Spectrum Brands (SPB) Q2 2026 Earnings Transcript

Image source: The Motley Fool.

DATE

Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 9 a.m. ET

Call participants

• Chairman and Chief Executive Officer — David Maura
• Chief Financial Officer — Faisal Qadir
• Vice President, Investor Relations — Jennifer Schultz

Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email pr@fool.com

Takeaways

• Net sales growth -- Net sales increased 4.9%, supported by broad-based strength in Global Pet Care and Home and Garden, with organic net sales up 1.5% after excluding $22.9 million in favorable foreign exchange.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- Adjusted EBITDA rose 17.8% to $84 million, reflecting both higher gross profits and improved margins across the business.
• Free cash flow guidance -- Adjusted free cash flow is projected at approximately 50% of adjusted EBITDA.
• Net leverage ratio -- Net leverage ended at 1.66 times, well below the long-term target range of two to 2.5 times set by management.
• Share repurchases -- About 100,000 shares were repurchased in the quarter for $6.8 million, with over $1.4 billion returned to shareholders since the HHI transaction and $300 million in Board-authorized repurchase capacity remaining.
• Global Pet Care (GPC) sales -- GPC segment reported net sales growth of 11.2% (7.6% organic), with double-digit gains in Companion Animal and mid-single-digit growth in Aquatics, supported by strong e-commerce momentum and $9 million in sales timing acceleration.
• GPC adjusted EBITDA -- Adjusted EBITDA in GPC rose $6.8 million to $56.8 million, yielding a 19% margin versus 18.6% last year, driven by higher sales, pricing, and cost improvements.
• Home and Garden (H&G) sales -- Home and Garden net sales increased 11.3%, with double-digit growth in Controls and expanded retailer display presence, supported by favorable weather and retailer order timing.
• H&G adjusted EBITDA -- Adjusted EBITDA for Home and Garden rose to $34.8 million from $26.7 million, and margin expanded to 20.5% (up 300 basis points), mainly due to volume growth and operational efficiencies.
• Home and Personal Care (HPC) sales -- Home and Personal Care net sales declined 5.5% (organic down 10.7%), impacted by consumer demand softness in North America and EMEA and high retailer inventory; direct-to-consumer sales in EMEA grew over 200% but remain a minor contributor.
• HPC adjusted EBITDA -- Home and Personal Care adjusted EBITDA was $8.1 million, up from $7.3 million, with margin improving to 3.4%, reflecting pricing, cost actions, and foreign exchange despite continued volume pressure.
• Oaktree partnership in HPC -- Spectrum Brands Holdings (NYSE:SPB) entered into a strategic partnership with Oaktree Capital Management, involving a $127 million investment ($67 million preferred equity and the remainder as a term loan) that values Home and Personal Care at about six times last twelve months EBITDA and is nonrecourse to Spectrum Brands Holdings.
• Inventory management -- Inventory ended the quarter $50 million below the prior year, while maintaining fill rates above 95% across all businesses.
• ERP platform implementation -- Over 95% of combined Global Pet Care and Home and Garden businesses are now live on the S/4HANA ERP platform, with anticipated efficiency and control benefits.
• Fiscal 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance -- Adjusted EBITDA outlook was raised to grow by low- to mid-single digits, primarily driven by continued growth in Global Pet Care and Home and Garden, expense management, and foreign exchange favorability.
• Interest, capex, and tax -- Interest expense was $7.3 million (down $200,000); capital expenditures were $9.3 million (up $100,000); cash taxes for the quarter were $10.6 million (down $13.3 million); depreciation and amortization was $24.2 million.
• Operating expenses -- Operating expenses decreased by 3% to $226.8 million, due to prior-year impairment and lower spending, partially offset by increased restructuring and transaction costs.

Summary

The earnings call highlighted Spectrum Brands Holdings (NYSE:SPB)'s acceleration of its portfolio transformation strategy by forming a nonrecourse strategic partnership with Oaktree Capital Management, which positions Home and Personal Care as a stand-alone business and confirms management’s intent to eventually separate this segment. Executives attributed improved performance in Pet and Home and Garden to continued brand innovation, targeted marketing, and disciplined execution, and signaled further investment in these areas as part of the company’s long-term vision. Management also detailed successful supply chain management and inventory optimization, resulting in a substantial inventory reduction with no impact to service levels. The company credited pricing actions, cost controls, and foreign exchange benefits as key drivers of margin expansion and stronger adjusted EBITDA outlook for the year, while maintaining a cautious sales outlook due to macroeconomic and consumer demand uncertainties in Home and Personal Care. Future capital allocation will remain disciplined, balancing share repurchases and M&A optionality, to preserve strategic flexibility and ensure balance sheet strength as the business continues its separation plan.

• Executives stated that "the recent announcement of our partnership with Oaktree Capital in our Home and Personal Care business is a meaningful milestone in our long-term objective of separating HPC from our other businesses."
• The quarter included a $9 million sales pull-forward in Global Pet Care due to ERP transition timing, which management does not expect to repeat in subsequent quarters.
• For Home and Personal Care, executives indicated "reduced sales volumes are expected to continue for the balance of the year," with forecasts projecting adjusted EBITDA growth despite declining segment sales.
• Management outlined that "weather by nature is uncertain," and sales planning in Home and Garden is appropriately conservative given the peak selling season remains ahead.
• Global Pet Care and Home and Garden key brands are gaining market share, with Faisal Qadir noting "We are definitely gaining share," even in flat or declining categories.
• Spectrum Brands Holdings does not include potential tariff refund benefits in its current earnings framework.
• Operational priorities remain focused on executing the "fewer, bigger, better" innovation strategy and reinforcing controls through continued ERP system deployment.

Industry glossary

• S/4HANA: SAP’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite, used for unified financials, operations, and supply chain management.
• POS (Point-of-sale): Sales recorded at retail locations, referenced as an indicator of consumer demand trends and brand performance.
• Term loan: A fixed-amount loan granted for a specific period, referenced in the Oaktree Capital partnership structure.
• Fill rate: The percentage of customer orders supplied in full, used as a key supply chain service metric.
• DTC (Direct-to-consumer): Distribution channel selling products directly to end consumers, discussed for EMEA Home and Personal Care growth.

Full Conference Call Transcript

David Maura, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Faisal Qadir, our Chief Financial Officer. After opening remarks, we will conduct the Q&A. Turning to Slides 3 and 4. Our comments today include forward-looking statements, which are based upon management's current expectations, projections and assumptions and are, by nature, uncertain. Actual results may differ materially. Due to that risk, Spectrum Brands encourages you to review the risk factors and cautionary statements outlined in our press release dated May 7, 2026, our most recent SEC filings and Spectrum Brands Holdings' most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Also, please note that we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures in this call. Reconciliations on a GAAP basis for these measures are included in today's press release and slide presentation, which are both available on our website in the Investor Relations section. Now I'll turn the call over to David Maura. David?

David Maura: Thanks, Jen. Good morning, everybody. We want to welcome you here to our second quarter earnings update, and we thank you and appreciate you joining us this morning. I'll kick the call off today with an update of the operating environment that we find ourselves in. I'll tell you about our operating performance, and then we'll hit our strategic initiatives. Faisal will then provide a more detailed financial and operational update, including a discussion on the specific business unit results. If I could have everybody turn their attention to Slide 6, I think, on the investor deck. Let me start today's call by saying that I'm pleased to be here reporting another strong quarter for Spectrum Brands.

Once again, our quarterly results outperformed the expectations, both on the top and bottom lines. This is a direct testament to the effectiveness of our strategy and, frankly, the dedication of our team. It's quite gratifying for me to see our disciplined approach and focused execution translating into our financial results in such a meaningful way. I am pleased to also report that in the second quarter both of our reported net sales and adjusted EBITDA increased year-over-year with net sales increasing 4.9% and adjusted EBITDA growing by an impressive 17.8%.

This is a significant milestone for our company as it marks our return to growth for the first time since the first quarter of 2025, prior to the trade policy changes and the overall deterioration in global macroeconomic conditions. We continue to see signs of stabilization within the broader markets that we serve, with a generally resilient consumer despite the dynamic environment, except for some expected consumer demand softness in our Home & Personal Care business. As we look ahead to the balance of the year, we're quite pleased with the overall improving conditions.

However, we're also cautious about the resilience of the consumer, and we will remain vigilant as we run the business going forward, given recent geopolitical tensions, most notably with the recent conflict in the Middle East, increasing global fuel prices and the potential for more volatility that we expect in U.S. trade policy this summer. On the cost side, we're also mindful of the ongoing challenges and volatility created by the broader macroeconomic landscape. Since our last quarterly update, geopolitical tensions have escalated, and this has resulted in some modest inflationary cost pressures, particularly across some of our commodities and our freight spend.

At this time, we do not view this as a significant headwind for the balance of this year, and we would expect to largely offset it with recent changes to U.S. Trade Policy. We will continue to monitor all these developments closely as we have demonstrated in the past, and we will proactively address cost pressures as they arise to ensure our overall profitability. If I could turn your attention back to the second quarter. We made focused investments in our key businesses and we returned to growth, all the while maintaining a strong balance sheet position. We continue to exercise discipline by optimizing working capital and keeping our net leverage low, while also returning capital to our shareholders.

We ended the quarter with approximately $125 million in cash, less than $30 million drawn on our revolver, and our net leverage ratio stood at 1.66 turns, well below the long-term target we've set for the company of 2 to 2.5 turns. We did repurchase about 100,000 shares in the quarter for about $6.8 million. Since the close of the HHI transaction, we've returned over $1.4 billion of capital to our shareholders through our various share repurchase programs, and we've actually repurchased almost 45% of the entire share count of the company since the closing of that transaction. We additionally have over $300 million remaining of Board authorized share repurchase programs left.

We will, however, be judicious going forward on share repurchases to ensure flexibility as we look to capitalize on market opportunities. I'll talk more about that later. On the strategic front, as we disclosed in our recent 8-K filing Monday of this week, we've entered into an agreement with Oaktree Capital Management to form a strategic partnership in our HPC business. My relationship with Oaktree spans over 20 years, and I'm excited to be partnering with a firm with a proven track record of taking businesses similar to HPC and optimizing them for stand-alone success.

Under the terms of the agreement, Oaktree will make $127 million investment in the HPC business, consisting of $67 million of preferred equity and the balance in the form of a term loan. Their investment implies a valuation for the HPC business of approximately 6x LTM EBITDA as of Q1 fiscal '26, and importantly, it is nonrecourse to Spectrum Brands Holdings. This transaction represents a meaningful step forward in Spectrum Brands in our previously communicated strategy to separate HPC from our other business units. For the HPC business, this investment actually accomplishes several goals. It reaffirms our vision for the future of the business through this investment from a sophisticated counterparty.

It establishes a separate dedicated platform for HPC to maximize focus and growth potential. And three, it creates optionality for HPC to become the strategic partner of choice for the industry. That's whether through a sale, M&A or a spin-off. We are excited about our partnership with Oaktree, and we now have a well-capitalized stand-alone vehicle to maximize shareholder value. If we can turn now to Slide 7, I'd like to update you on our strategic priorities for fiscal '26. These priorities continue to serve as a guide in our decision-making, and I'd like to share our progress on each of them individually.

First, if we can start with financial stewardship, I'd like to build upon what I shared earlier in regards to balance sheet health. A big part of that health is centered around disciplined inventory management, which has been a focus of ours for the last couple of years. We now have a best-in-class S&OP process and it's yielding results and ensuring we have the right level and mix of inventory on hand. This isn't just my opinion. Exhibit A, we ended the second quarter with inventory actually $50 million lower than the prior year, and we still delivered fill rates well above 95% across all businesses. We're demonstrating disciplined inventory execution without compromising service levels.

This is an excellent demonstration of efficiency, and I'm extremely proud of the team for their continued diligence in driving working capital efficiencies while constantly and consistently meeting customer demand. Second, if I can move to operational excellence, we continue to make steady progress on our S/4HANA transformation, which remains a foundational element of the long-term strategy here. We recently implemented S/4 on our Global Pet Care EMEA business, marking the first major international deployment of our new ERP transformation. With this milestone, over 95% of our combined Global Pet Care and Home & Garden businesses are now operating on a unified ERP platform.

While learnings from this deployment are informing how we operate today, our primary focus is on completing the remaining implementations, most notably within the HPC business to further standardize processes, strengthen controls and support scalable growth over time. As we continue to advance this project, the platform is expected to further enhance productivity, support better and faster decision-making and reinforce our ability to scale the businesses over the long term. We also remain committed to our fewer, bigger, better strategy for our brand investments. This is enabling us to focus resources on higher impact initiatives while maximizing returns. This disciplined approach has driven share gains in several key categories and has strengthened our engagement with consumers.

Later in the call, Faisal will share more details on our innovation pipeline and how it's fueling our growth across the portfolio. This now brings me to our third key priority, which is investing in our people. I often tell the team that winning is simply more fun, and I think it's a philosophy the team is starting to really embrace. Achieving our goals and delivering results consistently, creates a positive and energizing environment where everyone feels valued and motivated. Success not only boosts morale, but it fosters a culture of collaboration, innovation and continuous improvement. Over the past year, our company has faced significant challenges and we've had to make some really tough decisions.

Yet our team's resilience has been remarkable. We are committed to providing the resources, training and support that our employees need to thrive, because we know that when our team is winning, our business and our stakeholders win as well. Lastly, the fourth priority for fiscal '26 is centered around our strategic transformation. We are encouraged by the strong results in both our Global Pet Care and our Home & Garden businesses, with our key brands in both businesses delivering above-market sales growth. Our team's focus on consumers' needs supported by our data-driven strategy, continues to generate positive results. Beyond organic growth, we continue to remain optimistic about M&A opportunities in both segments.

We are committed to a disciplined process in evaluating acquisition targets and believe we are well positioned to be the consolidator of choice in both Pet and the Home & Garden categories. Moving to Home & Personal Care. While Oaktree's strategic investment in the business represents a significant milestone in our journey towards becoming a pure-play Pet and Home & Garden business, it's important to note that our near-term objectives for our Home & Personal Care business remain unchanged. We will continue to be good stewards of the appliance business, maintaining our focus on operational excellence and maximizing profitability.

As we move forward through this transition, our team will continue to execute with discipline, ensuring that the business remains strong and is well positioned to capitalize on market opportunities. We can now have everyone turn to Slide 8. I'll cover our high-level fiscal '26 earnings framework. We remain quite pleased with our performance in both Global Pet Care and Home & Garden, and we are on track to deliver top line growth for the year in each of these businesses. And in Home & Personal Care, despite the decline in net sales, top line performance remains in line with our expectations for the segment.

As anticipated, recovery in durable product categories is taking longer and reflecting ongoing softness in global consumer demand. Importantly, our strong results in the first half of the year provide us with increased confidence and help derisk our outlook for the back half of the year, and this positions us well to navigate any potential headwinds. While we continue to expect net sales to be flattish to up low-single digits versus the prior year, we are, in fact, raising our outlook for adjusted EBITDA, and we now expect adjusted EBITDA to increase by low to mid-single digits. We continue to expect adjusted free cash flow to be approximately 50% of that adjusted EBITDA.

Before I turn the call over to Faisal, I want to acknowledge the outstanding contributions of our colleagues worldwide. I want to thank them for their relentless focus and their determination. Those have been key to achieving our strategic objectives and they have positioned us well for continued success. Now you'll hear more from Faisal on the financials and some additional business unit insights, and I'll pick you up in the Q&A to finish the call with you. I'll turn the call now to you, Faisal. Thank you.

Faisal Qadir: Thank you, David. Let's turn to Slide 10 and review our second quarter results from continuing operations, beginning with net sales. Net sales increased 4.9%. Excluding the impact of $22.9 million of favorable foreign exchange, organic net sales increased 1.5%, primarily driven by a strong performance within our Global Pet Care and Home & Garden businesses. In addition to external factors such as the weather and accelerated retailer ordering that favorably impacted our results, our key brands in both businesses continued to perform well and gain market share. As expected, our Home & Personal Care business continues to experience soft consumer demand across both North America and Europe.

Gross profits increased $16.9 million and gross margin of 38.1% increased 60 basis points, largely driven by pricing, cost improvement actions and favorable FX, partially offset by higher trade spend and higher tariff costs. Operating expenses of $226.8 million decreased by 3% due to a trade name impairment recognized in the prior year and lower investment spend, partially offset by additional restructuring and strategic transaction expenses and unfavorable FX. Operating income of $43.5 million increased by $24 million, driven by the gross profit increase and lower operating expense I mentioned earlier. GAAP net income and diluted earnings per share both increased, primarily driven by the higher operating income. Diluted earnings per share also benefited from a lower share count.

Adjusted EBITDA was $84 million, an increase of $12.7 million, driven by the improved gross margins. Adjusted diluted EPS increased to $1.25, driven by the higher adjusted EBITDA and a reduction in shares outstanding. Let's turn to Slide 11. Q2 interest expense from continuing operations of $7.3 million decreased $200,000. Cash taxes during the quarter of $10.6 million decreased $13.3 million from the prior year. Depreciation and amortization of $24.2 million decreased $300,000 from last year. And separately, share-based compensation increased to $6 million from $5.2 million in the prior year. Capital expenditures were $9.3 million in Q2, about $100,000 higher than last year.

Cash payments towards strategic transactions, restructuring-related projects and other unusual nonrecurring adjustments were $5.3 million versus $6.4 million last year. Moving to the balance sheet. We have a quarter end cash balance of $125.1 million and $470.8 million available on our $500 million cash flow revolver. Total debt outstanding was approximately $599.7 million, consisting of $496.1 million of senior unsecured notes and $79.6 million of finance leases. We ended the quarter with $474.6 million of net debt. Let's get into the review of each business unit to provide details on the underlying performance drivers of our operational results. I'll start with our Global Pet Care business, which is Slide 12.

Reported net sales increased 11.2%, and excluding favorable foreign exchange, organic net sales increased 7.6%. Reported net sales in Companion Animal increased double digits -- low double digits, while sales in Aquatics increased mid-single digits. In North America, sales increased mid-single digits, primarily driven by strength in Companion Animal, where our key brands continue to outperform the market. Good 'n' Fun, DreamBone, Nature's Miracle and FURminator all posted positive POS for the quarter in categories that were flat or slightly down versus the prior year. Sales performance in the e-commerce channel was particularly strong, achieving double-digit growth this quarter.

It is important to note that this result includes an acceleration of approximately $3 million in sales that were originally anticipated to be in the third quarter. Excluding this timing impact, underlying growth in the e-commerce channel remains robust, reflecting continued strong demand and effective execution of our digital strategy. Our quarterly sales results from -- also benefited from the cost-related pricing actions during the -- taken during the last fiscal year. Organic sales in EMEA increased in the high-single digits with strength across both Companion Animal and Aquatics. In Companion Animal, Good Boy is outperforming the competition across major European markets, fueled by expanded distribution in Continental Europe and sustained leadership in the U.K.

Aquatics growth was driven by market share gains in our globally leading Tetra brand, which is celebrating its 75th year of providing innovative products for consumers' aquatic care needs. In addition, on March 30, the GPC EMEA business went live on the SAP S/4HANA platform. In anticipation of the transition, which included ordering and shipping blackout periods during the days leading up to and immediately after go-live, GPC partnered with our retail customers to accelerate certain purchases into the period before implementation to ensure that retailers have adequate supply. This accelerated approximately $6 million of sales into our second quarter results. On the commercial side, our innovation and associated marketing and advertising support are driving incremental growth.

As pet owners increasingly focus on health and wellness of their pets, our DreamBone CollaYUMS dog chews enriched with type 2 collagen for joint health, stands out as a top choice in the market and is driving incremental sales volume for the business. Within Stain & Odor, Nature's Miracle continues to outperform the market, driving growth in a declining category, in part, fueled by our innovation -- innovative product design with ready-to-use packaging and incremental sales growth in our cat cleaning products. Our Good Boy brand, the #1 brand in dog chews in the U.K., is gaining market share through consistent innovation.

Outside of the U.K., the expansion of Good Boy across Continental Europe continues to be a priority and has garnered strong support from our retail partners with expanded distribution. We continue to support our brands through targeted marketing and advertising investments that are generating positive POS results across key retail partners. Based on consumer research and market insights, we are in the process of refining our price pack architecture across the portfolio. This initiative is intended to reinforce category health and support sustainable long-term growth by improving value clarity, simplifying consumer choice and ensuring appropriate reinvestment in our brands and innovation pipeline.

This quarter's adjusted EBITDA for our GPC business of $56.8 million is $6.8 million higher than the previous year, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 19% compared to 18.6% last year. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by higher sales volume, pricing and cost improvement actions, partially offset by higher tariff costs and additional trade and investment spend. Our strong first half positions us well as we enter the balance of our fiscal year, and we are on track to deliver top line growth for fiscal '26 in the GPC business.

Our year-to-date results demonstrate that our strategy is working, and we expect to build on our momentum in the second half of the year through strong innovation and brand activations. As a result, marketing and advertising expenses are projected to sequentially increase during the second half of the year with the highest spending anticipated in the third quarter. Also, as a reminder, in fiscal '25, our results were impacted by targeted stop-shipments with certain retailers during tariff-related pricing negotiations, creating an artificial shift in order between the third and fourth quarter of last year. Now let's move to our Home & Garden business, which is on Slide 13.

Net sales increased 11.3% in the quarter, primarily driven by double-digit growth in the Controls category, reflecting strong consumer demand for our pest control and herbicide solutions. Favorable weather trends highlighted by the warmest March on record in the U.S., led to a strong start to the season with higher retail point-of-sale activity. Retailer reorder patterns for the quarter also reinforced our view that retailers started the season with appropriate levels of inventory to support incremental year-on-year sales execution, particularly in the Controls category. This positions us well to capture ongoing demand as the season progresses.

In addition to these external factors, our brands continue to win versus competition in the market with share gains in Spectracide, Hot Shot, Cutter and Repel. This quarter's results demonstrate the effectiveness of our commercial strategy, and we will continue to prioritize innovation and 360-degree marketing support. Under our Spectracide brand, we recently introduced a new liquid fertilizer innovation platform, providing an easy and affordable solution in lawn care. The 2-in-1 formula provides both a quick release for a fast green lawn and a slow release for long-lasting color. Distribution was secured at several retailers, including off-shelf displays driving further penetration.

Consumer response has been strong and the product was recently recognized as the 2026 Product of the Year in the lawn fertilizer category. In Repellent, Cutter, our area insect repellent brand, is performing well and gaining market share with expanded product offerings and advantageous off-shelf placement. To further support our brands, we have successfully secured expanded display presence across key retail locations, ensuring our innovative products are highly visible and accessible to consumers throughout the peak season. Adjusted EBITDA for our H&G business for the quarter was $34.8 million compared to $26.7 million last year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin was 20.5%, 300 basis points higher than the prior year.

The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the higher sales volume, productivity improvement and operational efficiencies, partially offset by higher trade spend and unfavorable mix. The additional cost of tariff was largely mitigated through a variety of actions, including pricing. As we look forward to the second half of the fiscal year, while we're encouraged by the strong start to the season and favorable weather conditions we are currently enjoying, weather by nature is uncertain, and therefore, our overall expectation for fiscal '26 remains unchanged. Latest weather projections indicate a warmer-than-average summer, most notably across southern and western portions of the country. However, overall expectations for precipitations are mixed with potential for drier season in key regions.

With these factors in mind, we believe it is prudent to plan for a normal weather season, which would be an improvement from the prior fiscal year. Our sales team will continue to partner closely with our customers, and we stand ready to respond swiftly should consumer demand patterns shift. We are dedicated to driving consumer-focused innovation, and we'll continue to strategically invest in our brands through the balance of the year. We remain on track to deliver net sales growth with modest EBITDA margin expansion in fiscal '26 for our Home & Garden business. Let's finally go to our Home & Personal Care business, which is Slide 14. Reported net sales decreased 5.5%.

Excluding favorable foreign exchange, organic net sales decreased 10.7%. Reported net sales in the Personal Care category were down low-single digits this quarter, while home and -- while sales in home appliances were down high-single digits. Organic net sales in EMEA were down in the mid-teens with softness in both Appliances and Personal Care. Sales across both categories were impacted by elevated levels of inventory at a key retailer following soft consumer demand amid increased competition, resulting in lower replenishment orders within the quarter. With that said, we believe inventory levels at this retailer are now generally aligned with current demand trends, which should support a more balanced replenishment cadence going forward.

The balance of our HPC EMEA business continues to be on a solid trajectory, and our core markets are showing signs of stabilization. Further, our direct-to-consumer shift in strategy we introduced in fiscal '25 is yielding results with the direct-to-consumer growth for the quarter in excess of 200% compared to the prior year. While the DTC business represents a small portion of EMEA total sales volume, we are excited about the opportunity to build additional capability for further expansion across Europe and beyond. North America sales decreased in the mid-teens, driven by lower sales in home appliances.

Demand continues to be adversely impacted by overall consumer softness as higher product costs resulting from tariffs have led consumers to either delay or reduce purchases. Sales were also lower from our SKU rationalization actions taken to address changes in trade policy to ensure overall profitability. Additionally, home appliances sales were impacted by customer inventory management actions to address pockets of excess inventory. Despite these challenges, we are encouraged by the continued point-of-sales growth in coffee makers and particularly pleased with our Black & Decker brand outperforming the market in this space. In LatAm, organic sales increased in the mid-single digits, primarily driven by sustained growth in personal care, following successful new product launches in the fiscal first quarter.

The introduction of these products, including the [ Airweave ] and [ gloss ] collections continue to resonate with the consumer. And our key strategic customers once again reported double-digit sales growth in sell-out figures for the quarter. Commercially, our focus remains on driving fewer, bigger, better consumer-relevant innovations that enhance our market position. Under our Black & Decker brands in the U.S. and Russell Hobbs brand in EMEA, we recently brought to market a new VacuSteam Handheld Steamer. This product delivers breakthrough technology designed to deliver one pass perfection through a combination of suction, heat and steam power.

While in early stages of distribution, we are excited about the innovative feature this product delivers that were designed with the consumer in mind. Consumer response has been strong so far and expanded distribution has been confirmed for the coming months. This quarter's adjusted EBITDA for our HPC business was $8.1 million compared to $7.3 million in the prior year. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 3.4% compared to 2.9% last year. The increase in adjusted EBITDA and margin was primarily driven by pricing, reduced investment spend, cost improvement initiatives, and favorable foreign exchange, partially offset by lower volumes and higher tariff costs.

Despite a challenging first half, we continue to expect sequential improvement in the second half as we lap softer prior year comparisons and benefit -- and realize benefits from the actions we have taken to strengthen our business. With that said, reduced sales volumes are expected to continue for the balance of the year, driven by softness in global consumer demand and a reduced product portfolio within the U.S. Our focus remains on improving profitability with plans in place to deliver full-year adjusted EBITDA growth versus prior year despite a projected decline in net sales. Now let's turn to Slide 15 and review our expectations for fiscal '26.

Consistent with our fiscal '26 earnings framework, we expect net sales to be flat to up low single digits compared to prior year. While we expect growth in both our Global Pet Care and Home & Garden businesses, Home & Personal Care is expected to decline. Adjusted EBITDA is now expected to grow low to mid-single digits, driven by the anticipated sales growth in our Global Pet Care and Home & Garden businesses, continued expense management, continuous improvement initiatives and FX favorability, offsetting the lower volumes in Home & Personal Care. Tariffs and inflation are expected to be largely offset through the various mitigation actions which we have taken, including pricing.

Also, while we are actively engaged in the process as outlined by the U.S. customs of securing tariff refunds following the Supreme Court decision, our framework does not include any such benefits at this time. And lastly, we continue to expect adjusted free cash flow as a percentage of adjusted EBITDA to be around 50%. Moving to Slide 16. Depreciation and amortization is expected to be between $115 million and $125 million, including stock-based compensation of approximately $20 million to $25 million. Cash payments towards restructuring, optimization and strategic transaction costs are expected to be between $25 million and $35 million. Capital expenditures are expected to be between $50 million and $60 million.

Cash taxes are expected to be between $40 million and $50 million, excluding the impact of recently announced strategic partnership in our HPC business. For adjusted EPS, we use an effective tax rate of 25%, incorporating both discrete items and state taxes, but excluding impact of the recently announced strategic partnership in our HPC business. To end my section, I want to echo David and thank all of our global employees for their hard work in a strong first half of the fiscal year. Back now to you, David.

David Maura: Thanks, Faisal. Thank you, everybody, for joining us on the call today. Let's take a few minutes and just recap key takeaways. I think that's on Slide 18. I'd like to start by highlighting the first quarter -- of the first half performance actually. Despite a dynamic and challenging environment, we delivered solid results, underscored by a return to year-over-year growth in the second quarter. Net sales increased 4.9% and adjusted EBITDA grew nearly 18%, reflecting disciplined execution across the company. Our ongoing momentum in Global Pet Care and Home & Garden is evident with consistent share gains across our portfolio. This underscores the effectiveness of our innovation strategy as we continue to support with targeted investments.

In Home & Personal Care, the top line did decline, and that was driven by continued consumer softness across the U.S. and EMEA, which was anticipated and in line with our expectations. Despite HPC's lower net sales, adjusted EBITDA actually improved modestly as we remain focused on maximizing the profitability of the business. As we look forward to the second half of the year, the focus is clear for us. We are mindful of the evolving macroeconomic environment and continued pockets of consumer softness. Our priorities and strategic focus remain unchanged, and we are firmly centered on execution and financial discipline.

We will continue to monitor closely inflationary pressures and geopolitical uncertainties and are prepared to address proactively any challenges to protect our profitability and sustain our growth trajectory. With these factors in mind, we are reaffirming our full year earnings framework for net sales and adjusted free cash flow, but we are, however, raising our outlook for our adjusted EBITDA. We now expect adjusted EBITDA to grow low to mid-single digits compared to the prior year. On the strategic front, the recent announcement of our partnership with Oaktree Capital in our Home & Personal Care business is a meaningful milestone in our long-term objective of separating HPC from our other businesses.

While little will change in the day-to-day operations of HPC, we are confident that this partnership will help the team pursue new growth opportunities and deliver lasting value. Our teams will continue to operate with the same dedication and focus, ensuring continuity and stability to our customers and employees. Outside of the appliance business, we continue to seek strategic M&A opportunities within both the Pet and Home & Garden segments. With that said, we will continue to exercise discipline and prioritize the strength and stability of our balance sheet. We firmly believe that maintaining a healthy balance sheet provides us with a distinct competitive advantage, especially as new opportunities and deals emerge in the marketplace.

This approach ensures we are well positioned to act decisively and capitalize on attractive prospects while safeguarding our long-term financial health. Before I turn the call over for Q&A, I'd like to thank our team for their exceptional commitment and focus in a dynamic market environment. The results we achieved this quarter are a testament to the team's adaptability and determination, and I'm confident that our collaborative spirit will continue to drive us forward as we embrace new challenges and opportunities. I thank you all for your hard work and for supporting our shared vision as we move ahead together. Now back to you, Jen, and we can start the Q&A.

Jennifer Schultz: Thank you, David. And operator, we can go to the question queue now.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Bob Labick with CJS Securities.

Unknown Analyst: It's Pete Lukas for Bob. You guys covered a lot in the prepared remarks. Maybe more just a general question. If you could talk a little bit about the characteristics of your fastest-growing brands in Pet and H&G? And is there an opportunity to replicate that across the rest of the brand portfolio?

David Maura: I think what you see this quarter, I mean, we've got our balance sheet healthy, we've got our operations running tight. You saw double-digit growth in both Pet and Home & Garden. We haven't seen that growth in a long time. And I think, hopefully, these are early indicators that the fewer, bigger, better strategy of taking real innovation and storytelling and marketing, that is actually yielding some good results. And we see that with the wasp and hornet trap in the Home and Garden sector, to just pick on one. Faisal commented on CollaYUMS. We have a type 2 collagen that we put into the dog bones for our Good 'n' Fun lineup, and DreamBones, sorry.

And that has really resonated with the consumer and has resulted in tremendous growth. So it's continued focus on -- it's the basics of commercial operations: focus on innovation, use consumer insights, bring things to market that the customer wants that helps meet a need or provides greater efficacy or lets them create a greater emotional bond with their pet, tell that story more effectively. And quite frankly, I'm really pleased with the price pack architecture we're doing in Pet, too. I think that's going to bring real clarity to shop, a good, better, best strategy at the point of sale.

I think it's going to actually help our retail partners, because right now, the merchandising in a lot of these stores is actually quite messy and opaque. Consumers go there, they're confused by the shelf. I think if we really bring some clarity and focus to the optical shelf situation, I think that's going to lift all ships for the category. So looking forward to the benefits of that activity as well. Faisal, do you have others to add or...

Faisal Qadir: No, I think you've covered it.

Unknown Analyst: Very helpful. And then just one follow-up. Maybe you could discuss a little bit the -- how HPC International business is doing and the impacts that you're seeing from tariffs and the conflict in the Middle East?

Faisal Qadir: So like I said in the prepared remarks, our International business, specifically in Europe, has been impacted by certain customer dynamics, where, because of consumer softness, inventory with certain key customers was high, which effectively reduced our ship into the customers, sale into the customers. We believe that's evened out, which means our shipments to the customers and our ship out of POS would generally align better in Europe, which drives some clarity in our supply chain. But I think the consumer and overall environment in Europe still remains challenged for us. So we'll continue to be cautious about that. And like I said, this year, we expect some pressure to continue in the second half.

But as you think about comparison to last year, I think about this time last year, we had started to see a lot of the consumer sentiment degrade. So our comparisons to last year become a lot better in the second half. But as I said before, still expect that business to decline in the second half. That's kind of the consumer that we see in Europe. Our business in LatAm is actually doing really well. Our HPC business has done really well in LatAm, and we've got really strongly positioned brands and really good distribution and customer relationships. So we expect to continue to grow that business in the second half.

I think that's kind of the consumer health overall from an International HPC business. Did you have a second part of that question?

Unknown Analyst: No, that was it.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities.

Christopher Carey: I wanted to get a sense of just the outlook, right? So profitability outlook now better, which certainly seems unique in this environment where inflation is moving, but revenue unchanged. I think you're mindful of some of the drivers in the back half can always evolve like weather, the consumer. I think you also mentioned some timing dynamics in fiscal Q2. Obviously, still solid underlying. But maybe just give us a sense of whether you're factoring any of that into your consideration for revenue. But yes, maybe just take a step back to this concept of revenue maintained and higher profit in this kind of a backdrop.

Just maybe a bit more detail on some of your thinking going into the back half of the year? And then I have a follow-up.

David Maura: Look, I think if we zoom out, right, we talked about tariffs in '25 being really disruptive to the business. I think if you turn -- if you tuned into kind of our Q3, Q4 calls last year, I talked about the business starting to heal. We did have to take some pricing. We did have to work with some suppliers. I think if you look at Q1 and Q2 this year, we've beaten both quarters, right? So we're trying to do what we said we're going to do and hopefully do a little bit better. We clearly have greater vitality in our NPD.

We clearly are taking market share in our 2 fastest-growing higher-margin businesses, which is Pet, Home & Garden. We've just attracted a strategic investment in our Appliance business, which we think is going to produce a lot of value for us and them going forward. I think -- if you look at this quarter, I think we beat on both the revenue and EBITDA and EPS lines for Q2. That's a good thing, right? And if I look forward, I'm just trying to maintain vigilance, because I think Middle East turmoil, higher prices at the pump, that will generally hurt discretionary income. I think the U.S. administration's tariff policy, Supreme Court knocked some stuff down.

They're going to redo some stuff on 301. I would anticipate that to be later in the summer. So I think it would be overly optimistic to not assume additional distortion or challenges that are on the horizon. And we want to continue to do what we said we're going to do and hopefully do better. So I think that's -- I'm trying to answer your question. Isn't that what you're asking me, what my outlook is relative to short-term performance? Or...

Christopher Carey: Well, yes, I get the context of being reasonable, given the unknowns and wanting to exceed. I guess the spirit of the question was whether there were any tangible offsets that you would be thinking about into the back half of the year? Or if it's more good progress, let's see where it goes, but we feel good about the visibility that we're establishing today.

David Maura: I'll let Faisal take that.

Faisal Qadir: Yes. Look, so if you just kind of look at our businesses, GPC, we've talked about how we're -- all -- most of our key brands are now outperforming the market, but we still remain cautious about the category overall. We've shown growth in categories this quarter that are either flat or declining. So the category outlook is what determines some of our cautious outlook for the top line. And on the H&G business, most of the season is ahead of us, right? So it will be premature based on our second quarter early really good results to call the year up. I think we're being cautious. We're going to continue to monitor what happens.

But again, the key takeaway here is our brands are outperforming the market. We are definitely gaining share. So there's a lot of strength going into the second quarter, but there's a lot of caution around, as David said in his prepared remarks, in the macroeconomic environment and what it does to the consumer.

Christopher Carey: Okay. Yes, that checks and makes a lot of sense. One follow-up would be on the HPC partnership. Can you give us a sense of just thought process over the years of thinking through strategic options for the business? And maybe just give us a sense of how you got to this point. And obviously, this creates more flexibility, which is very interesting. I just wanted to get a bit more sense of how this came to be and how you're assessing various alternatives.

David Maura: Yes. Again, I think we've heard from our shareholders that they would prefer to see this business separate from the faster-growing, higher-margin Pet Home & Garden businesses that we own. Look, we have looked at a lot of options for this business over the years. It's been unfortunate that when we've attracted strategic and financial interest for it that we got into a trade policy situation, which actually derailed the process. If you look at the competitive set, other than SharkNinja, which is an amazing company doing exceedingly well, most of our competitors in this space are either overlevered, underperforming, suffering with negative sales growth and don't have a lot of optionality.

And if you look at our business, it's a strategic platform. We believe the business is going to generate $60 million, hopefully more. EBITDA should start to climb as we get into the back half, quite frankly. So Oaktree has picked a good time to come in because we expect EBITDA to actually grow from here. I've known Oaktree for 20 years. They are very astute credit investors. They are exceedingly good capital allocators. They probably could have invested in any appliance company on the globe if they wanted to. They chose us. And frankly, we see tremendous dislocation in this space. And we believe that with Oaktree, we can initially look at higher organic growth opportunities.

And going forward, over time, look at inorganic growth opportunities with them. But we're going to be very judicious, and we are going to look to make a lot of money together with them.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Brian McNamara with Canaccord Genuity.

Madison Callinan: This is Madison Callinan on for Brian. First, how has the garden season started in April? And industry peers said yesterday that on-hand retailer inventories were low, which is a replenishment. Just give us any color on how committed retailers are to the category.

David Maura: Yes. Look, we think as opposed to last year, retail inventory started out much more prudent, and April is off to a great start. So I will tell you that we're very bullish on that business right now. I think Faisal made the comment, which is correct, the bulk of the season is yet to be. So until you get through May and June, you really don't know what you've got. All the weather forecasts look favorable, but you and I know the weather man, they can be wrong half the time and still keep a job. So look, we want to be conservative in the outlook, but the business is having a great April.

I agree with you that retail inventory has been lower than last year, which means more replenishment orders for us.

Madison Callinan: Great. And then second, do you think we've bottomed in pet, both for Spectrum and the industry as a whole, and that we're now set up for sustainable growth from here? And just anything on how pet ownership and buy rates are trending?

David Maura: I think your question refers to, we had a big boom during COVID. Post-COVID, you saw the pet industry really take a break. I can tell you that I think pet specialty is definitely recovering, where they had a really hard time. For us -- again, I can just comment on what we're doing, and we're launching new products. We're bringing new packaging. We're bringing new claims. And we're bringing new marketing techniques, and we are growing our biggest brands at faster than category growth and we're going to continue to do that.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Olivia Tong with Raymond James.

Olivia Tong Cheang: I wanted to get a little bit more of your perspective on the sales growth this quarter and the sustainability of that and whether you think there maybe was some benefit from either destocking last year or tax refund this year? Because clearly, sales improved, though you left the full year sales outlook unchanged despite the stop-shipments in the year ago that hit second half and some FX favorability. So is there something that benefited Q2 that you don't expect to repeat? Or are you being just mindful of the uncertain overall environment and that gives you some pause as you think about second half?

David Maura: Yes, I'll go first and I'll let Faisal clean it up. I mean we did have a little bit of pull-in pet. I think we mentioned the $6 million number, which it's not material. But we had some S/4 going live in EMEA and we wanted to give customers a heads up and just make sure that we kept everything flowing smoothly there. But again, I think the main thing that you guys should be modeling is we're putting out better product. We're putting out price pack architecture. We're supporting our brands with new marketing campaigns. We got better packaging and better call-outs, and we're launching products that the consumer wants based on consumer insights, and we're taking market share.

I mean -- listen, a year ago, I was dealing with some of my biggest brands comping down 5%. This year, they're comping up that amount or more. And that is just fundamental improvement in the base business, period, end of story.

Faisal Qadir: Yes, I'll just add. We called out last year Cutter as a brand that needed some more support and recovery, and we're actually seeing that happen this year. So in our H&G space, basically, all of our key brands are showing growth and gaining share, which is pretty amazing. And same thing on our Global Pet Care business. Our brands are again outperforming the market and really strong performance overall. There is some pull-in, as David said, in the second quarter, but we continue to believe that we'll grow our Home & Garden and Global Pet Care business. And at this point, we're growing above the category.

A lot of our cautiousness just comes from the fact that in Home & Garden's case, a lot of the season is still ahead of us. And overall, if you just look at the consumer health and consumer confidence, there are a lot of negative externalities that are keeping us cautious about the balance of the year.

Olivia Tong Cheang: Got it. So just a point of clarification. The only sort of pull forward was that $6 million in Pet?

Faisal Qadir: It was $9 million in total in the Global Pet Care business.

Olivia Tong Cheang: Okay. Got it. And then my second question is just around the Oaktree investment. And is there any structure in place to enable full change in control? Does this preclude other potential bidders from making a go at HPC if something were to come along?

David Maura: I mean we own 73% of it on a fully diluted basis. So if we want to sell to somebody who wants to pay a big number, we're fully able to do that.

Olivia Tong Cheang: Got it. And then just last question around the commodities outlook. Can you help us sort of quantify the impact of higher oil for fiscal '26 and what potentially is delayed until fiscal '27 just because of inventory on hand or what have you? Any rule of thumb you could offer in terms of if oil was at $80, $90, $100, what will have you -- what kind of impact that might have on you?

Faisal Qadir: For the year, as we said before, I think we're reasonably covered. We'll see some inflation in -- really Q4 is when we'll feel some inflation. But I think -- with the tariffs being down, I think we kind of offset that. And it's a little too early to talk about next year and how much inflation we actually capitalize into next year. But I would point to the fact that our recent experience with inflation has been that we're able to offset it either through productivity and price, and we'll continue to monitor. And our goal would be to just hold our margin profile and offset that inflation as we see it.

Operator: I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn it back to Jen Schultz for closing remarks.

Jennifer Schultz: Thank you. And with that, we will conclude our conference call. Thank you to David and Faisal. And on behalf of Spectrum Brands, thank you for your participation this morning.

David Maura: Thanks, everybody. Have a good day.

Operator: Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. Parts of this article were created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool's insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Spectrum Brands. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.