Good morning. I'm D.G. Macpherson, Grainger's Chairman and CEO. Welcome to our annual shareholders' meeting, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, I'd like to go over today's agenda. First, we'll nominate the directors. Next, we'll discuss ratification of the independent auditor. Third, we'll review the say-on-pay advisory proposal on the compensation of the company's named executive officers, and then we'll vote on these matters. While our inspector of election tallies the votes, I will highlight our 2025 results and give a brief update on our key strategic initiatives. Finally, we will announce the preliminary voting results and respond to questions. Instructions for the meeting and how to ask questions were posted to our annual meeting website. I'll now ask our corporate secretary, Paul Stanukinas, the requirements for holding this meeting have been fulfilled.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have a quorum, and this meeting is properly convened. All the matters described in the proxy statement are officially before the meeting.
Thank you, Paul. With this meeting properly convened, we can proceed. We have three proposals before us today for consideration. First, 12 individuals are proposed for election as directors. The candidates are Rodney Adkins, President, 3RAM Group, and former Senior Vice President, IBM. Rod has been a Grainger director for 12 years. George Davis, former Interim Chief Executive Officer, Pallidus, and former Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Intel. George has been a Grainger director for years years. Katherine Jaspon, Chief Financial Officer of Inspire Brands. Katherine has been a Grainger director for five years. Christopher Klein, former Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fortune Brands Home & Security. Chris has been a Grainger director for two years. Cindy Miller, former Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Stericycle. Cindy has been a director for two years.
Neil S. Novich, former Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Ryerson. Neil S. Novich has been a Grainger director for 27 years. Beatriz R. Perez, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Communications, Sustainability, and Strategic Partnerships Officer of The Coca-Cola Company. Bea has been a Grainger director for nine years. E. Scott Santi, Non-Executive Chairman and former Chief Executive Officer of Illinois Tool Works Inc. Scott has been a Grainger director for 16 years. Susan Slavik Williams, Founder, President, and Manager, Four Palms Ventures, and President and Director of the Donald J. Slavik Family Foundation. Susan has been a Grainger director for six years. Lucas Watson, Partner, Archer Venture Capital, and former President, Sphere at Madison Square Garden Entertainment. Lucas has been a Grainger director for eight years. Steven White, former President, Special Counsel to the Chief Executive Officer of Comcast Cable. Steve has been a Grainger director for five years.
I am the remaining candidate who is standing for election. I have served the company for 18 years and have been a member of the board since 2016. Since we have no notice of further nominations, the nominations are closed.
The second proposal is to ratify the appointment of the independent auditor, Ernst & Young LLP, for the 2026 fiscal year. The board's audit committee previously appointed EY as the independent auditor. EY has served as the company's independent auditor since 2005. The third order of business is a say-on-pay advisory vote on the compensation of the company's named executive officers. I will now entertain a motion on three proposals: to elect the 12 directors standing for election, ratify the appointment of EY for the 2026 fiscal year, and approve the advisory say-on-pay vote.
May I have a motion on the three proposals? Kyle?
I move to adopt the following resolutions. Resolve that the company shareholders hereby vote to elect each of the 12 nominees just introduced as candidates, all of whom were named in the company's proxy statement dated March 10, 2026, for election as directors until the next annual meeting or until their successors have been elected and qualified. Further resolve that the appointment of EY as independent auditor of the company for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026, be ratified. Further resolve that the compensation of the company's named executive officers, as disclosed in the compensation discussion and analysis section of the proxy statement, including the related tables, notes, and narrative, is hereby approved by the company's shareholders.
Is there a second for each of these three proposals?
I second the motion.
Thank you. There are now three matters before the shareholders for their vote. Any shareholder who hasn't yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. We will now pause for a few moments to allow shareholders to cast their votes or change their previous vote via the virtual meeting portal. Remember, you must have your control number from your proxy card in order to vote during the meeting.
I now declare that the polls are closed for all matters. Please close the voting portal and tabulate the final results. While the votes are being tallied and reviewed by the inspector of election, I'll take this opportunity to update you on our operations over the last year.
As a reminder, some of our comments today may be forward-looking based on our current view of future events. Actual results may differ materially as a result of various risks and uncertainties, including those detailed in our most recent SEC filings. I would also like to remind everyone that next Thursday morning, May seventh, we plan to release our Q1 2026 results. My company update today will reflect solely on our 2025 performance.
Despite the challenging environment in 2025, the Grainger team continued to execute against our strategy and delivered exceptional service for our customers. We leveraged our technology capabilities and MRO know-how to strengthen our competitive advantage in both segments. We streamlined our portfolio by exiting the U.K. market and invested in new supply chain capacity to extend our service leadership.
We live our Grainger Edge principles each day to foster a workplace environment where team members can build a rewarding career. Within the high touch segment, we continue to invest in growth and the levers that drive service for customers. In merchandising, we continue to focus on building a highly curated product assortment through our category review process, as well as expanded use of the Grainger brand name within our private label offer.
These efforts in 2025 resulted in net assortment growth of over 85,000 SKUs, our largest net SKU growth for the high touch segment in nearly a decade. In marketing, our team focused on delivering strong results while also finding ways to improve program effectiveness to deliver better outcomes for the dollars we're spending. During 2025, we further leveraged our advantage information assets to increase personalization and improve our marketing investment strategy.
We also continued to leverage our improved customer data to expand our sales force. We have added 110 new sellers across two geographies in 2025 as part of our sales coverage initiative. Additionally, we saw strong adoption and use of our new seller insights platform and remain committed to investing in the tools and resources to increase effectiveness of our sales force. Our customer solutions teams made progress developing customer-facing tools for the KeepStock platform. These tools will provide customers access to enhanced data and insights aimed at improving the user experience and driving procurement cost savings. We've made significant strides to enhance our service capabilities and expand our distribution center network. This includes continued construction on our new Houston area distribution center, as well as continued progress at our new Northwestern distribution center, which is slated to fully open in mid 2026.
In the endless assortment segment, we delivered great results in 2025 and are positioned well to continue that momentum. MonotaRO, our business in Japan, executed very well, driving strong results in 2025, including 25% growth with enterprise customers. They continue to improve and expand their distribution capabilities while also planning for the future with the groundbreaking of the new Mito distribution center. The business also continued to see strong retention rates while deepening their share of wallet with core small and mid-sized B2B customers. In the U.S., the Zoro team regained its growth momentum in 2025, focusing on driving improved repeat purchase rates through an enhanced customer experience.
This work resulted in higher quality customer acquisitions, improved delivery times, and enhanced direct marketing capabilities. Together, this is helping drive sales growth back into the teens for the year. Turning to our 2025 financial results, despite the challenging macro environment, we delivered total company sales growth at 4.5% on a reported basis, or 4.9% on a daily organic constant currency basis. Our total sales finished the year at $17.9 billion. Growth for the year included continued share gain from our high-touch solutions U.S. business, which finished the year with roughly 250 basis points of outgrowth on a volume basis. In endless assortment, the segment showed significant top line improvement with daily organic constant currency sales up 15.6%.
Alongside the solid top line, the team also did a nice job managing strong margins despite LIFO headwinds, with operating margin finishing at 15% for the year. We delivered adjusted EPS growth of 1.3%, or $39.48 per share, and ROIC finished at 39.1%. Our operating cash flow was $2 billion, which allowed us to return $1.5 billion to Grainger shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Finally, I'd like to highlight the heart of our organization, which remains our people. Every day, our 25,000 team members work together to fulfill our purpose to keep the world working. Our culture was once again recognized externally during 2025.
We were recertified as a great place to work in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, affirming our commitment to being an employer of choice and a place where every team member feels valued and empowered. We were honored for the first time in 2025 as one of the world's most ethical companies, and named once again as one of the Fortune World's Most Admired Companies. These many recognitions are a testament to the culture we've built over almost a century in this industry. Grainger will be a place where every team member can have a fulfilling, meaningful career if they work hard to serve our customers. The voting is complete, I'd like to turn to the results. Would the Corporate Secretary please announce the outcome of the voting on the three proposals before the meeting?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As of the record date for this meeting, approximately 47.3 million shares are entitled to vote. The Inspector of Election has determined that a quorum is present and that each of the three proposals has been approved by the necessary votes. Accordingly, the corresponding resolutions have been adopted, and the 12 directors are elected. The appointment of EY as independent auditor has been ratified, and the advisory say-on-pay vote has been approved.
Thanks, Paul. This concludes the formal business of the annual meeting of shareholders. I'll now answer some of the questions submitted before the meeting.
Our first question is: How is the company leveraging AI? Obviously, I would say AI is a huge topic, and we are leveraging AI in three broad ways to improve Grainger. First, we are embedding AI experts and models into areas where we can significantly improve the customer experience and drive competitive advantage. Examples here would be optimizing our marketing based on our product and customer data or improving on-site search results, leveraging our product and order data. Second, we are leveraging AI tools and key processes to improve both productivity and service. Example here would be including embedding AI tools in customer service or using automation in core financial processes. Finally, we're training the organization to leverage basic tools to improve the team member experience and make it easier to execute basic tasks. We are leveraging AI aggressively across both our high touch and endless assortment models. We're excited about progress to date and what is to come.
We received another question, which is: What's the latest update on your private label portfolio? Here, I would say we're continuing to invest in our private label offering and curate a wide assortment of products designed to help ensure outstanding performance at the right value for our customers. As a result of the tariff cycle, we're seeing some share shift to the national branded product and some rate degradation, both putting modest pressure on our gross margins. Notably, we have had success leveraging the Grainger brand in our private label portfolio over the last two years, and we expect this to continue in the coming years.
We had one more final submitted question, which is: How is KeepStock performing, and what about branches? I would say that we continue to see increased demand for value-added services as labor scarcity and cost savings initiatives become customer imperatives. KeepStock continues to perform well. Daily sales growing faster than the broader high-touch solutions U.S. business over the last couple of years. We continue to install at new locations, while also expanding our share of wallet through new category additions with both new and existing customers. The branch network supports walk-in pickup, same-day service, emergency access, and shipping coverage for markets that distribution centers alone can't reach next day.
Branches continue to be an important piece of our go-to-market strategy and are growing roughly in line with the broader business. They play a critical role in serving customers that go from site to site servicing MRO needs and facilities. Thank you for submitting your questions. With no more questions, may I have a motion for adjournment? Kyle?
I move that we adjourn the meeting.
May I have a second?
I second the motion.
This meeting of shareholders is adjourned. Thank you again for your participation.
This concludes today's meeting. You may now disconnect.