Energizer - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 delivered organic net sales growth of 1.4% with adjusted gross margin expansion to 40.8%, but GAAP diluted EPS ($0.39) and adjusted EPS ($0.67) were down year over year as SG&A investment stepped up.
• Versus S&P Global consensus, revenue missed ($662.9M vs $669.6M*) and adjusted EPS was fractionally below ($0.67 vs $0.68*), while adjusted EBITDA beat modestly ($140.3M vs $137.5M*).
• Management tempered FY25 guidance (organic: flat to +2%, adj. EPS: $3.30–$3.50, adj. EBITDA: $610–$630M) citing weaker consumer sentiment and tariff uncertainty; Q3 guidance calls for net sales flat to -2% and adj. EPS $0.55–$0.65.
• Key catalysts: tariff mitigation execution (line-of-sight to neutralize over ~12 months), Podium Series momentum in Auto Care, APS (Europe) integration and brand transition, and debt paydown/free cash flow trajectory.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Battery & Lights grew ~3% organically; distribution wins across U.S. and international boosted category performance.
• Adjusted gross margin improved 30 bps YoY to 40.8%, with ~$16M Project Momentum savings offsetting freight/warehousing and network transition inefficiencies; quote: “Project Momentum… delivered savings of approximately $16 million in the quarter”.
• Capital structure enhanced: revolving credit facility extended to March 2030 and Term Loan B to March 2032 at roughly the same rates; quote: “extending the maturities… by more than 4 years”.

What Went Wrong

• Revenue (-0.1% reported) was pressured by currency (-1.7%) and Auto Care timing shift (refrigerant moved to Q3), with adjusted EPS down to $0.67 vs $0.72 YoY and adjusted EBITDA slightly lower YoY.
• Adjusted SG&A rose to 18.8% of sales ($124.5M) on planned spend in digital transformation and growth initiatives and higher legal fees, outweighing margin gains; analyst concern: operating expense discipline vs growth investments.
• Management lowered FY25 outlook on weaker consumer and tariff uncertainty (organic flat to +2%, adj. EPS $3.30–$3.50, adj. EBITDA $610–$630M), introducing near-term top-line and FCF headwinds (now 6–8% of net sales).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Energizer Holdings Inc second quarter 2025 results conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode, and following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Tuesday, May 6th, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Mark LaVigne. Please go ahead.

Jon Poldan (VP, Treasurer, and Head of Investor Relations)

Good morning, and welcome to Energizer's second quarter fiscal 2025 conference call. Joining me today are Mark LaVigne, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Drabik, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. A replay of this call will be available in the Investor Relations section of our website, energizerholdings.com. In addition, a slide deck providing detailed financial results for the quarter is also posted on our website. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements about the company's future business and financial performance, among other matters. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. We do not undertake to update these forward-looking statements. Other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in reports we file with the SEC.

We also refer in our presentation to non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP measures is shown in our press release issued earlier today, which is available on our website. Information concerning our categories and estimated market share discussed in this call relates to the categories where we compete and is based on Energizer's internal data, data from industry analysis, and estimates we believe to be reasonable. The battery category information includes both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce retail sales. Unless otherwise noted, all comments regarding the quarter and year pertain to Energizer's fiscal year, and all comparisons to prior year relate to the same period in fiscal 2024. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Mark.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter earnings call. John and I are going to first talk through the details of our Q2, and then we will spend the bulk of the time on the impact of the changing macro environment and how we are responding to it. Q2 was a solid quarter for us and largely consistent with our expectations. We saw growth continue for the fourth consecutive quarter, with organic sales up nearly 1.5%. We also expanded gross margins and delivered adjusted earnings per share of $0.67, at the upper end of our guided range. We are proud of our performance in the quarter, which was bolstered by many of the investments we have made in the past several years.

Those decisions have not only contributed to our year-over-year results, but they are playing a critical role in helping us to navigate the current volatility. More on that in a moment. As we take a closer look at each of our businesses, recall the areas we have highlighted previously: distribution, innovation, digital commerce, pricing and revenue management, and market expansion. Each of these areas has contributed and will continue to contribute to our fiscal 2025 results. These focus areas come together on shelf or online as we strive to meet consumers where they are. Our battery business had a particularly strong performance, growing 3% organically in the quarter. Our distribution footprint in the U.S. and international markets continues to grow across both brick-and-mortar retail and digital commerce. In auto care, we saw strong growth within our appearance and air freshener businesses, behind innovation, distribution gains, and market expansion.

Our appearance business delivered 5.5% organic growth, largely driven by the launch of our new Podium Series product line, which is now on shelf in over 15,000 stores in both the U.S. and internationally. Overall, our auto business declined roughly 2.5% organically in the quarter, with the decline entirely driven by a shift in the timing of our refrigerant shipments from the second quarter into April. Those are just the highlights of a solid second quarter. Now, let me hand it to Jon to provide more details on Q2, before we then turn to an update on the impacts of tariffs and how we are leveraging our world-class supply chain to manage the changing landscape. We will then finish with a view on the remainder of fiscal 2025. John.

John Drabik (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Second quarter reported net sales were flat, while organic revenue increased 1.4%. Our fourth consecutive quarter of organic growth was driven by a strong performance in batteries, partially offset by a decline in auto care. Batteries continue to benefit from significant distribution wins in the U.S., as well as strong international results, which combine to deliver organic growth globally. The launch of our Podium Series is also progressing nicely and in position for a strong performance during the summer season. However, in the current quarter, auto results were weighed down by a shift in timing of shipments within our refrigerants business, which have now largely shifted into April. Adjusted gross margin increased 30 basis points to 40.8%, primarily driven by an incremental $16 million of Project Momentum savings in the quarter.

Adjusted SG&A was 18.8% of net sales, an increase of $10.6 million in the quarter. The year-over-year dollar increase was primarily driven by planned spending in our digital transformation and growth initiatives, as well as increased legal fees, partially offset by Project Momentum savings of approximately $4 million. A&P as a percent of sales was 3.1%, roughly flat versus the prior year. Interest expense was $38 million, an improvement from the prior year due to lower average debt outstanding. We delivered adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share of $140.3 million and $0.67 per share, with adjusted earnings per share at the upper end of our previously provided outlook. During the quarter, we also refinanced our $500 million revolving credit facility, now maturing in March 2030, and opportunistically extended the maturity of our term loan B, now maturing in March 2032.

Importantly, we refinanced these facilities at roughly the same rates while extending the maturities of both facilities by more than four years and the weighted average maturity of our total debt portfolio by more than one year. Our nearest maturity is now $300 million of notes maturing at the end of 2027. Our free cash flow declined $44.1 million year-over-year, primarily driven by investments in incremental inventory to support our plastic-free packaging launch in the U.S. and incremental inventory to mitigate tariff exposures, as well as capital expenditures to support our plastic-free packaging and digital transformation initiatives. Now, I'll turn it back over to Mark to take us through what we're seeing in the macro environment and the impact on our categories and consumers.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Thanks, John. Again, a performance we are very proud of, despite ending the quarter in a more challenging environment relative to where we began. As we look ahead, the uncertainty around tariffs and the impact on the consumer create challenges for the balance of the year. Let's first talk about tariffs. The work we have done over the last two and a half years to transform our supply chain positions us well to mitigate the impact from tariffs much more quickly than we would have been able to previously. As a baseline, imports from China to the U.S. typically represent less than 5% of our consolidated cost of goods. As John and I will cover, we have a clear path to further reduce our exposure during the next 12 months.

Let's take a step back and revisit the changes we've made to provide more context on why we are confident in our ability to withstand the volatility that has become more and more common. You will recall that as we exited the COVID pandemic, we identified a substantial pipeline of initiatives to rebuild gross margins, improve working capital efficiency, and invest for long-term growth. As part of that undertaking, we identified areas where we could improve cost, resiliency, and agility. Many of these initiatives were captured within Project Momentum, which you have heard a lot about since we announced it in November 2022. The intent of the program was clearly designed to improve earnings growth and enhance free cash flow, but we were mindful that the changes to our network needed to also enhance our ability to absorb future shocks to the global supply chain.

As Project Momentum got started, we took a clean-sheet approach to our manufacturing and distribution network, with an emphasis on in-region, for-region production, ultimately to drive improved cost, agility, and resiliency. In addition to the work on our existing network, we made several strategic acquisitions over the last few years, which included manufacturing locations in Indonesia, Belgium, and our latest plant acquisition in Poland last week. The results have transformed how we bring products to market and are particularly relevant today. For markets outside of the U.S., we currently source approximately 97% of our cost of goods from either in-region or non-U.S. production facilities. In the U.S., products sourced from China for U.S. consumption represent less than 5% of consolidated cost of goods. The remaining 95% are sourced mostly within the U.S., with the remainder from low-tariff countries.

The significant investments behind our digital transformation have also been a key enabler. In addition to greatly improved data visibility and analytics, it has allowed us to streamline processes and overall workflow and has resulted in a more efficient and responsive organization, which is so critical in this environment. Progress we have made over the last several years has been tremendous. Even with that, we are not immune to the impact from the proposed tariffs. We remain focused on managing those items that are directly within our control. A critical area is ensuring that we stay close to the consumer and understand how they are reacting against this backdrop. Recently, there has been a notable shift in consumer sentiment, which has driven increased emphasis on value and heightened caution in their spending. In terms of the impact on our categories, let's start with battery.

On a global basis, we expect the battery category to deliver low single-digit growth over the long term. However, weakened consumer confidence and persistent inflation across the store may pressure volumes in the short term. In auto care, we expect consumer caution to have a mixed impact in the short term, as some consumers move into our categories and away from do-it-for-me, while others prioritize their spend in other categories, which may be less discretionary for them. When we pull all of this together—tariffs, consumer confidence, and overall demand—we have tempered our outlook over the remainder of the year, which John will cover now.

John Drabik (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Mark. Let me start with some details around tariff impacts. In an admittedly very fluid environment, we did want to share some directional impacts these tariffs would have on our business and how we are working to address them. Let me first address fiscal year 2025. We have already taken a number of steps, including sourcing shifts and pricing, and do not expect tariffs to have a direct impact on our P&L this year. Now, moving to our exposures over a longer period of time, assuming tariffs announced this year remain in their current form, let me walk through our gross unmitigated exposures. Roughly 5% of our cost of goods are exposed to tariffs levied on China at an incremental 145% rate, and approximately 10%-15% of our cost of goods are exposed to the rest of the world reciprocal tariffs.

We have some exposure to the steel and aluminum tariffs announced this year as well. All in, this represents an incremental total headwind of roughly $150 million, of which 85% is attributable to the China tariffs. It's important to remember this is unmitigated. We are already working on solutions to minimize the ongoing impact and believe over the next 12 months, we can reduce the amount of our China-sourced product by close to half through alternative sourcing partners and a mix of our own internal supply. Based on the flexibility of our redesigned supply chain, we have the ability to rebalance our network and minimize the impact of tariffs related to all other countries. We've also already taken a round of pricing related to the initial round of tariffs, including for steel and aluminum.

As we gain more insights and certainty, we will assess additional commercial actions, including product offerings and additional pricing. By minimizing our China exposure, rebalancing our internal supply network, and targeted commercial actions, we have a line of sight to offset the impacts of tariffs over the next 12 months. Looking to the balance of this year, while we are very encouraged with our year-to-date results, we know the recent volatility is negatively impacting consumer sentiment. Based on the most recent economic indicators, consumers are beginning to pull back on spending and becoming more value-conscious with their dollars. Based on this demand environment, we now expect the following results in the back half of fiscal 2025. For the third quarter, we expect reported and organic net sales in the range of flat to down 2%. Gross margin roughly flat versus prior year.

Despite the expected slowdown in consumer spending and the related impact on our revenue, we intend to continue to invest in A&P behind our Podium launch during the quarter, resulting in adjusted EPS in the range of $0.55-$0.65 per share. For the full year, we expect reported and organic net sales in the range of flat to up 2%. Gross margin to be up 50 basis points and in line with prior guidance. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS in ranges of $610 million-$630 million and $3.30-$3.50 per share, both reflecting positive growth at the midpoints versus prior year results. Our current outlook for earnings excludes any impacts from the recently acquired APS business in Europe.

For the remainder of 2025, we expect the results of this business to have a modestly dilutive impact to our consolidated gross margins and neutral to earnings per share. We have also made incremental investments in inventory this year as we work on various tariff mitigation strategies, as well as planned additional investments in working capital related to our recently announced European battery acquisition. Based on these additional uses of cash, we now expect free cash flow in the range of 6%-8% of net sales and debt paydown of roughly $100 million for the full year. In closing, we delivered a strong second quarter, but we entered the third quarter facing an uncertain macro environment and consumer.

The organization has rallied around these macro challenges, and we have built a strategic advantage through our investments in our network, which will enable us to perform at a high level in a dynamic environment. I am highly confident we are executing the right strategies to deliver on our long-term financial outlook. With that, let's open the call for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will then hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Peter Grom from UBS. Please go ahead.

Peter Grom (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. I just wanted to follow up on the tariff commentary. I know you just ran through that, and all that cover was incredibly helpful. Just given the many moving pieces, can we maybe just run through the mitigation impacts again? I guess what I'm really trying to understand, and I recognize the situation's fluid, it's really early to be talking about fiscal 2026, but I was hoping to get some color in terms of how we should be thinking about or how we should be modeling this $150 million gross number versus the expectation that you anticipate to mitigate that headwind over the next 12 months. Thanks.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Morning, Peter. I just apologize for the late start today. We had some technological issues. I just want to make sure we're coming through clearly to you, Peter, and the call. You hearing us okay?

Peter Grom (Equity Research Analyst)

You sound great, guys.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Okay. Awesome. Great question, Peter. It's obviously probably the most timely question given the environment. We want to provide as much clarity as we can. I think what we want to do is it's important to separate and understand the impact of the different tranches of tariffs and the impact that they may have. I think from a headline standpoint, Peter, I'm going to turn it over to John to kind of walk through the details. From a 2025 standpoint, we have mitigated the impact of tariffs on 2025. We have solved the impact there. I think as we look ahead to 2026, we are in the process of mitigating that exposure. It will take time, but we have line of sight over the next 12 months to mitigate all impact from tariffs over that period of time.

John can walk through some of the details about how we're thinking about it.

John Drabik (EVP and CFO)

Yep. Thanks, Mark. Morning, Peter. I gave a gross tariff number of $150 million on the prepared remarks, and I want to kind of break that down into a couple of buckets. The first one are tariffs in place already, and then the second group are tariffs that are announced but not yet active. The tariffs that are already in place include the steel and aluminum tariffs that we've talked about, and then the China IEPA. As Mark said, we've effectively neutralized the direct impacts of these tariffs. That was through sourcing shifts, pricing, and then inventory that we have on hand, which is offsetting any impact that we would have to 2025. That's going to carry forward for us as well. Now, I'll turn to the tariffs that have been announced but aren't yet in place, which are really the reciprocal tariffs.

You have got China, which is the 125% incremental tariff, and then rest of world tariffs, which are currently 10%. Starting with China, I think Mark mentioned that this represents only about 5% of our consolidated COGS. That really is the overwhelming majority of the absolute tariff exposure. Whether or not those incremental 125% rates for China go into effect, we already have plans in place to reduce the underlying China exposure through sourcing from something like 5% to 2%-3%. We will cut that in half relatively quickly over the next 12 months. The rest of the world tariffs, which are about 10%-15% of our consolidated cost of goods, these are exposed to the 10% reciprocal rest of world tariff.

We are actively working to minimize those by sourcing changes, rerouting our network, and then commercial actions that we will continue to take. We have addressed and offset the tariffs already in place, and we have concrete plans today to address about 60%-70% of the tariffs announced but not yet implemented. That is going to happen over the next 12 months. We are confident for the remainder of the 30%-40% that we will continue to look at additional supply chain actions and commercial actions to take care of those. We think that over the course of the next year, ultimately, we will be able to offset the entire exposure. Now, to your point about 2026, we are continuing to work through how that will look, and we will give guidance in a couple of quarters.

It will be a transitional year where we start incurring some of these larger tariffs in the next month, and those will go into inventory, and then they'll start coming back out into our P&L. We will give a better color what the total impact of 2026 is. It will be in a couple of quarters. We think we can minimize the gross number by at least half, if not more.

Peter Grom (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much. That was super helpful. I'll pass it on.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Thanks, Peter.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Your next question comes from Bill Chappell from Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Bill Chappell (Managing Director)

Thanks. Good morning.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Morning, Bill.

Bill Chappell (Managing Director)

Hey, I mean, I know the tariffs are, it's murky in kind of the outlook, and I appreciate the mitigation you've done kind of for yours specifically. What are you hearing, or kind of what's your evaluation of, I guess, the devices out there that use batteries? I mean, I'm trying to think of, I mean, clearly, a lot of washing machines are made in China, and they're going to see a big tariff coming over to the U.S., and washing machines don't use batteries, to my knowledge. Have you looked at kind of the device market and how that's going to be impacted and then kind of put that into your forecast? I understand consumers are cautious now, but what happens when those devices go up 30%-50% in price? Just trying to understand how that goes into your algebra for the back half of the year.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Bill, we take all of those factors into account as we kind of look forward. We certainly are mindful that devices are going to likely become more expensive. Those devices that previously used our batteries will continue to use our batteries. You are going to see consumers react to higher prices. We have recent experience with this, which in COVID, you had a lot of that device pull forward where consumers bought a lot of devices, and then they did not for a couple of years, and they were just getting back into a replenishment cycle on devices. We are in contact with our OEM partners. We understand the way they are thinking about it. As John said, some of these tariffs are in place, some of them are not yet. We will have to wait and see what happens with that.

I think this is in part of the logic behind taking the prudent approach to call down our top-line outlook because it is an uncertain consumer environment. We do expect consumers to pull back. That would include device ownership, and that would impact our replenishment as well.

Bill Chappell (Managing Director)

Just to clarify, you're assuming that it gets worse just as higher prices come in, and that's factored into the back half. Is that the right way to look at it?

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Yes.

Bill Chappell (Managing Director)

Okay. And then just on auto care, I mean, historically, when there's been a slowdown in kind of new car sales, it helps the auto care because people are taking care of spending more time on their existing used. Is that kind of how you're looking at this summer, or is it too early to tell?

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

What I would say is there's headwinds and tailwinds that emerge in difficult economic times with consumers on auto care. I mean, first, some of our categories are more discretionary for consumers, and so they will opt out of those purchases in favor of other categories which are less discretionary for those consumers. However, to your point, people are going to hold on to their cars longer, and the age of the fleet is going to continue to increase in age. They will also migrate from do-it-for-me to do-it-yourself, which helps create a tailwind within the auto care category. There's puts and takes on balance. We do expect some impact to consumers as they pull back and become more cautious, but there's some natural offsets which occur as well. Again, all of that has been taken into account as we provided our forward look.

John Drabik (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Maybe just to add for that, for some color, Bill, we're expecting low single-digit increases in auto in the third quarter. We are still relatively bullish on our auto business going into the busy season. That is behind Podium, and you saw the shift of the refrigerants from Q2 to Q3. That should boost the quarter a little bit.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Bill, as a reminder, the Podium Series is a super premium offering, which, again, those consumers tend to be more immune to pricing impacts than others. We have launched that product in a timely place right now from a consumer standpoint as they may migrate into the do-it-yourself as opposed to do-it-for-me.

Bill Chappell (Managing Director)

Just to clarify, your lower top-line guidance is auto and battery, or is it primarily battery and just a slight modification to auto?

John Drabik (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. It's more battery. Auto, I mean, they're both down a little bit, but auto's still positive in the third quarter.

Bill Chappell (Managing Director)

Got it. Thanks so much.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Thanks, Bill.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Your next question comes from Lauren Lieberman from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Lauren Lieberman (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks. Good morning. I was curious if you could talk a little bit about any retailer destocking that you have seen. You haven't mentioned it yet, but I would think that that's something that could well be a headwind for 3Q. Can you just talk about what you're seeing destocking-wise? Thanks.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Sure, Lauren. I think as you've seen some of the recent scanner trends that have come out, and you've seen some softening in the consumer, including in the battery category, naturally, that will cause a slight uptick in inventory on hand with retailers. I wouldn't say it's significant or meaningful. It's just a natural effect of some softer POS sales. We think that'll mitigate over time as retailers moderate their replenishment orders, and we have taken that into account in sort of our 3Q and 4Q forecasts.

Lauren Lieberman (Managing Director)

Okay. Got it. This is in part, this adjustment to the back half is not just weakening or the risk of weakening consumer. It is retail orders catching up with consumer takeaway that you have already seen in the first half.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

That's correct.

Lauren Lieberman (Managing Director)

Okay. Great. Curious if you can tell us a little bit more about the APS acquisition. Is this primarily the manufacturing asset? We also know that APS manufactures Panasonic in Europe. Is that also going to be part of your portfolio going forward? If so, anything you can share with us strategically on how Panasonic would fit in?

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Sure. We were really excited to be able to get that one closed. We just closed on it this past Friday. It really has a number of attributes to it. One is greater scale in our European business, notably in Germany, U.K., Poland, Spain as key markets. It is another asset, to your point, in our network, and it provides a manufacturing facility in Poland, which, again, will help us continue to lean into the in-region, four-region manufacturing. We just closed on Friday. The integration teams are meeting actually this week to get together and understand how do we want to push these two businesses together and create the most value. There is a brand transition from Panasonic to the Energizer brands. That will take place over the balance of this calendar year.

We will be transitioning from Panasonic into the Energizer family of brands over the next eight months or so, and that will be part of the process that the teams are discussing this week as well.

Lauren Lieberman (Managing Director)

Okay. Great. Thanks so much.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Thanks, Lauren.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Your next question comes from Robert Ottenstein from Evercore. Please go ahead.

Robert Ottenstein (Senior Managing Director)

Great. Thank you very much. I've got two questions, but let me start off with one, and then we'll go to the next. First, when we go out and kind of do our trade visits and you look at batteries and you look at the back, what we find is Duracell batteries made in China, a lot of private label made in Vietnam, private label made in China. This is a multidimensional situation, right? Can you help us think through how you're looking at the impact on competitors, what competitors may do with their supply chains, and what that overall impact will be on competitive dynamics on one level, and the other, just how retailers may start to change how they think about competitors and private label, right?

Because if you think this is all going to continue for some time, you may decide to switch which suppliers you want to work with based on your perceptions of the supplier's supply chains. I would love to kind of get that dimension of the whole tariff situation if you can. Thank you.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Good morning, Robert. Let me start with on the competitive set. I think the way to think about this is our main competitor's a great competitor. I don't think we may have different input headwinds or production headwinds. I would say based on the way we think about it, we think we're largely in the same place as our main competitor, and there's not necessarily a discernible advantage or disadvantage for us in that space. I think as you flip private label, the way to provide some dimension to this is if you think about the private label portion of the category in the U.S., call it roughly 20% of the category, about 50% of that is manufactured in the U.S. or in sort of, I'll call them low tariff countries, including Vietnam. The other 50% of that 20% is manufactured in China. To your point, is there an opportunity?

There could be, certainly one that our teams are chasing. We do not want to necessarily get into the private label business. We have said our philosophy on private label is we are going to engage in private label to the extent it can advantage our brands. We certainly have a stable of value brands that can help add to the offerings that any retailer may have and may be able to provide an augment to the private label in the form of a value brand in their store.

Bill Chappell (Managing Director)

Right. So wouldn't it make commercial sense to redouble those efforts with Rayovac and saying, "Look, let us come in with a Rayovac and phase out your private label, and we'll give you that value tier," or develop some other strategy, whether it's kind of a joint sort of Rayovac private brand or some kind of twist for the retailers, but kind of use this situation as an opportunity to deepen your relationship with retailers and gain incremental shelf space?

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Love the way you're thinking. I can assure you we're having the same conversations internally as well.

Bill Chappell (Managing Director)

All right. I do not want to monopolize the call. I got a bunch of other questions, so I will pass it on, and we can follow up later. Thank you.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Thanks, Robert.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Your next question comes from Andrea from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Andrea Teixeira (Managing Director)

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I wanted to just see if you can comment on the exit rate of the quarter, on the underlying consumption rate vis-à-vis what we're seeing in the category. Perhaps step back and talk about the category in the U.S. and then, as you see, the exit rate. Related to what you just discussed about private label and Rayovac, I was wondering because your price mix was down about 50 basis points in the second quarter, and that includes trade promotions. If you can talk about how the consumer has been behaving in terms of your higher price tiers against Rayovac and against even entry-level or even packs, as we think about it. You have obviously one customer on club, and think about how you've been able to move channels as the consumers and meet the consumers where they are.

Thank you.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Thanks, Andrea. A lot of questions in there. Let me see if I can hit them, and then you can follow up on any one that I may have missed. I mean, let's just talk category from a battery standpoint. Globally, what we saw through February was the category volume was roughly, it grew about 1%-1.5% through February. In the U.S., through the end of March, volume was flat. What you've seen in the latest 13-week data, end of April, is that you've seen some volume declines over that time period. You have seen some sequential softening in the category from a volume standpoint. Overall promotion levels, to your point, I mean, you're seeing stable promotions. In fact, it is down year over year in terms of the percentage with a price reduction. It is a little bit above historical levels, but nothing concerning from an overly promotional environment.

You are seeing depth, really flat year-over-year, but below historical averages. There are a few puts and takes there, but I would say relatively benign and healthy promotional environment. We do have the broad offering. I mean, the benefit of our business is we are in distribution in every channel. As consumers migrate in search of value, we are there to meet them. We have different pack sizes. We have different brands. We have different offerings that we can meet them in terms of whatever value orientation that they may have. In terms of the value and volume mix, John can probably give you the way we are looking at it from a Q3 and Q4 split.

John Drabik (EVP and CFO)

I can. Let me just wrap up on Q2, though, just to give a little bit more. So actually, pricing on battery was relatively flat, of the 50 basis points down. It was more investments and promotions that we did on auto as we came into the season. That was more of the driver of the down 50. Battery was actually, to Mark's point, relatively flat. Looking forward, as we think about maybe just to map out Q3 and Q4 and give a little more color, we expect to be flat to down 2% in the third quarter. That's really low single-digit declines in battery. We're going to offset those partially with low single-digit increases in auto, which is going to continue to benefit from the Podium launch and those shifting refrigerant sales. Also on a reported basis, currency has the dollar has weakened, as we know.

That should leave our full-year reported currency impact relatively neutral. We've kind of gone up and down, and we're back to neutral for the full year. We expect gross margin to be roughly flat. We're calling for EPS of $0.55-$0.65. That's really the expectation that we're going to continue investing in A&P in the third quarter behind our Podium launch. That's in spite of some of the expected consumer headwinds that we're seeing in the near term. As we go, maybe just to give a little bit of color on the fourth quarter, since we're kind of changing our outlook a bit here, we expect strong performance as the full impact of pricing. We talked about the pricing that we were going to take to offset tariffs.

That's going to hit in full in the fourth quarter, and we should see that. We also took some pricing for innovation, and that's also going to be realized in the fourth quarter. That's going to benefit margins. We do not expect to spend nearly as much on Podium in the fourth quarter as we did in the third quarter. We will see kind of a lift from that. That really should result in some nice earnings for us as we finish out the year.

Bill Chappell (Managing Director)

Anything we missed, Andrea?

Andrea Teixeira (Managing Director)

No, this is perfect. Thank you so much for hitting all the questions. I'll pass it on.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Your next question comes from William Reuter from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

William Reuter (Managing Director)

Hi. Just a couple for me. I know maybe I just got myself very confused, but in your first question when you were asked about fiscal year 2026, I thought you said that you would be able to offset all of it by the end or by the time that happens. In your last statement, you said, "We can offset the gross impact by half, if not more." I guess, can you help clarify that?

John Drabik (EVP and CFO)

Yes. We will have taken the actions necessary to offset the tariffs. We will start incurring those tariffs at the end of May, the incremental, the new ones that have been announced but have not been put in place. We are going to see those dollars being spent throughout the summer and into the fall. We are taking actions currently to get out of these tariffs. We think in the next 12 months, we will be able to offset most of them, if not all. There will be a P&L impact through the course of 2026. It is going to be dependent on rates and volumes and a lot of other things. It is hard to give an exact number. What I would say is that gross $150 million number will be cut by half as we look at 2026. We just do not know exactly where we are going to fall.

We can take commercial actions and other things to offset in addition.

William Reuter (Managing Director)

I get it. Thank you. Sorry for being dense. The second question, your free cash flow guidance is down a little bit for the year. Do you still expect to repay $150 million-$200 million of debt, or is that expectation lowering?

John Drabik (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. We're going to shoot for $100 million. So we invested around $100 million in inventory for a couple of reasons. We knew we were going to invest in incremental inventory for plastic-free packaging because we're making that transition in North America this year. We've also invested in some additional inventory to try to mitigate some of the tariff exposure. We expect some of these to start coming out in the third quarter. They should bolster us in the back half of the year, but it's still incremental to what we had planned coming in. We're shooting for 6%-8% free cash flow. I think we're going to go for $100 million of debt paydown, which will happen in the third and fourth quarters.

William Reuter (Managing Director)

Got it. Lastly for me, from a competitive perspective, the de minimis exemption that's being repealed or likely being repealed, do you think that this will have any positive impact on the company? Do you believe that there have been batteries that have been being shipped to the U.S. and sold through Temu or other retailers that have not been subject to tariffs?

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Yeah. Bill, I think the best way to think about this is from an overall standpoint. We think our production network, we think our sourcing optionality and our distribution footprint provides us an advantage in this environment. It takes time to work through some of the sort of changes as well as the distribution changes that may come as a result of these tariffs. I think we need to work through that and see where we land before we sort of call any benefit or detriment going forward.

William Reuter (Managing Director)

Okay. That's all for me. I'll pass to others. Thank you.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Thanks, Bill.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Your final question comes from Carla Casella from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Carla Casella (Managing Director of Credit Research)

Hi. One follow-up on Bill's question about the debt paydown. Do you have a long-term leverage target?

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

What I would say is we're trying to get to four times and below. Debt paydown continues to be one of our, it is our top priority. We'll continue to focus on paying down. I think we'd like to get to four and below. Obviously, we got to get to four and a half first, and we're just going to keep paying down and working our way towards that.

Carla Casella (Managing Director of Credit Research)

Okay. Great. On the, do your raw material, does your basket of raw materials change dramatically with your move to the plastic-free packaging?

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

No, not dramatically. I mean, the majority of our materials are still the same on the battery side, where it would be steel, zinc, manganese, all those things. With the packaging, it will just be a different mix of it. There might be a little bit more cardboard, but not a huge change. The bulk of the cost is in the battery. Yeah. The bulk of the cost is in the battery. It is not that big a change.

Carla Casella (Managing Director of Credit Research)

Okay. Great. When you talked about bringing some of your sourcing in-house as you do your risk from China, is that bringing it to your own facilities worldwide, or is it into other third-party facilities sourcing?

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

We look at everything. We look at bringing it in-house. We look at other partnerships that we could have in different parts of the world. This is just a big sourcing exercise to make sure that as we forecast demand around the world, what is the way we can fulfill that demand in the most cost-efficient way. We will mix and match our sourcing partners, internal and external, to make sure we come up with optimized costs for our retailers.

Carla Casella (Managing Director of Credit Research)

Okay. Great. Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Mr. LaVigne, you may continue.

Mark LaVigne (President and CEO)

Thanks for everyone joining us today. Everyone, have a great rest of the day. Thanks for your interest in Energizer.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you very much for participating, and ask that you may disconnect. Have a great day.