Sealed Air Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2023 Sealed Air Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and you will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand our conference over to our first speaker today, Brian Sullivan, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you and good morning, everyone.

With me today are Emil Shamas, Interim Co-CEO and COO, as well as Dustin Simak, Interim Co-CEO and CFO. Before we begin, I would like to note that we have provided a slide presentation to supplement the call. Please visit sealedair.com where today's webcast and presentation can be downloaded from our investor relations page. Statements made during this call stating management's outlook or estimates for future periods are forward-looking statements. These statements are based solely on information that is now available to us. We encourage you to review the information in the section entitled Forward-Looking Statements in our earnings release and slide presentation, which applies to this column. Additionally, our future performance may differ due to a number of factors. Many of these factors are listed in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and as revised and updated on our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K. You can also find them on our website or on the SEC's website. We discussed financial measures that do not conform to U.S. GAAP. you will find important information on our use of these measures and the reconciliation to US GAAP in our earnings release. Included in the appendix of today's presentation, you will find US GAAP financial results that correspond to the non-US GAAP measures we referenced throughout the presentation. I will now turn the call over to Emil and Dustin. Operator, please turn to slide three. Emil. Thank you, Brian, and thank you for joining our call.

Today, I will discuss SEAS leadership transition provide an update on the markets we serve, trends we are seeing, and how we operate in this dynamic environment. Dustin will take you through our third quarter results, provide updates on our 2023 outlook, and talk about our progress and plans around capital allocation. After that, we will open the call for your questions. Moving to slide three. As previously announced, Dustin and myself are interim co-CEOs in addition to our current roles. Before we move to the market and business update, I would like to talk through how our co-CEO operating model will work. First, we expect this model to accelerate the turnaround of our results and improve overall execution. Together, we will evolve C strategy, connect that strategy to the overall business, and deliver results. I am focused on driving our innovation, supply chain, and commercial teams. Specifically, bringing these teams closer to improve our market intelligence, time to innovate, cost to deliver, and commercial execution. Dustin will be more focused on driving our cost takeout to grow program, optimizing our portfolio, and strengthening our balance sheet. While automation, digital, and sustainability continue to be key enablers of long-term growth, we are shifting our focus to address the current market dynamics. As a result, we are re-evaluating our solutions portfolio and go-to-market strategies with an intense focus on meeting our customers' evolving packaging needs in our core protective markets. Now, turning to the market and business update. Our end markets remain challenged and visibility limited. We are facing multiple headwinds, including soft retail demand and consumer trade downs in the food markets, compounded by a global capital cycle that is net down due to the U.S. Europe remains firmly in recession, and the recovery across Asia has been slower than we initially expected earlier in the year. On the productive side, industrial output remains flat to down. Economic uncertainty is increasing, driving customers to pull inventory below historical levels and reduce capital spending. This stocking is moderating in North America, but continues in EMEA and ABAC. Pricing pressures have increased as consumers and customers react to lingering inflation. Despite these headwinds, since the beginning of the year, our protective packaging business delivered largely flat sequential performance, and our cryovac fluids and liquids and automation businesses have performed very well. In this economic environment where our existing customers are challenged to grow, we are focused on acquiring new customers and taking share in the marketplace. We are actioning this by first investing in and redeploying resources towards lead generation, marketing, and new sales roles that are closer to the markets our customers operate in. Second, improving the competitive positioning of certain solutions within both food and protective by rationalizing the cost to serve across our portfolio. Third, balancing our innovation efforts between long-term, higher-risk rewards and shorter-term projects that address our customers' more immediate needs. Lastly, continuing to lead with automation, which provides our customers with a single point of contact for both materials and equipment. These solutions solve their most critical packaging challenges and drive longer-term sustainable efficiencies within their operation. On cost takeout to grow, we have actioned approximately $40 million in annualized run rate savings, approximately 25% of our $140 to $160 million program. As of September year-to-date, we have exited over 600 positions related to both reductions in volume with our network and workforce optimization. On portfolio optimization, we completed the previously announced closure of Tebow Thermal Temperature Assurance business in quarter three. Separately, we decided to exit our plant-based roll-stop business. This was a sustainable offering within our consumer-ready vertical that was displaced by more competitive solutions in the market. Moving forward, we will continue to bring new sustainable solutions while maintaining an enhanced emphasis on market competitiveness. While working good progress on cost takeout to grow and portfolio optimization, we need to accelerate to get ahead of future marketing steps. Before I turn it over to Dustin, I wanted to say that I'm excited to co-lead C with him. While he has only been here for a short period, he has quickly come up to speed on the business, pushed us to challenge every aspect of how we operate, and became a trusted business partner. Together, we are looking through the entire company for opportunities to grow in a cost-effective way, drive further efficiencies, and ensure we are world-class in everything that we do. This is an ongoing process, and we will keep you updated as key decisions are made. Now, I'd like to turn it over to Dustin to review our financial results. Dustin?