July 27, 2018 • Local News
Helen of Troy hits new high as it marks 50th anniversary
Helen of Troy, one of two publicly traded companies in El Paso, unveiled a new logo last week as its stock hit an all-time high, capping a steady, four-year climb.
A $1.5-billion global business that makes about every sort of beauty product and kitchen gadget, the company’s earnings have also doubled over the past four years.
“The company has logged some awfully strong results in the past 4 1/2 years and, frankly, we’re very proud of the results we have,” CEO Julien Mininberg told El Paso Inc.
Helen of Troy caught stock watchers’ attention in December, and the word went out to buy.
At the time, the company’s stock was going for $83. On Monday, Helen of Troy stock hit $119.25, and analysts are still calling it a deal.
In January 2014, Helen of Troy’s stock was going for $48.51 when CEO Gerald Rubin stepped down as head of the company he built and ran for 46 years.
Mininberg was president and CEO of the company’s Healthcare and Home Environment Division when he was tapped to run the whole company.
Mininberg holds an MBA from Yale University and is making a little over $6.8 million in total annual compensation as CEO. That includes a $975,000 salary, a $2.6-million bonus and $3.2 million in stock.
The company has done well under Mininberg, who oversaw a 30 percent jump in online sales in the quarter that ended May 31. That boosted overall sales by $29 million to $355 million.
He attributes much of the growth to the increase in sales of the company’s leadership products: OXO, Hydro Flask, Vicks, Braun, Honeywell, PUR and Hot Tools.
“They make up about 80 percent of sales,” he said.
It hasn’t been all good news for the CEO, though.
The company completed the sale of its struggling Healthy Directions nutritional supplements business in December 2017, selling it for a total of $71 million only three years after buying it for $195 million.
And sales in the company’s beauty segment have sagged for years.
In an effort to boost sales, the company created a new position in April, hiring Eric Hansen as senior vice president of global marketing for the beauty segment.
Sales continued to fall in the most recent quarter, decreasing 5.8 percent from March 1 to May 31.
Given all the emphasis on internet sales these days, Mininberg said it might be surprising to know they’re only 16 percent of Helen of Troy’s total sales.
“The other 84 percent is largely from our brick and mortar stores, and that’s very much in line with the development of the retail industry in general,” he said.
In other words, shopping centers and physical stores aren’t going the way of Toys R Us.
“People might get the idea that it’s kind of like film cameras that went away and digital cameras took them over,” Mininberg said. “But I don’t believe personally that online will replace brick and mortar, which is still the backbone of retail.
“The dotcoms are simply the new dog in the fight, and they’re doing a good job. But the parking lot is not empty.”
When it comes to sales, Walmart is the No. 1 seller of Helen of Troy products, but Amazon is No. 2 worldwide – because of online sales.
“For Helen of Troy, the strategy is simple,” he said. “We are consumer-centric. We don’t want to satisfy our customers, we want to delight them with excellence, innovation, quality and consistency.
“When it comes to shopping channels, we want to be where the consumer wants to shop. We’re happy to sell to it to them in their preferred space, and we don’t make a penny less or more, in general.”
Since Mininberg became CEO, the company has undergone a personnel and organizational transformation that has helped increase the value of company’s shares by more than $1.5 billion, doubling its value, he said.
“It’s really taken our business and organization to new heights,” he said.
So when analysts thought the company’s stock price was low in May 2017 and urged investors to buy, Mininberg and his team decided the company should do the same.
Helen of Troy bought back 15 percent of its common shares for $400 million, returning wealth to its shareholders.
“It’s healthy when a company wants to eat its own cooking,” Mininberg said. “It shows we believed very strongly in what we were doing, and the numbers speak for themselves.”
Helen of Troy employs 1,600 people worldwide and about 400 at the company headquarters in El Paso. More than half work in corporate administration – executive management, legal, finance, human resources and information technology.
The rest are in the Beauty Appliance Division, which serves the professional market with hair tools and other beauty products from top brands such as Revlon.
Mininberg emphasized that Helen of Troy has no plans to move away.
“We like El Paso,” Mininberg said. “It’s been our proud headquarters for 50 years and a consistent source of strong labor – capable, bilingual, stable, well-educated people.
“If you came here and said raise your hand if you’re a UTEP grad, you’re going to get a lot of hands going up in our employee population here in El Paso.”
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