Royalty and fee revenue of $18.3 million, which represents our core business revenue was down $1.1 million versus the prior year second quarter due to the number of salons closures over the course of the last 12 months. Another reflection of our revenue performance is our system-wide same-store sales, which grew to 1.9% in the quarter. We posted GAAP operating income of $4.8 million in the quarter compared to $700,000 in the prior year quarter. The increase in GAAP operating income of $4.1 million was driven by lower depreciation and an inventory reserve charge in the prior year period. We continue to produce operating profit each quarter and we expect that trend to continue. We reported positive net income of $1 million and earnings per share of $0.43 in the second quarter compared to a loss of $2.4 million a year ago and a loss per share of $1.04 a year ago.
The improvement relates to the improvement in operating income previously mentioned and a $2 million gain in discontinued operations related to the sale of Opensalon Pro in June of ’22. As Matt mentioned, we received the $2 million in January. Now let’s turn to our adjusted results. On an adjusted basis, second quarter consolidated EBITDA was $6 million compared to $7.8 million in the prior year’s quarter. The $1.8 million decrease was due primarily to the company receiving a $1.1 million grant from the State of North Carolina related to COVID-19 relief with the remaining due to lower revenue and timing of expenses. Our adjusted G&A was $11.7 million for the second quarter, an increase of $600,000 from the prior year quarter. We do see some variability in our G&A quarter-to-quarter, which is primarily due to the timing of expenses.
We have lowered our annual run rate G&A expectations to $46 million to $48 million versus our view last quarter, which was $47 million to $50 million. Our core franchise business achieved adjusted EBITDA of $6.4 million in the quarter, a $1.2 million decline compared to $7.5 million in the prior year. The decline is primarily related to the timing of G&A spend. On an adjusted EBITDA basis, our company-owned segment lost $300,000 for the quarter, a decline of $600,000 from the same quarter last year. This decline is due to the $1.1 million North Carolina COVID grant previously discussed, partially offset by having fewer loss-generating company-owned salons in the current period as we are closing salons either at lease end or negotiating a Bio [ph] when it makes economic sense to do so.
A large number of our remaining company-owned salons will come to lease end in our third fiscal quarter. So our company-owned salon segment will have less impact in the second half of fiscal year 2024. Revenues for the first half of the year were $104 million compared to $122 million in the first half of fiscal year 2023. Similar to the second quarter revenue decline, this decline was expected and relates primarily to a reduction in franchise rental income and the wind down of our company-owned salons, as well as lower product sales to franchisees. Adjusted EBITDA for the first half of the year was $13.5 million, a $1.8 million improvement compared to $11.7 million in the first half of fiscal year 2023. Adjusted EBITDA improved primarily due to our lower G&A and franchise rent, partially offset by the $1.1 million grant from the state of North Carolina received in 2023.
Turning to liquidity. As of December 31, we had $38.1 million of liquidity including $31 million of available revolver capacity and $7.2 million of cash. At December 31, 2023, our debt outstanding, excluding deferred financing fees was $188.9 million. We are in compliance with our debt covenants currently and we do not expect to violate any of the covenants during the term of our credit facility assuming no major impacts to the business. Additionally, we believe we have adequate liquidity to operate the business. As a reminder, due to accounting standards, our balance sheet shows approximately $334 million of operating lease liabilities related to liabilities associated with sub-leasing salons to our franchisees over the entire life of their respective leases.
These liabilities are serviced by our franchisees and should not be factored into Regis’ debt position so long as the franchisees continue to pay their obligations as they have been. These liabilities have decreased $229 million over the last 3 years due to the reduction in salon count and also due to Regis moving off of franchise leases. Having our franchisees sign the leases accounted for approximately $85 million of the reduction, Regis is solely responsible for lease liabilities for our corporate office space and remaining company-owned salons, which amounts to $9.9 million over the life of the leases. In the first half of the year, we used $6.9 million of cash from operations which is similar to the prior year. Excluding the $1.1 million grant discussed earlier, received in fiscal year 2023, cash used in operating activities improved $1.1 million due primarily to our lower cost structure, partially offset by increased interest expense of approximately $2.6 million due to higher variable interest rates on our bank debt.
