Helen of Troy Announces Exploration of Personal Care Business Divestiture

Exploration helps further focus the Company around its Leadership Brands

Helen of Troy Limited HELE ("the Company"), designer, developer and worldwide marketer of consumer brand-name housewares, health and home, and beauty products, today announced it is in the process of exploring the divestiture of it's Personal Care Business, a subset of the Company's Beauty Segment. The Personal Care Business includes liquid, powder and aerosol products under brands such as Pert, Brut, Sure and Infusium. This potential divestiture advances the Company's strategy to focus its resources on its Leadership Brands. Those Leadership Brands, Braun, Honeywell, PUR, Vicks, Hot Tools, OXO, and Hydro Flask, are among the highest volume, highest margin and most asset-efficient businesses at Helen of Troy.

Julien R. Mininberg, Chief Executive Officer, stated: "Leadership Brands remain the primary focus for Helen of Troy. As it relates to our Beauty Segment, today's announcement of a formal process for the Personal Care brands allows us to concentrate resources on Beauty appliances, including our market-leading Hot Tools and Revlon brands."

"We believe our well-established strategy positions Helen of Troy for continued and further long-term sales and profit growth. That strategy centers on driving further improvements across our current businesses, our geographic footprint, our global shared services, and the overall strength of our organization, while pursuing additions to our Leadership Brand portfolio through acquisition. Overall, we believe we have the balance sheet, the capabilities, the culture, and the passionate, owner-minded people to elevate our brands and business to a higher level of growth."

Forward Looking Statements:

Certain written and oral statements made by our Company and subsidiaries of our Company may constitute "forward-looking statements" as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This includes statements made in this press release. Generally, the words "anticipates", "believes", "expects", "plans", "may", "will", "should", "seeks", "estimates", "project", "predict", "potential", "continue", "intends", and other similar words identify forward-looking statements. All statements that address operating results, events or developments that we expect or anticipate will occur in the future, including statements related to sales, earnings per share results, and statements expressing general expectations about future operating results, are forward-looking statements and are based upon our current expectations and various assumptions. We believe there is a reasonable basis for our expectations and assumptions, but there can be no assurance that we will realize our expectations or that our assumptions will prove correct. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause them to differ materially from actual results. Accordingly, we caution readers not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release should be read in conjunction with, and are subject to and qualified by, the risks described in the Company's Form 10-K for the year ended February 28, 2018, and in our other filings with the SEC. Investors are urged to refer to the risk factors referred to above for a description of these risks. Such risks include, among others, our ability to deliver products to our customers in a timely manner and according to their fulfillment standards, the costs of complying with the business demands and requirements of large sophisticated customers, our relationships with key customers and licensors, our dependence on the strength of retail economies and vulnerabilities to any prolonged economic downturn, our dependence on sales to several large customers and the risks associated with any loss or substantial decline in sales to top customers, expectations regarding any proposed restructurings, our recent and future acquisitions or divestitures, including our ability to realize anticipated cost savings, synergies and other benefits along with our ability to effectively integrate acquired businesses or separate divested businesses, circumstances which may contribute to future impairment of goodwill, intangible or other long-lived assets, the retention and recruitment of key personnel, foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, disruptions in U.S., U.K., Eurozone, and other international credit markets, risks associated with weather conditions, the duration and severity of the cold and flu season and other related factors, our dependence on foreign sources of supply and foreign manufacturing, and associated operational risks including, but not limited to, long lead times, consistent local labor availability and capacity, and timely availability of sufficient shipping carrier capacity, labor and energy on cost of goods sold and certain operating expenses, the geographic concentration and peak season capacity of certain U.S. distribution facilities increases our exposure to significant shipping disruptions and added shipping and storage costs, our projections of product demand, sales and net income are highly subjective in nature and future sales and net income could vary in a material amount from such projections, the risks associated with the use of trademarks licensed from and to third parties, our ability to develop and introduce a continuing stream of new products to meet changing consumer preferences, trade barriers, exchange controls, expropriations, and other risks associated with U.S. and foreign operations, the risks associated with significant tariffs or other restrictions on imports from China or any retaliatory trade measures taken by China, the risks to our liquidity as a result of changes to capital market conditions and other constraints or events that impose constraints on our cash resources and ability to operate our business, the costs, complexity and challenges of upgrading and managing our global information systems, the risks associated with information security breaches, the risks associated with product recalls, product liability, other claims, and related litigation against us, the risks associated with accounting for tax positions, tax audits and related disputes with taxing authorities, the risks of potential changes in laws in the U.S. or abroad, including tax laws, regulations or treaties, employment and health insurance laws and regulations, and laws relating to environmental policy, personal data, financial regulation, transportation policy and infrastructure policy along with the costs and complexities of compliance with such laws, and our ability to continue to avoid classification as a controlled foreign corporation. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Helen of Troy Limited:

Helen of Troy Limited HELE is a leading global consumer products company offering creative solutions for its customers through a strong portfolio of well-recognized and widely-trusted brands, including OXO, Hydro Flask, Vicks, Braun, Honeywell, PUR, and Hot Tools. All trademarks herein belong to Helen of Troy Limited (or its affiliates) and/or are used under license from their respective licensors.

For more information about Helen of Troy, please visit www.hotus.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190311005559/en/