Helen of Troy’s former CFO is back to stay

Dive Brief:

El Paso-Texas-based Helen of Troy — which owns such direct-to consumer brands as the water bottle brand Hydro Flask and salon chain Drybar — on Wednesday announced that Brian Grass, who stepped back into the company in April to serve as CFO on an interim basis, is now the firm’s permanent CFO, effective Sept. 23, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Grass, 53, previously served as the company’s CFO from 2014 to 2022 and as assistant CFO from 2006 to 2014 and prior to that spent seven years in public accounting at the Big Four firm KPMG. In his new CFO post, Grass will also retain the roles of principal financial officer and principal accounting officer that he took on when he rejoined in the spring.
Noel Geoffroy, the company’s current chief operating officer who will succeed retiring CEO Julien Mininberg in February, said in a release that she decided Grass was the ideal person for the position after the company conducted a national search for candidates. “I am delighted to welcome Brian back to Helen of Troy’s leadership on a more permanent basis,” Geoffrey said, characterizing him as a “strategic business leader, a collaborative thought partner, and a proven public company CFO.”

Dive Insight:

Grass’ compensation will include an annual base salary of $600,000 and he will be eligible to receive both an annual cash performance bonus at a target of 85% of his salary as well as a long-term incentive award under the company’s stock incentive plan with a target value of $1.6 million, which will be comprised of a mix of performance based and time-vested equity awards, according to the filing.

This week’s announcement comes as the company also reported net income for its fiscal second quarter ended Aug. 31 declined 10.7% to $27.4 million from $30.6 million in the year-earlier period.

While Mininberg reiterated the company’s full fiscal-year outlook was on track, the company is still working on restructuring initiatives in the face of what he called a “continued challenging macro consumer environment.”

Consolidated net sales revenue fell 5.7% in the period to $491.6 million, as the company reported lower sales of heaters, fans and humidification products and lower brick and mortar sales in the insulated beverage category.

As part of an ongoing restructuring plan dubbed Project Pegasus, Helen of Troy has had layoffs, announcing that it would reduce its global workforce by about 10% in January, Industry Dive sister publication Retail Dive reported.

In July company executives also said the company had made progress on its nearshoring initiative, relocating some of its Hydro Flask bottle production outside of China to the Western Hemisphere, according to Retail Dive. The strategy will help the company to reduce inventory and provide quicker transit times and greater speed to market, the report said.