Church & Dwight Co., Inc. is a company dedicated to the creation, production, and marketing of a diverse portfolio encompassing household, personal ...
Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE: CHD) is a leading consumer packaged goods company with a rich history dating back to 1846, when John Dwight and Austin Church founded a business to sell baking soda. Today, the company is headquartered in Ewing, New Jersey, and has grown into a global ...Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE: CHD) is a leading consumer packaged goods company with a rich history dating back to 1846, when John Dwight and Austin Church founded a business to sell baking soda. Today, the company is headquartered in Ewing, New Jersey, and has grown into a global player with over 5,500 employees. Its operations are divided into three segments: Consumer Domestic, Consumer International, and Specialty Products. The company's portfolio includes iconic brands such as ARM & HAMMER (laundry detergents, baking soda, cat litter), Trojan (sexual health), OxiClean (stain removers), Spinbrush (toothbrushes), First Response (pregnancy tests), Nair (depilatories), Orajel (oral pain relief), Xtra (laundry), L'il Critters and Vitafusion (gummies), Batiste (dry shampoo), Waterpik (water flossers), Zicam (cold relief), and TheraBreath (oral care). In the specialty segment, it provides animal nutrition products like MEGALAC, BIO-CHLOR, and CELMANAX for livestock, as well as industrial sodium bicarbonate and cleaning compounds. Distribution channels include supermarkets, mass merchandisers, clubs, drugstores, convenience stores, online retailers, and specialty distributors. Financially, CHD has a market cap of about $24.5 billion, with a price-to-earnings ratio of 33, and a dividend yield of 1.2%. In 2024, the company generated approximately $4.9 billion in revenue, with a net margin of 12% and a gross margin of 45.6%. CEO Richard A. Dierker leads the company, with Matt Farrell as chairman. The company has a long history of innovation and brand building, focusing on providing quality, affordable products to consumers worldwide.
Operator: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Church & Dwight's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Rick Dierker, President and Chief Executive Officer of Church & Dwight. Please go ahead, sir.
Richard Dierker: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the call. We had a strong second quarter and first half. And I want to start by thanking all of our Church & Dwight employees all around the world for executing so well in a challenging environment. I'll begin with some thoughts on the broader environment and then a review of our Q2 results, and then I'll turn the call over to Lee McChesney, our CFO. And when Lee is done, we'll open it up for questions. Starting with the broader environment. Conditions remain dynamic. However, our categories are growing ahead of our original expectations, and Church & Dwight is growing even faster. Consumer spending remains resilient. Our teams are executing with excellence, and we remain focused on offering high-quality solution-oriented products to consumers at the right value. Our brands continue to perform exceptionally well, driving a second straight quarter of industry-leading organic sales growth. Turning to the quarter. Net sales increased 1.6%, which was ahead of our outlook and organic sales grew 5.8%, almost 6%, well above our 3% outlook. This growth was broad-based across all 3 divisions and was primarily driven by volume growth of 4.3% and positive price/mix of 1.5%. Adjusted gross margin was 45.4%, up 40 basis points, and adjusted EPS was $0.89, above our $0.88 outlook. Overall, this is a great result. And with the first half of the year behind us, it gives us great confidence to raise our sales, EPS and cash flow outlook for the full year. In Q2, we also completed the acquisition of the fast-growing MISS MOUTH's brand, the #1 stain remover brand on Amazon. We're encouraged by the strong initial sales results from the brand since the June acquisition. And I'm especially excited about the growth opportunities for MISS MOUTH's over the next 12 to 18 months. In the second quarter, MISS MOUTH's consumption grew over 50% and gained almost 3.5 share points. And we think this is just the beginning as household penetration for the brand is currently just 2.5% compared to the category, which is 50%. Additionally, ACV for MISS MOUTH's is only 35% compared to 80% for the category, which again indicates plenty of room to run on distribution. Innovation and distribution gains remain a significant competitive advantage for Church & Dwight. They were a major contributor to our industry-leading growth. We're confident that our relentless focus on innovation will continue to drive strong growth, distribution gains at shelf and market share expansion. New product launches this year are expected to account for about half of our organic growth as we innovate in key categories across the portfolio. …