Dive Brief:
- Helen of Troy plans to spend a portion of its projected $80.5 million in tariff refunds this fiscal year to clean up its inventory composition and redesign packaging to comply with U.S. and foreign environmental laws, executives said on an Oct. 8 earnings call.
- In the quarter ended Aug. 31, the Hydro Flask brand owner recognized $26.9 million of the expected refund and directed some of the money at cost pressures during the quarter, including higher commodity, fuel and freight expenses, according to the company's earnings presentation. The company expects to receive the remainder of the refund by the end of FY2027, ending Feb. 28, 2027.
- "It's important to note that while tariff refunds are providing a fiscal '27 benefit that we are largely reinvesting, we have not been made whole from the cumulative tariff impacts to our business," CFO Brian Grass said. "We've paid tariffs that have not been refunded."
Dive Insight:
Helen of Troy, which also owns brands Osprey and Drybar, started receiving refunds in Q1 FY27 that ended May 31. At the time, the company said increased spending to avoid supply disruptions and higher commodity and freight costs offset the initial $9.2 million it received.
The returned levies followed the Supreme Court's February ruling that invalidated tariffs the Trump administration imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Other consumer products companies have also received refunds for the defunct levies, including PepsiCo, cosmetics and skincare company E.l.f. Beauty and personal care company Kimberly-Clark.
Helen of Troy’s plans to use some of the recouped funds to clean inventory as the company works toward building a healthier product mix with less slow-moving merchandise, executives said.
"We want our inventory to be clean," Grass said. "We want to pull forward as much cost as possible so that we don't have to bear the cost in fiscal '28."
The company had $480 million in inventory at the end of its most recent fiscal quarter, marking a 49% year-over-year decrease, according to Grass. The company also increased its percentage of active inventory by seven percentage points during the first half of FY27.
“We're also encouraged by the progress we've made to improve the health of our inventory through the first half of the year and are targeting a 12 percentage point improvement in our active inventory composition by the end of the year, which we believe sets us up for success in fiscal '28,” Grass said.
Beyond an inventory reset, some of Helen of Troy’s tariff refund is going toward redesigning packaging to be more environmentally friendly, Grass said. The redesign is necessary to address higher packaging costs from legislation enacted by several U.S. states, Canada, the European Union, the Middle East and Africa that shifted packaging disposal costs from municipalities to producers of consumer packaged goods, per a regulatory filing.
Phil Neuffer contributed to this story
