Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ:HELE) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Julien Mininberg: Yeah. Hi, Pete. Nice to talk to you and always a pleasure to have CJS represented as well. In terms of Project Pegasus, I think the most positive, as we’ve mentioned in our prepared remarks is how well the organization has embraced the full scope. This is not a standard built tightening exercise as we’ve talked from the very beginning back in October for Pegasus, this is a comprehensive restructuring and reinvention very similar to what we’ve done multiple times of always taking the company up to the next level, never waste a good crisis, as they say. So for me, the — the single most important thing is how well the organization has embraced it, dug deep and has not only made the structural changes, but also aggressively pursuing the specific work of each work stream and their financial targets. And Noel, I suspect you’ll be able to elaborate a bit on the Pegasus momentum.

Noel Geoffroy: Yeah. I would echo Julien’s comments, I think the piece on a program like this is always the question mark is, how will the organization react. And I’m delighted I mentioned in my remarks, the first ever North American RMO sales meeting that we just had to see the teams come together. The business unit is very focused on sharpening their brand plans, sharpening their innovation pipeline, the North American RMO and the audience excited about those plans coming forward with new growth opportunities and growth ideas as they look across the full portfolio was very, very heartening. And I think a testament to the choices that we made in the organizational structure. As I look at some of the other work streams, again, SKU rationalization was a big focus area and the team really took that to a great bottoms-up analytical rigor that has really helped us from a gross margin standpoint on parts of our portfolio.

So that’s been a real positive as they’ve embraced that work. We’ve got a lot more work streams that are still underway that will come. As a reminder, the bulk of the savings comes in fiscal ’25 to fuel our initiatives in that time frame. And we’re very pleased with the momentum that we see across all of the work streams.

Peter Lukas: Very helpful. Thanks. I’ll jump back in the queue.

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

Devin Weinstein: Hi. This is Devin Weinstein on for Olivia. I appreciate you taking our question and congrats on the another unexpected quarter. I wanted to ask a little bit more about your outlook for the year, specifically for 2Q, understood on the components impacting the $5 million impact on your sales outlook. But you did maintain the EPS guide for the first half to decline 20% to 30%. And I just want to understand some of the dynamics going into your 2Q outlook saying as sequentially, there should be some cost easing. It sounds like sell-in and sell-through are in a much better place. So outside of maybe the sales comp. What are some of the dynamics impacting that 2Q outlook that would get the first half to be down 20% to 30%?

Brian Grass: Yes. So there are a couple of moving parts in the question. You’re referring to sales and hopefully, that part of sales is clear really, the only change in our outlook came from this kind of $5 million shift that went into Q1. We originally expected in Q2. So hopefully, that’s clear. And I would say, there’s no other meaningful moving parts with respect to sales. With respect to adjusted EPS, the main driver — so there’s two components, right? We’re sticking with our original guidance, which is 20% to 30% down for the full year. After posting Q1, it was a little bit better than expectations. We are expecting some spend shift, some growth investment spending that we didn’t make sense to make in the first quarter that we now plan for the second quarter.