Welcome to the Helen of Troy Limited Annual General Meeting of shareholders. I would like to turn the conference over to Timothy Meeker, Chairman of the Helen of Troy Limited Board of Directors. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I hope that you're all doing well. At this time, I hereby call to order the annual general meeting of shareholders of Helen of Troy Limited. I am Tim Meeker, Chairman of the Board, and I will act as chairman of this meeting. We are conducting our annual general meeting virtually. During the meeting, shareholders will be able to submit questions and vote shares online. Please refer to the rules of conduct provided on the meeting site for additional information regarding these matters. Before turning the meeting over to our Chief Executive Officer, Noel Geoffroy, I would like to introduce the other director nominees that are in attendance at this virtual meeting. Ms. Geoffroy, Darren G. Woody, Beryl B. Raff, Thurman K. Case, Krista L. Berry, Vincent D. Carson, Tabata L. Gomez, and Elena B. Otero.
We also have representatives from our registered public accounting firm, Grant Thornton, joining us. Now, on to our order of business. At this point, I would like to ask Ms. Geoffroy to lead us through the items before the annual general meeting.
Good morning and good afternoon to all. I would also like to welcome you to our annual general meeting, my first as the company's Chief Executive Officer. On behalf of all at Helen of Troy, thank you for joining us. The record date for this annual meeting is June 18th, 2024 . A complete list of shareholders of the company entitled to vote at this annual meeting as of the close of business on June 18th, 2024 , was prepared and certified by the company's transfer agent, Computershare Investor Services, and has been kept on file at the principal office of the company for a period of at least ten days, open to examination by any shareholder at any time during usual business hours.
The list shows that 22,813,316 common shares of the company are issued and outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. Each person who has been duly authorized to act as a proxy for absent shareholders and each shareholder present who intends to vote should have received a ballot. Please remember, if you previously voted by proxy and do not wish to change your vote, your vote has been or will be cast as you previously instructed, and no further action is needed.
If you are a record holder and wish to change your vote, or if you did not send in a proxy and wish to cast your vote now, or if you have not already cast your vote using our electronic voting system, you may cast your vote by clicking on the Vote Here button on the meeting site. The polls have been open for voting since the beginning of this meeting and will remain open until I announce their closure. I would also like to note that a copy of the notice of annual general meeting dated July 10th, 2024 , the proxy statement, and the rules of conduct, each prepared in connection with this meeting, are available under the Meeting Materials section on the lower right-hand side of the meeting page. The board of directors has appointed one voting official to assist with the voting at this meeting.
Raul Garcia, Assistant General Counsel, will act as voting official. All questions respecting the conduct of voting, qualifications of voters, and acceptance or rejection of votes will be decided by the voting official. When the voting is completed, the voting official will also count the votes and will declare the results of the vote. Will the voting official present the attendance report?
As the voting official, I report that there are present at this meeting in person or by duly authorized proxy, the holders of at least a majority of the common shares of the company, issued and outstanding and entitled to vote.
On the basis of such report, I declare that a quorum is present and that the meeting is now open for business. The proposals to be voted on at this meeting are described in our proxy statement made available to all shareholders. Each proposal will be voted on separately. The first scheduled item of business to be conducted at this meeting is to elect the nine directors nominated by the nominating committee of the board of directors. Under Bermuda law, election of each director requires the affirmative vote of the majority of the votes cast at the meeting that are entitled to vote on such proposal. The following individuals have been nominated for election as directors: Timothy F. Meeker, Noel M. Geoffroy, Darren G. Woody, Beryl B. Raff, Thurman K. Case, Krista L. Berry, Vincent D. Carson, Tabata L. Gomez, Elena B. Otero.
Their backgrounds and qualifications are stated in the Proxy Statement. I would now like to call the vote on Proposal One. If you have already voted and do not wish to change your vote, no further action is necessary. If you intend to change your vote, or if you intend to vote now and have met all the requirements specified in the Proxy Statement regarding voting at the meeting, please click on the Vote Here button located on the meeting site to vote or recast your vote. The next scheduled item of business to be conducted at this meeting is the proposal to approve the following advisory resolution on executive compensation.
Resolved, that the shareholders of Helen of Troy Limited approve, on an advisory basis, the compensation of the company's named executive officers disclosed in the compensation discussion and analysis, the summary compensation table, and the related compensation tables, notes, and narratives in the proxy statement for the company's 2024 annual general meeting of shareholders. Under Bermuda law, approval of such proposal requires the affirmative vote of the majority of the votes cast at the meeting that are entitled to vote on such proposal. I would now like to call the vote on Proposal Two. If you intend to change your vote, or if you intend to vote now and have met all the requirements specified in the proxy statement regarding voting at the meeting, please click on the Vote Here button located on the meeting site to vote or recast your vote.
The last scheduled item of business to be conducted at this meeting is the proposal to appoint Grant Thornton LLP as auditor and independent registered public accounting firm of the company to serve for the 2025 fiscal year, and to authorize the audit committee of the board of directors to set the auditor's remuneration. Under Bermuda law, approval of such appointment and authorization requires the affirmative vote of the majority of the votes cast at the meeting that are entitled to vote on such proposal. I would now like to call the vote on Proposal Three. If you intend to change your vote, or if you intend to vote now and have met all the requirements specified in the Proxy Statement regarding voting at the meeting, please click on the Vote Here button located on the meeting site to vote or recast your vote.
That concludes the voting at today's annual meeting, and the polls for each matter to be voted on this annual meeting are now closed. The voting official will now announce the preliminary results.
Thank you. Having canvassed the vote and having ascertained the preliminary results of voting for these proposals, I find preliminarily as follows: On Proposal One, the majority of the votes cast at the meeting that are entitled to vote on this proposal voted for the election of each of the nine director nominees to serve until the 2025 annual meeting or until their successors are duly elected and qualified. On Proposal Two, the majority of the votes cast at the meeting that are entitled to vote on this proposal have, on an advisory basis, voted to approve the compensation of the company's named executive officers.
On Proposal Three, the majority of the votes cast at the meeting that are entitled to vote on this proposal voted for the appointment of Grant Thornton LLP as auditor and independent registered public accounting firm of the company to serve for the 2025 fiscal year, and the authorization of the audit committee of the board of directors to set the auditor's remuneration.
Thank you. These are preliminary results of voting. The final results will be disclosed in a Form 8-K that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within the required timeline. This completes the items of business to be considered at this meeting. With no other business to be properly brought before this meeting, I respectfully request that Mr. Meeker please take us to adjournment.
Thank you for your attendance today and your interest in the company's affairs. We look forward to your participation at next year's meeting. The formal portion of this meeting is closed. I now turn it back over to Ms. Geoffroy for her presentation about the company and a Q&A session.
Thank you, Tim. Before we get started, here is information on our use of forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures in the presentation and my remarks. This can also be found in the presentation that is posted to our investor relations site.
If your fridge induces a panic when you open it, this is your sign to clean and organize it. First, take everything out and give it a good clean. I rinse all my produce with a spinner to get rid of moisture, and then I used an eight-piece organizing set from OXO to divvy up produce and store eggs and packaged items. Yes, this is a real-life fridge with plastic containers. I also use this smart sealed glass container set that's leak-proof, and a Lazy Susan is a must-have for fridge organization. This nifty cut produce keeper is a must-have, too. What do you think? Are you ready to tackle yours?
One of the biggest mistakes that wavy and curlies make is when they're buying new hair products, they just start going in the hair aisle and picking up products and looking at labels. I may have found a better way to do this. So Curlsmith is coming to Canada, and they have this curl quiz online where it gives you a list of products that are perfect for your hair, so obviously, I'm gonna try it. Cannot wait to see the final result! Is this the best wash day I've had in months? You tell me. I woke up totally congested this morning, which is super annoying, because I have to tape a big audition today, but I thought I'd show you how I use Vicks Personal Sinus Inhaler and VapoPad Sinus to get some relief.
Just fill the base with water, put the top housing back on and lock it, then pull out the VapoPad tray from the back and add your VapoPad. Turn it on, and wait for it to heat up. VapoPad Sinus is designed with a specific formula targeted to help provide relief and open your sinuses, and the only brand that has the authentic Vapo Steam we all know and love. It's the perfect solution for quick and natural relief, and such a game changer if you suffer from allergies or sinus infections like me. Now that I can breathe through my nose, let's go slay my self-tape!
Let's try out Hydro Flask's newest bottle that is supposed to be cup holder friendly. Adorable purple color. Top handle, which is nice and flexible. It's kind of hard to see because it's all black. You can get under this, like, circular part where, like, the mouthpiece folds over itself. It definitely does provide more access to, like, getting in this back little corner lever area. Something like this is very rare to see in a flip straw, so I love that. Of course, our leak test. Yep, because it's a flip straw, you're not gonna get any leakage. Because it has this tall, slender base down here, it's fitting in there well. Hydro Flask did not mess around with this one.
If there is one thing that I have way overused as a mom that I did not think that I would, it's a thermometer. Y'all know that we have just been sick. Everybody in the house was sick. It was terrible. This came in such good use. This is the Braun 3-in-1 thermometer. This one has the ability to beep or be silent. It also has the setting to work on your bath water here. So that's the forehead, the bath water. It also works to check your food temperature. Please go get this if you're a mother. It is the best gift you can give yourself.
This is the Osprey Tempest Velocity 20 L. So there are so many pockets and zippers. It reminds me of my running vest, which I really like, because it's quick access to things. And then on the left, I have Capri's leash hooked in there right now, but it's actually a spot where you can store your poles for quick access. So far, this bag has been amazing. I've only done two hikes in it, but it fits so good. I love this bag.
I open today's presentation the same way I open every all-associate meeting, with the voice of our consumers. This is important because everything we do at Helen of Troy starts with the consumer. We seek to be consumer-obsessed and build brands that delight consumers in their everyday lives. Today, I will share with you what the Helen of Troy team accomplished in fiscal 2024, as well as the green shoots we now see from the strategic initiatives we implemented over the past 12 months that help position the company for sustainable long-term shareholder value creation. While fiscal 2025 is proving to be more challenging than we had anticipated as we navigate both internal and external headwinds, I believe we have taken the necessary steps to ensure we are on the path to achieving our long-term objectives.
While we reset and revitalize our brand portfolio, our strong balance sheet and healthy cash flow continue to provide us capital deployment optionality. I would point out that in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, we grew gross margin by 330 basis points. We invested an incremental $11 million back into the growth strategies I will speak to today, and we bought back $100 million of our stock. We recognize that we must show we can deliver consistent and sustainable growth, and we remain committed to our strategic choices, which we believe can do just that. Before I get into the business and our brands, I would like to speak to the culture at Helen of Troy. Along with executing our strategic initiatives, it's our commitment to our purpose, vision, and values that will drive our success.
Our purpose is to elevate lives in moments that matter everywhere, every day. Our diverse portfolio of brands plays a meaningful role in the lives of our consumers all around the world, each and every day. Whether we help families prepare an everyday meal or bake a birthday cake with OXO products, help people achieve the look they desire with Revlon, Drybar, Hot Tools, and Curlsmith tools and styling products, or help families in times of need with Braun thermometers or Vicks humidifiers, we are driven to deliver today and in the future on our brand promises all over the world. Our vision is to curate and build a distinguished family of highly trusted brands that delight consumers in their everyday lives. In fiscal 2024, we invested in sharpening our brand fundamentals on many of our much-loved brands to position them to earn the consumer's vote more often.
Our values reflect what we believe at our core and how we operate. These are bedrock, including to be in touch and deeply connected, both internally and externally, act with mutual respect, use ingenuity to delight consumers and drive continuous improvement within our organization, and participate and delight in our shared successes. Of course, all of these are grounded in our exceptional people. We recently added success drivers and refer to them as the four A's: be accountable, embrace agility, accelerate growth, and take action. These behaviors are what we believe will be required of our leadership team and our Helen of Troy associates every day. We play to win. With our collective commitment to our purpose, vision, and values, and success drivers as the backdrop, I would like to turn to the business, including actions we have taken to integrate teams and functions across the organization.
In fiscal 2023, we launched a global restructuring plan named Project Pegasus. This project is a crucial part of our continued journey from a holding company to a truly integrated global operating company. Pegasus was designed to significantly accelerate and amplify our transformation to provide a stronger platform for operating margin expansion, reduced inventory, higher ROIC, and improved cash flow. We made a tremendous amount of progress in fiscal 2024. Pegasus is intended to achieve $75 million-$85 million in cost savings over the duration of the plan, and we remain on track to achieve those savings, which will provide fuel to drive our value creation flywheel, investing in brilliant marketing and more consumer-centric innovation to delight consumers and shoppers, and further enhancing the capabilities of our regional market organizations and global shared services.
In line with our strategic plan, we allocated a year-over-year increase in growth investment spending of roughly a 100 basis points in fiscal 2024, and are planning to do the same in fiscal 2025. Our associates embraced the new structural changes, including next-level centralization of shared services to leverage our functional expertise, our first-ever centralized marketing center of excellence to bring new capability and scale, a reduction from three to two business units that are even more focused on brand building and consumer-centric innovation, and our newly formed North America Regional Market Organization, or NARMO, to drive scale and excellent in-market sales execution. We also began the geographic consolidation of our beauty business to improve collaboration and innovation. As part of Pegasus, we identified opportunities to add new skill sets needed to succeed as a global operating company with a change in 45% of our leadership roles.
A key example is our new marketing center of excellence, which has brought a step change in our data and analytics capabilities to better inform us of the full category landscape and trends, and the health of our brands. We believe this will enable us to make more educated, data-driven decisions regarding resource allocation and return on our investment. More on data and analytics in just a bit. In fiscal 2024, we significantly ramped up shipping from our new state-of-the-art distribution center in Tennessee, appropriately named Iron Giant. This facility not only enhances our distribution capabilities, but it drives efficiencies as well. Since bringing Iron Giant online, we have successfully reduced our distribution center footprint by four facilities from its peak in COVID, and year to date, we have shipped over 25 million units of product to customers and consumers, and we see further opportunity ahead.
While this facility brings us next-level technology and capacity that will serve us for years to come, we encountered some near-term disruption as we went live with the last phase of automation. Some implementation hiccups are always expected, but the final phase of startup, which utilizes the highest level of technology and automation and only represents roughly 4% of our volume, created some unexpected challenges affecting our fulfillment of small retail customer and direct-to-consumer orders for OXO and Hydro Flask. Although these sorts of growing pains are disappointing, upgrading our processes and systems to state-of-the-art capabilities is critical and continues to be the right strategic choice. Our team in Tennessee has worked diligently with our suppliers to address the remaining issues, and as a result, we have progressively improved since early June, and we continue to expect this to be behind us at the conclusion of the second quarter.
I will now move on to our long-term strategic choices. During our Investor Day last October, we introduced our where to play and how to win strategic choices. Today, I will discuss the progress we are already making on some of those choices. I will start with the how to win strategic choice of embracing next-level data and analytics. For those of you who don't know my background, I've spent my career at consumer-focused companies such as P&G, H.J. Heinz, Kellogg, and Sanofi Consumer Healthcare. At these companies, I gained a deep understanding and appreciation for consumer obsession and data-driven brand building. Marketing strategies and plans are only as successful as the breadth, depth, and quality of the data and analytics that inform them.
I've discussed many changes that have been made since I joined Helen of Troy as Chief Operating Officer in 2022, but if I had to pick one that I believe will have the most significant impact on our company, it would be embracing next-level data and analytics. In today's more complex and fast-paced landscape, decisions can't be made and dollars can't be spent based on intuition alone, or rolling one year's spending plan into the next, and then the next. Building and embracing the right capabilities to understand and leverage data is critical to succeeding in an increasingly competitive and changing marketplace. We are now better positioned to leverage robust data and analytics to help us position our brands, allocate our resources, assess our market share performance, and optimize our marketing investment to deliver the best ROI. The next strategic choice I will touch on is to be consumer-obsessed.
Beginning in fiscal 2024, we refocused on elevating the health of our brands. We invested in more robust brand-building fundamentals by developing and implementing a Helen of Troy brand-building framework across our entire marketing organization. This entailed a rigorous approach to quantitatively define and segment the market, selecting who we are serving, and clarifying what our brands stand for. All our marketing content, activation, and innovation will be grounded in these revitalized data-centric brand strategies. Rebuilding brand relevance and a best-in-class innovation pipeline takes time. We are investing that time now, as we believe this will enable us to deliver consistent revenue and share growth in the near future. Broadening the scope of the data we consume has enabled us to understand at a granular level what our consumers are buying, where they are shopping, and what they most value.
These insights then inform our brand positioning, new product pipeline, distribution choices, marketing, messaging, and spending, and the strategic extension of our brands. Going forward, you will hear me talk a lot about what the data tells us about our business and our brands. The last strategic choice I will call out is shape and invest in a growth portfolio. In fiscal 2024, we implemented a new portfolio classification process to help inform how we allocate resources across the portfolio. An assessment of each brand's growth, potential, and financial profile determines whether a brand is classified as invest to grow, stronghold, or optimize. We prioritize investments in our invest to grow brands, followed by our strongholds. Our optimized brands are further assessed to determine what steps would be necessary to improve profitability or if they should be considered for divestiture.
We have shown our willingness and ability to divest businesses in the past, as we did with our personal care portfolio and nutritional supplements businesses, and will do so again when it is the right decision for the company. Pivoting from divesting to growing, just as you saw us do with our two most recent acquisitions, Osprey and Curlsmith, we will continue to seek high growth, margin accretive brands for acquisition when they fit our Better Together M&A strategy. Now let me share some highlights on some of our brands. I want to start with Home & Outdoor. You might have noticed the wall of OXO products displayed behind me in our Home & Outdoor headquarters. OXO is a shining example of our how to win choice to strategically extend our brands.
As a long-revered brand in the kitchen, it has over time grown throughout the home, from kitchen utensils, to storage, to cleaning, and to toddler feeding. In fiscal 2024, OXO introduced new coffee offerings, earning Wirecutter recognition for its 9 Cup Coffee Maker and Cold Brew Coffee Maker in 2023, and now its Conical Burr Coffee Grinder in 2024. The OXO brand has always been known for products that bring consumer insights and universal design to make everyday life better. OXO also brings its hallmark functionality and durability to all the categories I mentioned, and all are backed with our OXO Better Guarantee for life. We were also pleased to make OXO available to even more consumers with our expansion of the OXO SoftWorks kitchen gadget line into Walmart, where it can be found in 3,200 doors as of June.
Walmart shoppers appreciate the value of OXO's high-quality design at the right price. Let's take a look at how OXO continues to innovate and make lives better.
I had a dream, but was it real? We crossed the line and it was oh, oh. I wanna cut through the clouds, break the ceiling. I wanna dance on the roof, you and me alone. I wanna cut to the feeling. Oh, yeah. I wanna cut to the feeling. Oh, yeah. I wanna play where you play with the angels. I wanna wake up with you all entangled, oh. I wanna cut to the feeling. Oh, yeah. I wanna cut to the feeling. Oh, yeah. Cancel your reservations, no more hesitations. This is uncharted.
We are naming the very best product of 2024, the OXO 9 Cup Drip Coffee Maker, the very, very best coffee machine out there.
I wanna cut through the clouds, break the ceiling. I wanna dance on the roof, you and me alone. I wanna cut to the feeling. Oh, yeah. I wanna cut to the feeling, cut to the feeling.
The Hydro Flask brand is another example of us taking a strongly trusted category trailblazer and broadening its reach and relevance. We are going beyond our core outdoor audience and embracing the shift that is happening in the hydration category with new on-trend content that depicts younger people in a range of activities extending beyond our traditional outdoor positioning. We have also launched new designs that appeal to more consumers, such as the popular Sugar Crush line with a waterfall of pastel colors and the two-tone ombre design, both of which tap into the fashion sense of our target consumer. We also have new products to meet more occasions. For example, the shaker bottle is designed for smoothies or protein shakes, and the new travel bottle is designed to fit in cup holders and backpacks, featuring a carrying strap, and comes with either our popular Flex Straw or Chug Cap.
Hydro Flask plays an important role in back to school. Let's take a look at some of our latest colors and designs.
It's better than ever. Wow! It's a new look, and it's looking real good. It's a new look, and it's looking real good, just like it should. Uh-huh, yeah, looking real good. It's a new look, and it's looking real good. Oh, wow, wow, wow. Gotta have it, just like it should. Uh-huh, yeah, looking real good.
Moving on to the final brand in our Home & Outdoor segment, Osprey, acquired in fiscal 2022, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in fiscal 2024 and continues to be known globally for its exceptional quality, fit, durability, and commitment to sustainability. We have seen significant growth since the acquisition, driven in part by our expansion beyond the core technical packs and child carriers into lifestyle day packs, on-bicycle packs, and luggage. Some of our highest praise from consumers is for our new Extended Fit packs, built to enable consumers of all shapes and sizes to enjoy the outdoors. Despite the recent slowdown in the global outdoor category, Osprey continues to gain market share in technical packs, where it remains the leading brand and is gaining share in other key categories as well. Now, let's take a few minutes to celebrate 50 years of excellence from Osprey.
Switching now to Beauty & Wellness. During our July earnings call, I spoke about the increasing competitive pressure we are facing in the higher end of the prestige beauty tools. Drybar has a unique brand heritage rooted in the Drybar salons, and we are tapping into this heritage for inspiration and insight for our product innovation and marketing. Our consumers want the right tool and styling product combinations to achieve salon quality styles easily at home. Just look at the online reviews for our new Drybar Liquid Glass Blowout Styling Cream, where nearly 80% of Ulta reviewers would recommend this product to a friend. We also recently launched a bold new advertising campaign that showcases the over 80 liquid and tool combinations Drybar offers to deliver the latest glamorous looks. Take a look.
Have a little fun with more than one. Pleasure yourself with something new, over, and over, and over. Twist and tease any way you please. Your blowout hair affair awaits. Feeling poly glamorous? Over 80 products and tools to dabble, tease, fluff, flex, shine, zhuzh, and play. That's the Drybar way.
Innovation doesn't only mean bringing new products to market. It can also mean marketing a product in a new way that addresses a very specific consumer pain point or reframes a product benefit in a meaningful way. Braun thermometers are a great example of this. When parents have a sick child, taking an accurate temperature reading at home to help diagnose and determine next steps is critical. Most parents know that a rectal thermometer is the most accurate. However, it isn't comfortable. Our Braun Ear Thermometer has new messaging with a powerful claim that compares our product to that gold standard of accuracy, clinically proven as accurate as rectal, but it's much easier to administer. This positioning has helped Braun gain market share in thermometers in both the U.S. and internationally. Let's hear it straight from a mom.
Three reasons every mama needs this thermometer. Number one, the Braun ThermoScan 7+ is clinically proven to be just as accurate as a rectal thermometer. Number two, the temperatures are taken and automatically downloaded and tracked in the Braun Family Care app. Reason number three, it's perfect for nighttime. I can put it in night mode, and I'm able to take my child's temperature without disturbing them while they're sleeping.
On the last two earnings calls, I spoke about our sales and marketing team's success in identifying and capturing incremental distribution so that we can be and win where the shopper shops. We have seen distribution wins across drug and mass customers. For example, Drybar tools and liquids have expanded across various North American retailers. Curlsmith products are being tested in Sephora brick and mortar, and Hydro Flask has a broadening presence in premium grocery customers and beyond. We believe these wins will continue beyond the expansion we have coming in the back half of fiscal 2025. Expanded distribution is also strengthening our international business as we benefit from more focused strategic choices on must-win brands and markets, stronger distribution and distributor partnerships, and the implementation of a more integrated organizational structure of our EMEA team in fiscal 2024.
We will continue to prioritize international growth, leveraging the must-win brand and market choices selected in our strategic plan. I've spoken about our culture, our brands, and our operational improvements, but equally important to us is our impact on the environment and in the communities where we live and work. During fiscal 2024, we made important progress on our sustainability and social initiatives that are designed to create a sustainable, lasting, and positive impact for all our key stakeholders. I'm proud of our progress to date and its close alignment with our purpose of elevating lives in moments that matter everywhere, every day. One key element of our ESG strategy I would like to highlight here is engaging our people and our communities. This includes sponsoring time away from the office for every associate, empowering them to choose the charitable organization that they are passionate about supporting.
As CEO, my mission is to guide our company and empower our associates to unleash their full potential. We are proud that Helen of Troy was recognized on Newsweek's annual list of America's Most Responsible Companies in 2024. This award recognizes our commitment to considering the environment, social responsibility, and ethical business practices in what we do. You can learn more about our ESG practices in our recently published ESG report. We tackled a lot of change over the last two years, and some of those changes will take longer to digest than others, but we are confident they were necessary to build a foundation that will support the future growth of our brands. The most recent point-of-sale data for the month of June and the market share trends across many of our brands in May show improvement, early evidence that we are moving in the right direction.
We have a solid long-term growth plan for the company, and we are encouraged by the progress we have made on a number of our key initiatives. Despite a difficult environment where the consumer has become increasingly stretched, our categories have gotten more competitive, and there has been a general slowdown in retail traffic. We are confident that the decisions we are making and the actions we are taking are critical to deliver two things: brands inspired by consumer obsession and our purpose, and sustained long-term shareholder value creation. Now I'd like to turn to the Q&A forum and take some questions from our shareholders. As a reminder, we have about ten minutes for questions, and only confirmed shareholders as of the record date are permitted to ask questions. Questions pertinent to meeting matters may be asked by typing in the box provided on your screen.
While we are waiting for questions to be submitted, we will answer questions that our shareholders previously submitted in our online pre-meeting shareholder forum. In case we are unable to answer all questions submitted due to the time constraints, we will post the answers to all remaining questions on our investor relations website as soon as possible following the end of this meeting, and these answers will remain available for one year after the date of the meeting.
Is Helen of Troy going to be able to return to growth with its current portfolio of brands?
We are proud of our diverse and strong portfolio of brands, and have earned consumers' trust and loyalty, and continue to hold strong positions in their respective categories. Our brands improve consumer lives in moments that matter every day, from products like the OXO Peeler, to the Vicks Vapo line, to our top-selling Revlon Volumizer. Our brands matter to consumers. You've heard me and others talk about the challenging macro environment we are navigating right now. Consumers are increasingly cautious about how they spend their dollars, and essentials oftentimes win out over discretionary products. This dynamic poses a headwind for our business. However, we are focused on the actions we can control that we believe will help us return to growth. I spoke to these today. We are investing in strengthening our brand-building fundamentals.
We have significantly increased our growth investment to fuel both marketing and product innovation, and we are increasing our distribution footprint. We believe that executing on these actions with excellence will put us on the path to growth. We are already seeing market share improvement, telling us that we are moving in the right direction.
You've said you need to invest more money into your brands, so why did you spend $100 million buying back the Helen of Troy stock at a higher price?
We are in the fortunate position that we generate a good amount of free cash flow, and we have a healthy balance sheet. This allows us capital allocation optionality. We are always assessing the best use of our cash to maximize shareholder value, and our strategy is one of balanced capital deployment. We believe our recent share repurchase was a strong use of capital at the time and will prove to be a good long-term investment.
With more and more companies like Stanley, Owala, and Yeti competing in the reusable water bottle space, how are you going to turn the Hydro Flask business around?
Hydro Flask is a great brand and a category trailblazer. We have grown the business significantly since we purchased it in fiscal 2017. Insulated drinkware is a competitive category that has broadened significantly in the last couple years from its strongly rooted outdoor origin. It is now a much broader category that includes Gen Z, parents on the go, and young athletes. Today, winning in this category requires consumer obsession and agility. That means bringing new product innovation to match a range of occasions, relevant colors and designs, creating engaging online content, and broadening distribution to meet consumers where they are. Our consumers want both functionality, but they also want style to fit their personality and mood. We were admittedly slower to react to the shift, but have since upped our game significantly, and the consumer is taking notice.
If you look at our product line and content today versus nine months ago, you will see this broader consumer reflected, along with a much broader range of product types, designs, and colors. The reception to some of our latest designs, like Sugar Crush, Ombre, and the USA Limited Edition, as well as new forms, like the travel bottle and the shaker bottle, are all very positive. In addition, we are expanding distribution of Hydro Flask, so the brand is more available to our consumers where they're shopping. We are encouraged by the positive reception and the progress that we are seeing on Hydro Flask.
Historically, Helen of Troy has been an acquisitive company. Are you going to keep buying companies or brands?
Helen of Troy is proud of its long history of disciplined M&A that benefits our shareholders and meets our Better Together acquisition strategy. We will continue to focus on acquiring brands that are at the beginning of their growth trajectory, offer attractive margins, can be accretive to the company, and that we can add further value to. Better Together M&A will continue to be an important part of our strategy as we shape a growth portfolio and leverage our scale.
At your Investor Day last October, you spoke a lot about Elevate for Growth, and now I'm hearing Reset and Revitalize. What has changed in less than a year?
We remain committed to the strategic choices we shared last October in our Elevate for Growth strategic plan, growing our portfolio through consumer obsession, being and winning where our shopper shops, fully leveraging our scale and assets, and embracing next-level data and analytics in all that we do. Since announcing our plan, there have been some changes. Those changes are twofold. First, as I spoke about during our most recent earnings release, we saw more significant headwinds in our first fiscal quarter of 2025, some in our control and some out of our control. Second, we gained new data and insight in the first quarter that revealed some underlying weakness at some of our brands that COVID volatility had masked. The combination of these factors means the path to sustainable brand growth will take longer than we originally anticipated.
As a result, we recast fiscal 2025 as a year to reset and revitalize our business, with a focus on brand fundamentals, incremental marketing, innovation, distribution, all of which will be informed by new data and analytics that we believe will put us on the path to sustainable growth. We believe we are making the right foundational improvements for the long-term health of our brands and sustained shareholder value creation. That concludes our Q&A session. As a reminder to our participants, we will post answers to any remaining questions on our investor relations website as soon as possible. Thank you for spending time with us.
The meeting has now concluded. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.