Newell says hasn’t seen ‘a big opportunity to break up the portfolio’ to date

Commenting on the company’s previously announced strategic review plans during the company’s earnings call, executives at Newell Brands stated in part, according to a transcript: “So when we announced the strategy in June, we had — at that point in time, we had 80 brands that we were selling across the company… And so we feel like we’ve got now a portfolio from the divestitures that have been completed over the last 5 years that fits together and where there is scale that can be leveraged… So we continue to look at is the portfolio the right thing and is there value to be unlocked but to date, we have not seen that there’s a big opportunity to break up the portfolio and drive value because we believe the dissynergies and the tax impact would overwhelm any value we would get from a major divestiture. That being said, we also very clearly said that we don’t think 80 brands is the right answer. And so as part of the strategy, we said we’re going to prioritize the top 25 brands because they represent 90% of the sales and profit of the company. We are moving at pace since we announced that strategy in June. And as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we expect to be down from 80 brands down to 60 by the end of this year. So that’s already a meaningful reduction in the number of brands in the portfolio, and we think we’ll continue to reduce the number of brands over time.”