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February 5, 2025

Stanley Black & Decker continues cost cutting; aims to mitigate tariffs, moving manufacturing out of China

Contributed Stanley Black & Decker's New Britain headquarters.
By Harriet Jones

Stanley Black & Decker is continuing to cut costs across its business, saying it still intends to hit $2 billion in total savings by the end of 2025. In its latest earnings report, the company disclosed $99 million in restructuring costs during 2024.

Since the inception of the restructuring program in mid-2022, the New Britain-based toolmaker said it has generated $1.5 billion in cost savings and reduced inventory by over $2 billion; $500 million of the cost savings came in 2024. 

The company reported a fourth-quarter sales decline of 0.43% year over year to $3.7 billion, beating the consensus estimate of $3.6 billion.

Stanley has also begun to provide guidance on its 2025 outlook that excludes the potential impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs. Tariffs of 10% on Chinese imports went into effect on Tuesday.

“Our ultimate job is to keep our brands competitive,” said Chief Financial Officer Patrick Hallinan  on a conference call with analysts, saying the company continues to move operations out of China.

“If the current addition of 10% tariffs on China remains in place, we would expect an annualized unmitigated impact of approximately $90 to $100 million,” he said. “Based on how we would react, this would result in a 2025 net impact of $10 to $20 million, accounting for the time needed to deploy counter measures.”

CEO Donald Allen said the trend of moving manufacturing for the U.S. market out of China has been a long-term process.

“Back seven or eight years ago, 40 percent of what we sold in the U.S. came from China,” said Allen. “Now we’re down… around 15 percent.”

Executives said they have been meeting with representatives of the Trump administration for several months. “We continue to engage with the president and his new administration,” Allen said.

On the U.S. economic outlook, Allen said he stands by his remarks last year that the first half of 2025 will be “choppy or sluggish.”

“Given the indicators that we do see, several markets may not improve until 2026,” he said. “Interest rate cuts in 2024 have had little impact, as mortgages continue to be well above 6%.”
 

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