Helen Of Troy (NASDAQ:HELE) reported fourth-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company's fourth-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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The full earnings call is available at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/760699127
Summary
Helen Of Troy's Q4 FY26 net sales exceeded expectations, with adjusted EPS in line, supported by strategic investments in brands and people.
The company is executing a multi-year roadmap focusing on brand momentum and operational enhancements, including supply chain visibility and digital capabilities.
For FY27, Helen Of Troy projects net sales between $1.751 billion to $1.822 billion, with a focus on restoring brand momentum and operational excellence.
Continued tariff management and dual sourcing efforts have mitigated cost impacts, with expectations to further reduce the cost of goods sold subject to China tariffs.
Management emphasizes strategic global expansion, innovation, and digital engagement to drive future growth, while maintaining a focus on debt reduction and free cash flow generation.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Greetings and welcome to the Helen of Troy fourth quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press Star 0 on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference call over to Ann Rakunas, Director of External Communications. Thank you. You may begin.
Ann Rakunas
Thank you, operator. Good morning everyone. Welcome to Helen Of Troy's fourth quarter fiscal 26 earnings conference call. The agenda for the call this morning is as follows. I will begin with a brief discussion of forward looking statements. Scott Azell, our CEO, will then share his thoughts and areas of focus and Brian Grass, our CFO, will provide an overview of our financial performance in the fourth quarter and fiscal year and outline our expectations for the full year fiscal 27. Following our prepared remarks, we will open up the call for Q&A. This conference call may contain certain forward looking statements that are based on management's current expectations with respect to future events or financial performance generally. The words anticipates, believes, expects and other similar words are words identifying forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause anticipated results to differ materially from the actual results. This conference call may also include information that may be considered non Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) financial information. These non Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) measures are not an alternative to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) financial information and may be calculated differently than the non Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) financial information disclosed by other parties. The Company cautions listeners not to place undue reliance on forward looking statements or non Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) information. Before I turn the call over to Scott, I would like to inform all interested parties that a copy of today's earnings release can be found on the investor Relations section of our website by scrolling to the bottom of the homepage. The earnings release contains tables that reconcile non Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) financial measures, their corresponding Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) based measures. We've also posted an investor presentation to our website which contains additional information and perspective on our results and outlook. With that, I will now turn the conference call over to Scott.
Scott Azell (Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you, Ann. Good morning everyone. It's great to be with you. As we close Fiscal Year 2026 and I can begin to outline our look to our future. We finished quarter four with a sharp focus on execution. We're determined to be a better company on the road to being a bigger company. We're going to do this through ruthless focus and discipline. Execution focus, discipline and execution best characterize our exit out of Fiscal Year 2026 and quarter four. Net sales exceeded expectations and adjusted EPS was in line. Margins reflect our strategic investment as we make deliberate choices to invest in our brands and our people position our organization for the future. This progress caps a dynamic year one in which we took action to address both internal and external challenges by implementing organizational changes necessary to move closer to the consumer, prioritize brand health and win in the marketplace. Internal ownership is driving our reset. We're committed to operating Helen Of Troy more effectively by removing complexity, editing our priorities and amplifying our actions for impact. Operating rigor in supply chain and demand planning resulted in year over year inventory levels that were essentially flat even as we absorbed significant higher tariffs in our inventory. Tariff mitigation was paramount. Utilizing supplier diversification, SKU streamlining and pricing actions to protect our margins. Debt reduction continues to be a priority driven by strong free cash flow and a successful post quarter divestment of our South Haven, Mississippi distribution facility. We drove operational clarity by moving decisions closer to the consumer, empowering brand level ownership and enabling our teams to move with the speed of the consumer. As I have stated, our current situation was not created overnight and our recovery will not be instantaneous. However, we're taking measured approach to building our future. Before we discuss our fiscal 27 plans, I want to be direct about the market we are navigating. We've made progress, but we're in tune with the macro environment. Overall sales trends reflect a volatile market. While our home and outdoor business held steady, our beauty and wellness business felt the pressure. The flu season didn't really happen. Respiratory and fever rates stayed well below average, which meant that fewer shoppers need to restock our wellness products. Retail inventory is finally stabilizing. Most retailers are back to healthy stock levels and are working through any residual pockets of excess. We can't control the macro challenges, but we will be intentional in our actions in service of brand and consumer we are winning where it counts. Consumers are being selective on where they spend. But brands that deliver innovative products that make consumers lives better through style, utility and personalization will continue to win in the marketplace. Our innovation is landing. We see sales trends improving as we launch new products that offer real solutions and we're taking market share even in this environment. Brands like vix, Braun, Oxo, Osprey, Olive and June are standing out as leaders. The challenges we navigated in fiscal 26 were a catalyst for change, providing the necessary clarity of where we must invest and where we must simplify. To achieve this, we're executing a multi year roadmap, a 3. Phase evolution from stabilization to a portfolio of powerhouse brands fiscal 27 begins with phase one. This is about restoring brand momentum, driving our growing brands faster and rebuilding top line momentum for our declining scale brands. We will take the abstract concept of focusing on the consumer to action making the consumer centered offense real in Fiscal Year 2027 and we'll do that through the following critical actions powering our portfolio this is about editing and amplifying our brand building efforts by using a framework to identify the highest return brand investment opportunities 2. Futurist capabilities we have to skate to where the puck will be by investing in capabilities to leverage our consumer insights to inform a trend forward innovation roadmap 3. Strategic investment remains a priority as remains a priority as we put capital behind innovation and brands and people. Operationalizing consumer centered decision making by placing talent and decisions closer to the consumer and marketplace for speed and execution. Modernizing operations is a parallel priority. Strengthening our digital foundation, building a baseline in AI, elevating our E commerce presence and upgrading our advanced planning systems to drive greater supply chain visibility and responsiveness and then six Platform level improvements to our operating engine will continue as we stabilize the enterprise for long term growth. Three pillars will fortify our plan. Our first pillar Consumer First Innovation this is centered on accelerating product development and modernizing our global reach through high impact social and digital storytelling that resonates across our global footprint in home and outdoor. We're expanding brand reach by entering product lines where our brands are resonating with consumers and have a clear right to win. At Hydro Flask in response to strong consumer demand for wider variety of use cases, we extended our successful Micro Hydro franchise with two additional sizes. We also recently launched a new carry out soft coolers and totes redesigned for improved comfort, performance and longevity. Hydro Flask legacy continues to be recognized by the industry with the Wide mouth awarded Gear Junkies overall pick for best insulated water bottle of 2026. Oxo is expanding in adjacent categories in food storage and feeding in second half of the year, bringing oxo's award winning performance and ease of use in high growth areas where we see significant opportunity. Oxto's successful Rapid brewer continues to achieve accolades, winning Best New product release in 2025 during the 17th annual Sprungie Awards which is considered the Oscars of coffee among other recognition we've received and Osprey continues to augment its technical pack offerings, providing outdoor enthusiasts with new pack solutions that excel in hiking, backpacking and travel environments. In beauty and wellness, innovation remains a primary driver for brand building and consumer relevance. Our new Revlon Versa Styler launched exclusively in Walmart in the first quarter with really early consumer demand exceeding expectation. Priced below $100, this is an all in one tool that delivers meaningful time saving innovation by taking hair from wet to damp to dry and refreshed without the need for multiple attachments. Curlsmith expanded its portfolio with the new curlfit Reviving Mist, a unique alternative to a traditional dry shampoo, while Olive and June introduced new press ons with hand painted charms and fresh spring colors. I am so proud to share that beauty brands continue to receive top industry recognition including multiple glamour, 2026 Best of Beauty awards for Olive and June. Revlon and Drive, Bar Fix and Pure have several new introductions planned in the coming months as we continue to leverage these trusted brands to deepen our consumer relevance in international Strategic Global expansion is a critical priority. We're accelerating our global reach as a key investment in our operating model to lay the groundwork for durable and long term growth. For online engagement, we're sharpening our execution Social commerce is increasingly important connection point for consumer we will advance our work across platforms like TikTok, Shop and Metashop to meet our consumers where they are and digital experience is receiving significantly more rigor to ensure our online presence matches our premium nature of our brands. Our second pillar Commercial and operational excellence Prioritizing critical capabilities to grow for strategic retail partners. We're strengthening digital marketplace capabilities including catalog and product page management and third party seller mitigation. Our U.S. club business development efforts are focused on building long term multi brand partnerships. We're modernizing our technology and systems by prioritizing core platform upgrades, data and analytics, automation and AI enabled solutions. We're investing in advanced planning capabilities to improve forecast accuracy and optimize inventory performance and we're continuing to make targeted investments in Southeast Asia to strengthen our dual sourcing capabilities. Our final pillar, People and Culture is re energizing our organization and and ensuring we have the right capabilities to win. Like Culture relaunches establishing a brand led model re engaging our current teams as we transition toward a new era of ownership, mindset and impactful execution. Talent infusion is a parallel priority. We're thoughtfully investing in high potential talent internally and attracting new talent externally to provide fresh ideas and modern brand building skills to drive our future AI workflow. Evolution is augmenting our team's ingenuity. We're investing in hands on training to automate routine tasks, allowing our people to focus on creative storytelling and innovation that wins with the consumer. Fiscal 27 will be a pivotal year of restoration as we align our organizational architecture and pivot back towards growth. Our outlook reflects our focus on restoring top line performance while while operating with excellence across our enterprise. Our net sales outlook reflects growth in outdoor as we work to stabilize beauty and wellness. Adjusted EPS and profitability targets are grounded in disciplined investment framework allocating capital to high ROI initiatives that strengthen long term brand health. Free cash flow generation remains a priority supported by ongoing work to drive working capital efficiencies and continued debt reduction. Phase two Phase two is about concentrating and catalyzing during year two and year two and year three we're prioritizing high velocity scale potential brands to ensure capital and resources behind the categories and regions where we have the biggest right to win. Active portfolio management is designed to ensure capital is deployed where it generates the highest return, but to that end portfolio optimization is an ongoing process and as we prioritize capital and resources toward high growth categories, we have the greatest right to be successful. A fortified shared service platform empowers our brand teams to spend 100% of their time on what's visible against product, storytelling and consumer experience. Phase three is about building and scaling. During year four and five we plan to shift our full weight behind a concentrated portfolio of leadership brands to that demonstrate a clear positioning and shared capabilities expanding on sourcing governance international reach to create a durable growth and sustainable value creation model. We plan to pursue strategic portfolio expansion through high impact acquisitions of both brands and specialized capabilities that leverage our enterprise scale. We plan to prioritize expansion into high growth adjacencies as we utilize our platform to become a global leader in consumer first innovation. We plan to support billion dollar brand category leadership goals by deeper organizational alignment, internal engagement sessions scheduled for later this spring, more detailed long term initiatives and our specific multi year roadmap will be shared later this calendar year to bring it all together. We believe fiscal 27 marks a turning point for Helena Troy as we enter our first year goal of restoring our competitive edge. We want to be a better company on the road to being a bigger company. We're methodically deploying digital and data driven capabilities that bring us closer to the consumer and accelerate our speed to market. Grounded in our do fewer things better mantra, I am confident our teams are aligned to deliver high velocity execution required to restore long term growth and we will win. Now I want to pass it over to Brian to walk you through our results and outlook in more detail.
Brian Grass (Chief Financial Officer)
Thank you Scott and good morning everyone. Our fourth quarter results are a step in the right direction with net sales, adjusted EPS and cash flow at the better end of our expectations, demonstrating the focus and resilience of our associates. Their stewardship is rebuilding the necessary momentum as we transition to a growth first mindset in fiscal 27. Looking more broadly at the year our Our performance reflects continued progress on a number of commercial and operational initiatives. While these actions did not fully offset external pressures in fiscal 26, they have built the foundation for product driven growth that we are prioritizing in the year ahead. During the year we made tangible Progress on several fronts. 1. Portfolio Focus we leaned into innovation led growth with multiple new launches as Scott mentioned and more to come in fiscal 27. 2. Tariff management and Dual Sourcing We've strengthened our supply chain which is helping to mitigate the impact of continued geopolitical uncertainty. For the full fiscal year. Gross unmitigated tariffs had a $51 million impact on gross profit. Through a disciplined combination of skew prioritization, cost reductions, price increases and supplier diversification, we successfully reduced the net operating income impact to less than $30 million for the fiscal year and our diversified cost of goods sold subject to China tariffs to approximately 30% by year end. We currently have the capacity to dual source Approximately 45% of our annual product volume. We expect this figure to reach approximately 55% by the end of fiscal 27, further mitigating our supply chain risk. 3. Operational fundamentals and Go to Market beyond supply footprint diversification, we focused on strengthening the fundamentals of our execution. This included improving our go to market effectiveness, sharpening our focus on our brands, putting them at the center of our commercial execution and strategy. By leaning into innovation for more product driven growth, we are ensuring our supply chain and sales teams are aligned to support our strongest and highest margin brands. 4. Pricing integrity Last quarter we chose to temporarily stop shipments in beauty and wellness to support consistent pricing adoption. I'm pleased to report we have resumed shipments in almost all of these instances and I'm grateful for the collaborative partnerships we have with our retail customers. Turning to the financial highlights for the fourth quarter, consolidated sales decreased 3.3% favorable to our outlook. The impact of our pricing actions and the contribution of Olive in June partially offset the year over year decline from tariff related revenue disruption and lower core business volume. Home and outdoor segment sales declined 1.5% ahead of our expectations. OXO and Hydro Flask were ahead of plan and Osprey contributed solid year over year growth. OXO benefited from good point of sale at Value customers and replenishment at Mass. Hydro Flask benefited from the success of recent product launches and also saw strength in the closeout channel as we improved our inventory composition. Osprey's growth was primarily driven by the E Commerce channel, their continuing stream of new products and expansion into adjacencies and the clearance of end of season goods through the outdoor channel. Beauty and Wellness sales decreased 4.7% with approximately 2.8 percentage points driven by tariff related disruption. Revlon, Olive and June and Braun were the standouts in the quarter. Revlon outperformed our expectations driven by continued strong point of sale at Walmart and Target and and the solid contribution from International. Olive and June saw organic growth in its business of 18% and contributed 4.9 percentage points of growth to total segment sales driven by effective digital grassroots marketing, new product introductions and strong brand loyalty and consumer engagement. Olive and June has been a great addition to the Hellen Betroy portfolio strengthening our profitability and outperforming valuation metrics and Braun saw solid performance in EMEA and APAC driven by early flu incidents in those regions. Order Timing shifts Strong replenishment International sales grew 5.4% surpassing our expectations with strong point of sale, banded distribution and new product innovation. Gross Profit margin decreased 400 basis points to 44.6% primarily due to the impact of higher tariffs, less favorable inventory obsolescence than in the prior year, higher retail trade and promotional expense and a less favorable channel mix within home and outdoor. These factors were partially offset by the favorable impact of the acquisition of Olive in June and lower commodity and product costs exclusive of tariffs. SGA ratio increased 270 basis points primarily due to unfavorable operating leverage, higher annual incentive compensation expense year over year. EPA compliance costs and the acquisition of Olive in June. Adjusted operating margin decreased 710 basis points to 8.3% primarily due to the net impact of tariffs, increase in incentive compensation year over year, unfavorable operating leverage and the preservation of trade and brand spending to support future revenue growth. Moving on to balance sheet highlights, we continue to emphasize working capital efficiency and balance sheet productivity as an engine to fund our strategic investments, prove our operating flexibility and position the company for long term growth. Regarding our year end position, inventory ended at 456 million were largely flat to the prior year despite $34 million of incremental tariff costs and inventory. At the end of fiscal 26 we accelerated the turns of our more productive inventory while also clearing out slower moving inventory which resulted in a net reduction of almost $50 million in the fourth quarter alone. Debt closed at 781 million. Our net leverage ratio was 3.87 times compared to 3.77 times at the end of the third quarter. The increase was primarily driven by lower trailing twelve month EBITDA reflecting lower revenue and higher average tariff costs. This was partially offset by favorable free cash flow driven by the inventory reduction and the conversion of prior quarter peak season receivables enabling $112 million of debt pay down in the quarter. Free cash flow for the fiscal year was 132 million despite 72 million of incremental cash outflows specifically for tariff payments. Transitory costs associated with diversifying our supplier base regions outside of China and subsequent to the end of the fourth quarter we further improved the productivity of our balance sheet with the sale of our distribution facility in South Haven, Mississippi. The sale generated proceeds of approximately $78 million which we used to pay down our debt. We expect to continue to consider balance sheet productivity opportunities to further strengthen our financial flexibility. Focus our resources on the core business as we pivot to growth. Turning now to our full year fiscal 27 outlook, we expect net sales in the range of 1.751 billion to 1.822 billion with home and outdoor net sales of 854 million to 882 million and beauty and wellness net sales of 897 million to 940 million, adjusted EBITDA of 190 million to 197 million which implies year over year growth of 2.1% to 6.3%, adjusted EPS of $3.25 to $3.75 and free cash flow in the range of 85 million to 100 million. We expect our quarterly sales cadence to be uneven driven by lapping of prior year revenue dynamics. At the midpoint of our range, we expect first half year over year sales growth to be slightly positive with the second half of the year slightly negative due to the cadence of people and brand investments and higher average tariff costs cycling out of inventory and into cost of goods sold. In the first half of fiscal 27, we expect roughly 15% of our total annual adjusted EPS outlook in the first half of the year with roughly break even adjusted eps in the first quarter. To help with modeling, our fiscal 27 outlook includes tariffs in place as of April 2026 assumed to remain in effect for the balance of the year, not including the benefit from any potential tariff refunds. No significant fluctuation in commodity costs rate or disruption in supply availability interest expense of 47 to 49 million with cash flow prioritized for debt reduction and an expected net leverage ratio of approximately 3.2 times or lower by the end of the year. A full year adjusted effective tax rate of 25 to 27%, continued working capital efficiency during fiscal 27 with an emphasis on further inventory reduction. Capital expenditures are expected to be between 28 to 32 million, with an emphasis on product innovation and supply chain diversification. Finally, we are assuming April 2026 foreign currency exchange rates remain constant for the remainder of fiscal 27. In terms of our expectations regarding the operating environment, we continue to expect inflationary pressures, softness in discretionary categories, conservative retailer inventory management, and an increasingly competitive and promotional landscape. Our outlook does not assume a significant or prolonged impact from the conflict in Iran or other similar macro disruption on the supply chain as it cannot be reasonably estimated. We expect continued diversification of our global manufacturing footprint, reducing the cost of goods sold exposed to China tariffs to less than 20% by the end of fiscal 27 and limiting the net operating income impact to less than 10 million for the full fiscal year. Our outlook reflects a deliberate choice to preserve investments in our brands and people and includes an increase in growth investments of approximately 40 basis points, prioritizing high return marketing and innovation initiatives. As we transition back to growth mode, we have a clear bias toward revenue improvement over aggressive cost reduction. By focusing on revenue recovery now, we expect to recapture operating leverage and build long term sustainable momentum. Finally, while we're not yet where we want to be in terms of financial performance, the midpoint of our outlook implies a forward free cash flow yield of 20% year using Tuesday's market capitalization. We believe this is a compelling value metric that compares favorably with our peer set and the market overall. With that, I'll turn it back to the operator for Q and A.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Peter Grom with ubs. Please proceed with your question.
Peter Grom (Equity Analyst at UBS)
Yeah, great. Thank you. Good morning everyone. So Scott, the commentary on the different phases and the path forward was incredibly helpful. But can you maybe frame or help us understand what success looks like on the other side of this? I'm not trying to get guidance on, you know, 28 or 29 today, but for a business that several years ago had significantly greater earnings power versus what's outlined in guidance today. I'm just curious how you would frame the opportunity and whether you think the business can get back to levels we saw several years ago, particularly as it sounds like you may be stepping up investment levels across a greater number of brands moving forward.
Scott Azell (Chief Executive Officer)
Peter yeah, good morning. Thank you for your question. Let me just give you a little bit of backdrop, myself and the leadership team to just kind of put a pin in quarter four and then get more into your question. When we think about quarter four, there were four things we were really focused on. One is to get really sharp on our ambition so that the work that we set up for Fiscal Year 2027 we can begin to show markers of progress. Two, how do we begin to start that journey now in quarter four? Through trying to build against top line and begin to put things in place in our organization to set us up for the future. Three, how do we invest in our people and our culture for not only for quarter four, but to start the journey as we get back to where we want to get to and then four, balance sheet productivity and paying down debt. I would say that from our standpoint that, you know, we quietly feel like we made progress in all, all four of those areas. But as we look to the future, we think about that. A healthy Helena Troy is really about first, being a better company before on our road to being a bigger company. And it's built on many pillars. First, putting the consumer at the center of everything we do. That's then underpinned by brands that are healthy with the scoreboard around growth and market share and then investing in critical capabilities first, making sure we get our organization and team and talent closer to the marketplace and closer to where decisions are made so they can rapidly innovate, tell relevant stories and commercially execute. Second, invest in commercial and brand building capabilities that are going to enable our brands to have the right to win on the shelf or on the digital marketplace. Third, how do we invest in a make move and hold with our supply chain so we can be agile and responsive of a dynamic marketplace. And then lastly, how do we continue to be thoughtful on our global execution because we know that our global business needs to play a bigger role than it plays today. And all of that should be underpinned by investing in our culture and people because they're going to have to help us drive it and then continue to be focused on a healthy balance sheet. So for us for Fiscal Year 2027, it's really showing markers of progress by doing the things I just talked about. Becoming a better Helena Troy on the road to a faster growing Helen Of Troy.
Peter Grom (Equity Analyst at UBS)
That's super helpful. And then, Brian, just a question on the guidance and I guess just it's more around the level of visibility or flexibility that you have today. And I just asked that more in the context. Pretty volatile external backdrop. And the guidance I think you mentioned is more than 80% weighted to the back half of the year. So can you just walk through the level of confidence that you've embedded in that inflection? Have you embedded more conservative underlying assumptions or maybe some things that might not go your way? And I guess very specifically, there was a commentary in the release around commodity cost, freight and supply availability. I think it was mentioned, you know, significant fluctuation. Is that just related to where things stand today or does guidance assume no major cost impacts related to these factors?
Brian Grass (Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks. Yeah, just to cover the last part first, we've called out the fact that, you know, things have changed as a result of the Iran conflict pretty quickly. So it's only, you know, a few weeks old, but resin prices, commodity prices, fuel prices have all reacted pretty significantly and that does impact our raw material costs. So we're calling it out. But I think, you know, almost anyone would say it's, it's a little too new, a little too fresh to think that you can get your arms around it, it embedded in your outlook. And so we have not attempted to do that. We are proactively working to minimize any impact, such as we forward bought some raw material to make sure that we have raw material that we're going to need. In the short term, there could be scarcity issues that come up and to lock in pricing, we also attempt to lock in our inbound freight pricing and are in the process of securing favorable rates as compared to current spot pricing, which is also spiked. So I would, I would say, look, we haven't adjusted our outlook up or down as a result of the conflict. We have taken actions to minimize the impact and then we're just going to have to see how that plays out. Hopefully from a modeling perspective, you appreciate that us not trying to model something that's really difficult in an early stage to model. So that's how we've approached that. With respect to the cadence, you know, it's really not about conservatism. It's really kind of about the comparison to the prior year and the lumpiness of the prior year and the cadence of our People and brand investment in the current year which kind of compress and then you know, how tariffs layer into all that in mixing that all together is really results in the lower EPS in the first half of the year and the higher EPS in the second half of the year. And, and really the biggest part of it is the higher average tariff costs that are cycling out of our inventory into our cost of goods sold in the first half of this year. Whereas you really didn't have almost any tariff impact on cogs. We did have a tariff revenue impact in the first half of last year, but we really didn't have a COGS impact. So now we're getting the full blunt of that COGS impact in the first half of this year and, and then overlay that with the investments that we're making in our people and our brands and that compresses the first half of the year and then it also releases in the second half of the year and you get the benefit in the second half of the year. So I wouldn't say it's about conservatism or trying to, you know, make the numbers a certain way. It's really the dynamics of three or
Peter Grom (Equity Analyst at UBS)
four different impacts prior year versus current year. Got it. Thank you so much. I'll pass it on.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from the line of Bob Lavik with CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Bob Lavik (Analyst at CJS Securities)
Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Hi. So I just wanted to start with, you know, in terms of the revenue guidance, how much price is baked into the guidance for next year and have retailers fully accepted that? Because you know, we had the stop order and this. So kind of where do you stand in that? How much price in the revenue guidance? Where are you getting it? And I guess I'll stop there for a second and then I'll ask a follow up.
Brian Grass (Chief Financial Officer)
Brian, you want to go ahead and take it? Yeah. So if you bake it all in together, if you're looking for total revenue impact of price increases, Bob, it's about $50 million that is impacting our revenue through price increase. Now that sounds like a big number that doesn't even probably come close to covering all of our tariff costs as well as all kind of, you know, regulatory costs that are emerging related to packaging and things of that nature. So it makes a little bit of a dent in terms of a profit perspective. But it does influence kind of the revenue impact and that impact that I'm giving you is kind of the year over year impact in terms of fiscal 27 versus 26. And I would say in 26, we only got partial realization of that, and in some cases it was delayed and so on and so forth. With respect to where we are, we have Almost or effectively 100% of our planned pricing increases in place. It did take us a period of time, the second half of fiscal 26, to get everything in place, but we now have the ones that we intend to pursue effectively all in place with, with a couple minor exceptions. So that's where we are on that. It was just one of the levers that we pulled to try and offset tariffs along with a combination of price decreases, skew evaluation, all the things we talked about in the past, price was one of them. And that's the impact. Okay, great. And then in the theme of invest to grow, I think, Brian, at the end of the prepared remarks, you mentioned a 40 basis basis point increase in growth investment. What, what are the steps, what's necessary, I guess, internally to be done before you increase it more than I imagine. When you get to where you want to be, it'll be more than 40 basis points more of, you know, investment spending to get to the right growth and to reignite growth. So kind of what are the next steps that you guys are taking so that you can, you know, lean harder into the growth engine? I think you're right. I'm glad you asked the question. 40. We built the plan this year intentionally to lean into any over performance with additional growth investment. We have framed up and have, you know, kind of planned and sitting on the shelf a whole host of investments that we couldn't afford to make in the plan that we're providing today. And the idea is that with, you know, any over performance, we're going to continue to pursue those high ROI investments and lean in. And the hope is that by the end of the year, it's not 40 basis points, it's more because, you know, we've got better operating leverage and produce more profit as a result of the growth and then continue to feed the flywheel. So we've intentionally built a plan that allows us to do that and, you know, are giving you the base plan. And then when we have upside, which, you know, we're expecting and think we can drive that over performance, will. Will go into greater investment. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah, no, absolutely. That's great. Okay, I'll jump back in queue. Thank you so much. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from the line of Susan Anderson with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.
Susan Anderson (Analyst at Canaccord Genuity)
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I Guess, Brian, maybe just to drill down on the segments in the quarter a little bit, I guess within beauty and wellness, maybe if you can talk about kind of the brand performance, I guess was beauty or wellness the bigger driver of the decline? And how did Dry Bar and then Curlsmith perform? And then you mentioned the cold cough season being weak. So was that the biggest driver or was it pretty equal between the two? And then I guess same thing in home and outdoor. I think you talked about Osprey doing well online. Just curious how it did in the stores. And are you still seeing that category decline and is Osprey still gaining share?
Brian Grass (Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks. Yeah. So if I might break it down a little bit differently within beauty and wellness than you did, I would say Olive and June and Revlon had relative strength and then the remainder of beauty, I would say relatively compared to them was on the weaker side of things. And then in wellness, yes, I would say overall that was a little weaker than we'd like it to be, both in terms of cough, cold flu season and in some of the more competitive categories, you know, where Honeywell plays and some of the other brands, a little bit of relative softness. So hopefully that gives you kind of the walk on beauty and wellness. With respect to home and outdoor, we're seeing very positive trends almost, you know, across the board in that business. And so we're excited about what we're. What we're beginning to see there. With respect to Osprey in particular, the category is generally trending down, but Osprey is generally trending up and taking share and performing well in that category. And then we continue to expand into adjacent categories. So we like that part of the business. And then, you know, I would say overall as a company, if you just kind of look at the trends, we're not where we want to be across all brands and all categories with respect to pos, but we are trending largely in the right direction. If you look across categories and brands and looked at the trend line, we are trending up across the majority of the brands in their respective categories. So we think that that's a sign of progress.
Susan Anderson (Analyst at Canaccord Genuity)
Okay, great. Thanks for the color. And then Scott, maybe if you could talk about the new innovation, I think you mentioned that Reson maybe with consumers well in the quarter across the portfolio and any color you can give on kind of newness coming out throughout this year. And then I think you also mentioned increased focus on E Comm investment. Maybe talk about what that will look like. Is that going to be in brand websites to drive DTC Is it more, you know, increase in tech investment and social selling? Thanks.
Scott Azell (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah. So we of course we've had a number of innovations across the portfolio, but I'll highlight a couple. So Osprey continues to have new innovation to expand its strength and technical packs to adjacent categories that we saw continued strength on Olive and June. Not only in their core business, they continue to bring new innovation and new reasons to bring consumers to the category. The Versa Styler really bringing new news to the category and really early off to a very, very promising new start. So we've had, you know, multiple levels of innovation. What I can tell you what I've been focused on over the last several months that as I traveled around the company, it's really trying to pull innovation forward. Innovation that had the right consumer insights and business cases. How do we put more investment against it and if it makes sense, how do we pull it in the fourth quarter, first quarter on a faster track? And so those are connecting the two. I don't know if that answers your question, but that's what I meant when I made that statement. As well as Hydro Flask. I could go on and on and on. Sorry. Oh, the second part of your questions, around digital capabilities. Yeah. So depending on the brand, clearly trying to drive some web traffic. But the bulk of my comments are really around digital capabilities on sensing and understanding where the consumer's going to be, digital capabilities on making sure that we're showing up on partner sites with the best advantage versus our competition and driving more agility for our brands to interact with social commerce, whether it be Meta Shop, TikTok Shop and other future ways of connecting with our consumers.
Susan Anderson (Analyst at Canaccord Genuity)
Okay, great. Thanks so much. Good luck this year.
OPERATOR
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, press Star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Olivia Tong with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.
Olivia Tong (Analyst at Raymond James)
Great, thanks. Good morning. I wanted to get a better sense of your expectation for category growth, veteran vetting for next year and what it was this year. You know, as we think also as we think about your cadence of stabilization, realize there's a big difference in year over comps. But you know, why do you not expect growth in the second half on sales? I think, you know, sort of alluding to Peter's earlier question, there's been a multi year challenge. So as you think about your optimism around innovation and several other things, why shouldn't we expect a little bit more in the second half? And just following up on that, if you could talk about retailer Discussions that support some of the enthusiasm that you have around innovation and then managing the tail of brands, you know, or the tale of exits that still need to be managed down. Thank you.
Scott Azell (Chief Executive Officer)
Yes, we're going to take this on a couple of parts. A great question this is Scott. When we talk about stabilization for FY27, first I think about what do we control within kind of the four walls, Pal and Troy. And it's really around editing our agenda and amplifying the things that we think have the biggest growth potential and moving with the speed of the marketplace. That's kind of one. And we've been doing that work and that's embedded in our plan. And underneath that we're very sharp and very with conviction the critical capabilities necessary for each one of our brands to have the best chance to compete. And there are everything from what's the right operating model to drive decision making and move at the speed of the consumer. Taking it from abstract concept to making sure organizationally we're set up for success. We're doing that work consumer led innovation by leveraging consumer insights to not only develop an innovation roadmap that's going to answer the question today, but to get ahead of the marketplace for the future. We're doing that work as we speak, investing in Omni channel capabilities. I talked about this in the last question. Everything from sensing the consumer, engaging with the right capabilities against social commerce, making sure we're partnering with our biggest strategic retail partners in the right way and being really sharp on that against these critical opportunities that we've identified, and then standing up on work in our supply chain that helps us make, move and hold product in the way to make sure that right products in the right place at the right time and doing it more effectively and the combination of those four things, just the way we operate will drive us towards stabilization. The second piece is the part of your question of what's embedded in terms of the category assumptions and how does it play out? I'm going to flip it over to Brian.
Brian Grass (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, so I mean in terms of category we haven't really changed any assumptions. Overall, it's kind of hard to talk about all our categories and boil it all down to, you know, one measure. I would say the categories are pressured, you know, by the same pressure on the consumer, price elasticity and all of those things. And so category I would call it as a little bit of a headwind as we look to next year. And if you kind of just want to understand why you're not seeing maybe more revenue, I think I can help you through that. We kind of assumed that current POS trends will continue and where they are today. So we have seen improvement, but we haven't assumed continued improvement. We've also assumed to continue pressure consumer and that price elasticity has an impact now that that is a pretty big headwind. And then what we're doing is offsetting that. We're offsetting that several ways. We are lapping prior year tariff related revenue headwinds, but we're not, you know, the 80 or $90 million that we saw in fiscal 26, we're recovering about half of that at this point. Now direct imports in China market, that's all still a work in process and we may recover more of that, but what we've assumed at this point is we recover about half and then you have the other offsets which are really the exciting parts which is product innovation and commercial building blocks, international growth. We also have price increases in there. And so when you just put all those puts and takes together, it happens to result in, you know, flattish net sales year over year. But you know, we are assuming current POS trends which are not yet in a positive state even though they are trending in the right direction. And I think, you know, any upside is our continued improvement in those POS
Olivia Tong (Analyst at Raymond James)
trends which we have not assumed. Understood. And then if I could just follow up, appreciate the color that you gave in terms of your outlook on commodity costs and supply chain and what have you and realize that it is of course a moving target. But as we look at oil still off its peaks but still quite a bit above pre Iran conflict and the discussions that you've had with some of your providers. You mentioned that you're paying below market, but can you talk about the change relative to the prior year, you know, that you're, that you're looking at, you know, and discussing with those providers. Yeah, the. Thanks, Olivia. The comment we made on being below spot price was relative specifically to freight. So just calling out the spot prices are increasing but we feel like we've contracted at rates below that and feel comfortable with that. Assuming, you know, we can stay on contracted rates and there's no significant disruption that would push us outside of that. So that's the freight and that's related to that one specific comment I made as it relates to the impact from the conflict overall and its potential impact on our suppliers. Raw material prices, it's obvious, are going up almost instantaneously as a result of the conflict. And a lot of it's driven based on fuel so we know that that's out there and we have had discussions with, with our suppliers on potential impacts. At this point in time, I can't give you any estimate of where that will go or end up. And, you know, typically when we have these discussions, they evolve over a period of time and there's not like this instantaneous kind of adjustment. Same thing played out with tariffs. We absorbed a direct tariff impact, and then how we managed that with our suppliers evolved over time. And there were adjustments over time, but a lot of adjustments occur overnight. So it's an ongoing discussion. It is happening live. We are aware of the potential impact, but it's such early days, I don't think it's possible to estimate anything. And we're going to work with our suppliers like we always have and, you know, get to a good outcome in terms of what our ultimate pricing is. Anusa, best of luck.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.
Management
Thank you for joining us today and we look forward to speaking to many of you in the coming weeks. Have a wonderful day.
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