What: Shares of Helen of Troy Limited (HELE 0.40%) were down 10% as of 11:30 a.m. Friday after the personal care products specialist announced mixed fiscal first-quarter results.
So what: Quarterly revenue rose 10.8% year over year to $345.3 million, hurt by a 2.1% decline in core business net sales, but propped up by both last year's acquisition of Healthy Directions, and two months of operations from the more recently acquired VapoSteam business. That translated to roughly flat adjusted net income of $30.7 million, and a $0.02 per-share increase in adjusted earnings $1.06 per diluted share.
Analysts, on average, were anticipating lower revenue of $337.7 million, but higher adjusted earnings of $1.10 per diluted share.
Helen of Troy also reiterated its full-fiscal-year outlook for revenue of $1.485 billion to $1.536 billion, and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $5.40 to $5.85. For reference, the latter range includes adjusted earnings for VapoSteam of $0.04 to $0.11. Similar to Helen of Troy's mixed fiscal Q1, Wall Street was expecting earnings above the midpoint of that range at $5.68 per share, but on lower revenue of $1.50 billion.
Now what: All things considered, Helen of Troy's bottom line figures weren't that far off the mark. But shares already trade around 19.4 times trailing 12-month earnings -- a relative premium considering the company's sluggish growth. And even then, that growth was achieved largely through acquisitions as its core business declines. For now, that's why I'm content watching Helen of Troy stock from the sidelines.
