EL PASO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ: HELE), designer, developer, and worldwide marketer of consumer brand-name housewares, health and home, and beauty products, today announced it has sold its mass market Personal Care business, not including the Latin America and Caribbean regions, to HRB Brands LLC, a privately-held company that is one of the largest independent branded personal care companies in North America for $44.7 million in cash. The transaction also includes an option that provides HRB Brands LLC the right to purchase the Latin America and Caribbean Personal Care businesses no later than the end of fiscal year 2022, subject to meeting certain agreed-upon conditions. Proceeds from the sale announced today represent substantially all of the negotiated value for the total global Personal Care business.
The Company expects to use the proceeds to create further shareholder value in line with Helen of Troy’s capital allocation strategy, including paying down debt, making accretive acquisitions of additional Leadership Brands that are a better fit with the long-term growth strategies for the Company’s portfolio, or engaging in opportunistic share repurchases. The Company will discuss the transaction during its first quarter fiscal year 2022 earnings conference call, which is expected to take place in early July 2021.
Julien R. Mininberg, Chief Executive Officer, stated: “We are excited about this opportunity for HRB Brands LLC, a company that we believe is well-positioned to take the Personal Care business to its next phase of growth. The Personal Care portfolio includes iconic brands such as Brut, Pert Plus, Sure, Infusium, and Vitalis.”
Mr. Mininberg continued: “This transaction advances Helen of Troy’s strategy to focus its resources on its growing portfolio of eight Leadership Brands. These are OXO, Hydro Flask, Vicks, Braun, PUR, Honeywell, Drybar, and HOT Tools, all of which leverage our shared services platform, deliver strong cash flow, and provide a global presence we can build on as we continue to execute our strategic Transformation Plan. Our Leadership Brands are among our highest volume and highest margin brands, which together comprised over 80% of global sales in fiscal year 2021. In our Beauty segment, we continue to be focused on accelerating the growth of our global appliance and prestige liquids businesses under the Revlon, Drybar, and HOT Tools brand names. We expect this divestiture to help us accelerate our top and bottom-line growth rates and allow us to redeploy the capital in line with Helen of Troy’s capital allocation strategy.”
Jim Daniels, CEO of HRB Brands LLC, said, “We are very excited about today’s announcement to extend our trusted brand lineup. We are extremely pleased to add these respected, well-known brands with enduring equity competing primarily in the Hair Care, Deodorant, and Fragrance categories. We believe this combination, together with our distinctive entrepreneurial culture, lean operating structure, and efficient business model, will enable HRB Brands LLC to continue to bring innovative and category leading innovations to market.”
Cantor Fitzgerald provided lead advisory services and Baker & McKenzie LLP served as legal counsel to Helen of Troy on the transaction. Gibson Dunn served as legal counsel to HRB Brands LLC on the transaction.
About Helen of Troy Limited
Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ: HELE) is a leading global consumer products company offering creative solutions for its customers through a strong portfolio of well-recognized and widely trusted brands, including OXO, Hydro Flask, Vicks, Braun, Honeywell, PUR, Hot Tools, and Drybar. We sometimes refer to these brands as our Leadership Brands. All trademarks herein belong to Helen of Troy Limited (or its affiliates) and/or are used under license from their respective licensors.
For more information about Helen of Troy, please visit http://investor.helenoftroy.com/
About HRB Brands LLC:
HRB Brands LLC is a portfolio company of Tengram Capital Partners, a private equity firm with an investment strategy predicated on leading middle market consumer companies that own strong recognizable brands including ZEST®, V05®, COAST®, SGX NYC®, THICKER FULLER HAIR®, LA LOOKS® and others.
For additional information about HRB Brands LLC, please visit https://www.highridgebrands.com/
Forward Looking Statements
Certain written and oral statements made by the Company and subsidiaries of the Company may constitute “forward-looking statements” as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This includes statements made in this press release. Generally, the words “anticipates”, “believes”, “expects”, “plans”, “may”, “will”, “should”, “seeks”, “estimates”, “project”, “predict”, “potential”, “continue”, “intends”, and other similar words identify forward-looking statements. All statements that address operating results, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will occur in the future, including statements related to sales, earnings per share results, and statements expressing general expectations about future operating results, are forward-looking statements and are based upon its current expectations and various assumptions. The Company believes there is a reasonable basis for these expectations and assumptions, but there can be no assurance that the Company will realize these expectations or that these assumptions will prove correct. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause them to differ materially from actual results. Accordingly, the Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release should be read in conjunction with, and are subject to and qualified by, the risks described in the Company’s Form 10-K for the year ended February 28, 2021, and in the Company's other filings with the SEC. Investors are urged to refer to the risk factors referred to above for a description of these risks. Such risks include, among others, the Company's ability to successfully manage the demand, supply, and operational challenges associated with the actual or perceived effects of COVID-19 and any similar future public health crisis, pandemic or epidemic, the Company's ability to deliver products to its customers in a timely manner and according to their fulfillment standards, actions taken by large customers that may adversely affect the Company's gross profit and operating results, the Company's dependence on the strength of retail economies and vulnerabilities to any prolonged economic downturn, including from the effects of COVID-19, the Company's dependence on sales to several large customers and the risks associated with any loss of, or substantial decline in, sales to top customers, expectations regarding recent acquisitions and any future acquisitions or divestitures, including the Company's ability to realize related synergies along with its ability to effectively integrate acquired businesses or disaggregate divested businesses, the Company's reliance on its Chief Executive Officer and a limited number of other key senior officers to operate its business, obsolescence or interruptions in the operation of the Company's central global Enterprise Resource Planning (“ERP”) systems and other peripheral information systems, occurrence of cyber incidents or failure by the Company or its third-party service providers to maintain cybersecurity and the integrity of confidential internal or customer data, the Company's dependence on third-party manufacturers, most of which are located in the Far East, and any inability to obtain products from such manufacturers, risks associated with weather conditions, the duration and severity of the cold and flu season and other related factors, the geographic concentration and peak season capacity of certain U.S. distribution facilities which increase its risk to disruptions that could affect the Company's ability to deliver products in a timely manner, risks associated with the use of licensed trademarks from or to third parties, the Company's ability to develop and introduce a continuing stream of innovative new products to meet changing consumer preferences, the risks associated with trade barriers, exchange controls, expropriations, and other risks associated with domestic and foreign operations, the risks associated with significant changes in regulations, interpretations or product certification requirements, the risks associated with global legal developments regarding privacy and data security that could result in changes to its business practices, penalties, increased cost of operations, or otherwise harm the business, the risks associated with accounting for tax positions and the resolution of tax disputes, the risks of potential changes in laws and regulations, including environmental, health and safety and tax laws, and the costs and complexities of compliance with such laws, the Company's ability to continue to avoid classification as a Controlled Foreign Corporation, the risks associated with legislation enacted in Bermuda and Barbados in response to the European Union’s review of harmful tax competition, the risks of significant tariffs or other restrictions being placed on imports from China or Mexico or any retaliatory trade measures taken by China or Mexico, the risks associated with product recalls, product liability and other claims against the Company, and associated financial risks including but not limited to, significant impairment of the Company's goodwill, indefinite-lived and definite-lived intangible assets or other long-lived assets, risks associated with foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, increased costs of raw materials, energy and transportation, projections of product demand, sales and net income, which are highly subjective in nature, and from which future sales and net income could vary in a material amount, the risks to the Company's liquidity or cost of capital which may be materially adversely affected by constraints or changes in the capital and credit markets and limitations under its financing arrangements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.