Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. Q1 2026 earnings call
The call in brief
In fiscal Q1 2026, Spectrum Brands Holdings posted net sales and adjusted EBITDA that exceeded expectations even as both declined year-over-year, with net sales down 3.3% (organic down 6%) and adjusted EBITDA down $15.2 million to $62.6 million on lower volume, higher trade spend and higher tariff costs that pressured gross margin to 35.7%. Global Pet Care returned to growth (reported sales up 8.3%) as companion animal brands outperformed and gained share, while Home & Personal Care remained weak on subdued global consumer demand and Home & Garden faced a tough prior-year inventory comparison. The company generated nearly $60 million of adjusted free cash flow, ended the quarter with about $127 million of cash, zero revolver draw and 1.65x net leverage, and secured a new $300 million repurchase authorization. Management reiterated its fiscal 2026 framework of flat to low single-digit net sales growth, low single-digit adjusted EBITDA growth and roughly 50% free cash flow conversion, characterizing growth as a back-half story led by pet and Home & Garden, with appliance profitability expected to improve and the business positioning Spectrum as a strategic merger partner of choice.
What went well & wrong
- First quarter net sales and adjusted EBITDA exceeded expectations despite continued headwinds, reinforcing management's view that the most significant tariff and macro disruptions are largely behind the company.
- Global Pet Care returned to growth, with reported net sales up 8.3% (organic up 5.8%) as key companion animal brands (Good 'n' Fun, DreamBone, Nature's Miracle, FURminator) outperformed and gained share in chews, stain and odor, and grooming.
- Generated nearly $60 million of adjusted free cash flow in a quarter that is typically a period of cash usage ahead of the Home & Garden season.
- Maintained a strong balance sheet, ending the quarter with nearly $127 million in cash, zero drawn on the revolver, and net leverage of 1.65 times, well below long-term targets, while returning $46 million to shareholders.
- Received a new $300 million board-authorized share repurchase program and repurchased roughly 800,000 shares year-to-date through the call date for about $42.3 million.
- Total net sales decreased 3.3% (organic down 6%), driven by continued category demand softness in Home & Personal Care and an accelerated seasonal Home & Garden inventory build by some customers in the prior year.
- Adjusted EBITDA fell $15.2 million to $62.6 million, driven by lower volume and reduced gross margins, with gross margin down 110 bps to 35.7% on lower volume, higher trade spend and higher tariff costs.
- Home & Personal Care continued to experience subdued global consumer demand, with durable products taking longer to rebound than consumables, and management expects continued pressure into Q2.
- EMEA Global Pet Care organic sales declined low single digits, primarily due to a decline in dog and cat food following the Eukanuba refreshed portfolio launch, as retailers had accelerated inventory purchases to support the reset.
Analyst questions
Welcome to Spectrum Brands Holdings Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call and webcast. I'm Jen Schultz, the 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 the slide presentation on the event 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 2 of the presentation, our call will be led by David Maura, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Faisal Qadir, our Chief Financial Officer. After opening remarks, we will conduct a Q&A. Turning to slides 3 and 4. Our comments today include forward-looking statements, including statements about tariffs, which are based upon management's current expectations, projections, and assumptions, and are by nature uncertain. Actual results may differ materially.
Due to that risk, Spectrum Brands encourages you to review the risk factors and cautionary statements outlined in our press release dated February 5th, 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. Also, 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. Now I'll turn the call over to David Maura. David?
Morning. Thank you, Jen. Good morning, everybody, and we'd like to welcome you this morning to our, our first quarter earnings update for fiscal 2026. And again, thank you for joining us today. I'll start the call today with an update on the operating environment and its impact on, on our company, on Spectrum Brands. I'll then talk about our operating performance, and then I'll talk about our strategic initiatives. Faisal will then provide a lot more color and, and detailed financial and operational updates, including discussions on the specific business unit results. If I could now have everybody turn to slide 6. Our financial results for the first quarter demonstrate that our strategy is working. Fiscal 2025 was a challenging year, and we took some tough but necessary actions that positioned us well for the future.
We proactively and decisively addressed external forces beyond our control, and we are already seeing the positive impact of those decisions within our results. While the hard work is not over, we are confident that our actions will continue to create a competitive advantage for our company. We are pleased that our first quarter net sales and adjusted EBITDA exceeded expectations, despite continued headwinds. These results reinforce our belief that the most significant impacts from the tariff disruptions last year and the macroeconomic volatility. We believe these issues are largely behind us due to our decisive mitigating activities. As anticipated, we are seeing early signs of recovery in consumables, while durable products are taking longer to rebound. These external realities are disproportionately impacting our Home and Personal Care business, where overall global consumer demand continues to be subdued.
We are pleased to report that our most profitable and our largest Adjusted EBITDA-contributing business, our Global Pet Care business, has returned to growth this quarter, and our brands continue to perform well in the marketplace. I'm particularly encouraged by our performance in North America, where we saw share gains across our companion animal categories, fueled by our brand-building investments that we've been making over the past couple of months and quarters. While these categories were modestly down for the quarter, our brands actually outpaced the category and delivered growth versus the prior year. I wanna take a moment and thank Ori and our entire Global Pet Care team for their efforts and, of course, these results. During the first quarter, we remained disciplined in maintaining a strong balance sheet.
While this period is usually characterized by cash usage as we prepare for the home and garden season, I'm quite pleased to report that we generated nearly $60 million of adjusted free cash flow in the first quarter. We also repurchased approximately 600,000 shares this quarter, and we've continued to buy back our shares following the completion of the quarter. Year to date, through today, we have repurchased approximately 800,000 shares for roughly $42.3 million in total. Since the close of the HHI transaction, we've returned approximately $1.4 billion of capital to our shareholders through our various share repurchase programs, and we have repurchased almost 45% of our entire share count since the closing of that deal. We also recently have received board authorization for a brand new $300 million share repurchase program.
Our strong financial position affords us meaningful flexibility to capitalize on market opportunities, while continuing to invest in our businesses and return capital to our shareholders. If I could now have everyone turn your attention to slide 7, I'll tell you about our strategic priorities for fiscal 2026. Our priorities remain unchanged, and they provide a clear framework that will continue to guide our decision-making throughout this year. During the first quarter, we made meaningful progress on each of our initiatives, and these are positioning us well to capitalize on opportunities that we see ahead and to also address challenges as they may arise. First, as you've heard me say before, maintaining a healthy balance sheet and remaining good financial stewards is, and will continue to be, the top priority for us.
I'm proud of the progress we've made in optimizing our working capital and exercising diligence in our spending, which has strengthened our financial position. We ended the first quarter with nearly $127 million in cash, 0 drawn on our revolver, and our net leverage was 1.65 times, well below our long-term targets. We did this despite returning $46 million to shareholders through buybacks and dividends in the quarter. As we look ahead, we will continue to invest in our brands with a clear focus on generating meaningful returns. Our fewer, bigger, better approach is allowing us to concentrate our resources on higher impact initiatives, maximizing the effectiveness of our investments.
Later in the call, Faisal will provide insights into how our innovation pipeline is connecting with consumers, highlighted by significant share gains in several of our key categories, which actually underscores the effectiveness of our approach. Secondly, in regards to operational excellence, we continue to make steady progress for the remaining planned deployments of our SAP S/4HANA platform. As a reminder, we have already implemented S/4HANA in our North America Global Pet Care and our Home and Garden businesses, and the preparation for its deployment in our appliance business and the remaining international regions is currently underway. Upgrading and rolling out our new global ERP system has been a significant undertaking, and I would like to express my sincere appreciation to our teams around the world for their expertise, perseverance, and their diligence throughout this project.
This now brings me to our third key priority, which is investing in our people. As you know, fiscal 2025 was a very difficult year for us, and it was marked by a number of hard decisions that directly affected our teammates. While these actions were necessary to position our company for long-term success and to avoid a lot of tariff disruption, we recognize the impact that this has had on our people, and we don't take that lightly. We are deeply appreciative of the resilience, the professionalism, and the commitment our employees have demonstrated during this period of volatility. Investing in our people goes way beyond hiring and development. It also means being honest about what's working and what isn't, and making changes when needed.
Thank you, David. Let's turn to slide 10, and I will review our Q1 results from continuing operations, beginning with Net Sales. Net Sales decreased 3.3%. Excluding the impact of $18.5 million of favorable foreign exchange, Organic Net Sales decreased 6%, primarily driven by continued category demand softness in Home and Personal Care business, and the impact of an accelerated seasonal inventory build by some Home and Garden customers in the prior year. This was partially offset by our Global Pet Care business returning to growth, with our key companion animal brands outperforming the market while also benefiting from a softer prior year comparison.
Gross profit decreased $16.2 million, and gross margin of 35.7% decreased 110 basis points, largely driven by lower volume, higher trade spend, and higher tariff cost, partially offset by pricing, cost improvement actions, operational efficiencies, and favorable FX. Operating expenses of $214.5 million moderately increased by 0.7%, with lower spend in advertising and marketing, partially offsetting unfavorable FX. Operating income of $27.1 million decreased by $17.6 million due to the decline in gross profit. Our GAAP net income and diluted earnings per share both increased, primarily driven by a one-time tax benefit for the quarter, resulting from a favorable settlement and lower share count, partially offset by lower operating income.
Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $62.6 million, a decrease of $15.2 million, driven by lower volume and reduced gross margins. Adjusted diluted EPS increased to $1.40, driven by a one-time tax benefit and the reduction in share outstanding, partially offset by lower adjusted EBITDA. Now, let's turn to slide 11. Q1 interest expense from continuing operations of $6.8 million increased $0.6 million. Cash taxes during the quarter decreased $4.2 million from the prior year. Depreciation and amortization of $25.8 million increased $1.3 million from last year, and separately, share-based compensation decreased $4.3 million from $4.7 million in the prior year. Capital expenditure were $8.1 million in the quarter, $2.2 million higher than last year.
Cash payments towards the structuring transactions, strategic transactions, restructuring-related projects, and other unusual non-recurring adjustments were $4.8 million, versus $8.8 million last year. Moving to the balance sheet, we had a quarter-end cash balance of $126.6 million, and $492.2 million available on our $500 million cash flow revolver. Total debt outstanding was approximately $578.9 million, consisting of $496.1 million of senior unsecured notes and $82.8 million of finance leases. We ended the quarter with $452.3 million of net debt. Now, let's get into the review of each business unit, where I'll provide you details on the underlying performance drivers of our operational results.
I'll start with Global Pet Care, which is slide 12. Reported net sales increased 8.3%, and excluding favorable foreign currency exchange impact, organic net sales increased 5.8%. Sales in companion animal increased high single digit, while sales in aquatics increased low double digits. In North America, sales increased in both companion animal and aquatics. This was partially driven by the strategic shift of orders by retailers in the prior year of approximately $10 million in preparation for our S/4HANA ERP implementation. After normalizing for the softer comparison, North American net sales increased mid-single digits, including the impact from tariff-related pricing actions taken during the last fiscal year. In companion animal, our key brands continue to outperform the market.
Good 'n' Fun, DreamBone, Nature's Miracle, and FURminator are gaining market share across chews, stain and odor, and grooming, despite our premium positioning and the modest softness in the overall category. We continue to be encouraged by improving POS trends across our core brands and top accounts within the category. The sales growth in aquatics was primarily driven by the pull forward in the prior year as overall demand in the category begins to stabilize. Our European sales were positively impacted by favorable foreign exchange rates as the U.S. dollar weakened against the British pound and the euro compared to last year, excluding the impact of foreign exchange, sales in EMEA decreased in the low single digits, primarily due to a decline in dog and cat food sales following their refreshed portfolio launch within our Eukanuba brand in our fiscal fourth quarter.
The launch prompted some retailers to accelerate inventory purchase to support the reset, adversely impacting this quarter's results. This was partially offset by the continued strength of our Good Boy brand, which once again gained market share in the UK. Successful Good Boy expansion across continental Europe continues to gain traction and new points of distribution. Aquatics organic sales increased, with our global leading Tetra brand outperforming the market in a declining category and benefiting from a softer prior year comparison. On the commercial side, our innovation continues to drive incremental growth. The investments we have made in Nature's Miracle are yielding results and have enhanced our position as the market leader in the stain and odor category. We recently launched our Nature's Miracle Outdoor Stain and Odor Remover, designed to address pet stains and odors on outdoor surfaces.
In grooming, our FURminator growth, with expanded distribution confirmed in the coming months. Our Good Boy brand, the number one brand in dog chews in the UK, continues to grow market share, driven by consistent consumer-focused innovation. In fact, over the last quarter, Good Boy, Good Boy became the third-largest brand in the overall UK pet market. The brand's expansion across continental Europe continues to perform very well, and new launch is expected to drive further growth in the coming months. Our Good 'n' Fun and DreamBone brands are winning distribution in key retailers, and strengthened activation is fueling the brand's growth online. IAMS's advanced nutrition positioning is driving market share wins in the UK on both dog and cat, and the brand expansion in France is off to a good start. Tetra's NutriEvolution launch is driving strong market share wins in Germany.
Thanks, Faisal. And thanks again, everybody, for joining us this morning for today's call. Look, I'll just take a few minutes right now, and we'll recap the key takeaways of today's call. If you guys could turn with me to slide 18. First, look, although we experienced year-over-year declines in both net sales and Adjusted EBITDA, we're actually pleased that first quarter financial results actually exceeded expectations. Our businesses continue to heal from the tariff torpedo that hit us in fiscal 2025, as we have restored our supply chains and have taken pricing actions. While the global macroeconomic conditions and environment remain challenging, we're encouraged by the meaningful signs of improvement, particularly in our consumables product portfolio. Our Global Pet Care business returned to growth this quarter, representing a significant milestone for us.
Beyond the broader category improvements, our key companion animal brands have continued to outperform, and they're performing exceptionally well, further strengthening our market share positions. In our Home and Garden business, we are seeing strong category POS trends currently, and our brands are outperforming category. We are encouraged by the success of our new product launches in fiscal 2025, and we expect to build on that momentum with expanded distribution here in fiscal 2026. This year, we expect Home and Garden to be our fastest-growing business. In our appliance business, overall category demand continues to be soft, and we expect that to continue into the fiscal second quarter. We will continue to prioritize maximizing the performance of this business unit through disciplined expense management as we navigate a challenged market.
Secondly, as we look forward to the balance of the year, we continue to believe that our data-driven strategy of fewer, bigger, better initiatives will actually yield higher returns. The positive results we are seeing so far serve as clear evidence that this disciplined approach is actually driving and delivering the right outcomes. Our low leverage and strong balance sheet position us exceptionally well to navigate the current macroeconomic environment, and I actually believe we are in a tremendous position of strength to capitalize on opportunities with the evolving M&A landscape. With respect to our Global Pet Care and Home and Garden businesses, we continue to look for highly synergistic assets that will allow us to maintain our low leverage.
In regards to our appliance businesses, we remain committed to finding a strategic solution for that business unit. Last but not least, I'd like to conclude my remarks by reiterating our fiscal 2026 earnings framework for flat to low single-digit growth in net sales, low single-digit growth in Adjusted EBITDA, and approximately 50% conversion of our Adjusted EBITDA to Adjusted Free Cash Flow. The progress we made this quarter reflects the dedication of our team and our focus on delivering sustainable growth. We appreciate the trust and the support of all of our stakeholders as we work together to achieve both our short- and long-term objectives. I'll turn the call now back to Jen, and we're gonna be happy to take any questions.
Thank you, David. Operator, we can go to the question queue now.
Hi, this is Madison Callinan. I'm on for Brian. Thanks for taking our questions. First, one of your competitors stated their belief that we've reached a bottom in pet. I'm curious if you would agree with that assessment and provide any color around your view. Thanks.
I've been humbled more than once in my life, calling tops and bottoms, so I'm gonna pass on that. But, we're significantly focused on what we can do, and we're really pleased with the new leadership in pet and the investments we're making there, and the fact that we're taking market share with our main brands. So, you know, yeah, pet's been through some tough turbulence. There's still a lot of soft pockets out there, so I just, you know, I just don't have that kind of crystal ball to make that statement.
Fair. You mentioned that retailers should be disciplined in inventory, but how committed are your retailers to the garden category this upcoming season? Are you in position to chase if the weather cooperates and demand is better than we've seen the last few years?
Yeah, look, I'm actually very bullish on our Home and Garden business. You know, Javier, who leads that unit, has done a great job of kind of fixing the culture, restoring a lot of operational rhythm, and frankly, our innovation there. You know, Faisal talked about the wasp and hornet trap. We've got a lot of new products, new innovation, and actually, it's not us, the consumer's endorsing it. So, you know, we have some new SKUs launching, and frankly, we see some of these small pockets, we see the business doubling and tripling in some of these new product launches. So, I would also tell you, you know, during times of macroeconomic volatility, when the consumer is stretched, it's pretty nice to be the value price point, brand.
And so honestly, as I look forward, I think we are the foot traffic driver to that category, and we see retailers leaning in with us because they, they get that joke, too. So, look, it's been cold, so it's tough to look at weather forecasts and say it's gonna be warmer. It is a weather, you know, business. It does influence it. Q1 we knew was gonna be soft because we pre-built a lot of inventory for one particular customer last year. We didn't do that this year. But the POS trends, you know, that we see right now are very encouraging, and, we're pretty bullish on, on what we can accomplish this season in home and garden. But the proof is always in the pudding, and, you know..
I would tell you Q2, you know, I wouldn't get over your skis there as you model it. I think it'll be flat, slightly up, you know, year-over-year. But that's just, that's just the phasing and then, you know, big back half for Home and Garden, if that helps you with your modeling.
Thanks so much.
Thank you. Appreciate the questions.
Great. Thanks. Good morning. The comps get a fair bit easier after Q1, so can you talk about, your views in terms of the arc of anticipating improvement as you get from the flat to plus low single digits that you're looking for for the year? You know, there were obviously a couple of, comp issues in Q1 that, you know, are now in the past. So just talking about, you know, the cadence of improvement for this year. Thanks.
Sounds like a tough question. I'm gonna give that to Faisal.
Look, I think we talked about how our pet business is definitely back to growth. We expect that trend to continue. We expect that business to continue growing in the second quarter. I think David just mentioned on the home and garden side that we don't expect a lot of growth in the second quarter because we think retailers are going to be more disciplined in how they build inventory versus last year. But we do expect a normal weather season, which means third and fourth quarter for us are going to be strong for H&G, so that makes it much more of a back half growth story for H&G. For our home and personal care business, I think we'll continue to see some pressure in the second quarter and our comps start to stabilize as we go into third and fourth quarter.
So again, that's not a business we're expecting to grow this year, but I think our second half starts to stabilize versus our prior year, a little bit more, versus the kind of trend you're seeing in Q1. The trend you're seeing in Q1, probably on the top line, continues in the second quarter, and then it stabilizes. So it's different by business, but hopefully that answers your question, Olivia.
Yep, thank you.
Hi, this is Will in for Bob. Just broadly speaking, are the levels of investment in brands where you want them? Might they increase or decrease? Same question at the corporate level.
Yeah, so I think we'll start with corporate. We talked about, in the last quarter's earnings call, we talked about how we do have some headwind on the, on the corporate side, on the cost side. That has to do with, the exit of our ASSA ABLOY HHI transaction-related TSA income, and that was a $20 million headwind that we said will roughly cover half of that cost this year. So that stays true. We were able to push some of our costs out of Q1, primarily because, a lot of our S/4 go-lives occur in the second to the third and fourth quarter. So a lot of our cost is pushed out of the first quarter. So I think you'll see our overall full year outlook on, on corporate remains roughly the same.
On the other businesses, I think we're going to be careful about how we invest. I think we're at the right level of investment for our Global Pet Care and Home and Garden businesses. I think on the Home and Personal Care business, you'll see us pull back some of the investments just based on when we see the recovery and when we see our top line coming back. So it's probably too early to say. I generally say, given where the top line is, we have pulled back some investment on the HPC business compared to last year, but if the second half comes back strong, we can certainly dial that back up.
It's a lot, this year is gonna be a lot more about reconfiguring our investment dollars to be more productive, and we're just gonna continue to measure the return on our investment on our advertising investment, and try to put more dollars in areas where we see the return versus not. But on an overall basis, I would say for both Home and Garden and Personal, and Global Pet Care, we are at the right level of investment.
Thank you. That's super helpful. Can you talk about the innovation and your pipeline for FY 2026 and beyond? Are you at the level of new product introduction you want to be at?
Yeah, I think we've got a lot of good, new, exciting new products coming in. We talked about, and on the Home and Garden business, we've got some more products coming in, but we actually had really successful launches last year, and once we're able to get the consumers excited about it, you'll see us expand the distribution of those products a lot more this year. So that's gonna be one of our growth drivers for Home and Garden business. On the Global Pet Care business, we talked about the new products that we launched last year, and I won't get ahead of myself, but you'll see more exciting things come over the next couple of quarters. So I think we've got a very good pipeline in both those two businesses, that we'll continue to invest in.
Thank you.
Hey, good morning, guys.
Morning.
When you think about the process with the HPC business, how would you characterize the progress that you think, you know, has been made toward your objectives or how things are—have evolved and are evolving? You know, maybe what has gone against you, obviously, from the external environment, and, you know, what gives you confidence that you can still execute on these plans that you have for the business? I have a follow-up.
Yeah, look, let's take it in two pieces, right? One is the operating piece, and the other is the strategic piece. And, you know, when you look at... We're sitting in February, right? So a year ago, I mean, we were staring at a $500 million tariff problem. Like, $500 million is a lot of tariffs for a company of our size to absorb. And we shut down buying for literally two months. Like, you know, that puts a lot of air in your pipeline, right, if you're trying to sell product. And we dealt with the harsh realities of that volatility, and we were upfront with our retailers, and we took pricing immediately.
You know, when you shut down buying product in your supply chain for two months, and you raise prices double digits, on these type of items, you're gonna run into something called elasticity really fast. And for us to put $20 million EBIT on the board in the last 90 days in that business, I'm pleased with it. So, you know, again, I'm... You know, do we wanna do better? Of course. But I can tell you, managing that type of volatility, you know, not to pat ourselves on the back, but I think we did it better than most. If I look at that industry, there's really one big player that's making all the money, taking all the market share, and there's everybody else.
And most of those other players are in a more difficult position than I am, operationally and financially. Very few players have an unlevered balance sheet and an outlook that's gonna improve profitability. This company has both. So if you're looking at the neighborhood of small domestic appliances. I like where we play. And frankly, I think given our outlook for improved profitability in appliances in fiscal 2026, that is going to cause the consolidation I'm sick of talking about to finally occur, and we believe we will be the strategic merger partner choice. So I think that's pretty crystal clear, but I'm pretty, I'm pretty excited that we put $20 million of EBIT on the board. I'm telling you, it's still a very challenging environment.
I'm telling you that most of my competitors have got 6-12 times leverage sitting on their balance sheets, and good luck.
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of certainly come at you guys. That's helpful. When it comes to EBITDA for the year, as we think about the cadence, I think you gave some good perspective, which I interpreted as more top line. The outlook is more back half weighted from a profitability perspective as well. Just remind us of the anomalies that-
Yeah
Q1 and the confidence as you know get toward that full year objective.
Yeah, again, there's just so much vol going on right now. It's— Look, we ran a process for the business. It attracted a lot of interest, right? The tariff situation threw cold water on that. Right now, the industry is trying to get back to, okay, what are my input costs? What's my new rate of sales? What's my margin structure? And can you underwrite these businesses, right? So what I'm trying to describe is, you know, when you encounter that much volatility and disruption, it's gonna take you more than a quarter or two to heal. So that business is in the process of healing. Again, to put $20 million of EBIT on the board in Q1 in appliances, I'm proud of that.
What is occurring right now, to answer your question directly, is the North America market, which took the biggest hit for us because of the tariffs coming into this country, is healing, and we're seeing things improve there. What is also occurring globally is because barriers went up here, but not other places, cheap Chinese product is hitting the rest of the globe, and it's being dumped into other markets. That is disruptive. It's causing issues for us right now in Europe. And so we've got to wrestle that to the ground here in Q2, figure out a better go-to-market strategy, and get that humming again. But so we, you know, Q2 is gonna continue to be a little messy, you know, in this unit.
But with all the pricing in place and with all the supply chains fixed, and working on a better, more strategic go-to-market plan, we do anticipate kind of Q3 and Q4 resulting in such numbers that we actually report growth in EBITDA in the appliance unit in fiscal 2026. Does that help?
It does. It does. Good luck. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Great. Thank you very much. I just wanna drill down a little bit more on our GPC here. You know, when we think about kind of the growth for the year, is there an opportunity to maybe grow faster than those single digits? And, you know, I also understand the demand in aquatics. Is that just kind of a comp thing, or do you actually see, like, underlying demand improving? Thanks.
Hey, Ian, good to hear from you. Thanks for the questions. I'll take the first piece, and Faisal will fix it if I mess anything up. Look, on companion animal, I've got a new leadership team in pet. I like what we're doing there. We spent a number of months here trying to get smarter strategically, and we're working on price pack architecture. We're doing some deep dives into some of the product portfolios. We're looking, as we've told you, fewer, bigger, better, so we're trying to concentrate resources on higher return opportunities. You know, we're really pleased with the early results, right? In companion animal, if you look at kind of the big drivers, that's Good 'n' Fun. It's DreamBone, it's FURminator, Nature's Miracle. To have four of these big brands back in growth feels good. More work to do.
Somebody asked earlier, are we happy with innovation? Faisal said, yes. I'm never happy with innovation. We need more and more and more. I want more new products, I want more new excitement, and we want better margin mix. We're working on it. Aquatics. We see recovery in Europe right now. North America still needs some fix, but honestly, I'm bullish because I've got a team finally underwriting that with a lot more intelligence, and I think there's some price pack architecture stuff we can do there. Within the next month, we're gonna go out and sit down with our retailers, and we're gonna talk about the new strategy, new price points, new ways to manage the category. Tetra is the leader globally. It's time we start acting like it. Kids love aquariums.
Taking care of pets is, it's therapeutic. It teaches responsibility. It's a phenomenal category. We've got to get our swagger back, but I'm determined to do it, and I've got a new leader who's gonna help me make that happen. Faisal?
Yeah, I'll just quickly add, one, aquatics is less than a fourth of our business, right? So that's not a business we rely on for growth. Aquatics itself as a category is never really a growth driver. Recently, it's actually been the decline leader for us, but the overall market seems to be stabilizing. As David said, we need to put more oomph behind our aquatic category and try to push that forward and act like leaders. And there's a lot of good...
ideas that we're going to execute against in the next few quarters. But our growth will primarily come from the companion animal side, and we're very bullish about how we've performed in the first quarter. But to answer your question, we've performed well, and we're showing growth in one quarter. We need to continue doing that every quarter coming forward to just give ourselves more confidence. But we're pretty optimistic about our performance here.
Okay, great. Thank you very much for the call.
Thank you.
Hi, just two quick ones. You talked a bit about some wins on terms of shelf space. Can you quantify at all your kind of net wins or net wins and losses, and how they should impact the coming quarter?
I mean, I think, I don't think we're gonna give you details on the call on exactly what those, how those wins materialize into what kind of growth. But, like I said in, in my earlier remarks, we're pretty jazzed about the growth we'll see on products that we launched last year, that I think will gain distribution in both Home and Garden and on the Global Pet Care side. And I think we've got some good, exciting products coming over the next couple of quarters as well.
Okay, that's great. And then just, I guess, given the movement with the... As the tariff costs flow through, should we expect any unusual changes in working capital this year? Or kinda, do you expect working capital to be a source or use of cash for the full year?
I think, you see in our performance in the first quarter, our working capital management has been really great. Overall, I don't think it'll be a use of cash in a meaningful way this year, but I would say, at this point, working capital would remain stable for the year, and our cash flow, free cash flow projections reflect that.
Great. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, well, thank you. With that, we have reached the conclusion of our call. Thank you to David and Faisal, and on behalf of Spectrum Brands, thank you for your participation in this morning.