Church And Dwight — Financial Results
Portfolio Reshaping: Three Businesses Sold or Exited in 2025
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Flawless, Spinbrush, Waterpik showerheads exited | ~$118.0M in annual sales; $45.6M pre-tax charge |
| VitaFusion / L'il Critters (VMS) sold | Closed Dec 31, 2025; $58.5M pre-tax loss on sale |
Church & Dwight made a deliberate decision to cut lower-growth or struggling product lines and redeploy focus toward faster-growing brands. The VMS (vitamin gummy) business had already been written down by $357.1M in 2024 due to private-label competition eating its market share. Together, these exits cost roughly $104M pre-tax in one-time charges but are intended to sharpen the portfolio.
Touchland Acquisition Adds a High-Growth Brand for ~$815M Total
Church & Dwight paid $656M upfront in July 2025 for Touchland hand sanitizers, with an additional $159M performance payment due in early 2026 and up to $50M in stock grants to the founder. Touchland had roughly $115M in annual sales as of 2024, making this a premium-priced bet on a fast-growing personal care brand. It is now one of the company's seven designated power brands — the inner circle of brands management believes have the most global expansion potential.
Revenue Grew Modestly; Underlying Profitability Was Essentially Flat
| Metric | 2025 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net Sales | $6,203.2M | $6,107.1M | +1.6% |
| Gross Margin | 44.7% | 45.7% | -100 bps |
| Operating Margin | 17.4% | 13.3% | +410 bps |
| Diluted EPS (reported) | $3.02 | $2.37 | +27.4% |
| Diluted EPS (adjusted) | $3.53 | $3.44 | +2.6% |
The headline profit improvement is largely a comparison effect — 2024 was weighed down by that $357.1M VMS write-down. Stripping out one-time items from both years, adjusted earnings per share grew just 2.6%. Gross margin dipped 100 basis points (a measure of profitability per dollar of sales), with tariff costs and higher manufacturing expenses partially offset by productivity savings.
Tariffs Are a Live Risk, Especially for Waterpik
Church & Dwight has taken direct action on tariffs — most notably, it has stopped importing virtually all Waterpik flossers from China into the U.S. The Waterpik trade name itself is showing signs of stress: its fair value is now only 17% above its book value (down from 35% cushion in 2024), meaning further sales declines or cost pressure could force an impairment charge. Management is using supply chain shifts, pricing adjustments, and lobbying for exemptions to manage the broader tariff exposure.
$900M Returned to Shareholders via Buybacks, Dividend Raised 4.2%
The company bought back 10.1 million shares for $900M across three tranches in 2025, at average prices ranging from $83.59 to $95.71. It also paid $287.2M in dividends, bringing total cash returned to shareholders to $1,187.2M — nearly matching the $1,215.4M generated from operations. The quarterly dividend was then raised 4.2% in January 2026, signaling management's confidence in ongoing cash generation.
Long-Term Growth Ambitions Anchored to Three Specific Brand Targets
Management laid out concrete long-term goals: grow Arm & Hammer from a $2B to a $3B brand, expand TheraBreath oral care from $1B to $1.5B globally, and scale the international business from $1B to $2B through acquisitions. The international segment grew 5.4% in 2025 (to $1.13B), driven by Hero and TheraBreath, suggesting early momentum — though foreign currency was a modest headwind.