Colgate-Palmolive Company

Colgate-Palmolive Company is an American multinational consumer products company whose core business — oral care — commands a 41.3% global toothpaste market share, making it the largest toothpaste manufacturer in the world by a wide margin. The company generated $20.4 billion in net sales in fiscal 2025, split between Oral, Personal and Home Care (77%) and Hill's Pet Nutrition (23%), with roughly two-thirds of revenue originating outside the United States.

This is a story about a collection of extraordinary global franchises whose structural profitability the market has only partly credited. Colgate has lifted gross margins from 57% to 60% over three years, generates over $4 billion in annual operating cash flow, and has raised its dividend for 63 consecutive years — a track record few companies on earth can match. The file turns on a single question: whether organic growth can reaccelerate above 3% before the raw material cycle, tariffs, and a challenged North American consumer exact too high a price on margins and the multiple.

The current moment is delicate. Organic sales growth decelerated from 7.4% in FY2024 to 1.4% in FY2025, raw material costs surged by 420 basis points as a gross margin headwind, and the company recorded a $919 million impairment on its skin health business — a bet that did not pay off. The stock trades at roughly 35 times trailing earnings, a premium that only makes sense if Colgate resumes compounding. This file examines whether it can.