Newell Brands Inc.

Good morning and welcome to Newell Brand's third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After a brief discussion by management, we will open up the call for questions. To ask a question, please press star 1-1. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, press star 1-1 again. In order to stay within the time scheduled for this call, please limit yourself to one question during the Q&A session. Today's conference call is being recorded. A live webcast of this call is available at ir.newellbrands.com. I'll now turn the call over to Joanne Freiberger, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Chief Communications Officer. Ms. Freiberger, you may begin.

Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Newell Brands' third quarter 2025 earnings call. On the call with me today are Chris Peterson, our President and CEO, and Mark Ersig, our CFO. Before we begin, I'd like to inform you that during today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results and outcomes may differ materially, and we undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements. I refer you to the cautionary language and risk factors available in our earnings release, our Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and other SEC filings available on our Investor Relations website, for a further discussion of the factors affecting forward-looking statements. Today's remarks will also refer to non-GAAP financial measures, including those referred to as normalized measures. We believe these non-GAAP measures are useful to investors, although they should not be considered superior to the measures presented in accordance with GAAP. Explanations of these non-GAAP measures and reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP measures can be found in today's earnings release and tables that were furnished to the SEC. Thank you. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Chris.

Thanks, Joanne. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. The third quarter macro environment for general merchandise categories remained exceptionally dynamic and challenging. Numerous new tariffs were announced by both the U.S. and international markets, creating trade disruptions in affected categories. For perspective, we now anticipate Newell will incur $180 million in incremental cash tariff costs this year, which is up from our estimate of 155 million just two months ago. These trade disruptions have affected short-term consumer and retailer behavior. To respond to this, we employed a multifaceted plan. Specifically, we increased focus on productivity and overhead cost savings efforts, we sold incremental distribution and promotions in tariff advantage categories, and we took pricing actions where necessary to offset the tariff costs. While our team executed our plan well, it was not sufficient to offset the macro headwinds in the third quarter. Both core and net sales came in down 7%, which was below our expectations, due in large part to three discrete macroeconomic-related factors, namely lower retailer inventory levels, a slowdown in a couple of key international markets like Brazil, and lower consumer demand as we priced for tariffs more aggressively than competition in several categories. Combined, these three factors reduced third quarter sales by four to five points, which along with two to three points of category compression, more than offset incremental tariff advantage business wins and a strong innovation program. The good news is that our consumer-driven product and consumer innovation programs are getting stronger every day, and starting with the fourth quarter and extending throughout 2026, net distribution gains are expected to exceed distribution losses. This stands in stark contrast to the three discrete macroeconomic factors that weighed on our business during the third quarter, which we believe will be short-lived. For example, our market intelligence suggests that the retailer inventory adjustment we experienced during the third quarter was largely one time in nature, as higher inventory values due to tariffs were absorbed by the market, and several large retailers shifted their business from direct import to domestic delivery. Relative to our international business, which accounts for roughly 40% of our total sales, we expect it will return to growth during the fourth quarter after heightened macroeconomic and political instability caused a slowdown in Brazil and Argentina, both top 10 international markets for Newell. This slowdown interrupted six consecutive quarters of international core sales growth. Finally, competitive pricing actions have begun to manifest themselves across several key businesses, like writing, where we have a strong domestic manufacturing presence. As more pricing hits the market in categories where we are tariff-advantaged, we expect the amount of incremental business wins we secure to continue to increase. For these reasons, we remain confident that Newell's turnaround is on track and that the actions we are taking position us well to return to top-line growth in the future. Let's now turn to our three business segments, starting with learning and development. Writing held its own during a back-to-school season that all-in was roughly flat. Overall, we performed well with retail partners that prioritized and featured branded products, while isolated customers that shifted emphasis to private label alternatives experienced weaker sell-through. That said, we did expect stronger results because we anticipated competitors would take pricing prior to replenishment orders being placed and shipped. Instead, competitors waited until after the back-to-school season had ended to implement meaningful increases, which we are now seeing in October reflected at shelf. Looking forward and on the heels of recent product successes such as Sharpie Creative Markers and Expo Dry and Wet Erase, the 2026 Writing Innovation Program remains very strong. In addition, points of distribution will be considerably higher after a major retailer completes a total shelf reset this month, and competitors who, unlike us, don't have strong domestic manufacturing capabilities raise prices. For these reasons, we feel very good about where we are headed with our writing business. In Baby, we proactively took three rounds of pricing to offset inflation and tariffs. Competitors largely followed, and due to the strength of our Graco innovation program, we continued to gain market share despite leading pricing higher in the categories. As we indicated last quarter, the baby business was temporarily affected in the third quarter by a large retailer's decision to shift from direct import shipments to domestic fulfillment. Looking ahead, we have an exciting 2026 innovation pipeline for baby, so this business is also trending well. Turning to the home and commercial segment and starting with kitchen, we have been proactively pricing throughout the year to offset tariffs and protect margins, but several competitors did not immediately follow. As a result, we took the decision late in the third quarter to increase promotional activity to restore price competitiveness, which will put near-term pressure on sales and margins as the broader market adjusts to higher sourcing costs and small kitchen appliances from Southeast Asia. Kitchen was also impacted by macro softness in Brazil and Argentina, where Oster is the market leader, which we expect to be transitory. And home fragrance, Q3 core sales were below expectations as some retail partners used the timing of the Yankee Candle brand restage to destock by liquidating older products before placing new orders. That said, where shelves have been reset with the new assortment, consumer demand has been strong, validating the direction of the relaunch. We remain confident that the restage will bring a return to growth in the fourth quarter of 2025 and for the full year of 2026 as shelves are now largely reset and full A&P launch support is initiated. The commercial business, which is anchored by the Rubbermaid Commercial Products brand, continues to perform well across the institutional and hospitality verticals where demand has been consistent. However, in the third quarter, this strength was more than offset by continued DIY softness, where store traffic remains below prior year levels. Despite near-term top-line challenges, the home and commercial team continues to execute our simplification plan, driving cost efficiencies and positioning the segment for profit improvement as demand stabilizes. Finally, the outdoor and recreation business has started to turn the corner, with third quarter sales being essentially flat with last year. Simplification efforts, tighter inventory management, and portfolio pruning are all delivering tangible improvement And perhaps most importantly, we have a strong innovation lineup in place for 2026 that we are very excited about. We believe this business is on track to return to top-line growth next year. Mark will go into more detail shortly, but before doing that, I would like to call out a few things from a total company standpoint that were particularly notable in the third quarter and share some high-level thoughts on our updated guidance for the year. First, excluding the impact of the 125% China tariffs, which we called out last quarter, normalized gross margin would have expanded by 40 basis points in the third quarter versus a year ago. Second, normalized overheads as a percent of sales declined approximately 120 basis points year over year, the first reduction in three years, as we realized savings from our realignment plan and technology investments. Third, advertising and promotion spending reached its highest rate as a percent of sales in nearly a decade, reflecting our commitment to invest in brand building and innovation, even in a soft demand environment. Fourth, Newell's balance sheet remained solid. Net debt ended the quarter at $4.5 billion, down from the prior year, and our leverage ratio dropped by 20 basis points versus the second quarter. These proof points demonstrate that the fundamental structural economics of the company are much stronger today than before the transformation started. From a guidance standpoint, we are taking a more conservative view of consumer demand for the fourth quarter, and we now expect our categories in aggregate to be down about 3%. We continue to expect sequential improvement and normalized profitability in the fourth quarter as we continue to drive productivity gains, disciplined overhead management, and pricing actions that protect structural margins. We also expect cash flow to strengthen sequentially as tariff-related costs subside and working capital improves. In closing, while near-term demand remains uneven, our strategy is working and our teams are executing with focus, agility, and discipline. I want to thank all of our Newell employees around the world for their continued resilience in execution in what remains a complex environment. Their focus and dedication make our progress possible. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark to walk through the financial results and provide additional detail on our performance and outlook.