Spectrum Brands Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 7, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Q3 net sales rose 7.7% year over year, or 6.6% organically, with growth across all three business units. Home & Garden delivered a record $225 million quarter, while Global Pet Care and Home & Personal Care also posted sales growth.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management raised its fiscal 2026 adjusted EBITDA outlook, excluding tariff refunds, to mid-single-digit growth. Adjusted EBITDA excluding refunds increased 27.5% in Q3, supported by pricing, mix, productivity actions, and higher volume.
  • Positive Sentiment: Spectrum ended the quarter with nearly $260 million in cash, no revolver borrowings, and net leverage of about one times. The company repurchased approximately $15.8 million of stock and has more than $300 million remaining under its authorization.
  • Negative Sentiment: Fourth-quarter performance is expected to moderate as Home & Garden faces unfavorable weather and elevated retailer inventories, while Global Pet Care encounters tough comparisons. Home & Personal Care is still expected to post a full-year sales decline because of weak consumer demand, competition, and a reduced U.S. portfolio.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The company has recognized substantially all expected IEEPA tariff refunds, with about half received as of the call and most of the remainder expected by year-end. Management emphasized that the refunds are a one-time recovery of prior tariff-related losses, with proceeds intended partly for rehiring and renewed commercial investment.
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Earnings Conference Call
Spectrum Brands Q3 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Q3 2026 Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. 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.

Jen Schultz
Jen Schultz
Division VP of FP&A and Investor Relations at Spectrum Brands

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 events 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 two of the presentation, our call will be led by David Maura, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Faisal Qadir, our Chief Financial Officer. Turning to slides three and four. 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.

Jen Schultz
Jen Schultz
Division VP of FP&A and Investor Relations at Spectrum Brands

Due to that risk, Spectrum Brands encourages you to review the risk factors and cautionary statements outlined in our press release dated August seventh, 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. 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. I'll turn the call over to David Maura. David?

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

Hey. Thank you, Jen. 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 six. 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 when we are focused on executing with discipline.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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 three business units delivering growth.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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 a 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. While we are seeing some expected softness in the Home & 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.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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 I, and we filed over 95% of our phase II 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.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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 one times. This is well below the long-term target we've set for the company of two to two and a half turns of leverage. We also repurchased approximately 200,000 shares during the quarter for about $15.8 million. 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 SAP S/4HANA deployment into the Home & Personal Care business here in North America.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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 EMEIA region in Home & Personal Care, are now operating on a single unified ERP platform. This is a significant milestone in our multi-year transformation. If I could now turn your attention to slide seven, here I'll give an update on our strategic priorities for the balance of fiscal 2026. These priorities are serving us as a clear guide in our decision-making, 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.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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, I once again maintained fill rates above 95% across all three business units this quarter on a linear 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 multi-year project, with only the HPC EMEIA region deployment remaining later this year.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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, their dedication, patience, and perseverance over the course of this journey has been remarkable. 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.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

We do have meaningful work still ahead of us, I'm confident that we have the right team in place to capture that value over time. 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.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

These additions have already begun to strengthen our commercial capabilities and sharpen our go-to-market approach. Our fourth priority for fiscal 2026 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.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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 eight, and I'll cover the high-level fiscal 2026 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.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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. 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, your execution, are reflected in these very results. 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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 three 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 profits 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 cost.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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%.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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 a $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. 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Cash payments to our strategic transactions, restructuring-related projects, and other unusual non-recurring adjustments 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 loans. We ended the quarter with $374.1 million of net debt. Now let's get into the review of each business unit. 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%.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Driven by retail partners accelerating orders into the prior quarter ahead of our March 30th 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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. 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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 2026 in the GPC business, reflecting the underlying momentum across our key brands and markets. Our year-to-date performance has been strong. We are confident in our brands' ability to continue gaining share in the marketplace. In the fourth quarter, however, we anticipate sales will be down versus the prior year.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Driven by tougher comparisons related to both the stopped 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. 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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 non-selective 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

In addition, the innovations brought to market last year continue to drive growth through expanded distribution. The Spectracide Wasp, Hornet, and Yellow Jacket 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 three-in-one 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Turning to EBITDA, excluding tariff refunds, adjusted EBITDA was $48.4 million, an increase of $9.8 million versus the prior year, an 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 tariff 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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 crawl 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 2026 for the Home & Garden business.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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 to 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 continued 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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 coffee makers 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 haircare segment is showing signs of stabilization, with sequential improvement in both the overall category and Remington performance.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Recently, the haircare 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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 to a private label. We are pleased to once again bring our trusted market-leading brands back to Australian consumers through this important channel.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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 multi-channel 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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 2026. 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.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

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. 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-$125 million, including stock-based compensation of approximately $20 million-$25 million.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Cash payment towards restructuring optimization and the strategic transaction costs are expected to be between $25 million-$35 million. Capital expenditures are expected to be between $50 million-$60 million. Cash taxes are expected to be between $40 million-$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 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. I'm confident we have the focus and the team to finish the year strong. Back to you, David.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

Hey, 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. These things reinforce the effectiveness of our strategy. All three 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, an evolving trade environment, and uneven consumer demand across certain categories and regions.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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. 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 three 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.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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 2026 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. We will remain disciplined. We will only act when the right opportunity presents itself to us.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

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.

Jen Schultz
Jen Schultz
Division VP of FP&A and Investor Relations at Spectrum Brands

Thank you, David. Operator, we can go to the question queue now.

Operator

As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. I show our first question comes from the line of Bob Labick from CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Bob Labick
Bob Labick
President at CJS Securities

Good morning. Congratulations on strong performance, particularly the 6.5%, 7% organic growth.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

Hey, thanks, Bob. Appreciate it. Working hard. What can I do for you, sir?

Bob Labick
Bob Labick
President at CJS Securities

Kind of two-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'll benefit you right now? 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 is that fully up to speed? Do we have more new pipeline behind? Is that what's driving the growth? Give us a sense of that as well.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

I think I'll zoom out. I'll hit the bigger points, then I'll have Faisal and Jen kind of fill in whatever I miss detail-wise. I think we've taken a very long-term approach to managing the company over the last couple of years. We wanted to get the first fundamental building blocks in place, and you saw us deleverage the balance sheet very aggressively over the last three years. We have this tremendously strong balance sheet. We then turned our attention to operations. We were not very good working capital managers. We didn't have a very robust S&OP process. We've got, I think, pretty strong operational excellence. Balance sheet's very healthy. The operational cadence and rhythm of this company, I will tell you, is light years ahead where it was, and I'm satisfied with it.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

There's always more to do, but we're in good shape. What I think you've heard me talk about, and if you're in any of my internal meetings, it's my soul, it's the main goal now is commercial health. How do we really build if we have an outstanding balance sheet and we have outstanding operations, okay, how do we get an outstanding commercial operation? It's exactly the point you're talking about, Bob. We have got to continue doing fewer, bigger, better, bolder innovation around here. I do believe that Home & Garden, which, as you just saw, had an outstanding quarter, right? I mean, they grew almost 20%. Phenomenal third quarter at Home & Garden. Javier, who leads that team, has spent three years rebuilding that culture, building real R&D and innovation capacity there, and recently adding real marketing muscle.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

Again, I don't know if we share specifics on vitality, but I can tell you, a lot of that growth is new, innovative product. I think Faisal, in his remarks, may have talked about our wasp and hornet traps. We have other small insect traps. These are highly efficient, high efficacy products that address consumer-led insight need, and they're priced appropriately. In some of these cases, you have a business that was zero, it got to $5 million, now it's doing $10 million, should do $20 million. When you can move the needle $10 million or $20 million on one SKU on a $550 million-$600 million base business, it actually moves the needle on the whole company.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

If you can get a couple of those SKUs working for you've got what you're talking about, which is vitality, and you're hitting the consumer on a need that they've been asking for. It's white space, it's fresh, it's addressing consumer need, and you're first to market. He's got a number of those. We can always do better. In fact, we just hired new R&D talent for Javier. I would say Pet's a few years behind that. We just hired Ori. We staffed some new senior leadership positions there. I mentioned them in my earlier remarks. Again, my focus, and it'll be part of our AOP planning for 2027, is how do we continue to reduce some of the marketing spend that's getting lower yields, and how do we reinvest that?

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

We need to address the younger consumer. We need to be more engaging. We need to be more exciting. We need to be crisper in our marketing and our storytelling. I'm in Middleton today in Wisconsin. This is the old headquarter buildings with Rayovac, and our appliance business is still here and our shared services. We had the board meeting here, and we toured some of the innovation in appliances. We actually have pretty amazing innovation. We need to do a much better job telling the consumer about it. I've got a lot of work streams here. Sorry for this long-winded answer, I'm very excited about what we can do with matching this innovation with really crisp, punchy, exciting, engaging digital marketing.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

A lot of that does require additional talent because you've got to upgrade human talent that understands what good looks like, what great marketing looks like, and how to really communicate effectively to that consumer base. If we can turn our share of voice up there, we can have something really exciting going on here at Spectrum Brands for the years ahead. For specifics, I'll let Faisal and Jen come in here.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Maybe I'll just quickly add just on the price volume question. Obviously, we have positive pricing in all three businesses. We do have volume growth now, not a lot, but we have volume growth in our GPC business. Obviously, in our H&G business, we have a lot of volume growth versus last year, we're comping to what I would call a challenging quarter last year. As I look forward to the year, I think for the full year, we will end up having both positive volume growth and pricing growth in GPC and H&G businesses. Our HPC business will remain challenged on volume. That's where, as we referenced earlier, we kind of have to think about how we price appropriately and promote to drive volume. I'll just add one last thing.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Our formula has been, from an innovation perspective, launching products, making it successful, and then the second year, typically, they get a lot more distribution. That's what we're seeing now in H&G. The Wasp and Hornet, as an example, and Flying Insect were launches last year, very successful, and now we're just counting on a much more broader distribution that's driving the volume for that.

Bob Labick
Bob Labick
President at CJS Securities

Okay, that's wonderful. If I can, just one quick question. Obviously, you outperformed meaningfully excluding tariffs, with tariff refunds coming, what are the expected uses of tariff refunds as they come in?

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

Yeah, I want to hit this hard because I see all my competitors' press releases and everybody. People look at this as some type of windfall or lottery ticket, it drives me crazy. If you can remember a year ago, I was talking about a tariff torpedo, I was looking at $hundreds of millions of cogs challenging our business. We had to take very tough decisions here, painful decisions. We had to lay off coworkers. We had to curtail investments. We had to pull back marketing. We suffered real losses because of the tariff environment. I'm very strict with my staff. This money, it's like you have a divot playing golf and you've got to fill the hole back in. Look, we want to rehire people. We want to invest in commercial activity. That's where this is going.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

This is just recouping some of the money that 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, 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, that's how we're treating it.

Bob Labick
Bob Labick
President at CJS Securities

Got it. Great. I'll jump back in queue. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. I show our next question comes from the line of Brian McNamara from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Brian McNamara
Brian McNamara
Managing Director at Canaccord Genuity

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions here. 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. You and some of your competitors have kind of reported better sales for the last few quarters now after a tough few years. Is that just a function of mass and pet specialty doing better? Any comments there would be helpful.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

Look, I think you're right. Look, I think pet in general has been in a tough spot since the COVID boom. I think you're right. Look, a lot of the specialty channels have had a lot of foot traffic problems. Pet continues to gravitate toward online purchases. There's a lot of volatility in pet. Look, I'll be blunt. I think we've hired better talent in pet. I think we are making better investments in R&D in pet. I think we're doing a little bit better in market. We're nowhere near where I want to be. We're doing a great job driving e-commerce. Just in my response to Bob, it's the same thing here. Faisal talked about it. We're just being more strategic. Again, we're not where I want to be, but we're much more strategic with our pet portfolio.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

The price pack architecture that Ori and his team did, we brought some consultants in last fall. It's more of a good, better, best strategy. I think it's helping our retailers have more clarity. In a brick and mortar, if you go to a shelf, it's easier to shop the shelf, and you can more clearly see our products in terms of good, better, best, and priced appropriately. It's just helping us. I'm not trying to say we're doing everything great or perfect. We have lots of room for additional improvement, but I would say we have moved the needle from where we were a year ago, and some of this growth is unique to us.

Brian McNamara
Brian McNamara
Managing Director at Canaccord Genuity

Great. You guys had a great quarter in H&G, but it sounds like you'll give some of that back in Q4 where some retail is a bit heavy on inventories. Ideal weather for controls is what warm weather with moisture, right? 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. Any thoughts there would be helpful.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

Strategically, we totally get that, and we've been trying to focus on that through M&A. We've just released a new 3.0 Rejuvenate mop that's cleaning and is less seasonal, and it's early days, so I can't tell you. I'm excited about it. I think it's a much better product than what was acquired years ago. I just think it's night and day, compared to what we had. We just got that placed. It's just rolling out to retailers. Without any support, it is doing a lot better than the old product, so early indications are positive there. I need a quarter or two to see any sort of trend there or be bullish, like I want to be in external communications.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

I totally understand the point, but we have a great Home & Garden business, and that team has done a good job investing in innovation and gotten better at marketing. I think if we could get a couple of sunny weekends here to finish out the year, that would help build retail confidence and get POS up and create some additional replenishment orders from our side, factory shipments from our side. We're just trying to be transparent and open about, hey, listen, the last couple of weeks, weather's been difficult in that space.

Brian McNamara
Brian McNamara
Managing Director at Canaccord Genuity

Thanks very much. Best of luck, and I'll pass it on.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

Hey, thank you. Appreciate the question.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Carey from Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Chris Carey
Chris Carey
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

Hey, guys. Hope you're doing well. I wanted to pick up on the Home & Garden piece, very strong quarter. Faisal, you were mentioning just the volatility in consumption through the quarter and the excess inventory that you want to work down in fiscal Q4. Can you give us a sense of, number one, just what did that volatility look like inter-quarter? More importantly, can you frame the inventory levels that you're 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 2027.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

I think one of the great things about this year is that we started the year with really good inventory levels with our retailers. Ideally, that's where we'd want to end up again. Just to go back to your question about what was the volatility within the quarter from a weather perspective, we had really strong POS growth in April, double-digits. We had a softer May. June was slightly better, but still softer. Net-net, the quarter was still positive from a POS perspective. The retailers ordered and took inventory based on a very strong April. A lot of our retailer partners now have inventory positions higher than what they would expect because of the softer POS in May and June, and then continued softer POS in July.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

That's why we're a little bit more guarded in where I think our Q4 goes for Home & Garden. Still, even with that, I think we'll have a pretty good positive growth year for Home & Garden. We're still continuing to take shares in all of our brands, and I think those are the positive things that we want to focus on. We would like to end the year at a good, healthy inventory level, and our projections right now kind of are tracking to that. That's kind of what we're embedding in our framework right now as we talk about it.

Chris Carey
Chris Carey
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

Great. Just as we go into fiscal 2027, I think you'd 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?

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

That's correct.

Chris Carey
Chris Carey
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

Is that early plans that you have, early discussions on shelf space going into next year? 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 could dimensionalize it. Thanks.

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Yeah. Look, it's really early to talk about next year outside of just our product portfolio, our pipeline, and our brand performance. 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's like. It's actually even too early to even know what the retailers' outlook would be like for next year. All the things that are in our control are pointing in the right direction, and that's what gives us confidence.

Chris Carey
Chris Carey
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

On the inflation dynamic?

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Yeah, 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 2027 inflation looks like. I'll point to the fact that we have successfully dealt with and offset all the inflation pressures we've felt over the last few years. I remain confident in our management team's ability to offset that inflation as it comes. It's too early for me to forecast what that looks like for next year.

Chris Carey
Chris Carey
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

Okay. Understood. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Steve Powers from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Steve Powers
Steve Powers
Associate Director of Equity Research at Deutsche Bank

Yeah. Hey, guys. Thanks. Good morning. On the tariff refund front, can you just clarify a little bit on, is there a way to quantify in a bit more detail how much cash has been received to date associated with the refunds contemplated? Then as you look ahead, just any kind of magnitude on any additional earnings potential and subsequent cash benefit of refunds still in process?

Faisal Qadir
Faisal Qadir
CFO at Spectrum Brands

Yeah, 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. Our refund is kind of two phases, phase I and phase II, 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, sitting here today, I can tell you we've received all of the phase I, and we've started to receive phase II. The total impact, I expect most of it will be received within the fiscal year. Definitely by the end of the calendar year, we'll receive all of the cash. 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.

Steve Powers
Steve Powers
Associate Director of Equity Research at Deutsche Bank

Yep, that's great. Thank you. 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? Just how you're viewing that contemplated path over the next series of months and quarters.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

No, there's nothing we need to clear. I mean, at the end of the day, what you can control is your organic growth, so that's always priority one. If you look at the business from my eyes, we were basically batten down the hatches and trying to protect ourselves from a tremendous amount of tariff inflation that was destroying the P&L of the company a year ago. We played defense, basically. That's okay. Sometimes you got to play defense to see the next day. 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. Again, I think Faisal's doing his best, but we can't look into 2027 yet.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

We're just starting 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, which is, we've got some decent innovation. How do we get some 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 kind of some of what the growth pillars will be as we roll them out internally, organically. In terms of M&A, we're wide open right now. We're looking at a bunch of stuff, and we think with the lowest levered balance sheet and an amazing partner that we have in Oaktree, we should be the consolidation platform of choice. We think there's a lot of money to be made in the space.

David Maura
David Maura
Chairman and CEO at Spectrum Brands

As we see the relationship mature with Oaktree, we hope to share that detail with you. We're wide open.

Steve Powers
Steve Powers
Associate Director of Equity Research at Deutsche Bank

Okay, perfect. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Thank you. 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.

Jen Schultz
Jen Schultz
Division VP of FP&A and Investor Relations at Spectrum Brands

Thank you. 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. On behalf of Spectrum Brands, thank you for your participation this morning.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Jen Schultz
      Jen Schultz
      Division VP of FP&A and Investor Relations
    • David Maura
      David Maura
      Chairman and CEO
    • Faisal Qadir
      Faisal Qadir
      CFO
Analysts
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