Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. BBW

J. Christopher Hurt took over as chief executive of Build-A-Bear Workshop on June 11, 2026, on a $700,000 salary and a bonus running from zero to $1.4 million, plus an equity grant not yet sized for the seat. Sharon Price John, who ran fiscal 2025, was paid $3,396,235.

What the plan pays for

One metric pays and one governs, so every incoming dollar gets sorted by whether it carries enough profit. Fiscal 2025 revenue of $529.8 million cleared target and would have interpolated to roughly 132% alone, but EBITDA of $81.3 million on it is a 15.35% margin, landing in the third band, and the payout was cut to 100%. The gate took about a third of the bonus in a year the top line hit.

The record

The bar rose six to eight percent every year while revenue grew two to seven percent, so the board never lowered it to meet the company. The 2021-2023 cycle paid maximum on cumulative EBITDA of $216.5 million against a $78.0 million pandemic-recovery target, a bar the world moved rather than the team. The 2023-2025 cycle paid 19.5% because pre-tax income compounded at 2.8% against a 14% target and earned nothing on its 65% weight. Ten times more, then almost nothing, from the same plan.

Pace runs against the metric that pays. First-quarter fiscal 2026 revenue was $125.3 million, down 2.4% from $128.4 million, while pre-tax income rose 21.6% to $23.9 million. The gate is opening and the revenue meter is going backwards. The board's $525.0 million fiscal 2025 target also sat $10.1 million below the $535.1 million the street already expected, a payout the market had funded before it was set.

What Hurt does next

Push licensing, franchise and partner-operated locations, because that revenue arrives with almost no store cost and lifts metric and gate at once. Watch partner-operated count against company-owned count in the 10-Q.

Take price and mix over units. Watch average transaction value rise while traffic does not.

Close low-margin company-owned stores. Watch net North American closures alongside flat revenue, which shows the gate being managed rather than the top line.

Keep buying back stock. At $38.87 against a $75.85 high, repurchase supports the price without touching either metric, and no share-price goal exists in this plan. Watch share count in the next two 10-Qs.

If the fiscal 2026 target in next year's proxy arrives near or below $529.8 million, against consensus of $539.2 million, the bar stopped rising for the first time in four years.

The insiders

John sold 42,643 shares in two September 2025 blocks averaging $73.20, about $3.12 million. Finance chief Voin Todorovic sold 12,744 at $73.17 in the same window, about $933,000. Both carried code S with no matching exercise, and no options have been granted since 2018, so these were sales of owned stock. The shares now sit at $38.87, forty-seven percent lower, both sales landing within $2.65 of the 52-week high. Directors Craig Leavitt and Lesli Rotenberg sold 10,250 shares near $61 in October 2025, and George Carrara sold 3,000 at $34.52 in June 2026. Every April and June line coded F is tax withholding on vesting and is not selling. No insider bought on the open market in twelve months.

The plan is honest, narrow and genuinely hard, bolted to a company whose two most senior people sold near the high and whose new chief executive inherits a revenue meter running backwards. The pay works. The tape does not.

Yellow-Green.

Sources: Build-A-Bear Workshop DEF 14A filed 2026-04-30, 2025-05-02, 2024-05-03 (CIK 1113809). Forms 4 filed 2025-09-18 through 2026-08-05, transaction codes read from raw XML. Form 10-Q filed 2026-06-11. Revenue and EBITDA per as-filed statements. Price and consensus per FMP as of 2026-08-24. Derived figures (bar-versus-prior percentages, EBITDA margin, sale-price averages, interpolated payouts) are computed. Not investment advice. No position.