. Accordingly, we compete against a fragmented group of retailers, wholesalers and jobbers to acquire merchandise for sale in our stores.

Our established relationships with our suppliers, coupled with our scale, associated buying power, financial credibility and responsiveness, often makes Ollie’s the first call for available deals. Our direct relationships with suppliers have increased as we have grown, and we continuously strive to broaden our supplier network.

Trademarks and other intellectual property

We own multiple state and federally registered trademarks related to our brand, including “Ollie’s,” “Ollie’s Bargain Outlet,” “Good Stuff Cheap,” “Ollie’s Army,” “Real Brands Real Cheap!” and “Real Brands! Real Bargains!” In addition, we maintain a trademark for the image of Ollie, the face of our company. We also own registered trademarks for many of our private labels such as “Sarasota Breeze,” “Steelton Tools,” “American Way” and “Commonwealth Classics,” among others. We are also in the process of prosecuting several other trademarks, both for private label goods and to further identify our services. We enter into trademark license agreements where necessary, which may include our private label offerings, such as the Magnavox products and Marcus Samuelsson Signature Cookware available in our stores. Our trademark registrations have various expiration dates; however, assuming that the trademark registrations are properly renewed, they have a perpetual duration. We also own several domain names, including www.ollies.us, www.olliesbargainoutlet.com, www.olliesarmy.com, www.ollies.cheap, www.sarasotabreeze.com and www.olliesmail.com, and unregistered copyrights in our website content. We attempt to obtain registration of our trademarks as practical and pursue infringement of those marks when appropriate.

Technology

Our management information systems provide a full range of business process assistance and timely information to support our merchandising team and strategy, management of multiple distribution centers, stores and operations, and financial reporting. We believe our current systems provide us with operational efficiencies, scalability, management control and timely reporting that allow us to identify and respond to merchandising and operating trends in our business. We use a combination of internal and external resources to support store point-of-sale, merchandise acquisition and distribution, inventory management, financial reporting, real estate and administrative functions. We continuously assess ways to maximize productivity and efficiency, as well as evaluate opportunities to further enhance our existing systems. Our existing systems are scalable to support future growth.

Government regulation

We are subject to labor and employment laws, including minimum wage requirements, laws governing advertising, privacy laws, safety regulations and other laws, including consumer protection regulations that regulate retailers and/or govern product standards, the promotion and sale of merchandise and the operation of stores and warehouse facilities. We monitor changes in these laws and believe that we are in material compliance with applicable laws.

We source a portion of our products from outside the United States. The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other similar anti-bribery and anti-kickback laws and regulations generally prohibit companies and their intermediaries from making improper payments to non-U.S. officials for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. Our policies and our vendor compliance agreements mandate compliance with applicable law, including these laws and regulations.

Insurance

We maintain third-party insurance for a number of risk management activities, including workers’ compensation, general liability, commercial property, ocean marine, cyber, director and officer and employee benefit related insurance policies. We evaluate our insurance requirements on an ongoing basis to ensure we maintain adequate levels of coverage.

Employees

As of February 3, 2018, we employed more than 6,700 associates, approximately 3,000 of whom were full-time and approximately 3,700 of whom were part-time. Of our total associate base, approximately 140 were based at our store support center in Harrisburg, PA. Our distribution centers employ approximately 500 associates. The remaining were store and field associates. The number of associates in a fiscal year fluctuates depending on the business needs at different times of the year. In 2017, we employed approximately 2,300 additional seasonal associates during our peak holiday sales season. We have a long history of maintaining a culture that embraces our associates. We take pride in providing a great work environment and strong growth opportunities for our associates. None of our associates belong to a union or are party to any collective bargaining or similar agreement.

Seasonality

Our business is seasonal in nature and demand is generally the highest in our fourth fiscal quarter due to the holiday sales season. To prepare for the holiday sales season, we must order and keep in stock more merchandise than we carry during other times of the year and generally engage in additional marketing efforts. We expect inventory levels, along with accounts payable and accrued expenses, to reach their highest levels in our third and fourth fiscal quarters in anticipation of increased net sales during the holiday sales season. As a result of this seasonality, and generally because of variation in consumer spending habits, we experience fluctuations in net sales and working capital requirements during the year. Because we offer a broad selection of merchandise at extreme values, we believe we are less impacted than other retailers by economic cycles which correspond with declines in general consumer spending habits and we believe we still benefit from periods of increased consumer spending.

Available Information

Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities and Exchange Act are available free of charge on our website, www.ollies.us, as soon as reasonably practicable after the electronic filing of such reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).

Our ability to generate revenues is dependent on consumer confidence and spending, which may be subject to factors beyond our control, including changes in economic and political conditions.

The success of our business depends, to a significant extent, on the level of consumer confidence and spending. A number of factors beyond our control affect the level of customer confidence and spending on merchandise that we offer, including, among other things:

Reduced customer confidence and spending cut backs may result in reduced demand for our merchandise, including discretionary items, and may force us to take inventory markdowns. Reduced demand also may require increased selling and promotional expenses. Adverse economic conditions and any related decrease in customer demand for our merchandise could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Many of the factors identified above also affect commodity rates, transportation costs, costs of labor, insurance and healthcare, the strength of the U.S. dollar, lease costs, measures that create barriers to or increase the costs associated with international trade, changes in other laws and regulations and other economic factors, all of which may impact our cost of goods sold and our selling, general and administrative expenses, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We face intense competition, which could limit our growth opportunities and adversely impact our financial performance.

We compete with a highly fragmented group of competitors, including discount, closeout, mass merchant, department, grocery, drug, convenience, hardware, variety, online and other specialty stores. We compete with these retailers with respect to price, store location, supply and quality of merchandise, assortment and presentation and customer service. This competitive environment subjects us to the risk of an adverse impact to our financial performance because of the lower prices, and thus the lower margins, that are required to maintain our competitive position. A number of different competitive factors outside of our control could impact our ability to compete effectively, including:

A number of our competitors also have greater financial and operational resources, greater brand recognition, longer operating histories and broader geographic presences than us. We remain vulnerable to the marketing power and high level of customer recognition of these larger competitors and to the risk that these or other competitors could attract our customer base, including, but not limited to the members of Ollie’s Army.

In addition, if any of our competitors were to consolidate their operations, such consolidation may result in competitors with greatly improved financial resources, improved access to merchandise, greater market penetration and other improvements in their competitive positions, as well as result in the provision of a wider variety of products and services at competitive prices by these consolidated companies, which could adversely affect our financial performance.

We cannot guarantee that we will continue to be able to successfully compete against either existing or future competitors. Our inability to respond effectively to competitive pressures, improved performance by our competitors and changes in the retail markets could result in lost market share and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we fail to open new profitable stores on a timely basis or successfully enter new markets, our financial performance could be materially adversely affected.

Our primary growth strategy is to open new profitable stores and expand our operations into new geographic regions. We opened 34 and 31 new stores in 2017 and 2016, respectively, as we continue to backfill in existing markets and expand into contiguous geographies. Our ability to timely open new stores depends in part on several factors, including the availability of attractive rents and store locations; the absence of occupancy delays; the ability to negotiate and enter into leases with acceptable terms; our ability to obtain permits and licenses; our ability to hire and train new personnel, especially store managers, in a cost effective manner; our ability to adapt our distribution and other operational and management systems to a changing network of stores; the availability of capital funding for expansion; our ability to respond to demographic shifts in areas where our stores are located and general economic conditions.

We may not anticipate all of the challenges imposed by the expansion of our operations into new geographic markets. Some new stores may be located in areas with different competitive and market conditions, customer tastes and discretionary spending patterns than our existing markets. We may face a higher cost of entry, alternative customer demands, reduced brand recognition and minimal operating experience in these areas. Although we are extremely sensitive to cannibalizing existing stores, opening new stores in our established markets may also result in inadvertent oversaturation, sales volume transfer from existing stores to new stores and reduced comparable store sales, thus adversely affecting our overall financial performance. We may not manage our expansion effectively, and our failure to achieve or properly execute our expansion plans could limit our growth or have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may not be able to retain the loyalty of our customers, particularly Ollie’s Army members, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We depend on our loyal customer base, particularly members of Ollie’s Army, for our consistent sales and sales growth. Competition for customers has intensified as competitors have moved into, or increased their presence in, our geographic markets and from the use of mobile and web-based technology that facilitates online shopping and real-time product and price comparisons. We expect this competition to continue to increase. Our competitors may be able to offer consumers promotions or loyalty program incentives that could attract Ollie’s Army members or divide their loyalty among several retailers. If we are unable to retain the loyalty of our customers, our net sales could decrease and we may not be able to grow our store base as planned, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our success depends on our executive officers, our merchant team and other key personnel. If we lose key personnel or are unable to hire additional qualified personnel, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our future success depends to a significant degree on the skills, experience and efforts of our executive officers, our merchant team and other key personnel. The unexpected loss of services of any of our executive officers, particularly Mark Butler, our co-founder, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, or senior members of our merchant team could materially adversely affect our business and operations. Competition for skilled and experienced management in the retail industry is intense, and our future success will also depend on our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel, including our merchant team which is responsible for purchasing and negotiating the terms of our merchandise. Failure to attract and retain new qualified personnel could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Factors such as inflation, cost increases and energy prices could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Future increases in costs, such as the cost of merchandise, shipping rates, freight costs and store occupancy costs, may reduce our profitability, given our pricing model. These cost increases may be the result of inflationary pressures which could further reduce our sales or profitability. Increases in other operating costs, including changes in energy prices, wage rates and lease and utility costs, may increase our cost of goods sold or selling, general and administrative expenses. Our low price model and competitive pressures in our industry may have the effect of inhibiting our ability to reflect these increased costs in the prices of our products and, therefore, reduce our profitability and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we are not successful in managing our inventory balances, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our inventory balance represented 70.7% of our total assets exclusive of goodwill, trade name and other intangible assets, net, as of February 3, 2018. Efficient inventory management is a key component of our profitability and ability to generate revenue. To be successful, we must maintain sufficient inventory levels and an appropriate product mix to meet our customers’ demands without allowing those levels to increase to such an extent that the costs to store and hold the goods adversely impact our results of operations. If our buying decisions do not accurately correspond to customer preferences, if we inappropriately price products or if our expectations about customer spending levels are inaccurate, we may have to take unanticipated markdowns to dispose of any excess inventory, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. We continue to focus on ways to reduce these risks, but we cannot ensure that we will be successful in our inventory management. If we are not successful in managing our inventory balances, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may not be successful in the implementation of our long-term business strategy, which could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition.

Our success depends, to a significant degree, on our ability to successfully implement our long-term business strategy. Our ability to successfully implement our business strategy depends on a significant number of factors, including, but not limited to, our ability to:

Any failure to achieve any or all of our business strategies could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we are unable to attract, train and retain highly qualified managerial personnel and sales associates in our stores and our distribution centers, our sales, financial performance and business operations may be materially adversely affected.

We focus on providing our customers with a memorable and engaging shopping experience. To grow our operations and meet the needs and expectations of our customers, we must attract, train and retain a large number of highly qualified store management personnel and sales associates, while controlling labor costs. Our ability to control labor costs is subject to numerous external factors, including competition for and availability of qualified personnel in a given market, unemployment levels within those markets, governmental bodies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board, prevailing wage rates, minimum wage laws, the impact of legislation governing labor and employee relations or benefits, such as the Affordable Care Act, health insurance costs and our ability to maintain good relations with our associates. We compete with other retail businesses for many of our store management personnel and sales associates in hourly and part-time positions. These positions have had historically high turnover rates, which can lead to increased training and retention costs. We also rely on associates in our distribution centers to ensure the efficient processing and delivery of products from our suppliers to our stores. If we are unable to attract and retain quality sales associates and management personnel, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business requires that we lease substantial amounts of space and there can be no assurance that we will be able to continue to lease space on terms as favorable as the leases negotiated in the past.

Other than one store location, which is owned, we lease our store locations, our corporate headquarters and our distribution facilities in York, PA and Commerce, GA. Our stores are leased from third parties, with typical initial lease terms of five to ten years with options to renew for two to four successive five-year periods. We believe that we have been able to negotiate favorable rental rates over the last few years due in large part to the general state of the economy, the increased availability of vacant big box retail sites and our careful identification of favorable lease opportunities. While we will continue to seek out advantageous lease opportunities, there is no guarantee that we will continue to be able to find low-cost second generation sites or obtain favorable lease terms. Many of our lease agreements have defined escalating rent provisions over the initial term and any extensions. Increases in our occupancy costs and difficulty in identifying economically suitable new store locations could have significant negative consequences, which include:

We depend on cash flow from operations to pay our lease expenses and to fulfill our other cash needs. If our business does not generate sufficient cash flow from operating activities to fund these expenses and needs and sufficient funds are not otherwise available to us, we may not be able to service our lease expenses, grow our business, respond to competitive challenges or fund our other liquidity and capital needs, which could harm our business. Additional sites that we lease may be subject to long-term non-cancelable leases if we are unable to negotiate our current standard lease terms. If an existing or future store is not profitable, and we decide to close it, we may nonetheless be committed to perform our obligations under the applicable lease including, among other things, paying the base rent for the balance of the lease term. Moreover, even if a lease has an early cancellation clause, we may not satisfy the contractual requirements for early cancellation under that lease. In addition, if we are not able to enter into new leases or renew existing leases on terms acceptable to us, this could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The loss of, or disruption in the operations of, our centralized distribution centers could materially adversely affect our business and operations.

With few exceptions, inventory is shipped directly from suppliers to our two distribution centers in York, PA, and Commerce, GA, where the inventory is then processed, sorted and shipped to our stores. We depend in large part on the orderly operation of this receiving and distribution process, which depends, in turn, on adherence to shipping schedules and effective management of our distribution centers. Increases in transportation costs (including increases in fuel costs), supplier-side delays, reductions in the capacity of carriers, changes in shipping companies, labor strikes or shortages in the transportation industry and unexpected delivery interruptions also have the potential to derail our orderly distribution process. We also may not anticipate changing demands on our distribution system. In addition, events beyond our control, such as disruptions in operations due to fire or other catastrophic events or labor disagreements, may result in delays in the delivery of merchandise to our stores. While we maintain business interruption insurance, in the event our distribution centers are shut down for any reason, such insurance may not be sufficient, and any related insurance proceeds may not be timely paid to us. In addition, our new store locations receiving shipments may be further away from our distribution centers, which may increase transportation costs and may create transportation scheduling strains. Any repeated, intermittent, or long-term disruption in the operations of our distribution centers would hinder our ability to provide merchandise to our stores and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our new store growth is dependent on our ability to successfully expand our distribution network capacity, and failure to achieve or sustain these plans could affect our performance adversely.

We maintain distribution centers in York, PA and Commerce, GA to support our existing stores and our growth objectives. We continuously assess ways to maximize the productivity and efficiency of our existing distribution facilities and evaluate opportunities for additional distribution centers. Should we open additional distribution centers, delays in such openings could adversely affect our future operations by slowing store growth, which could, in turn, reduce sales growth. In addition, any distribution-related construction or expansion projects entail risks which could cause delays and cost overruns, such as shortages of materials, shortages of skilled labor or work stoppages, unforeseen construction, scheduling, engineering, environmental or geological problems, weather interference, fires or other casualty losses and unanticipated cost increases. The completion date and ultimate cost of future projects could differ significantly from initial expectations due to construction-related or other reasons. We cannot guarantee that any project will be completed on time or within established budgets.

We do not compete in the growing online retail marketplace, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our long-term business strategy does not presently include the development of online retailing capabilities. To the extent that we implement online operations, we would incur substantial expenses related to such activities and be exposed to additional cybersecurity risks. Further, any development of an online retail marketplace is a complex undertaking, and there is no guarantee that any resources we apply to this effort will result in increased revenues or operating performance. However, with the growing acceptance of online shopping and the increased proliferation of mobile devices, competition from other retailers in the online retail marketplace is expected to increase. Certain of our competitors and a number of pure online retailers have established robust online operations. Increased competition from online retailers and our lack of an online retail presence may reduce our customers’ desire to purchase goods from us and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our success depends on our marketing, advertising and promotional efforts. If we are unable to implement them successfully, or if our competitors are more effective than we are, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We use marketing and promotional programs to attract customers to our stores and to encourage purchases by our customers. Although we use various media for our promotional efforts, including regular and Ollie’s Army mailers, email campaigns, radio and television advertisements and sports marketing, we primarily advertise our in-store offerings through printed flyers. In 2017, approximately 70% of our advertising spend was for the printing and distribution of flyers. If the efficacy of printed flyers as an advertising medium declines, or if we fail to successfully develop and implement new marketing, advertising and promotional strategies, such as an effective social media strategy, our competitors may be able to attract the interest of our customers, which could reduce customer traffic in

our stores. Changes in the amount and degree of promotional intensity or merchandising strategy by our competitors could cause us to have difficulties in retaining existing customers and attracting new customers. If the efficacy of our marketing or promotional activities declines or if such activities of our competitors are more effective than ours, or if for any other reason we lose the loyalty of our customers, including our Ollie’s Army members, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we fail to protect our brand names, competitors may adopt trade names that dilute the value of these assets.

We may be unable or unwilling to strictly enforce our trademarks in each jurisdiction in which we do business. Also, we may not always be able to successfully enforce our trademarks against competitors or against challenges by others. Our failure to successfully protect our trademarks could diminish the value and efficacy of our brand recognition and could cause customer confusion, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Fluctuations in comparable store sales and results of operations, including fluctuations on a quarterly basis, could cause our business performance to decline substantially.

Our results of operations have fluctuated in the past, including on a quarterly basis, and can be expected to continue to fluctuate in the future.

Our comparable store sales and results of operations are affected by a variety of factors, including:

If our future comparable store sales fail to meet expectations, then our cash flow and profitability could decline substantially, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We rely on manufacturers in foreign countries for merchandise and a significant amount of our domestically- purchased merchandise is manufactured abroad. Our business may be materially adversely affected by risks associated with international trade.

We purchase merchandise directly from suppliers outside of the United States. In 2017, substantially all of our private label inventory purchases were direct imports. Our direct imports represented approximately 16% at cost of our total merchandise purchases in 2017. Additionally, a significant amount of our domestically-purchased merchandise is manufactured abroad. Our ability to identify qualified suppliers and to access products in a timely and efficient manner is a significant challenge, especially with respect to goods sourced outside of North America. Global sourcing and foreign trade involve numerous factors and uncertainties beyond our control, including possible changes to U.S. trade policy, increased shipping costs, increased import duties, more restrictive quotas, loss of most favored nation trading status, currency, work stoppages, transportation delays, port of entry issues, economic uncertainties such as inflation, foreign government regulations, political unrest, natural disasters, war, terrorism, trade restrictions, political instability, the financial stability of vendors, merchandise quality issues, and tariffs. Moreover, negative press or reports about internationally manufactured products may sway public opinion, and thus customer confidence, away from the products sold in our stores. These and other issues affecting our international vendors could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to governmental regulations, procedures and requirements. A significant change in, or noncompliance with, these regulations could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We routinely incur significant costs in complying with federal, state and local laws and regulations. The complexity of the regulatory environment in which we operate and the related cost of compliance are increasing due to expanding and additional legal and regulatory requirements and increased enforcement efforts. New laws or regulations,

including those dealing with healthcare reform, product safety, consumer credit, privacy and information security and labor and employment, among others, or changes in existing laws and regulations, particularly those governing the sale of products and food safety and quality (including changes in labeling or disclosure requirements), federal or state wage requirements, employee rights, health care, social welfare or entitlement programs such as health insurance, paid leave programs, or other changes in workplace regulation, may result in significant added expenses or may require extensive system and operating changes that may be difficult to implement and/or could materially increase our cost of doing business. Untimely compliance or noncompliance with applicable regulations or untimely or incomplete execution of a required product recall can result in the imposition of penalties, including loss of licenses or significant fines or monetary penalties, class action litigation or other litigation, in addition to reputational damage. Additionally, changes in tax laws, the interpretation of existing laws, or our failure to sustain our reporting positions on examination could materially adversely affect our effective tax rate and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Any disruptions to our information technology systems or breaches of our network security could disrupt or interrupt our operations, compromise our reputation, expose us to litigation, government enforcement actions and costly response measures and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We rely on the integrity, security and successful functioning of our information technology systems and network infrastructure across our operations, including point-of-sale processing at our stores. In connection with sales, we transmit encrypted confidential credit and debit card information.

As of the end of 2017, we are compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (the “PCI Standard”) issued by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. However, there can be no assurance that in the future we will be able to operate our facilities and our customer service and sales operations in accordance with PCI or other industry recommended or contractually required practices. We expect to incur additional expenses, and the time and effort of our information technology staff to maintain PCI compliance. Even though we are compliant with such standards, we still may not be able to prevent or timely detect security breaches.

We also have access to, collect or maintain private or confidential information regarding our customers, associates and suppliers, as well as our business. The protection of our customer, associate, supplier and company data is critical to us. The regulatory environment surrounding information security and privacy is increasingly demanding, with the frequent imposition of new and changing requirements across the many states in which we conduct our business. In addition, customers have a high expectation that we will adequately protect their personal information from cyber-attack or other security breaches. We have procedures in place to evaluate the integrity of our systems, and to safeguard such data and information. However, a significant breach of customer, employee, supplier, or company data could attract a substantial amount of negative media attention, damage our customer and supplier relationships and our reputation, and result in lost sales, fines and/or lawsuits.

An increasingly significant portion of our sales depends on the continuing operation of our information technology and communications systems, including, but not limited to, our point-of-sale system and our credit card processing systems. Our information technology, communication systems and electronic data may be vulnerable to damage or interruption from computer viruses, loss of data, unauthorized data breaches, usage errors by our associates or our contractors or other attempts to harm our systems, including cyber-security attacks or other breaches of cardholder data, earthquakes, acts of war or terrorist attacks, floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, power loss and outages, computer and telecommunications failures. Some of our systems are not fully redundant, and our disaster recovery planning cannot account for all eventualities. The occurrence of intentional sabotage, unauthorized access, natural disaster, or other unanticipated problems could result in lengthy interruptions in our service. Any errors or vulnerabilities in our systems, or damage to or failure of our systems, could result in interruptions in our services, non-compliance with certain regulations, substantial remediation costs, and liability for lost or stolen information, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we are unable to maintain or upgrade our information technology systems or if we are unable to convert to alternate systems in an efficient and timely manner, our operations may be disrupted or become less efficient.

We depend on a variety of information technology systems for the efficient functioning of our business. We rely on certain hardware, telecommunications and software vendors to maintain and periodically upgrade many of these systems so that we can continue to support our business. Various components of our information technology systems,

including hardware, networks and software, are licensed to us by third party vendors. We rely extensively on our information technology systems to process transactions, summarize results and manage our business. Additionally, because we accept debit and credit cards for payment, we are subject to the PCI Standard, which contains compliance guidelines with regard to our security surrounding the physical and electronic storage, processing and transmission of cardholder data. We are in compliance with the PCI Standard as of the end of 2017, and compliance with the PCI Standard and implementing related procedures, technology and information security measures requires significant resources and ongoing attention. Costs and potential problems and interruptions associated with the implementation of new or upgraded systems and technology such as those necessary to achieve compliance with the PCI Standard or with maintenance or adequate support of existing systems could also disrupt or reduce the efficiency of our operations. Any material interruptions or failures in our payment-related systems could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If our information technology systems are damaged or cease to function properly, we may have to make a significant investment to fix or replace them. If there are amendments to the PCI Standard, the cost of re-compliance could also be substantial and we may suffer loss of critical data and interruptions or delays in our operations as a result. In addition, we may have to upgrade our existing information technology systems from time to time in order for such systems to withstand the increasing needs of our expanding business. Any material interruption experienced by our information technology systems could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Costs and potential interruptions associated with the implementation of new or upgraded systems and technology or with maintenance or adequate support of our existing systems could disrupt or reduce the efficiency of our business.

Because our business is seasonal, with the highest volume of net sales during the holiday season, adverse events during our fourth fiscal quarter could materially adversely affect our business, operations, cash flow and financial condition.

We generally recognize our highest volume of net sales in connection with the holiday sales season, which occurs in the fourth quarter of our fiscal year. In anticipation of the holiday sales season, we purchase substantial amounts of seasonal inventory and hire many part-time associates. Because a significant percentage of our net sales and operating income are generated in our fourth fiscal quarter, we have limited ability to compensate for shortfalls in our fourth fiscal quarter sales or earnings by changing our operations or strategies in other fiscal quarters. Adverse events, such as deteriorating economic conditions, higher unemployment, higher gas prices, public transportation disruptions, or unanticipated adverse weather conditions could result in lower than planned sales during the holiday sales season. If our fourth fiscal quarter sales results were substantially below expectations, we would realize less cash from operations, and may be forced to mark down our merchandise, especially our seasonal merchandise, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The cost of compliance with product safety regulations and risks related to product liability claims and product recalls could damage our reputation, increase our cost of doing business and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

New federal or state legislation, including new product safety laws and regulations, may negatively impact our operations. Future changes in product safety legislation or regulations may lead to product recalls and the disposal or write-off of merchandise. While we work to comply in all material respects with applicable legislation and regulations, and to execute product recalls in a timely manner, if our merchandise, including food and consumable products and flooring, does not meet applicable governmental safety standards or our customers’ expectations regarding quality or safety, we could experience lost sales and increased costs, be exposed to legal and reputational risk and face fines or penalties which could materially adversely affect our financial results. We also purchase a material portion of our products on a closeout basis. Some of these products are obtained through brokers or intermediaries rather than through manufacturers. The closeout nature of a portion of our products sometimes makes it more difficult for us to investigate all aspects of these products. Furthermore, customers have asserted claims, and may in the future assert claims, that they have sustained injuries from merchandise offered by us, and we may be subject to lawsuits relating to these claims. There is a risk that these claims may exceed, or fall outside the scope of, our insurance coverage. Even with adequate insurance and indemnification from third-party suppliers, such claims, even if unsuccessful or not fully pursued, could significantly damage our reputation and customer confidence in our products. If this occurs, it may be difficult for us to regain lost sales, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We face litigation risks from customers, associates and other third parties in the ordinary course of business.

Our business is subject to the risk of litigation by customers, current and former associates, suppliers, stockholders, intellectual property rights holders, government agencies and others through private actions, class actions, administrative proceedings, regulatory actions, or other litigation. The outcome of litigation, particularly class action lawsuits and regulatory actions, is difficult to assess or quantify. Plaintiffs in these types of lawsuits may seek recovery of very large or indeterminate amounts, and the magnitude of the potential loss relating to such lawsuits may remain unknown for substantial periods of time. The cost to defend future litigation may be significant and may negatively affect our operating results if changes to our business operations are required. There may also be negative publicity associated with litigation that could decrease customer acceptance of merchandise offerings, regardless of whether the allegations are valid or whether we are ultimately found liable. As a result, litigation may adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations or liquidity.

Our indebtedness may limit our ability to invest in the ongoing needs of our business and if we are unable to comply with our financial covenants, it could have a material adverse effect on our liquidity and our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As of February 3, 2018, we had $48.8 million of outstanding borrowings on the senior secured term loan facility (the “Term Loan Facility”) and no outstanding borrowings under the revolving credit facility (the “Revolving Credit Facility,” and together with the Term Loan Facility, the “Credit Facilities”), with $96.0 million of borrowing availability, letter of credit commitments of $3.7 million and $0.3 million of rent reserves. We may, from time to time, incur additional indebtedness.

The agreements governing our Credit Facilities place certain conditions on us, including that they:

Our Credit Facilities place certain limitations on our ability to incur additional indebtedness. However, subject to the qualifications and exceptions in our Credit Facilities, we may be permitted to incur substantial additional indebtedness and may incur obligations that do not constitute indebtedness under the terms of the Credit Facilities. Our Credit Facilities also place certain limitations on, among other things, our ability to enter into certain types of transactions, financing arrangements and investments, to make certain changes to our capital structure and to guarantee certain indebtedness. Our Credit Facilities also place certain restrictions on the payment of dividends and distributions and certain management fees. These restrictions limit or prohibit, among other things, our ability to:

Failure to comply with certain covenants or the occurrence of a change of control under our Credit Facilities could result in the acceleration of our obligations under the Credit Facilities, which would materially adversely affect our liquidity, capital resources and results of operations.

Under certain circumstances, our Credit Facilities require us to comply with certain financial covenants regarding our fixed charge coverage ratio and total leverage ratio. Changes with respect to the total leverage ratio may increase our interest rate and failure to comply with each covenant could result in a default and an acceleration of our obligations under the Credit Facilities, which could have a material adverse effect on our liquidity and our business, financial condition and results of operations. See “Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations – Liquidity and Capital Resources – Credit Facilities.”

We may be unable to generate sufficient cash flow to satisfy our debt service obligations, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our ability to make principal and interest payments on and to refinance our indebtedness will depend on our ability to generate cash in the future and is subject to general economic, financial, competitive, legislative, regulatory and other factors that are beyond our control. If our business does not generate sufficient cash flow from operations, in the amounts projected or at all, or if future borrowings are not available to us in amounts sufficient to fund our other liquidity needs, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. If we cannot generate sufficient cash flow from operations to make scheduled principal and interest payments in the future, we may need to refinance all or a portion of our indebtedness on or before maturity, sell assets, delay capital expenditures or seek additional equity. The terms of our existing or future debt agreements, including our Credit Facilities, may also restrict us from affecting any of these alternatives. Further, changes in the credit and capital markets, including market disruptions and interest rate fluctuations, may increase the cost of financing, make it more difficult to obtain favorable terms, or restrict our access to these sources of future liquidity. If we are unable to refinance any of our indebtedness on commercially reasonable terms or at all or to effect any other action relating to our indebtedness on satisfactory terms or at all, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Natural disasters, whether or not caused by climate change, unusual weather conditions, epidemic outbreaks, terrorist acts and political events could disrupt business and result in lower sales and otherwise adversely affect our financial performance.

The occurrence of one or more natural disasters, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, floods and earthquakes, unusual weather conditions, epidemic outbreaks, terrorist attacks or disruptive political events in certain regions where our stores are located could adversely affect our business and result in lower sales. Severe weather, such as heavy snowfall or extreme temperatures, may discourage or restrict customers in a particular region from traveling to our stores, thereby reducing our sales and profitability. If severe weather conditions occur during the second or fourth quarter of our fiscal year, the adverse impact to our sales and profitability could be even greater than at other times during the year because we generate a larger portion of our sales and profits during these periods. Natural disasters, including tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, may damage our stores or other operations, which may materially adversely affect our consolidated financial results. To the extent these events also impact one or more of our key suppliers or result in the closure of one or both of our centralized distribution centers or our corporate headquarters, we may be unable to maintain inventory balances, maintain delivery schedules or provide other support functions to our stores. This could have a sustained material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our current insurance program may expose us to unexpected costs and negatively affect our financial performance.

Our insurance coverage reflects deductibles, self-insured retentions, limits of liability and similar provisions that we believe are prudent based on the dispersion of our operations. However, there are types of losses we may incur but against which we cannot be insured or which we believe are not economically reasonable to insure, such as losses due to acts of war, employee and certain other crime, wage and hour and other employment-related claims, including class actions, and some natural disasters. If we incur these losses and they are material, our business could suffer. Certain material events may result in sizable losses for the insurance industry and adversely impact the availability of adequate insurance coverage or result in excessive premium increases. To offset negative insurance market trends, we may elect to self-insure, accept higher deductibles or reduce the amount of coverage in response to these market

changes. In addition, we self-insure a significant portion of expected losses under our workers’ compensation, general liability and group health insurance programs. Unanticipated changes in any applicable actuarial assumptions and management estimates underlying our recorded liabilities for these losses, including expected increases in medical and indemnity costs, could result in materially different expenses than expected under these programs, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition. Although we continue to maintain property insurance for catastrophic events at our store support center, distribution centers and stores, we are not self-insured for other property losses. In addition, because of ongoing changes in healthcare law, among other things, we may experience an increase in participation in our group health insurance programs, which may lead to a greater number of medical claims. While we have coverage for some cyber-related incidents, the nature and scope of any potential attack or breach may result in substantial costs that would exceed the scope of coverage or limits of coverage. If we experience a greater number of these losses than we anticipate, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Inventory shrinkage could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to the risk of inventory loss and theft. Although our inventory shrinkage rates have not been material, or fluctuated significantly in recent years, we cannot ensure that actual rates of inventory loss and theft in the future will be within our estimates or that the measures we are taking will effectively reduce the problem of inventory shrinkage. Although some level of inventory shrinkage is an unavoidable cost of doing business, if we were to experience higher rates of inventory shrinkage or incur increased security costs to combat inventory theft, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If our estimates or judgments relating to our significant accounting policies prove to be incorrect, our operating results could be adversely affected.

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”) requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. The results of these estimates form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities and equity, and the amount of revenue and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Our operating results may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our operating results to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price.

Changes to accounting rules or regulations could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Changes to existing accounting rules or regulations may impact our future results of operations or cause the perception that we are more highly leveraged. Other new accounting rules or regulations and varying interpretations of existing accounting rules or regulations have occurred and may occur in the future. Future changes to accounting rules or regulations could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock

Future sales of our common stock in the public market could cause the market price of our common stock to decrease significantly.

Sales of substantial amounts of our common stock in the public market by our existing stockholders or upon the exercise of outstanding stock options or grant of stock options or restricted stock units in the future may cause the market price of our common stock to decrease significantly. As of February 3, 2018, we have an aggregate of 4,665,733 shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of outstanding options and the vesting of restricted stock units under the 2015 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2015 Plan” and together with the 2012 Equity Incentive Plan, the “Equity Plans”) (2,680,590 of which are fully vested).

The perception that such sales could occur could also depress the market price of our common stock. Any such sales could also create public perception of difficulties or problems with our business and might also make it more difficult for us to raise capital through the sale of equity securities in the future at a time and price that we deem appropriate.

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings, Inc. (“Holdings”) is a holding company and relies on dividends and other payments, advances and transfers of funds from its subsidiaries to meet its obligations and pay any dividends.

Holdings has no direct operations and no significant assets other than ownership of 100% of the capital stock of its subsidiaries. Because Holdings conducts operations through subsidiaries, it depends on those entities for dividends and other payments to generate the funds necessary to meet financial obligations and to pay any dividends with respect to its common stock. Legal and contractual restrictions in the Credit Facilities and other agreements which may govern future indebtedness of subsidiaries, as well as the financial condition and operating requirements of subsidiaries, may limit its ability to obtain cash from subsidiaries. The earnings from, or other available assets of, subsidiaries might not be sufficient to pay dividends or make distributions or loans to enable Holdings to pay any dividends on its common stock or other obligations. Any of the foregoing could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

We do not expect to pay any cash dividends for the foreseeable future.

The continued operation and expansion of our business will require substantial funding. We do not anticipate that we will pay any dividends to holders of our common stock for the foreseeable future. Any payment of cash dividends will be at the discretion of our Board and will depend on our financial condition, capital requirements, legal requirements, earnings and other factors. Our ability to pay dividends is restricted by the terms of our Credit Facilities and might be restricted by the terms of any indebtedness that we incur in the future. Accordingly, realization of any gain on our common stock will depend on the appreciation of the price of the shares of our common stock, which may never occur.

As a public company, our management is required to devote substantial time to compliance initiatives.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and rules implemented by the SEC and the NASDAQ Stock Market LLC (“NASDAQ”) have imposed various requirements on public companies, including establishment and maintenance of effective disclosure and financial controls and corporate governance practices. Implementing and maintaining internal controls is time consuming and costly. If we fail to maintain an effective internal control environment or to comply with the numerous legal and regulatory requirements imposed on public companies, we could make material errors in, and be required to restate, our financial statements. Any such restatement could result in a loss of public confidence in the reliability of our financial statements and sanctions imposed on us by the SEC. If we are unable to satisfy our obligations as a public company, we could be subject to delisting of our common stock, fines, sanctions and other regulatory action and potentially civil litigation.

Our Chief Executive Officer owns a substantial percentage of our outstanding common stock and his interests may be different from or conflict with those of our other stockholders.

As of February 3, 2018, Mark Butler, our co-founder, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, beneficially owns 17.4% of our outstanding common stock. Accordingly, Mr. Butler is able to exert a significant degree of influence over our management and affairs and over matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors, a merger, consolidation or sale of all or substantially all of our assets, and any other significant transaction. Our principal stockholder’s interests might not always coincide with our interests or the interests of our other stockholders.

Anti-takeover provisions in our second amended and restated certificate of incorporation and bylaws and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management and limit the market price of our common stock.

Provisions in our second amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. Our second amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws include provisions that:

These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our Board, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management.

If securities analysts or industry analysts downgrade our shares, publish negative research or reports or do not publish reports about our business, our share price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our common stock is to some extent influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts publish about us, our business and our industry. If no or few analysts commence coverage of us, the trading price of our stock could decrease. Even if we do obtain analyst coverage, if one or more analysts adversely change their recommendation regarding our shares or our competitors’ stock, our share price might decline. If one or more analysts cease coverage of us or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we might lose visibility in the financial markets, which, in turn, could cause our share price or trading volume to decline.

Dividends

Our common stock began trading on July 16, 2015. Since then, we have not declared any cash dividends nor do we expect to in the foreseeable future as we intend to retain our earnings to finance the development and growth of our business and operations.

The Credit Facilities contain a number of restrictive covenants that, among other things and subject to certain exceptions, restrict Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, Inc.’s and Ollie’s Holdings, Inc.’s (together the “Borrowers”) ability and the ability of its subsidiaries to pay dividends on our capital stock or redeem, repurchase or retire our capital stock.

Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans

The information required by this Item will be set forth in the Proxy Statement and is incorporated herein by reference.

While we are focused on driving comparable store sales and managing our expenses, our revenue and profitability growth will primarily come from opening new stores. The core elements of our business model are procuring great deals, offering extreme values to our customers and creating consistent, predictable store growth and margins. In addition, our new stores generally open strong, immediately contributing to the growth in net sales and profitability of our business. From 2013 to 2017, net sales grew at a CAGR of 18.8%. We plan to achieve continued net sales growth, including increases in our comparable stores sales, by adding stores to our store base and by continuing to provide quality merchandise at a value for our customers as we scale and gain more access to purchase directly from major manufacturers. We also plan to leverage and expand our Ollie’s Army database marketing strategies. In addition, we plan to continue to manage our selling, general and administrative expenses (“SG&A”) by furthering process improvements and by maintaining our standard policy of reviewing our operating costs.

Our ability to grow and our results of operations may be impacted by additional factors and uncertainties, such as consumer spending habits, which are subject to macroeconomic conditions and changes in discretionary income. Our customers’ discretionary income is primarily impacted by gas prices, wages and consumer trends and preferences, which fluctuate depending on the environment. The potential consolidation of our competitors or other changes in our competitive landscape could also impact our results of operations or our ability to grow, even though we compete with a broad range of retailers.

Our key competitive advantage is our direct buying relationships with many major manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, brokers and retailers for our brand name and closeout products and unbranded goods. We also augment our product mix with private label brands. As we continue to grow, we believe our increased scale will provide us with even greater access to brand name and closeout products as major manufacturers seek a single buyer to acquire an entire deal.

How We Assess the Performance of Our Business and Key Line Items

We consider a variety of financial and operating measures in assessing the performance of our business. The key measures we use are number of new stores, net sales, comparable store sales, gross profit and gross margin, SG&A, pre-opening expenses, operating income, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA.

Number of New Stores

The number of new stores reflects the number of stores opened during a particular reporting period. Before we open new stores, we incur pre-opening expenses described below under “Pre-Opening Expenses” and we make an initial investment in inventory. We also make initial capital investments in fixtures and equipment, which we amortize over time.

We opened 34 new stores in 2017. We expect new store growth to be the primary driver of our sales growth. Our initial lease terms are typically between five to seven years with options to renew for two or three successive five-year periods. Our portable and predictable real estate model focuses on backfilling existing markets and entering new markets in contiguous states. Our new stores often open with higher sales levels as a result of greater advertising and promotional spend in connection with grand opening events, but decline shortly thereafter to our new store model levels.

Net Sales

Net sales constitute gross sales net of returns and sales tax. Net sales consist of sales from comparable stores and non-comparable stores, described below under “Comparable Store Sales.” Growth of our net sales is primarily driven by expansion of our store base in existing and new markets. As we continue to grow, we believe we will have greater access to brand name and closeout merchandise and an increased deal selection, resulting in more potential offerings for our customers. Net sales are impacted by product mix, merchandise mix and availability, as well as promotional activities and the spending habits of our customers. Our broad selection of offerings across diverse product categories supports growth in net sales by attracting new customers, which results in higher spending levels and frequency of shopping visits from our customers, including Ollie’s Army members.

The spending habits of our customers are subject to macroeconomic conditions and changes in discretionary income. Our customers’ discretionary income is primarily impacted by gas prices, wages and consumer trends and preferences, which fluctuate depending on the environment. However, because we offer a broad selection of merchandise at extreme values, we believe we are less impacted than other retailers by economic cycles. These cycles correspond with declines in general consumer spending habits and we benefit from periods of increased consumer spending.

Comparable Store Sales

Comparable store sales measure performance of a store during the current reporting period against the performance of the same store in the corresponding period of the previous year. Comparable store sales consists of net sales from our stores beginning on the first day of the sixteenth full fiscal month following the store’s opening, which is when we believe comparability is achieved. Comparable store sales are impacted by the same factors that impact net sales.

We define comparable stores to be stores:

Non-comparable store sales consist of new store sales and sales for stores not open for a full 15 months. Stores which are closed temporarily, but for more than five days in any fiscal month, are included in non-comparable store sales beginning in the fiscal month in which the temporary closure begins until the first full month of operation once the store re-opens, at which time they are included in comparable store sales.

Opening new stores is the primary component of our growth strategy and as we continue to execute on our growth strategy, we expect a significant portion of our sales growth will be attributable to non-comparable store sales. Accordingly, comparable store sales are only one measure we use to assess the success of our growth strategy.

Gross Profit and Gross Margin

Gross profit is equal to our net sales less our cost of sales. Cost of sales includes merchandise costs, inventory markdowns, shrinkage and transportation, distribution and warehousing costs, including depreciation. Gross margin is gross profit as a percentage of our net sales. Gross margin is a measure used by management to indicate whether we are selling merchandise at an appropriate gross profit.

In addition, our gross margin is impacted by product mix, as some products generally provide higher gross margins, by our merchandise mix and availability and by our merchandise cost, which can vary.

Our gross profit is variable in nature and generally follows changes in net sales. We regularly analyze the components of gross profit as well as gross margin. Specifically, our product margin and merchandise mix is reviewed by our merchant team and senior management, ensuring strict adherence to internal margin goals. Our disciplined buying approach has produced consistent gross margins and we believe helps to mitigate adverse impacts on gross profit and results of operation.

The components of our cost of sales may not be comparable to the components of cost of sales or similar measures of our competitors and other retailers. As a result, our gross profit and gross margin may not be comparable to similar data made available by our competitors and other retailers.

Selling, General and Administrative Expenses

SG&A are comprised of payroll and benefits for store, field support and support center associates. SG&A also include marketing and advertising, occupancy, utilities, supplies, credit card processing fees, insurance and professional services. The components of our SG&A remain relatively consistent per store and for each new store opening. Consolidated SG&A generally increase as we grow our store base and as our net sales increase. A significant portion of our expenses is primarily fixed in nature, and we expect to continue to maintain strict discipline while carefully monitoring SG&A as a percentage of net sales.

The components of our SG&A may not be comparable to the components of similar measures of other retailers. We expect that our SG&A will continue to increase in future periods with future growth.

Depreciation and amortization expenses

Property and equipment are stated at original cost less accumulated depreciation and amortization. Depreciation and amortization are calculated over the estimated useful lives of the related assets, or in the case of leasehold improvements, the lesser of the useful lives or the remaining term of the lease. Expenditures for additions, renewals,

and betterments are capitalized; expenditures for maintenance and repairs are charged to expense as incurred. Depreciation is computed on the straight-line method for financial reporting purposes. Depreciation as it relates to our distribution centers is included within cost of sales on the consolidated statements of income.

Pre-Opening Expenses

Pre-opening expenses consist of expenses of opening new stores and distribution centers. For new stores, pre-opening expenses include grand opening advertising costs, payroll expenses, travel expenses, employee training costs, rent expenses and store setup costs, as well as store closing costs. Pre-opening expenses for new stores are expensed as they are incurred, which is typically within 30 to 45 days of opening a new store. For distribution centers, pre-opening expenses primarily include inventory transportation costs, employee travel expenses and occupancy costs.

Operating Income

Operating income is gross profit less SG&A, depreciation and amortization and pre-opening expenses. Operating income excludes interest expense, net, and income tax expense. We use operating income as an indicator of the productivity of our business and our ability to manage expenses.

EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA

EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are key metrics used by management and our Board to assess our financial performance. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are also frequently used by analysts, investors and other interested parties to evaluate companies in our industry. We use Adjusted EBITDA to supplement GAAP measures of performance to evaluate the effectiveness of our business strategies, to make budgeting decisions, to evaluate our performance in connection with compensation decisions and to compare our performance against that of other peer companies using similar measures. Management believes it is useful to investors and analysts to evaluate these non-GAAP measures on the same basis as management uses to evaluate the Company’s operating results. We believe that excluding items from operating income, net income and net income per diluted share that may not be indicative of, or are unrelated to, our core operating results, and that may vary in frequency or magnitude, enhances the comparability of our results and provides a better baseline for analyzing trends in our business.

We define EBITDA as net income before net interest expense, loss on extinguishment of debt, depreciation and amortization expenses and income taxes. Adjusted EBITDA represents EBITDA as further adjusted for non-cash stock-based compensation expense, non-cash purchase accounting items, transaction related expenses and debt financing expenses, which we do not consider representative of our ongoing operating performance. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP measures and may not be comparable to similar measures reported by other companies. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. In the future we may incur expenses or charges such as those added back to calculate Adjusted EBITDA. Our presentation of Adjusted EBITDA should not be construed as an inference that our future results will be unaffected by these items. For further discussion of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA and for reconciliations of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA to net income, the most directly comparable GAAP measure, see “Results of Operations.”

Financing Transactions and Payments to Stockholders

On May 27, 2015, we amended the credit agreements governing our Old Credit Facilities to, among other things, increase the size of the Old Revolving Credit Facility from $75.0 million to $125.0 million and to permit a dividend to holders of our outstanding common stock. We also drew $50.0 million of borrowings on the Old Revolving Credit Facility, the proceeds of which were used to pay an aggregate cash dividend of $48.8 million to holders of our common stock, $1.077 million of bank fees and $0.1 million of legal and other expenses.

On July 15, 2015, we priced our IPO of 8,925,000 shares of our common stock. As noted above, we used the net proceeds from the IPO to pay off outstanding borrowings under the Old Revolving Credit Facility and a portion of the outstanding principal balance of the Old Term Loan Facility.

On January 29, 2016, we completed a transaction in which we refinanced the Old Credit Facilities with the proceeds of our Credit Facilities, consisting of the $200.0 million Term Loan Facility and the $100.0 million Revolving Credit Facility, which includes a $25.0 million sub-facility for letters of credit and a $25.0 million sub-facility for swingline loans (the “Refinancing”). We incurred various arrangement fees and legal fees totaling $2.1 million in connection with the Refinancing, of which $2.0 million was recorded as deferred financing fees and $0.1 million was recognized as SG&A on the date of the Refinancing. See “Liquidity and Capital Resources.”

Store Openings

During 2017 and 2016, we opened 34 and 31 new stores, respectively. In 2015, we opened 28 new stores and closed one store. In connection with these store openings, we incurred pre-opening expenses of $7.9 million, $6.9 million and $6.3 million in 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively. In 2018, we expect to open between 36 and 38 new stores and enter the states of Arkansas and Louisiana.

The following table provides a reconciliation of our net income to Adjusted EBITDA for the periods presented:

2017 compared to 2016

Net Sales

Net sales increased to $1.077 billion for 2017 from $890.3 million for 2016, an increase of $186.7 million, or 21.0%. The increase was the result of a comparable store sales increase of $27.7 million, or 3.3%, and a non-comparable store sales increase of $159.0 million. The increase in non-comparable store sales was driven by sales from new stores that have not been open for a full 15 months during 2017 and $16.5 million of sales from a 53 ^rd week in 2017. Excluding the 53 ^rd week, sales increased 19.1% year over year.

Comparable store sales increased 3.3% for 2017 compared to a 3.2% increase for 2016, and reflected 52 weeks in both periods. The increase in comparable store sales during 2017 was driven by an increase in the average transaction size as well as an increase in the number of customer transactions. On a department basis, the increase was primarily driven by strong results in the health & beauty aids, housewares, toys, bed and bath and electronic accessories departments, slightly offset by decreases in our hardware, food and books departments.

Cost of Sales

Cost of sales increased to $645.4 million for 2017 from $529.9 million for 2016, an increase of $115.5 million, or 21.8%. The increase in cost of sales was primarily a result of increased net sales.

Gross Profit and Gross Margin

Gross profit increased to $431.6 million for 2017 from $360.4 million for 2016, an increase of $71.2 million, or 19.8%. The increase in gross profit was primarily the result of new store growth and increases in comparable store sales. Our gross margin decreased to 40.1% from 40.5% for 2017 and 2016, respectively. The decrease in gross margin in 2017 is due decreased merchandise margins partially offset by favorable supply chain costs as a percentage of net sales.

Selling, General and Administrative Expenses

SG&A increased to $278.2 million for 2017 from $242.9 million for 2016, an increase of $35.3 million, or 14.5%. As a percentage of net sales, SG&A decreased 150 basis points to 25.8% for 2017 compared to 27.3% for 2016. The dollar increase in SG&A was primarily driven by increased selling expenses related to new store growth and higher sales volume. These increased expenses consisted primarily of store payroll and benefits, store occupancy costs, and other store-related expenses.

Included in SG&A for 2016 were $1.7 million of transaction related expenses associated with our secondary stock offerings on February 18, 2016, June 6, 2016 and September 6, 2016. Excluding the $1.7 million of transaction related expenses from 2016, SG&A in 2017 increased 15.4% over 2016 and as a percentage of net sales decreased 130 basis points.

Depreciation and Amortization Expense

Depreciation and amortization expenses increased to $9.8 million for 2017 from $8.4 million for 2016, an increase of $1.4 million, or 16.3%, the result of the increased asset base due to new store growth.

Pre-Opening Expenses

Pre-opening expenses increased to $7.9 million for 2017 from $6.9 million for 2016, an increase of $1.0 million, or 14.8%. The increase primarily relates to expenses incurred in opening 34 stores during 2017 compared to opening 31 stores in 2016.

Interest Expense, Net

Net interest expense decreased to $4.5 million for 2017 from $5.9 million for 2016, a decrease of $1.5 million or 24.7%. The decrease in 2017 was primarily due to prepayments on the Term Loan Facility totaling $146.3 million, decreasing our average outstanding loan balance and resulting in a lower interest expense for 2017.

Income Tax Expense

Income tax expense decreased to $2.9 million for 2017 from $36.5 million for 2016, a decrease of $33.6 million, or 92.1%. The decrease in income tax expense was primarily the result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “2017 Tax Act”), which was effective as of January 1, 2018. The 2017 Tax Act, among other things, decreased the existing maximum federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Pursuant to the provisions of the 2017 Tax Act, we recorded a tax benefit of $32.6 million primarily due to the net impact of the revaluation of net deferred tax liability balances at fiscal year-end. The decrease in income tax expense was also due to a discrete tax benefit of $14.4 million recognized under the accounting changes for stock-based compensation in Accounting Standards Update 2016-09, Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting . As a result, our effective tax rate decreased to 2.2% for 2017 from 37.9% for 2016.

Net Income

As a result of the foregoing, net income increased to $127.6 million for 2017 from $59.8 million for 2016, an increase of $67.8 million, or 113.5%.

Adjusted EBITDA

Adjusted EBITDA increased to $155.4 million for 2017 from $121.1 million for 2016, an increase of $34.2 million, or 28.2%. As a percentage of net sales, Adjusted EBITDA increased 80 basis points to 14.4%. The increase in Adjusted EBITDA for 2017 is due primarily to our increase in net sales, which was driven by a 3.3% increase in comparable store sales and a 14.5% increase in store count over 2016. In addition, we leveraged SG&A as a percentage of net sales by 130 basis points, all resulting in the improvement of our Adjusted EBITDA performance compared to 2016.

2016 compared to 2015

Net Sales

Net sales increased to $890.3 million for 2016 from $762.4 million for 2015, an increase of $127.9 million, or 16.8%. The increase was the result of a comparable store sales increase of $22.6 million, or 3.2%, and a non-comparable store sales increase of $105.3 million. The increase in non-comparable store sales was driven by sales from new stores that have not been open for a full 15 months during 2016.

Comparable store sales increased 3.2% for 2016 compared to a 6.0% increase for 2015. The increase in comparable store sales during 2016 was driven by an increase in the number of customer transactions as well as an increase in the average transaction size. On a department basis, the increase was primarily driven by strong results in the health and beauty aids, electronics, food and candy, seasonal and toy departments, slightly offset by decreases in our books and stationery, furniture and hardware departments.

Cost of Sales

Cost of sales increased to $529.9 million for 2016 from $459.5 million for 2015, an increase of $70.4 million, or 15.3%. The increase in cost of sales was primarily a result of increased net sales.

Gross Profit and Gross Margin

Gross profit increased to $360.4 million for 2016 from $302.9 million for 2015, an increase of $57.5 million, or 19.0%. The increase in gross profit was primarily the result of new store growth and increases in comparable store sales. Our gross margin increased to 40.5% from 39.7% for 2016 and 2015, respectively. The increase in gross margin in 2016 was due to lower distribution and transportation expenses as a percentage of net sales, primarily due to lower fuel costs and import container rates.

Selling, General and Administrative Expenses

SG&A increased to $242.9 million for 2016 from $209.8 million for 2015, an increase of $33.1 million, or 15.8%. As a percentage of net sales, SG&A decreased 20 basis points to 27.3% for 2016 compared to 27.5% for 2015. The increase in SG&A was primarily the result of increases in store-related expenses of $25.8 million to support new store growth. These increased expenses consisted primarily of store payroll and benefits, store occupancy costs, and other store-related expenses, as well as investments in general and administration infrastructure to support continued growth in the business, public company expenses and costs related to our secondary offering transactions.

Depreciation and Amortization Expense

Depreciation and amortization expenses increased to $8.4 million for 2016 from $7.2 million for 2015, an increase of $1.3 million, or 17.7%. The increase is primarily a result of new store growth.

Pre-Opening Expenses

Pre-opening expenses increased to $6.9 million for 2016 from $6.3 million for 2015, an increase of $0.5 million, or 8.6%. The increase primarily relates to expenses incurred in opening 31 stores during 2016 compared to opening 28 stores and one store closing during 2015.

Interest Expense, Net

Net interest expense decreased to $5.9 million for 2016 from $15.4 million for 2015, a decrease of $9.5 million or 61.5%. The decrease in 2016 was primarily due to proceeds from the IPO reducing borrowings on our Credit Facilities. Additionally, the effective interest rate on our Credit Facilities decreased as a result of the Refinancing that occurred on January 29, 2016.

Income Tax Expense

Income tax expense increased to $36.5 million for 2016 from $21.6 million for 2015, an increase of $14.9 million, or 68.9%. This increase in income tax expense was primarily the result of the $38.8 million increase in pre-tax net income, or 67.6%. Our effective tax rate increased to 37.9% for 2016 from 37.6% for 2015.

Net Income

As a result of the foregoing, net income increased to $59.8 million for 2016 from $35.8 million for 2015, an increase of $23.9 million, or 66.8%.

Adjusted EBITDA

Adjusted EBITDA increased to $121.1 million for 2016 from $94.1 million for 2015, an increase of $27.1 million, or 28.8%. The increase in Adjusted EBITDA for 2016 is due primarily to our increase in net sales, which was driven by a 3.2% increase in comparable store sales and a 15.3% increase in store count over 2015. We achieved increased gross profit dollars due to the increased sales volume as well as an 80-basis-point increase in our gross margin rate, largely driven by reduced distribution and transportation costs in 2016. Additionally, as a result of the sales increase in 2016, our SG&A as a percentage of net sales decreased by 20 basis points, all resulting in the improvement of our Adjusted EBITDA performance compared to the same period last year.

Net cash used in investing activities increased for 2016 to $16.4 million from $14.3 million for 2015. The increase in cash used in investing activities relates to capital expenditures for 31 new store openings in 2016 compared to 28 new store openings in 2015 and a purchase of one of our store locations in 2016.

Cash Provided by/Used In Financing Activities

Net cash used in financing activities for 2017 was $136.2 million and net cash provided by financing activities for 2016 was $17.8 million. The net cash used in 2017 is primarily the result of the $146.3 million prepayments made on the Term Loan Facility.

Net cash provided by financing activities for 2016 was $17.8 million and net cash used in financing activities for 2015 was $23.2 million. The current year favorable variance primarily reflects the $48.8 million dividend payment in 2015, with no similar payments in 2016.

Credit facilities

On January 29, 2016, the Borrowers completed a transaction in which they refinanced the Old Credit Facilities with the proceeds of the Credit Facilities, consisting of the $200.0 million Term Loan Facility and the $100.0 million Revolving Credit Facility, which includes a $25.0 million sub-facility for letters of credit and a $25.0 million sub-facility for swingline loans. The proceeds of the Term Loan Facility, together with cash on hand, were used to repay the existing Old Credit Facilities. Loans under the Credit Facilities mature on January 29, 2021. The interest rates for the Credit Facilities are not subject to a floor and are calculated as the higher of the Prime Rate, the Federal Funds Effective Rate plus 0.50% or the Eurodollar Rate plus 1.0%, plus the Applicable Margin, or, for Eurodollar Loans, the Eurodollar Rate plus the Applicable Margin. The Applicable Margin will vary from 0.75% to 1.25% for a Base Rate Loan and 1.75% to 2.25% for a Eurodollar Loan, based on reference to the total leverage ratio (total debt to Adjusted EBITDA, as defined in the agreement).

The credit agreement governing the Credit Facilities provides that the Borrowers may request increased commitments under the Revolving Credit Facility and additional term loans or additional term facilities under the Term Loan Facility, in each case, subject to certain conditions and in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed (x) $100.0 million, plus (y) in the case of any incremental term loans that serve to effectively extend the maturity of the Term Loan Facility, an amount equal to the reductions in the Term Loan Facility to be replaced thereby plus (z) an additional amount, subject to compliance on a pro forma basis with a total leverage ratio of no greater than 3.25: 1.00 as of February 3, 2018. The effective yield for any such incremental facility under the Term Loan Facility will be subject to a “most favored nation” pricing protection provision with a cushion of 0.50%. The incurrence of any incremental facility under the Term Loan Facility is subject to customary conditions precedent.

Through February 3, 2018, the Term Loan Facility was subject to amortization with principal payable in quarterly installments of $1.25 million. As of February 4, 2018, the quarterly installment payments increased to $2.50 million, with said payments to be made on the last business day of each fiscal quarter prior to maturity. The remaining initial aggregate advances under the Term Loan Facility are payable at maturity.

Under the terms of the Revolving Credit Facility, we can borrow up to 90.0% of the most recent appraised value (valued at cost, discounted for the current net orderly liquidation value) of our eligible inventory, as defined, up to $100.0 million. The Revolving Credit Facility includes a $25.0 million sub-facility for letters of credit and a $25.0 million swingline loan facility. A variable unused line fee of 0.375% per annum will be charged on the average daily unused portion of the Revolving Credit Facility if the total leverage ratio is greater than 3.25: 1.00 or 0.250% per annum if the total leverage ratio is less than 3.25: 1.00. A letter of credit fee will accrue on the aggregate face amount of outstanding letters of credit under the Revolving Credit Facility equal to the interest rate margin for Eurodollar Loans under the Revolving Credit Facility. In addition, a fronting fee will be paid to the letter of credit issuer on the aggregate face amount of outstanding standby letters of credit not to exceed 0.125% per annum, which fee shall be calculated based on the actual number of days elapsed over a 360 day year and payable in arrears, on the first day of each quarter.

The Credit Facilities require the Borrowers to prepay, subject to certain exceptions, outstanding term loans with:

The Revolving Credit Facility requires the Borrowers to first prepay outstanding loans and then cash collateralize outstanding letters of credit if at any time the aggregate amount of outstanding loans, unreimbursed letter of credit drawings and outstanding letters of credit under the Revolving Credit Facility exceeds the Line Cap, in an aggregate amount equal to such excess.

The Borrowers may voluntarily reduce the unutilized portion of the commitment amount and repay outstanding loans under the Credit Facilities at any time without premium or penalty other than customary “breakage” costs with respect to Eurodollar borrowings.

There is no scheduled amortization under the Revolving Credit Facility. The Revolving Credit Facility has a maturity date of January 29, 2021. The term loans under the Term Loan Facility mature on January 29, 2021. The Borrowers are required to repay installments on the term loans in quarterly principal amounts of (i) for each payment date that occurred on or prior to February 3, 2018, $1.25 million or (ii) for each payment date that occurs after February 4, 2018, $2.50 million, with the remaining amount payable on the maturity date.

All obligations under the Credit Facilities are unconditionally guaranteed by Bargain Parent, Inc. and certain of Ollie’s Holdings, Inc.’s existing and future direct and indirect wholly-owned domestic subsidiaries. All obligations under the Credit Facilities, and the guarantees of those obligations, are secured, subject to certain exceptions, by substantially all of Ollie’s Holdings, Inc.’s assets and the assets of the guarantors, including:

The Credit Facilities contain a number of restrictive covenants that, among other things and subject to certain exceptions, restrict the Borrowers’ ability and the ability of its subsidiaries to:

In addition, we are subject to a consolidated fixed charge coverage ratio test of at least 1.1 to 1.0, tested quarterly. We also were subject to a total leverage ratio test of 4.00:1.00 through October 29, 2016 and are hereafter subject to a total leverage ratio test of 3.50:1.00.

The Credit Facilities also contain certain customary representations and warranties, affirmative covenants and reporting obligations. In addition, the lenders under the Credit Facilities will be permitted to accelerate the loans and terminate commitments thereunder or exercise other specified remedies available to secured creditors upon the

occurrence of certain events of default, subject to certain grace periods and exceptions, which will include, among others, payment defaults, breaches of representations and warranties, covenant defaults, cross-defaults to certain material indebtedness, certain events of bankruptcy and insolvency, certain pension plan related events, material judgments and any change of control.

As of February 3, 2018, we had $48.8 million of outstanding borrowings on the Term Loan Facility and no outstanding borrowings under the Revolving Credit Facility, with $96.0 million of borrowing availability, letter of credit commitments of $3.7 million and $0.3 million of rent reserves. The interest rate on the outstanding borrowings under the Term Loan Facility was 1.75% plus the 30-day Eurodollar Rate, or 3.32%. The Revolving Credit Facility also contains a variable unused line fee ranging from 0.250% to 0.375% per annum. We incurred unused line fees of $0.3 million, $0.3 million and $0.4 million for 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively. The loans under the Credit Facilities mature on January 29, 2021.

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

Except for operating leases entered into in the normal course of business, we do not have any off-balance sheet arrangements that have or are reasonably likely to have a current or future effect on our financial condition, changes in financial condition, revenues or expenses, results of operations, liquidity, capital expenditures or capital resources that is material to investors.

Seasonality

Our business is seasonal in nature and demand is generally the highest in our fourth fiscal quarter due to the holiday sales season. To prepare for the holiday sales season, we must order and keep in stock more merchandise than we carry during other times of the year and generally engage in additional marketing efforts. We expect inventory levels, along with accounts payable and accrued expenses, to reach their highest levels in our third and fourth fiscal quarters in anticipation of increased net sales during the holiday sales season. As a result of this seasonality, and generally because of variation in consumer spending habits, we experience fluctuations in net sales and working capital requirements during the year. Because we offer a broad selection of merchandise at extreme values, we believe we are less impacted than other retailers by economic cycles which correspond with declines in general consumer spending habits and we believe we still benefit from periods of increased consumer spending.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Our consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with GAAP. A summary of our significant accounting policies can be found in Note 1 to our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make judgments and estimates that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses and related

disclosures. These judgements and estimates are based on historical and other factors believed to be reasonable under the circumstances. We do not believe that any of our significant accounting policies or estimates meet the definition of critical policies or estimates based upon our interpretation of the guidance provided by the SEC.

Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements

Recently issued accounting standards are discussed in Note 1(w) to the audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.