Conference Transcript - EPC 2026-08-11

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

And thanks for attending our conference. I'm Susan Anderson, one of Canaccord's consumer analysts, and I'm very excited to have with us Edgewell Personal Care, and in particular CFO Fran Weissman and Chris Gov, Vice President, IR, Corporate Development and Treasury. So, Fran, I guess I'd maybe like to start off with just a broader question. At the beginning of the year, you laid out a framework that the business would return to growth. And I think there was some skepticism around it. But then nine months later, we're here and we've seen the business return to growth, North America's return to growth. We've really seen a nice inflection. So maybe if you can talk about the key drivers there behind that improvement and initiatives that you have helped that have helped to return the business to growth.

Fran Weissman, CFO

Thanks, Susan, and thanks for having us here this morning. You know, our framework has been pretty consistent, and I'm glad you mentioned the fact that it's remained largely unchanged from the beginning of the year. We took deliberate steps to really simplify our portfolio and sharpen our focus. And the exit of Femcare was an important milestone for that because it allowed us to focus capital, focus our management's attention, and more importantly, focus our innovation capabilities around categories and a portfolio of brands where we felt we had more of a competitive advantage to win. We were always a back half story, and a lot of that was driven off of the fact that we started our investment profile over 18 months ago, and we knew that those distribution gains specifically within the U.S. and planogram resets were more towards the second half. And it's encouraged to see Q3 return to growth, and it's really driven off of North America. And what we're seeing is better commercial execution, we're seeing better shelf presence and distribution gains, and really stronger brand support across the business. And when you look at our focus brands like Hawaiian Tropic, Cremo, Schick, you're really seeing momentum improve not only in our sales trajectory, but also in our share trajectory. So there's still a lot more work to do, particularly in North America, to drive consistency of growth, but we really feel like we have the right actions in place to continue to deliver long-term.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

So I guess, yeah, just looking out over the long-term, you know, given the improvement we've seen and the optimism there, how are you thinking about the long-term growth trajectory? I think in the past you've talked about 2% to 3%. Is that kind of what we should expect, or, you know, can we expect maybe even a little bit higher than that? and then also maybe if you can talk about international versus domestic and where you see the differences in growth coming from.

Fran Weissman, CFO

Yeah so we're not giving fiscal 27 guidance today we'll come back in November and give more detail but I think what I can share is that as we exit fiscal 26 we're in a much stronger position and I think that growth trajectory in the second half really becomes a good proxy for what we anticipate moving forward and there's a couple of factors that give me confidence. First and foremost, we have a much better and focused portfolio globally that now with brands having stronger equity, stronger penetration, and good distribution gains, we're leading into 27 in a much healthier position around distribution and formidable growth. I think the other piece is that 40% of our portfolio is actually in sun and skin, and those are faster-growing categories, and we're participating with brands like Hawaiian Tropic and Cremo, which has consistently been growing market share, and Cremo's been growing double digits. I think the last piece is that now we've got multiple growth engines. We now see that all markets are contributing to growth. Historically, it's disproportionately been international, but we see North America returning to growth, and that's driving more durability in our future stance. So we've got the right actions in place. It's not one particular initiative. So I think we're in a much better position moving forward.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

Okay, great. And then maybe just looking, stepping back and looking a little bit more near term, maybe if you could talk about the drivers that you put in place that drove the organic sales growth in this quarter, and then also what gives you confidence that that'll continue into fourth quarter?

Fran Weissman, CFO

Yeah, I think for Q3, what we knew is that we actually within the U.S. had brand campaigns that were focused around all our five core brands, and it was really important to see the unit share growth. We've been growing 39 of the last 43 weeks, specifically within North America, and about 70% of our markets are actually growing or holding share year to date. So those become a really great platform for proof points to continue on and to continue our growth factor. Half two was always going to be a growth story, and Q4 is our strongest growth quarter. And what we're anticipating is the combination of international returning back to mid-single-digit growth. They've always been very strong in Q4, back-loaded in terms of the sun season. And now that we've worked through some of the wet-shave disruptions that we had in Q3, we see international returning back to that mid-single-digit growth. North America, we've seen the proof points. We think they will continue to remain at a growth trajectory through Q4, and it's really supported by a step up in A&P. We talked about growing A&P about 70 basis points for the year, and within half two, 60% of that incremental spend is actually in Q4. So we're set up to really end the year in a positive note and start fiscal 27 strong.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

Okay, great. And then maybe let's turn to the segment starting with the sun and skin care. Maybe if we could start off with sun care. The sun season has been better this year, modest, you know, a little bit weaker last year. Maybe if you could talk about Hawaiian traffic, which has seen some really good performance. You guys had a great marketing campaign around the brand this year. Where do you see that brand longer term, and is there innovation to be had there?

Chris Gough, Head of Investor Relations

Yeah, I'll take that one, Susan. And I'm going to go back to a point that Fran made, and I'll talk about sun and skin in total first, and then we can get into the piece parts. But, you know, 40% of the whole company now in that faster-growing categories, we've got better market share, better right to win. So that's a real big accomplishment. When we laid out that structure several years ago in our last investor day, it was 25% of the business, right? We got it up to over a third of the business. That was before the Femcare divestiture, and now it's 40. So being able to grow that part of the business is meaningful, and that's U.S. and international. Within that, Hawaiian Tropic, one of the stronger-growing brands, it's beauty and premium-based. It's on trend with tanning. We started the campaign a couple years ago to refresh the packaging, refresh the brands. Innovation is always at the core there. We're expanding across greater, not really beauty, but just other adjacencies within the SunCare space. We've got higher investment against it, household penetration increasing, share increasing. So we think there's a lot of legs for Wine Tropic. And it fits from a segmentation point of view in that beauty and premiumization space, which is very different from the next topic, which is banana boat. Okay, great. I'll go to banana boat. Yeah, so go ahead and go to banana boat. But it's in a different phase. So first of all, it's family, it's protection, it's outdoor, it's very different. It's an iconic brand that's always been in that space. So it's, you know, and it's the same with Hawaiian Tropic. It's reimagining kind of an iconic brand to back to what it stands for. And Banana Boat has not had the refresh that Hawaiian Tropic has had. The team's working on that now. so what we'll see moving forward is you'll see I mean you started to see some of the messaging come out now but it'll be around those those factors I said and it'll be simplified so the shelf has gotten a kind of cluttered over time trying to fit all these different spaces and needs so that'll be simplified there'll be some skew rationalization will be higher investment and some really interesting packaging that I think we'll get back to what banana boat it stands for. So that should lead, we think, because it's the same team that did Hawaiian Tropic Refresh, you know, to better distribution, better growth as we move forward with that. So we're excited about Banana Boat.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

And that's going into next year.

Chris Gough, Head of Investor Relations

And that's going into next year.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

Okay, great. That's exciting. And then maybe just talk in general about the sun season. You know, it's been a better sun season than last year. How should we think about how the rest of the the year plays out, how do you feel about inventory levels at retail?

Chris Gough, Head of Investor Relations

Yeah, interesting, it's a, everybody has a different view on the SunCare season and how well it is because depending on the month or the week or the weather, what is it? We did something different with SunCare this year because we know that the weather can create a lot of volatility. We don't want to be chasing an assumption that the weather is going to get better. So something Brandon did this year was when we gave an outlook for the year, we assumed sun care category would be a reasonable category growth, low single digit. That, in our history, we would have probably given an outlook higher than that because last year was such a poor season. We did not do that. So fortunately, we did not do that because year to date through mid-July, the sun care category is up 1.5%. right we're about the same our shares flat Hawaiian Tropic is up banana boat is down for the for the reasons I I spoke to but the season hasn't been great it's been about what it was last year when you combine it now where we go from here yeah you can you can we're assuming growth we're assuming international grows a little bit faster in the fourth quarter than the than North America but growth from in both but not not assuming some massive improvement in the category.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

Okay, great. Hopefully we see that next year. I guess let's move on to Wet Shave, which is your largest category still and where many of your operational initiatives have been. Maybe if you could give us an overview of Schick, the main brand, and then also talk about Billy and maybe just how you would characterize the health of the business. I guess we could start off with Schick and just kind of the improvements that you're making there?

Fran Weissman, CFO

Yeah, I think, you know, wet shave, if we compare to where we were a year ago, we're in a much healthier spot. And it's an actual profitable segment for us. You know, 55% of our sales is actually in wet shave. And when you break that out between the markets, 58% is actually in international. So they over-penetrate that of the U.S. In Q3, we returned back to growth in branded wet shave. And a lot of that was driven off of the innovation pipeline that we put in in the second half, specifically in international. We took Billy into Australia late in 25. Schick, we relaunched our master brand strategy in Japan, and we also relaunched Wilkinson Sword. And that's what's been driving the overall growth trajectory that we're seeing, especially in international. And within the U.S., we started putting more investment around HydroSilk last year, but then this year launched our Do Right By Your Skin campaign, which featured Nick Jonas. That's been really resonating overall, improving brand health metrics. And what's most important is that North America also returned back to growth in Q3. So the combination of these factors now looking at our more focused brands, we have marketing campaigns against all of our systems, men's system, women's systems across the various brands within Schick, Billy, and also Wilkinson-Sword. So we are in a much healthier position as we go forward into 27. Yeah, okay, great.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

And then maybe you just talk a little bit about you do have a private label business and then the disposable business as well, which the systems have been outperforming. Those are kind of what the consumers want, but the private label and the disposables maybe have been down a little bit, which have been weighing on overall results. So maybe if you could just talk about those, too. And then also recently there was some manufacturing disruptions which impacted the private label business.

Fran Weissman, CFO

Yeah, so our private label business, you know, we're in a unique position where within our shave category, we actually participate across multiple segments. We have branded systems, we have disposables, and we have private label. So we're able to see price points both from premium and value consumers, and it really provides us a unique position, especially in international, where our private label business is really strong. You know, we're in the process right now of consolidating four plants into one within our North America shave consolidation. It's probably the largest project that we've had since becoming a standalone company. And we knew that there would be some disruption as you're ramping up any kind of consolidation efforts. I think the uniqueness of the quarter is that disproportionately, we saw a little bit more in international than we anticipated. The good news is we've been really focused on leveraging our complete network, leveraging service focus first, and we're starting to see that improvement and resolution within international. And that's part of the reason why we're confident that we'll return back to growth in Q4. But private label overall provides, you know, that point of differentiation and allows us to reach different customers across the price streams. Okay, great.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

And then I guess the last segment, if we could move on to grooming, maybe Chris, if you could talk about the grooming business, which has been on fire, talk about the brands there, such as Cremo and how it's been performing in the U.S. and internationally and how you see the business longer term.

Chris Gough, Head of Investor Relations

Yeah, great. So I'll go back to where I started before. That's part of the sun and skin segment. It's been one of the keys to increasing that segment size relative to the rest of the company it's Cremo which is primarily North America but we're starting to expand internationally it's Bulldog which is primarily in one of our international brands though those are the big growth drivers and there's and then there's Jack Black which is a more premium space Cremo seven quarters in a row over 20% growth we're really seeing expansion of that of the men's personal care platform for grooming we've expanded into APDO, beyond body washes. We see a lot of legs there. So we've got more innovation in the pipeline. We believe there's a lot more distribution to come. And we're not forecasting where that business can go to. But that's one of our strongest brands. And we see a lot of runway for that. We just started last year moving that into international markets, mostly online. So we're still working our way through that. But we believe that brand can travel there as well. And then Bulldog, you know, is 5X what we bought the company for, primarily international, but really booming in Europe. And we think there's a strong case for continued growth there as well. So that grooming space growing in the mid to high single digit really adds a lot to the sun and skin segment.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

Great. And then so maybe let's move on to the financials for the last part. So I guess maybe just talking a little bit about gross margin, you've had some nice expansion there. Maybe if you could talk about the opportunity to continue to drive gross margin and where you see it longer term.

Fran Weissman, CFO

Yeah, gross margin has actually been part of our growth story over time. And despite external challenges, we've been able to grow gross margin year over year. And what's been the focus is not necessarily one specific action. It's structural. Our margin recovery has been underpinned by our productivity initiatives. And over the last four plus years, we've been growing 200 to 250 basis points of productivity. And it's focused on really improving our operational performance around our supply chain. We've been changing how we work. We've been simplifying our network. We've been taking work out of the system, and that's what's been driving productivity. We've also been focused on our revenue management capabilities, really streamlining our portfolio, focusing on skew rationalization. So these levers continue to give us confidence moving forward. We talked a little bit about the wet shave consolidation, and that's focused also on simplifying the network, lowering our cost base, really improving our working capital and cash flow. So that gives us confidence as we move forward. The savings and the benefits that's to come were mostly through our consolidation at least of two plants. And as we move forward now, we will be realizing the benefits of that consolidation efforts. So that will give us future ammunition as we move forward to continue to drive productivity initiatives. So we've got the right ingredients and the right levers to be able to improve gross margin over time. We can't predict the volatility of inflation or commodity pressures, but we've been able to really execute these levers and try to mitigate that.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

Okay, great. And then maybe if I could just throw in there too, marketing expense, you guys have been investing more in the brands, especially after you devised the FemCare business. Talk about kind of where you're at with that and, you know, what should we expect from marketing investment going forward?

Fran Weissman, CFO

Yeah, we've been pretty intentional over the last two years to invest in our brands, not only for the short-term purchase activity, but in building the longer-term health of our brands. Specifically in 26, we're growing A&P about 70 basis points, and we've been growing that over the last two years. And it's really been focused on upper funnel and lower funnel activities. And we want to make sure that we're actually improving the underlying health of the brand because that's what's going to give us more structural improvement. And we've seen that improvement. We've actually seen the proof points starting to come into fruition. These investments take time. But what we're seeing is unit market share growth. We're seeing in brands, and Chris talked about it, like Hawaiian Tropic and Crema, where we're now in year two of our investment profile. And those brands have been accelerating both net sales growth, but also in unit share growth. And I think what's most encouraging is we also see household penetration increasing. So even in brands like Banana Boat, where household penetration is actually stable, we see those trends now improving to give us a structural bandwidth to move forward and continue to improve the brand. So our AMP investment is really core to how our growth trajectory has been and providing that solid platform for continual and consistent top line growth.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

Okay, great. And then maybe let's move on to cash flow and capital structure. You've had a history of strong free cash flow generation. Maybe if you could talk about what that looks like now that you've divested the FemCare business, and then also give us an update on your capital allocation priorities.

Chris Gough, Head of Investor Relations

Yeah, I'll take that one, Susan. Yeah, free cash flow has been a strength to this company since the inception. So anywhere from $150 to $175 million in free cash flow that we generate each year. This year is a little bit less. I'll get into the details. It's about $80 to $100 million is what we forecast for the year. At the core, we've got very profitable categories and brands, and you put the productivity initiatives that Fran discuss and this business can throw off a lot of cash particularly when when we get that top line moving in fiscal 26 we had the consolidation project so you've got significant one-time costs you've got inventory builds to get through that process as well so there were some one-timers that really weighed down free cash flow but as we move into next year you know as that project begins to ramp down a bit capex requirements are a little bit lower and we're generating profit you should see free cash flow start to move its way back to the normal ranges for us okay and just capital allocation priorities yeah well with that so it goes hand in hand but we we've been working we said our priority this year is to pay down debt and get our net debt leverage down below three is where we'd like to operate at so our outlook for this year is 3.3 to 3.4 times net debt leverage that's been our focus our overall strategy there is a balanced one so it's it's obviously funding the business that Fran discussed it's returning cash to shareholders through dividends and buybacks and it's M&A so we believe once we get back to that three times and below with the forecast for improving top and bottom line, the company can support all three of those in a balanced and measured way.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

Great. And then I just have a couple more questions here. One I wanted to just ask on the health of the consumer. How are you guys seeing the consumer? How do you feel like the consumer is going to look, what is the consumer going to look like their spending intentions as we go out into the back half of this year and then into next year?

Fran Weissman, CFO

Yeah. I think the categories in which we compete in have been pretty stable and pretty resilient. You know, the consumer, while we have been seeing some value-seeking behavior, overall we haven't really seen category disruption or deterioration. And I think the personal care categories that we operate in, it sort of insulates us in terms of consumer sentiment to a large degree. And I think the other piece, and we talked about it earlier, is that specifically within our shave business, we participate across the realm. So we've got private label, we've got disposables, we've got systems. So from premium to value, we offer those offerings. And we're not seeing that the consumer is actually significantly trading down. In fact, the branded shave business, as it returned back to growth, is still pretty resilient despite the competitive environment. So I think overall, we see consumer behavior as largely stable this year as we're moving into next year.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

Yeah. Okay, great. That's good. And then I guess maybe just to wrap up, you know, we've covered a lot here. It looks like Edgewell is really transitioning into a modern-day consumer personal care company. What gets you most excited about the company and what gives you the greatest confidence in the future of the business?

Fran Weissman, CFO

We are definitely in a much stronger position as we've gone into 27, and we're heading into 27 than we've ever been. And I think there's a couple of factors for that. One, we've got better execution across the board when you think about our commercial execution. But also internally, we've been very focused on streamlining our organization, focusing on lowering our cost base. So that has also provided fuel for us to continue to drive investment. So we see stronger focused brands and we see better share of performance and shelf space. So that stronger brand, those improving brand health metrics are translating at retail and at the shelf, which is really important as we think about structural and consistent growth trends. And we see improving brand health metrics. So when you take those three factors, we're very much in a position to now be able to consistently be growing. And we've got a business model now that as we're driving top-line growth, we're very focused on gross margin accretion, so it's really about driving consistent growth both top and bottom with a free cash flow conversion that has been, you know, really core to our story and has driven us to really spin off a considerable amount of cash as we've moved forward. So we think we've got the right ingredients to set us up, to enter into fiscal 27. And I look forward to coming back in November and talking through that with all of you.

Susan Anderson, Analyst — Canaccord

Thank you so much for being here with us.

Fran Weissman, CFO

Thank you.