Company: CL
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000021665-25-000008
Chunk: 132

Company: COLGATE PALMOLIVE CO
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 7
Chunk 132
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 inventories been accounted for under the FIFO method.

▪Shipping and handling costs (also referred to as logistics costs) may be reported as either a component of Cost of sales or Selling, general and administrative expenses. The Company accounts for such costs, primarily related to warehousing and outbound freight, as fulfillment costs and reports them in the Consolidated Statements of Income as a component of Selling, general and administrative expenses. Accordingly, the Company’s Gross profit margin is not comparable with the Gross profit margin of those companies that include shipping and handling charges in Cost of sales. If such costs had been included as a component of Cost of sales, the Company’s Gross profit margin would have been lower by 880 bps in 2024, 910 bps in 2023 and 1040 bps in 2022, with no impact on reported earnings.

The areas of accounting that involve significant or complex judgments and estimates are pensions and other retiree benefit cost assumptions, stock-based compensation, asset impairments, uncertain tax positions, tax valuation allowances and legal and other contingency reserves.

▪In accounting for pension and other postretirement benefit costs, the most significant actuarial assumptions are the discount rate and the expected long-term rate of return on plan assets. The discount rate used to measure the benefit obligation for U.S. defined benefit plans was 5.73% and 5.40% as of December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. The discount rate used to measure the benefit obligation for other U.S. postretirement plans was 5.74% and 5.37% as of December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. Discount rates used for the U.S. and international defined benefit and other postretirement plans are based on a yield curve constructed from a portfolio 

55

(Dollars in Millions Except Per Share Amounts)

of high-quality bonds whose projected cash flows approximate the projected benefit payments of the plans. The assumed expected long-term rate of return on plan assets for U.S. plans was 6.50% as of December 31, 2024 and 2023. In determining the expected long-term rate of return, the Company considers the nature of the plans’ investments and the historical rate of return.

Average annual rates of return for the U.S. plans for the most recent 1-year, 5-year, 10-year, 15-year and 25-year periods were 5%, 2%, 4%,