Hello and welcome to the annual meeting of shareholders of The Clorox Company. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. During the meeting, you will have an opportunity to ask questions. You can submit questions or comments at any time by clicking on the Q&A icon at the top of your screen. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to the Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Clorox, Linda Rendle. Ms. Rendle, the floor is yours.
Good morning. I'm Linda Rendle, Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the Clorox Company. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I'd like to welcome everyone and thank you for joining us for our virtual annual meeting of shareholders. Before I get started, I'd like to ask that you please read the language regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures that's currently displayed on the screen. A copy of the agenda and a list of the rules of conduct for the annual meeting are available online on the meeting website. We ask that you cooperate in following these guidelines. As you heard from the operator, you will have an opportunity to ask questions during this meeting.
Shareholders of record and proxy holders who provide their valid control number will be able to ask questions during the meeting by typing and submitting the question using the Q&A icon at the top of your screen. If we are unable to respond to all properly submitted questions due to time constraints, we will be posting responses to submitted questions on the Investor Relations website after the meeting. Before getting into the formal business portion of the meeting, I'd like to introduce our independent directors who are on the line today. I'll introduce them individually. Steven Brasbies has been nominated for election to the board today. He is Chief Executive Officer of Haines Brand. Pierre Breber has been nominated for election to the board today. He is the former Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Chevron Corporation.
Julia Denman was elected to the board in May 2022. She is Corporate Vice President and Head of Internal Audit, Enterprise Risk, and Compliance of Microsoft Corporation. Spencer Fleischer was elected to the board in July 2015. He is Chairman of FFL Partners, LP. Esther Lee was elected to the board in August 2013. She is the former Executive Vice President, Global Chief Marketing Officer of MetLife, Inc. David Mackay was elected to the board in August 2016. He is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of Kellogg Company. Stephanie Plains was elected to the board in May 2022. She is the former Chief Financial Officer of J.C. Penney. Matthew Shattuck was elected to the board in August 2018 and is the former Non-Executive Chairman of Beam Suntory, Inc. Russell Wiener was elected to the board in February 2017. He is Chief Executive Officer of Domino's Pizza, Inc.
Christopher Williams was elected to the board in July 2015. He is Chairman of Sebert Williams Shank and Company. I, Linda Rendle, was elected to the board in September 2020. I am the Chair and CEO of Clorox. I'm also joined today by Kevin Jacobsen, our Chief Financial Officer, who, along with me, will be presenting today. We also have with us Angela Hilt, our Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, as well as Noel Hartzell from our Corporate Communications team, who will assist us with the Q&A portion of the meeting. Additionally, I'd like to mention that representatives from Ernst & Young, LLP, the company's independent registered accounting firm, are on the line today. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that the Board of Directors fixed the close of business on September 23rd, 2024, as the record date for the determination of shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting.
Notice of the meeting was sent to each shareholder of record, and a quorum is present online or by proxy. Marie Perez, on behalf of ComputerShare, the company's transfer agent, has been appointed Inspector of Election for this meeting. She is on the line today and will supervise the voting. I now declare the polls are open. The polls will close after all proposals have been presented. To expedite the flow of business, we intend to adhere to the following format. Each of the items of business to be acted upon by shareholders will be proposed in the order set forth in the proxy statement, but the vote on each item will be deferred until all the items of business have been presented. The first matter of business to be considered at this meeting is the election of directors.
The following individuals have been nominated for election to the Board of Directors upon the recommendation of the Nominating, Governance, and Corporate Responsibility Committee to serve as directors until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their earlier resignation or removal. Steven Brasbies, Pierre Breber, Julia Denman, Spencer Fleischer, Esther Lee, David Mackay, Stephanie Plains, Linda Rendle, Matthew Shattuck, Russell Wiener, and Christopher Williams. The Board of Directors recommends that shareholders vote for the election of each of the director nominees. The second item of business is approval on an advisory basis of the compensation of the company's named executive officers, as set forth in our proxy statement. The Board of Directors recommends that shareholders vote for the advisory vote on executive compensation.
The third item of business is the ratification of the selection of Ernst & Young LLP, as the company's independent auditors for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025. The Board of Directors recommends that shareholders vote for the ratification of the selection of Ernst & Young LLP, as the company's independent auditors. To all of our shareholders, if you have returned your proxy card, voted by telephone, or voted online, it is not necessary for you to vote here today unless you wish to change your vote. If you'd like to vote your shares now, please navigate to the vote icon on the meeting center section of the screen and follow the prompts. I now declare the polls closed. Now I will announce the results of the voting.
I'm advised by the Inspector of Election that based on the preliminary vote results on the election of directors, each of the 11 director nominees has received at least 94% votes cast in favor of their election and has been elected to a one-year term expiring at the annual meeting in 2025 and until their successors are elected. The approval on an advisory basis of the compensation of the company's named executive officers has been approved with at least 93% votes cast in favor. The ratification of the selection of Ernst & Young has been adopted with at least 95% vote cast in favor. That concludes the formal business of our meeting, so the meeting is now adjourned. Now that the annual meeting is adjourned, I will share a presentation on our Ignite strategy progress, and Kevin Jacobsen, our CFO, will provide a financial update.
Thank you again for joining us today. I am now going to spend a few minutes providing an update on our business. This past year has been both challenging and inspiring. We entered fiscal year 2024 with strong momentum but soon faced the complexity of a volatile macroeconomic environment, a more pressured consumer, and the aftermath of our August 2023 cyber attack. Thanks to the team's steadfast execution, we recovered from the cyber attack to deliver another year of double-digit adjusted earnings per share growth while investing strongly in our brands. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, we drove further progress as we fully restored overall market share and grew share in most of our categories.
While there's still more work to do, we're in a position of operational strength as we continue to execute our transformation and focus on delivering superior consumer experiences that win in the market. Here are some highlights from the past fiscal year. We delivered on our hallmark cost savings program and made strong progress on our commitment to rebuild margins to pre-pandemic levels, supported by our new integrated holistic margin management toolbox, which enhances our ability to fuel growth. Innovation is the foundation for success, and we are leveraging data, technology, and artificial intelligence in new ways to accelerate our pipeline. Building off existing product platforms, we launched innovation across our major brands. We also achieved our 2025 goal of knowing 100 million consumers, allowing us to deliver more personalized experiences and deepen engagement to deliver stronger marketing return on investment and support our value superiority ratings.
We successfully completed the implementation of our streamlined operating model and expect to deliver ongoing cost savings of about $100 million annually. We also completed the first wave of our new enterprise resource planning system implementation, which is a key part of our five-year program to invest in technologies and processes to accelerate our digital transformation. We are evolving our portfolio to strengthen our core, exemplified by our recent divestitures. This reflects our commitment to reduce volatility and accelerate sales growth, as well as structurally improve our margin to drive more consistent and profitable growth over time. This past fiscal year, we also continued to make progress on our integrated ESG goals to drive growth, mitigate risk, and create positive value for our brands and stakeholders. I encourage you to read more about our progress against our Ignite strategy and our 2024 integrated annual report.
Looking ahead, we see an environment where consumers continue to seek value and superior experiences amid ongoing uncertainty in the world around them. We created our Ignite strategy to meet those needs. That's why we are focused on delivering superior value through our brands that consumers love and trust. We are innovating with clear intent. We are creating a more consumer-obsessed, faster, and leaner organization, and we are reinvesting in our business to accelerate growth and transform for the future. Led by our values of doing the right thing, putting people at the center, and playing to win, we are taking the right steps to navigate the near term while staying true to our goal of being a stronger and more resilient company. I'm confident in our ability to deliver more consistent, profitable growth and enhance long-term shareholder value. Thank you for your continued support. And now, Kevin will provide a financial update.
Thank you, Linda, and thank you to our shareholders for being with us today. At Clorox, we have a long history of creating value for shareholders. Today, I'll share a summary of our fiscal year 2024 performance, where we stand on delivery against our fiscal year 2025 outlook, and our confidence in our ability to continue to drive long-term shareholder value. For fiscal year 2024, net sales were down 4%, while we delivered flat organic sales for the year, despite the significant disruption caused by the August 2023 cyber attack. We had another 360 basis points of gross margin expansion. On top of the 360 basis points we added in fiscal year 2023, we achieved another year of double-digit adjusted earnings per share growth, increasing by 21%, while continuing to invest strongly in our brands. Now, looking at fiscal year 2025, we delivered better-than-expected results in the first quarter.
First-quarter organic sales were up 31% compared to the prior year, increasing by double digits in all four reportable segments. This is mainly driven by strong volume shipments across the board as we lapped the impact caused by the cyber disruption in the year-ago period. Gross margin for the quarter was 45.8%, up 740 basis points versus the prior year. This was supported by another quarter of strong cost savings, which enhances our ability to fuel growth. With a solid cost savings pipeline for the year and strong first-quarter performance, we remain on track to return to our pre-pandemic gross margins. Adjusted earnings per share for the first quarter was $1.86 versus $0.49 in the year-ago quarter, reflecting a 280% increase.
Based on our strong start to the year and confidence in our plans for the balance of the fiscal year, we are maintaining our full-year sales outlook while raising our gross margin and adjusted EPS outlook. We are confident we have the right plans in place to deliver strong financial performance in fiscal year 2025, and we remain committed to Ignite strategy's annual long-term financial targets. Our annual sales goal is to grow sales 3%-5% per year. We continue to target 25-50 basis points of even margin expansion, and we continue to target 11%-13% free cash flow as a percent of sales. Looking at the balance of the year, we expect the uncertain macroeconomic environment to persist. Consumers remain under pressure, and value-seeking behaviors continue. Within this context, our portfolio of strong brands and essential categories continues to demonstrate its resilience.
Our plans include continuing to invest in strong innovation and robust demand-creation activities to reinforce and enhance our value superiority at a time when it matters most to consumers. Throughout our transformation, Clorox has reliably remained a strong generator of cash, delivering free cash flow in line with our long-term goals. For more than 20 years, we've increased our dividend annually, including our most recent increase to $1.22 per share. We're proud of our long history of strong cash generation, which gives us the financial flexibility to manage the near- term while also investing for our future. In closing, our Ignite strategy has guided us well through the volatile and challenging environment in recent years. We believe we're taking the necessary steps to navigate the near- term while continuing to transform Clorox into a stronger company poised to deliver more consistent, profitable growth and enhanced long-term shareholder value. Thank you for your continued interest and support, and we'd now like to welcome any questions.
Thank you, Kevin. We will be answering questions that were submitted prior to the meeting and also during the meeting. If you have a question or comment, you may submit it by clicking on the Q&A icon at the top of your screen. If you have submitted a question prior to the meeting, it is not necessary for you to resubmit it here today unless you have an additional question. We will be addressing questions that are consistent with the rules of conduct for this meeting. A copy of the rules can be found in the meeting center section of your screen on the meeting website. We will be reading the questions verbatim, only correcting for grammar or typos, and we will group any questions that are substantially similar and answer them together to avoid repetition. We will also be posting the Q&A on our investor relations website after the meeting. Noel, do we have any questions?
Yes, we have a question. Has inflation slowed to a more normal level for Clorox? With the new administration, do you see any major challenges in the future?
Thank you for the question. As it relates to inflation, we have seen a more normalized level in fiscal year 2025 than we have experienced over the last several years where we saw record inflation across our business. The combination of, importantly, the reduced inflation with our margin transformation program, where we have taken pricing, driven cost savings, done supply chain optimization, and implemented new tools like net revenue management, have allowed us to return gross margins this year expected back to our pre-COVID levels. It is good to see a more normalized environment. We will see how it plays out moving forward.
This year, having a more normalized environment in combination with our actions has put us in a great financial position to invest in our business. As it relates to the new administration, what I'd say is, of course, it's premature to speculate on anything that we would see out of that administration, but I'd note that we're prepared to work with any administration constructively to ensure that we continue to advance our business, and we feel our business is well-positioned to continue to win and deliver on our aspirations.
Thank you. There are no further questions.
That concludes the 2024 Clorox annual meeting of shareholders. On behalf of everyone at Clorox, thank you for participating in today's meeting and for continuing to put your trust in our company.