Fortune Brands marks five year anniversary

DEERFIELD - Fortune Brands Home & Security, a home and security products company, celebrated its five-year anniversary as an independent company.

Over the last five years, Fortune Brands grew incrementally by deploying $1.4 billion in cash to complete several strategic acquisitions, including WoodCrafters cabinets, Norcraft cabinets, SentrySafe security products and Riobel, ROHL and Perrin & Rowe plumbing products. The Company also repurchased more than $900 million in shares, in addition to initiating and steadily increasing its dividend.

During the same period of time the Company nearly doubled sales, more than doubled its

operating margin and increased EPS nearly fivefold.

"We are proud of our accomplishments during this short period of time. We laid the foundation for core growth by building a stronger business model, and deployed capital in value-creating ways to drive incremental growth," said Chris Klein, chief executive officer, Fortune Brands. "Our combined efforts have positioned the business well for future growth and performance, while delivering consistently strong results."

Most recently, the company demonstrated its continued commitment to drive both organic and incremental growth by forming the Global Plumbing Group (GPG), which now includes the portfolio of Moen, Riobel, ROHL and Perrin & Rowe. Similar to the structure of the Cabinets segment, which was created to operate and grow a multi-brand, -channel and -geography business, the GPG is a strategic step to accelerate future growth opportunities as the Plumbing business looks to grow sales to $2.5 billion by 2020.

"While our track record over the last five years has been impressive, our most critical achievement is the foundation we have built for our company, which will enable us to capture even greater opportunities ahead," said Klein.