管理層發言
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Q3 2026 Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, Ms. Jen Schultz, DVP, FP&A and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and welcome to Spectrum Brands Holdings Q3 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. I'm Jen Schultz, Division Vice President of FP&A and Investor Relations, and I will moderate today's call. To help you follow our comments, we have placed a slide presentation on the Event Calendar page in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.spectrumbrands.com. This document will remain there following our call. Starting with Slide 2 of the presentation. Our call will be led by 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 August 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?
Thank you, Jen, and good morning, everybody, and welcome to Spectrum Brands' third quarter earnings update. I appreciate everybody joining us for today's call. As usual, I'll start the call with an update on the operating environment, then our operating performance, and I'll finally turn our attention to our strategic initiatives at the end. Faisal will then come on and provide more detailed financial and operational updates, including a discussion on the specific business unit results. If I could have you turn to Slide 6. Let me start by sharing some of the significant accomplishments since our last quarterly earnings call. This quarter was marked by meaningful milestones, and I believe it reflects the strength of what this team is capable of, and we are focused on executing with discipline. I'm incredibly proud of what the global team has delivered, not just this quarter, but consistently over the past year in the face of a dynamic and changing macroeconomic environment. The results speak for themselves, and they reinforce my conviction that we do have the right people, the right strategy and the right priorities in place to drive both our near-term performance and long-term value creation for our stakeholders. With that context in mind, let me walk you through a few of the highlights. First, our quarterly results once again outperformed expectations on both the top and the bottom lines. This is a trend we have sustained throughout the fiscal year. Net sales increased 7.7% versus the prior year with all 3 business units delivering growth. In fact, in our Home & Garden business, we delivered a record-setting quarter with net sales of $225 million, surpassing even the elevated demand levels we experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, on a year-to-date basis, our company has returned to organic growth, a meaningful achievement against the challenging macroeconomic backdrop. While geopolitical tensions persist and volatile trade environments continue to create uncertainty and weigh on consumer sentiment, we've been encouraged by the resilience that consumers have demonstrated across most of the categories we serve. Our Global Pet Care and Home & Garden businesses benefited from solid underlying demand. And while we are seeing some expected softness in the Home and Personal Care unit, the trends are consistent with our expectations. Third, on the cost and tariff front, we continue to experience modest inflationary pressure, particularly across commodities and freight. And the tariff landscape continues to evolve with the recent expiration of the Section 122 tariffs and the announcement of new Section 301 tariffs. That said, the proactive approach we took last year positions us well to navigate these pressures in the near term, and we do not view this as a significant headwind for the balance of this year. On the IEEPA refund front, we've made significant progress. While some refunds were collected within the quarter, a more substantial cash collection occurred subsequent to the quarter close. We have now collected substantially all refunds associated with Phase 1, and we filed over 95% of our Phase 2 claims. In the quarter, we did recognize a receivable for those refunds on our balance sheet, which reflects our confidence in the collection process and the progress we've made to date. Fourth, if we turn to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with almost $260 million of cash. We have zero drawn on the revolver, and we have a net leverage ratio of about 1x. This is well below the long-term target we've set for the company of 2 to 2.5 turns of leverage. We also repurchased approximately 200,000 shares during the quarter for about $15.8 million and with over $300 million of additional Board authorization still remaining. We will continue to be opportunistic in share repurchases to ensure flexibility as we look to capitalize on market opportunities and dislocations. Fifth, on the operational front, in July, we completed our first S/4HANA deployment into the Home and Personal Care business here in North America, while also finalizing implementation across the remaining Global Pet Care and Home & Garden entities. With these completions, 100% of our Global Pet Care and Home & Garden businesses and all but the EMEA region in Home and Personal Care are now operating on a single unified ERP platform. This is a significant milestone in our multiyear transformation. If I could now turn your attention to Slide 7, and here, I'll give an update on our strategic priorities for the balance of fiscal '26. These priorities are serving us as a clear guide in our decision-making and our progress against each one of them reinforces the effectiveness of our strategy. First, with respect to financial stewardship, our core objective is delivering growth while maintaining a very healthy balance sheet and strong margin structures. Our quarterly results demonstrate how deeply the team has embraced this philosophy. Year-to-date, we've delivered $136 million of adjusted free cash flow through disciplined working capital and CapEx management, including approximately $3 million from tariff refunds. Operationally, our S&OP process continues to perform at a high level. In fact, we once again maintained fill rates above 95% across all 3 business units this quarter on a leaner inventory base. This reinforces the fact that we can deliver for our customers without sacrificing working capital discipline. Second, if I move to operational excellence, I'd like to build upon what I shared earlier as it relates to the S/4HANA ERP transformation. As I mentioned, we're now in the final stages of this multiyear project with only the HPC EMEA region deployment remaining later this year. I want to take a moment on this call to sincerely thank each one of our global team members who have driven this implementation. This has been a long, hard process and their dedication, patience and perseverance over the course of this journey has been remarkable. And reaching this point is a really significant milestone that should not be understated. That said, completing this implementation is not our finish line. It's simply the foundation. The real opportunity for our company lies in what comes next, leveraging this new platform to further standardize our processes, drive efficiency improvements and ultimately unlock the full potential of what a unified global ERP system can deliver for our business and our stakeholders. We do have meaningful work still ahead of us, but I'm confident that we have the right team in place to capture that value over time. Now this brings me to our third key priority, which is investing in our people. At the start of the fiscal year, we set a clear intention to raise the bar on both talent and leadership, recognizing that building the right team is foundational to executing the strategy and long-term sustainable growth we desire for our company. This isn't something that happens overnight. But as I reflect on where we stand today, I'm genuinely proud of the progress we've made. Over the past year, we've made meaningful leadership changes within the Global Pet Care business, bringing in experienced CPG talent with a very strong focus on consumer-led insights and data-driven decision-making. These additions have already begun to strengthen our commercial capabilities and sharpen our go-to-market approach. Our fourth priority for fiscal '26 is strategic transformation. Our key brands in both the Global Pet Care and Home & Garden businesses continue to deliver above-market growth, driven by consumer-led insights and bolder new product development. M&A remains a meaningful priority for us, and we are active in the market, evaluating opportunities across both our Pet and Home & Garden businesses. That said, we will remain disciplined in our approach, and we will only act when the right opportunity presents itself at the right value. Our balance sheet strength gives us tremendous flexibility to move decisively when the time is right. Lastly, on the HPC front, our partnership with Oaktree is progressing well, and we are excited about what lies ahead. The foundation has been laid, and we are beginning to chart the path forward together. There are a number of potential exciting opportunities to create the right structure to maximize value at HPC. We look forward to sharing more progress with you as this relationship matures. If everybody could turn now to Slide 8, and I'll cover the high-level fiscal '26 earnings framework. We continue to expect our net sales to be flat to up low single digits versus the prior year, and that's driven by growth in Global Pet Care and Home & Garden, which are more than offsetting an anticipated decline in our Home & Personal Care unit. In light of our year-to-date performance, however, we are updating and increasing our EBITDA expectations. Excluding the impact from tariff refunds, we now expect adjusted EBITDA to increase mid-single digits versus the prior year, reflecting the underlying strength of our core businesses and our continued discipline around expense management. And consistent with our prior framework, excluding tariff refunds, we continue to expect adjusted free cash flow to be approximately 50% of our adjusted EBITDA. Before I turn the call over to Faisal, I'd like to sincerely thank each member of the Spectrum Brands team. Your commitment and your execution are reflected in these results. And as we enter the final stretch of the year, I'm confident we'll finish strong and we'll continue delivering value for our shareholders. Now you'll hear more from Faisal on the financials, and he'll give you some more business unit insights. Over to you, Faisal.
Thank you, David. Let's turn to Slide 10 and review our third quarter financials, starting with net sales. Net sales increased 7.7%. Excluding the impact of $7.5 million of favorable foreign exchange, organic net sales increased 6.6%. All 3 businesses delivered growth in the quarter, led by our Home & Garden business, where favorable weather conditions drove point-of-sale consumption with our key brands continuing to outperform the market. Gross profit increased $106.3 million and gross margin of 49.2% increased 11.4 percentage points, including a one-time tariff refund of $60.6 million. Excluding this benefit, gross profit increased $45.7 million and gross margin of 41.1% increased 330 basis points, driven by higher sales volume, pricing, lower trade spend, favorable mix and cost improvement actions, partially offset by higher tariff costs. Operating expenses of $354.5 million increased by 52.3%, including an impairment charge recognized in the current quarter for the HPC business related to the recent transaction with Oaktree. Excluding this impairment charge, operating expenses increased $25.5 million or 11.3%, largely attributable to increased investment spend. Operating income of $15.9 million decreased by $15.4 million, driven by the higher operating expenses, partially offset by the gross profit increase I mentioned. GAAP net income and diluted earnings per share both decreased, primarily driven by the lower operating income and higher income tax expense. Diluted earnings per share benefited from a lower share count. Adjusted EBITDA was $158.3 million, an increase of $81.7 million. Excluding tariff refunds, adjusted EBITDA was $97.7 million, an increase of $21.1 million or 27.5% driven by the improved gross margin and increased volume, partially offset by the higher investment spend. Adjusted diluted EPS increased to $2.79, driven by the higher adjusted EBITDA and a reduction in share outstanding, including $1.90 per share benefit from tariff refunds. Excluding this benefit, adjusted EPS decreased to $0.89. Turning to Slide 11. Our Q3 interest expense from continuing operations of $8.2 million decreased $200,000. Cash taxes during the quarter resulted in a net refund of $1.3 million, a decrease of $15.3 million from the prior year. Depreciation and amortization of $24.8 million decreased $300,000 from last year. And separately, share-based compensation increased to $6 million from $4.8 million in the prior year. Capital expenditures were $9.8 million in the quarter, which is $200,000 lower than the prior year. Cash payments towards strategic transactions, restructuring-related projects and other unusual nonrecurring investments were $7.4 million versus $8.6 million last year. Moving to the balance sheet. We had a quarter end cash balance of $258.9 million and $494.8 million available on our $500 million cash flow revolver. Total debt outstanding was approximately $633 million, consisting of $496.1 million of senior unsecured notes, $76.9 million of finance leases and $60 million of HPC term loan. We ended the quarter with $374.1 million of net debt. Now let's get into the review of each business unit, and I'll provide you more details on the underlying performance drivers of our operational results. I'll start the business reviews with the Global Pet Care business, which is Slide 12. Reported net sales increased 3.3% and excluding favorable foreign exchange, organic net sales increased 2.9%. Reported net sales in companion animal increased mid-single digits, while sales in aquatics decreased mid-single digits. In North America, sales increased high single digits led by strength in companion animal with modest category growth and continued market share gains across our key brands. Our top brands across chews, stain & odor, and grooming, all maintained or gained market share in the quarter. Sales also benefited from a softer prior year comparison stemming from the temporary suspension of shipments to key retail partners during pricing negotiations, which deferred orders from Q3 to Q4 of last year. Results were also partially offset by an approximately $3 million headwind from e-commerce orders shipped early into the prior quarter. Organic net sales in EMEA decreased in the mid-single digits, including an approximately $6 million headwind driven by retail partners accelerating orders into the prior quarter ahead of our March 30 S/4HANA go-live, impacting both companion animal and aquatics. Excluding this timing impact, underlying performance across both companion animal and aquatics was strong. In companion animal, Good Boy continues to outperform the competition, driven by distribution gains across Continental Europe and expanded market leadership in the U.K. In Aquatics, we gained market share within a declining category, where the e-commerce channel delivered strong year-over-year gains. Our commercial and go-to-market strategy remains rooted in consumer-led innovation, supported by targeted marketing and advertising that speaks directly to today's pet owner. A key pillar of this strategy is our evolving digital approach as we work to build a social-first marketing machine that meets consumers where they are. Most notably, we recently launched TikTok Shops for both our Good 'n' Fun and DreamBone brands, a first for our GPC portfolio, creating a direct and engaging path to purchase in one of the fastest-growing social commerce platforms. Complementing our digital efforts, we are executing numerous media campaigns focused on driving increased brand awareness and engagement. And lastly, on the revenue growth management front, you may recall last quarter, we shared that we were in the process of refining our price pack architecture across much of North American business. With the initiative now fully executed, we are actively supporting our portfolio value proposition and remain focused on reinvesting appropriately behind our brands and innovation pipeline. Turning to EBITDA. Excluding tariff refunds, this quarter's adjusted EBITDA for the business was $51.9 million, an increase of $7.9 million versus the prior year, with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 250 basis points to 19.7%. The improvement was primarily driven by pricing, favorable mix and cost improvement actions, partially offset by higher tariff costs and investment spend. As we look forward to the fourth quarter and conclusion of the fiscal year, we continue to expect to deliver top line growth for fiscal '26 in the GPC business, reflecting the underlying momentum across our key brands and markets. Our year-to-date performance has been strong, and we are confident in our brand's ability to continue gaining share in the marketplace. In the fourth quarter, however, we anticipate sales will be down versus the prior year, driven by tougher comparisons related to both the stop shipment dynamic discussed earlier and Eukanuba order timing as retailers pulled purchases forward in the fourth quarter of prior year in support of a refreshed portfolio launch. We expect investment spend to remain elevated relative to the first half as we reinvest margin gains from our pricing decisions back into the brands in support of long-term growth. Now let's move to our Home & Garden business, which is on Slide 13. We delivered a record quarter with reported net sales of $225 million, an increase of 19% versus the prior year, surpassing even the elevated demand levels we experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Growth was broad-based with double-digit gains across all pest controls and herbicide categories. Favorable weather conditions across key regions in April drove strong retail point-of-sale activity and higher replenishment orders early in the quarter. While weather turned unfavorable in May with pockets of severe weather and excessive heat across the Eastern U.S., our April momentum and the underlying strength of our brands enabled us to deliver a record quarter despite these challenges. Notably, most of our key brands once again outperformed the market, including Spectracide, Hot Shot and Repel. The strength of our sales is a direct reflection of our continued investment in innovation, consumer-relevant marketing and strong retail execution. Spectracide's nonselective lineup of fast-acting ready-to-use formulas to address unwanted weeds and grasses is winning in the marketplace with enhanced efficacy claims that are resonating with consumers at a superior value. In addition, the innovations brought to market last year continue to drive growth through expanded distribution. The Spectracide Wasp, Hornet and Yellowjacket Trap, along with the Hot Shot Flying Insect Traps are outpacing the market through significant footprint expansion supported by strong media campaigns. Off-shelf displays continue to be a core part of our strategy, and we secured numerous promotional end cap and aisle displays with many of our retail partners. In our cleaning category, we recently launched the Rejuvenate PowerMax Multi-Surface Mop, a 3-in-1 sweep mop scrub floor care solution built around consumer convenience and superior value. While distribution is in its early stages across select online and brick-and-mortar retail partners, we have additional placements already confirmed with rollouts underway. Turning to EBITDA. Excluding tariff refunds, adjusted EBITDA was $48.4 million, an increase of $9.8 million versus the prior year, and adjusted EBITDA margin of 21.5%, representing 110 basis points improvement year-over-year. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the higher sales volume and productivity improvement, partially offset by higher trade spend and inflation. The additional cost of tariffs was largely mitigated through a variety of actions, including pricing. Looking ahead to the balance of the fiscal year, while our Home & Garden business delivered a record-setting quarter, the demand variability we experienced within the quarter tied to shifting weather patterns is a reminder that weather plays an important yet unpredictable factor in our overall performance. The unfavorable weather conditions experienced in late June continued into July with more widespread and persistent heat impacting much of the country. These conditions have also left certain retailers carrying elevated inventory levels, which we expect will temper replenishment orders and weigh on fourth quarter results. Latest weather projections for August and September indicate warmer-than-average conditions for a majority of the country with an increased chance of precipitation along the East Coast. We will continue to partner closely with our customers to ensure we can appropriately supply the products to meet consumer demand and drive further expansion of the Fall Call Program. We remain focused on driving consumer-led innovation, and we will continue to strategically invest in our brands through the balance of the year. We are on track to deliver net sales growth with modest EBITDA margin expansion in fiscal '26 for the Home & Garden business. Let's finally turn to our Home & Personal Care business, which is Slide 14. Reported net sales in this business increased 3.6%. Excluding favorable foreign exchange, organic net sales increased 1.1%. Reported net sales in the Personal Care category increased in the mid-teens this quarter, while sales in home appliances were down mid-single digits. Organic net sales in EMEA increased mid-single digits with growth in both home appliances and personal care. Sales across both categories benefited from a one-time reduction in trade spend in our e-commerce and DTC channels, offset by an increase in operating expenses. Underlying performance in both categories continue to be impacted by increased competition, particularly in the e-commerce channel. That said, U.K. performance for the quarter was strong with double-digit improvements to POS across Personal Care and home appliances. This was driven in part by expanded distribution at key retailers and the continued success of our growing direct-to-consumer business. Further expansion of our DTC capability across Europe and beyond remains a key priority for our team. North American sales decreased in the mid-single digits, driven by lower sales in home appliances, reflecting softness across certain brands and the exit of our U.S. DRTV business. Despite this, Black & Decker continued to perform well, particularly in Coffeemakers and Fabric Care, where we saw positive POS and market share gains. In Personal Care, sales increased double digits though results benefited from a soft prior year comparison due to the tariff-related pricing disruptions we've previously discussed. The Hair Care segment is showing signs of stabilization with sequential improvement in both the overall category and Remington performance. Recently, the hair care category returned to growth and Remington gained share within it, with particularly strong performance in the Curling Iron segment. In our Latin American region, organic sales increased in the high single digits, primarily driven by double-digit growth in Personal Care following new product launches across Mexico, Colombia and Central America earlier in the year. These launches continue to gain traction from brand-focused investments and partnerships with key retailers sustaining double-digit sell-out growth. Organic sales in home appliances also increased driven by incremental volume in Colombia and Mexico under our Black & Decker brand. Our continued investment behind our brands is translating into tangible commercial wins across channels and markets, and I'd like to highlight a few examples. First, building on the success of our DTC expansion in the U.K., we're actively extending this approach to new markets. During the quarter, we launched a TikTok shop in the U.S. featuring our Remington brand with the Gloss collection as our debut assortment. We are encouraged by the early response and are continuing to build capabilities to support further expansion across other brands, categories and markets. Second, we successfully reactivated our partnership with a key retailer in Australia across both our Russell Hobbs and Remington brands, following a period in which the retailer had shifted towards private label. We are pleased to once again bring our trusted market-leading brands back to Australian consumers through this important channel. And third, we recently entered a partnership with America's Test Kitchen, showing the Black & Decker brand featuring the VacuSteam and Perfect Pint Ice Cream Maker through an integrated multichannel media campaign designed to increase awareness and drive meaningful consumer engagement. Turning to profitability. Adjusted EBITDA, excluding tariff refunds was $14.4 million. An increase of $7.4 million versus the prior year, with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 270 basis points to 5.4%. The increase was primarily driven by pricing, cost improvement initiatives and favorable foreign exchange, partially offset by lower volumes and higher tariff costs. Looking ahead to the remainder of the year, while softness in global consumer demand and a reduced U.S. product portfolio will continue to weigh on net sales, we expect the rate of decline to moderate relative to the first half, consistent with the underlying trends we experienced in Q3. 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 for the full year. Turning to Slide 15 and our expectations for fiscal '26. We continue to expect net sales to be flat to up low single digits compared to the prior year, driven by growth in our Global Pet Care and Home & Garden business, more than offsetting an anticipated sales decline in our Home & Personal Care business. Our year-to-date results support this view, though we anticipate some moderation in Q4 as Global Pet Care faces tough prior year comparisons and Home & Garden navigates unfavorable weather conditions late in the season. In light of year-to-date performance, we are updating our expectation for full year adjusted EBITDA. Excluding the impact of tariff refunds, we now expect adjusted EBITDA to grow mid-single digits. The improvement versus the prior year continues to be driven by the expected sales growth in our Global Pet Care and Home & Garden businesses, continuous improvement initiatives and FX favorability offsetting the anticipated lower volume in Home & Personal Care. Tariffs and inflation are expected to be largely offset through the various mitigation actions, which we've taken, including pricing. And lastly, excluding tariff refunds, we continue to expect adjusted free cash flow as a percentage of adjusted EBITDA to be around 50%. Now turning 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 payment towards restructuring optimization and the 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. For adjusted EPS, we use an effective tax rate of 32.8%, including discrete items and state taxes. The higher rate incorporates the impact of the HPC transaction announced in May. To end my section, I want to echo David and thank all of our global employees for their hard work and commitment. The results we've delivered year-to-date are a direct reflection of that effort, and I'm confident we have the focus and the team to finish the year strong. Back to you, David.
Thank you, Faisal. Once again, I just want to thank everybody for joining us on the call today. I'll take a few moments like I normally do, just to recap some of the takeaways. The key takeaways will be on your Slide 18, I believe. Look, we're pleased with our third quarter and our year-to-date results, and they're marked by a number of significant meaningful milestones that I mentioned earlier. And these things reinforce the effectiveness of our strategy. All 3 businesses delivered top line growth in the quarter, and we did this despite the continued volatility in the broader macroeconomic environment, including the geopolitical tensions that persist, and evolving trade environment and uneven consumer demand across certain categories and regions. In Global Pet Care and Home & Garden, our brands continue to perform well in the market with consistent share gains across much of our portfolio. And in Home & Personal Care, we're seeing signs of stabilization in the North American market, along with continued brand strength across Latin America. As for profitability, all 3 businesses expanded adjusted EBITDA margins in the quarter, excluding tariff refunds, a direct reflection of the cost discipline we continue to exercise across our organization. If I look forward to the balance of the year, we're focused on finishing strong, executing against our strategic priorities and continuing to invest in our brands and delivering on the updated framework we just gave you today. Our fiscal fourth quarter will not be without its challenges. Unfavorable weather conditions are weighing on Home & Garden's final season. The Global Pet Care business faces tougher prior year comparisons as we've talked about. And the consumer and inflationary pressures remain. That said, we are pleased with the underlying performance of our brands, and we remain confident in this team and our ability to close out fiscal '26 strong with the same discipline and determination that has defined our performance throughout the year. Lastly, I believe the future for our company and Spectrum Brands is bright. We will continue to build and look for attractive opportunities in the M&A market, but we are looking for the right complementary assets to build upon the strength of our Global Pet Care and Home & Garden portfolios. And we will remain disciplined. We will only act when the right opportunity presents itself to us. On the HPC front, our partnership with Oaktree is progressing well. We're excited about what lies ahead. There are a number of potential exciting opportunities to create the right structure to maximize value at HPC, and we're looking forward to sharing more progress with you guys as that relationship matures. Before I turn the call over, I want to take this last moment to thank every member of the Spectrum Brands team around the world. The results we delivered this quarter reflect your grit, your determination, your focus and your commitment. I'm confident that together, we'll finish this year strong. Now I'll turn the call back to Jen, and we're happy to take any questions.
Thank you, David.
分析師問答
And I show our first question comes from the line of Bob Labick from CJS Securities.
Congratulations on strong performance, particularly the 6.5%, 7% organic growth. So, kind of 2-part question involving that growth. Can you talk a little bit about the kind of price volume dynamic that you had and how much the timing of pricing, how much more that will benefit you right now? But the bigger question, too, though, is you've been talking about for a while leaning into innovation. Is there any way to give maybe kind of a vitality index or sales from new products and give us a sense of like is that fully up to speed? Do we have more new pipeline behind? Is that what's driving the growth? Or give us a sense of that as well?
Yes. I'll zoom out, hit the bigger points, and then have Faisal and Jen fill in any details I miss. Over the last couple of years we've taken a very long-term approach to managing the company. We focused on getting the fundamental building blocks in place and deleveraged the balance sheet very aggressively over the last three years, so we now have a tremendously strong balance sheet. We then turned our attention to operations. We weren't strong working capital managers and we lacked a robust S&OP process, but we've built pretty strong operational excellence. The balance sheet is healthy and the operational cadence and rhythm of the company are light years ahead of where they were. I'm satisfied with that, though there is always more to do. My main goal now is commercial health. If we have an outstanding balance sheet and outstanding operations, how do we build an outstanding commercial operation? We need to do fewer, bigger, better, bolder innovations. Home & Garden had an outstanding quarter, growing almost 20% in the third quarter. Javier, who leads that team, spent three years rebuilding the culture, building real R&D and innovation capacity, and recently added real marketing muscle. Much of that growth is from new innovative products. Faisal may have mentioned our Wasp and Hornet Traps and other small insect traps. These are highly efficient, very high-efficacy products that address consumer-led insights and are priced appropriately. In some cases a business that was zero grew to $5 million, then $10 million, and should do $20 million. Moving the needle $10 million or $20 million on a single SKU in a $550 million to $600 million base business actually moves the whole company. If you can get a couple of those SKUs working, you achieve the vitality you're asking about by meeting consumer needs in white space with fresh, first-to-market products. Javier has a number of those, and we can always do better—we just hired new R&D talent for him. Pet is a few years behind; we recently hired Ori and staffed new senior leadership positions there. My focus, and what will be part of our AOP planning for 2027, is how we continue to reduce marketing spend that delivers lower yields and reinvest that into higher-return activities. We need to address younger consumers, be more engaging and exciting, and be crisper in our marketing and storytelling. I'm in Middleton, Wisconsin today at the old headquarters buildings with Rayovac; our appliance business and shared services are still here. We had the Board meeting and toured some of the innovation in appliances. We actually have pretty amazing innovation, but we need to do a much better job telling consumers about it. There are a lot of workstreams here, and I'm very excited about matching this innovation with crisp, punchy, engaging digital marketing. That will require additional talent to upgrade human skills so people understand what great marketing looks like and how to communicate effectively to our consumer base. If we can turn our share of voice up, we can have something really exciting at Spectrum Brands for the years ahead. For specifics, I'll let Faisal and Jen come in.
Maybe I'll quickly add on the price and volume question. We have positive pricing in all three businesses. We also have some volume growth now, not a lot, but we have volume growth in our GPC business. In our H&G business we have a lot of volume growth versus last year, but we're comping to what I would call a challenging quarter last year. Looking forward to the year, I think for the full year we will end up having both positive volume growth and pricing growth in the GPC and H&G businesses. Our HPC business will remain challenged on volume, and that's where, as we referenced earlier, we have to think about how we price appropriately and promote to drive volume. One last thing: our formula from an innovation perspective has been launching products and making them successful, and then in the second year typically they get a lot more distribution. That's what we're seeing now in H&G. Wasp and Hornet, for example, and Flying Insect were launched last year, were very successful, and now we're counting on much broader distribution that's driving the volume for that.
Okay. That's wonderful. And then if I can, just one quick question. Obviously, you outperformed meaningfully, excluding tariffs. But with tariff refunds coming, what are the expected uses of tariff refunds as they come in?
Yes, I want to hit this hard because I see all my competitors' press releases and everyone looks at this as some type of windfall or lottery ticket, and it drives me crazy. We had to restructure a division. If you remember a year ago, I was talking about a tariff torpedo, and I was looking at hundreds of millions of dollars of cost of goods sold challenging our business. We had to make very tough, painful decisions. We had to lay off coworkers, curtail investments, and pull back on marketing. We suffered real losses because of the tariff environment. So I'm very strict with my staff. This money is like filling a divot when you're playing golf—you have to fill the hole back in. We want to rehire people and invest in commercial activity; that's where this is going. But this is just recouping some of the money we lost last year. I hope our press release is clear on that. I don't like the way other people are stating it. This is no windfall. I've read some of the sell-side pieces. Please don't say that about this. This is a recovery of prior losses, and that's how we're looking at it. We don't want to include this in any ongoing numbers. This is one-time in nature. It does not reflect organic earnings, and that's how we're treating it.
Our next question comes from the line of Brian McNamara from Canaccord Genuity.
First one on Pet Care. I'm curious if you could kind of speak about the channel dynamics there. A large online pet retailer gave some cautious remarks there starting in May on the market in general, but you and some of your competitors have kind of reported better sales for the last few quarters now after a tough few years. So, is that just a function of mass and pet specialty doing better? Any comments there would be helpful.
I think you're right. The pet category has been in a tough spot since the COVID boom. Many specialty channels have experienced foot traffic problems, and pet continues to shift toward online purchases, creating a lot of volatility. We have hired better talent in pet, are investing more in R&D, and are performing a bit better in market. We're nowhere near where I want to be, but we're doing a great job driving e-commerce. As Faisal said, we're being more strategic. We're much more strategic with our pet portfolio and with the price-pack architecture that Ori and his team developed. We brought consultants in last fall and moved to a good-better-best strategy, which helps retailers and makes it easier to shop the shelf in brick-and-mortar, letting customers more clearly see and compare our products and prices. I'm not saying everything is perfect; we have lots of room to improve, but we have moved the needle since a year ago, and some of this growth is unique to us.
Great. And then you guys had a great quarter in H&G, but it sounds like you'll give some of that back in Q4 where some retailers a bit heavy on inventories. Ideal weather for controls is a warm weather with moisture, right? So, like would it make sense to eventually diversify your weather exposures through M&A, a competitor with clearly different end markets and weather exposure spoke about a rough weather in May. So, any thoughts there would be helpful.
Yes. Strategically we totally get that, and we've been focusing on it through M&A. We just released a new 3.0 Rejuvenate Mop. It's a cleaning product and is less seasonal. It's early days, so I can't say for sure, but I'm excited about it. I think it's a much better product than the one acquired years ago — night and day compared to what we had — and we've just gotten it placed. It's rolling out to retailers, and even without any support it's performing much better than the old product. Early indications are positive, but I need a quarter or two to see a trend before being as bullish as I'd like in external communications. I totally understand the point. We have a great Home & Garden business, and that team has done a good job investing in innovation and improving marketing. If we could get a couple of sunny weekends to finish out the year, that would help build retail confidence, increase point-of-sale activity, and generate additional replenishment orders and factory shipments. We're just trying to be transparent that the last couple of weeks' weather has been difficult in that space.
And I show our next question comes from the line of Chris Carey from Wells Fargo Securities.
I wanted to pick up on the Home & Garden piece; it was a very strong quarter. Faisal, you mentioned the volatility in consumption through the quarter and the excess inventory you want to work down in fiscal Q4. Can you give us a sense of, first, what that volatility looked like intra-quarter? And more importantly, can you frame the inventory levels you are looking at going into fiscal Q4? Most of this is really about understanding your potential to end the year with healthy inventory levels as you go into fiscal '27?
Yes. Look, I think one of the great things about this year is that we started the year with really good inventory levels at our retailers. Ideally, that's where we want to end up again. To go back to your question about what the volatility looked like within the quarter from a weather perspective, we had really strong POS growth in April, double digits. Then we had a softer May. June was slightly better, but still softer. Net-net, the quarter was still positive from a POS perspective. But retailers ordered and took inventory based on a very strong April, so many of our retailer partners now have inventory positions higher than they would expect because of the softer POS in May and June and the continued softer POS in July. That's why we're a little more guarded about where Q4 goes for Home & Garden. Even with that, I think we'll have pretty good positive growth for Home & Garden. We're still continuing to take share across all of our brands, and those are the positive things we want to focus on. We would like to end the year at a healthy inventory level, and our projections right now are tracking to that. That's what we're embedding in our framework as we talk about it.
Great. And just as we go into fiscal '27, I think you mentioned confidence in growing top line volume and pricing and in Pet and Garden, correct me if I heard that wrong. What embeds that confidence? Is that early plans that you have, early discussions on shelf space going into next year? And then just give us a little bit of a sense of the inflation backdrop as we head into next year. It certainly feels like it's getting a bit better, but any way you can dimensionalize it.
Yes. So, look, it's really early to talk about next year outside of just our product portfolio, our pipeline and our brand performance. And the basis for my confidence comes from all of those things. This is a very weather-dependent business. We don't know what the weather is like. It's actually even too early to even know what the retailers' outlook would be like for next year. But all the things that are in our control are pointing in the right direction, and that's what gives us confidence.
And on the inflation dynamic?
Yes. Again, same thing. We haven't really experienced a lot of inflation that we've not been able to offset this year. Early days. There are clearly signs that we're seeing continuing inflation. Our business has not really felt it yet. I don't think I can with confidence tell you what '27 inflation looks like. But I'll point to the fact that we have successfully dealt with and offset all the inflation pressures we felt over the last few years. So, I remain confident in our management team's ability to offset that inflation as it comes. But it's too early for me to kind of forecast what that looks like for next year.
And I show our next question comes from the line of Stephen Powers from Deutsche Bank.
On the tariff refund front, can you clarify whether there is a way to quantify in more detail how much cash has been received to date related to the contemplated refunds? And then as you look ahead, can you give any sense of the magnitude of additional earnings potential and the subsequent cash benefit from refunds still in process?
Yes. Look, at the end of the quarter, we had actually booked all of our refunds, but received very little in cash. I can tell you since then, and our refund is kind of 2 phases, Phase 1 and Phase 2, and it was filed at different timing, all of which was booked on our P&L in the third quarter. At this point, we've received all of the Phase 1, and we've started to receive Phase 2. So, the total impact, I expect most of it will be received within the fiscal year. And definitely, by the end of the calendar year, we'll receive all of the cash. But I'd say about half of it is already in, and I expect most of it to still hit the fiscal year from a cash perspective.
Yes. That's great. And then, David, on HPC and the strategic alternatives that are being contemplated, I guess, as you work through it, are there specific operational or financial milestones that you need to clear before those alternatives become more actionable? I guess just how you're viewing that contemplated path over the next series of months and quarters?
No, there's nothing we need to clear. At the end of the day, what you can control is your organic growth, and that's always priority one. If you look at the business from my perspective, we were basically battening down the hatches and trying to protect ourselves from a tremendous amount of tariff inflation that was destroying the company's P&L a year ago. We played defense, and that's okay; sometimes you have to play defense to see the next day. But with Oaktree's injection of capital, we really want to pivot to offense. In fact, I had a town hall meeting here yesterday and that was my message. We're underwriting three new growth pillars with our new partners at Oaktree. I think Faisal is doing his best, but we can't look into '27 yet. We've just started the AOP process internally. At the end of the day, I think we have tremendous opportunity organically on those commercial levers that we talked about for the other businesses: we've got some decent innovation, how do we get better storytelling, how do we become more relevant, how do we crank up share of voice on digital and really target younger consumers. That's some of what the growth pillars will be as we roll them out internally organically. But in terms of M&A, we're wide open right now and we're looking at a bunch of stuff. With the lowest-levered balance sheet and an amazing partner in Oaktree, we should be the consolidation platform of choice, and we think there's a lot of money to be made in the space. As the relationship with Oaktree matures, we hope to share that detail with you. But we're wide open.
And I show this concludes our Q&A session at this time. I'd like to turn the call over to Ms. Jen Schultz, DVP, FP&A and Investor Relations for closing remarks.
Thank you. And with that, we've reached the top of the hour, so we will conclude today's conference call. Thank you to both David and Faisal. And on behalf of Spectrum Brands, thank you for your participation this morning.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.