Procter & Gamble

Capital allocation is disciplined: P&G prioritizes reinvestment in product superiority and productivity, then returns excess cash via dividends and buybacks. FY25 returned over 16 billion dollars (about 9.9 billion dividends and 6.5 billion repurchases) and management continues to target high FCF productivity.

Share count trends are modestly down as buybacks offset equity issuance.

The company is also simplifying the portfolio: it substantially liquidated operations in Argentina in FY25 and announced a two-year productivity plan including overhead reductions; the Glad joint venture will wind down in January 2026 with Clorox purchasing P&G’s 20 percent interest for cash at fair value (P&G expects approximately 0.5 billion dollars of proceeds based on CLX disclosures), modestly increasing capital redeployable to core businesses.

We view M&A discipline as sound, with an emphasis on bolt-ons over large, equity-dilutive deals.