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Clorox is launching a new business called Clorox Purell ProCare, a partnership with GOJO, the company that makes Purell hand sanitizer. This new unit focuses on the business-to-business market, selling cleaning and hygiene products to healthcare facilities and professional offices.
This move helps Clorox expand beyond the grocery store shelf and into more stable, long-term contracts with hospitals and large workplaces. By pairing its own professional cleaning line with the Purell brand, Clorox is trying to lock in a larger share of the professional hygiene market where trust and brand recognition are major advantages.
Source: PRNewsWire
Clorox declared its regular quarterly dividend of $1.25 per share. This payment is a routine part of how the company returns cash to its owners and is consistent with its past payouts. For a steady household goods business like this, maintaining the dividend is a sign that cash flow remains predictable enough to support these regular payments.
Source: PRNewsWire
The company earned $1.66 per share last quarter, just ahead of the $1.64 analysts expected. Revenue of $1.95 billion also topped estimates. However, organic sales, which strip out the impact of buying or selling businesses, fell 13 percent. This drop was mostly because the company was comparing against a period last year when it had a one-time surge in shipments as it switched to a new software system.
Gross margin, the percentage of sales left after paying for the products themselves, fell to about 41 percent. This squeeze came from higher costs for ingredients and parts, as well as the costs of folding in GOJO Industries, the maker of Purell. While the acquisition adds a strong brand to the portfolio, the immediate hit to margins shows that the path back to historical profit levels remains a work in progress.
See the full quarter, and how our tracked metrics did
Source: 8-K filing
The board of directors raised the quarterly payout from $1.24 to $1.25 per share. While the one-cent increase is small, it signals management's confidence in the company's ability to generate steady cash even as it integrates new acquisitions and deals with higher costs.
Source: PRNewsWire
Management has a reliable habit of clearing the bar they set for themselves. They have topped expectations in six of the last eight quarters, showing they have a firm handle on their costs.
| Expectation | |
|---|---|
| EPS | $1.11 |
| Revenue | $1.88B |