“We expect to pay around $10 billion in dividends and to repurchase approximately $5 billion of common stock, combined a plan to return roughly $15 billion of cash to shareowners at fiscal '26.”

In context

“In fact, we've approved incremental investments in several businesses in the last month. Given all the above, we now expect full year EPS results to be towards the lower end of the guidance range. Our fiscal '26 outlook continues to call for approximately $500 million before tax and higher costs from tariffs. Below the operating line, we continue to expect modestly higher interest expense versus last fiscal year and a core effective tax rate in the range of 20% to 21% for fiscal '26 combined a $250 million after-tax headwind to earnings growth. We continue to forecast adjusted free cash flow productivity in the range of 85% to 90% for the year. This includes an increase in capital spending as we add capacity in several categories and as we incur the cash costs from the restructuring work. We expect to pay around $10 billion in dividends and to repurchase approximately $5 billion of common stock, combined a plan to return roughly $15 billion of cash to shareowners at fiscal '26. This outlook is based on current market growth rates, commodity prices and foreign exchange rates. Significant additional currency weakness, commodity or other cost increases, further geopolitical disruptions, major supply chain disruptions or store closures are not anticipated within the guidance range. We won't provide guidance for fiscal '27 until our next call in July. However, we understand investor concern about potential cost and supply impacts from the Middle East conflict. For perspective, the annual cost impact of Brent crude at around $100 per barrel is roughly $1.3 billion before tax or $1 billion after tax versus a pre-conflict oil price in the mid-60s. Again, this goes beyond direct commodity cost to include other upstream and downstream cost impacts that would hit our P&L.”