Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. Ordinary Shares

Please stand by, we're about to begin. Welcome to the RDAG Group S.A. Q2 2026 Investor Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Stephen Lyons. Please go ahead.

Welcome, everybody, and thank you for joining us for today's RDAG Group Investor Call, which follows the release of our results in respect to 2026, second quarter earlier today. I'm joined here by Mark Porto, the Executive Chairman of Ardai Group, Todd Brent, Group CFO, and by each of the respective regional glass packaging CEOs, Alexander Kuzan for Europe, Brian Branstadter for North America, and Paul Kernow for Africa. Our remarks will include certain forward-looking statements which reflect circumstances at the time they are made, and the company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those that may be expressed or implied due to a wide range of factors. The group's second quarter 2026 interim report can be found at rdaigroup.com slash investors. RDAI Metal Packaging, or AMP, released its second quarter results earlier today, and a replay of its earnings call is available on its website. As usual, we will not be providing additional information regarding AMP on this call. With that, I'll hand the call over to Mark.

Thanks, Stephen. Good afternoon to those of you in Europe, and good morning to those of you in the United States. Prior to taking your questions, we will make some brief opening remarks covering our second quarter performance, an outline of the turnaround initiatives that we're taking to improve performance in RDI glass packaging, and also on our outlook for the business for the remainder of the year ahead. R&I Group continued its encouraging start to the year, with 6% adjusted EBITDA growth in the second quarter. Performance in AMP was strongly ahead of expectations, and despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, performance in AGP was broadly in line with our expectations. We are encouraged by the improved volume performance for AGP, which achieved 3% global volume growth in the quarter. Although the demand outlook for the balance of the year is softer to prior expectations, with a divergence in the pace of recovery across regions and byproduct categories. Since our last update, the full-year outlook for AMP has improved significantly. However, we face additional pressure in the full-year outlook for AGP, including increased input cost inflation arising from the Middle East conflict, especially with respect to natural gas in Europe, furnace fuel oil in Africa, and other goods and services whose cost is dependent on energy, such as transportation and logistics across all regions, which our typical annual pass-through structures don't correct for within the calendar year. were now forecasting for a slight decline in global glass packaging volumes for full year 2026, below our previous expectation, and reflecting a slower pace of recovery in Europe. Furthermore, our actions to right-size inventory levels in North America and in Europe are progressing well. These actions, while positive from a cash generation perspective, are a one-time negative to adjusted EBITDA in the current year because of the associated decline in production. In response to the pressures facing the glass business, we recently launched our Clearly RDA strategy, which is a major strategic initiative to transform AGP. It is focused on better aligning our capacity to market demand, driving efficiency in our operations and across our business, strengthening our commercial partnerships and reinforcing a high performance culture throughout the organization. The actions taken as part of the Clearly Ardha initiative will ensure that AGP is more resilient and better placed to reinforce its position as a key player in the dynamic global glass packaging industry. The initiative is built upon four foundational pillars, strategic capacity and network evolution, which is deploying the right resources from our people to our capital in the right places to meet our customer needs. Number two, end-to-end performance, focusing relentlessly on efficiency and continuous improvement across our operations. Number three, portfolio value management, changing our approach to commercial engagements to ensure that our relationships deliver value for both our customers and for us. and finally number four, People Powered Culture. Reinforcing a performance driven culture by decentralizing operational decision making, enhancing performance metrics and investing in our people. Along with the actions already implemented across our North America business over recent years, we expect this initiative to create significant value through 2023. Specifically, we project and Stephen Schellinger. defined as adjusted EBITDA, less capex, working capital movements, lease payments, and exceptional restructuring items. We intend to increase capital expenditures from 6% to approximately 9% of total sales in 2026 and to maintain this level of capex investment as a percentage of annual sales on an average basis through 2030 in order to enhance key infrastructure, maintain core assets, and to take advantage of targeted growth opportunities. This assumes a broadly stable top-line outlook, does not include restructuring costs, and may prove slightly conservative, i.e., CapEx can be phased as needed. But it's important that we demonstrate to our customers our willingness and ability to grow with their needs as appropriate. At present, we do not believe that the additional pressures to our performance outlined in the current year should negatively alter our medium-term financial targets. However, the macroeconomic environment remains volatile and uncertain. Consistent with our strategy, we can confirm that following an engagement with employee representatives, our facility in Germersheim in Germany will close during the third quarter of 2026. We continue to assess our overall capacity requirements in response to challenging demand conditions.

In terms of developments with respect to our corporate structure,

Alexander Kuzan has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer for AGP Europe. Alex brings over two decades of experience as a consultant and industrials executive, most recently as Vice President of Novellus European Beverage and Food Packaging Division. And following the retirement of Mike Dick as CEO of AGP, at the end of May, AGP has restructured its management reporting with the CEOs of AGP's regional businesses reporting directly to me as Executive Chairman of Ardagh Group. Also, I am pleased to announce that Todd Brentz has been appointed as the Group's Chief Financial Officer. Todd has served as Interim Chief Financial Officer since the beginning of the year and will continue to lead the Group's finance function. In terms of our ongoing commitment to increasing transparency about our business and our plans, further to the announcement of our turnaround strategy, we recently launched a new investor portal on our investor relations website to further provide investor support and insight into our business. If you haven't registered yet for that site, we encourage you to do so. and today we are including each of our regional CEOs on the earnings call, both to provide an introduction and to facilitate increased discussion on our regional performance. I'll now hand over the call first to Todd and then to each of the regional CEOs to talk through our financial and market performance for the quarter before finishing with some concluding remarks.

Todd? Thanks, Mark, and I'm honored that I'm going to be staying on with the RDoT team. It's been a great pleasure to work with this team. So beginning with some RDoG Group highlights for the second quarter, and these are on a constant currency basis. First off, I will make a note that we're reporting at the RDoG Group S.A. level, and that we expect the separate RDoG Holdings S.A. accounts to be published in the coming weeks, and those will be posted on the IR page of our website. Second quarter revenue of $2.8 billion was 10% higher than the same quarter last year. This reflected 16% growth in AMP and 3% growth in AGP. adjusted EBIT at $410 million, increased by 4% compared to the prior year quarter. This was driven by 13% growth in AMP, partially offset by an 8% decline in AGP. Reviewing the second quarter performance by segment on a constant currency basis and commencing with Metal Packaging, global beverage can shipments decreased by 1% in the quarter compared with the same period last year, with a 6% decline in Americas, largely offset by 5% growth in Europe. Overall shipments were in line with expectations, which reflected strong prior year growth as well as the expected impact of some contract resets in North America. Revenue of $1.7 billion for the quarter grew by 16%, reflecting the pass-through of higher input costs, mainly higher aluminum costs. Adjusted EBIT of $240 million represented growth of 13% for the quarter and was strongly ahead of AMS guidance of $210 to $220 million, mainly driven by the performance in Europe, with America's performance broadly in line with the expectation. Furthermore, AMP has upgraded its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance range for 2026 to be between $775 and $790 million. Moving to glass packaging performance, also on a constant currency basis, second quarter global shipments grew 3% compared to the same quarter last year, a significant improvement on the prior quarter performance. Second quarter revenue of $1.1 billion was 3% higher than the same quarter last year. This principally reflected the increase in global shipments as well as the pass-through of higher input costs. Revenue in our Europe and Africa segment of $698 million in the second quarter was 5% higher than the same period last year, which mainly reflected higher shipments in both Europe and Africa. In Glass North America, second quarter revenue of $383 million was 2% below the same period last year as the impact of lower shipments and mix was only partially offset by higher sales prices. AGP adjusted EBITDA decreased 8% compared with the same quarter last year to $170 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the Europe and Africa segment decreased by 13% compared with the same quarter last year to $114 million. This reflected lower input cost recovery across both regions, including the impact of higher energy prices, as well as higher operational and overhead costs, mainly in Europe, as overall production was below prior year levels. This was partially offset by the contribution from higher shipments in both regions. Adjusted EBITDA from North America increased by 8% compared to the same quarter last year to $56 million. The improved performance for the quarter reflected stronger input cost recovery and a favorable volume performance across the current plant footprint. And that's after reflecting the closure actions that were initiated last year at some of our facilities. This was also partially offset by higher operational and overhead costs, including the impact of curtailment action to reduce inventory levels and generate cash. In terms of our capital structure position and overall liquidity, I'd note the following. Net leverage at the Argonne Group, which excludes the debt in the metal business, was 5.5 times adjusted EBITDA as of June 30. Total cash and available liquidity, excluding NAP, was $794 million. In terms of our outlook for cash flow technical items for AGP for the full year of 26, you can expect the following. Total capital expenditures are going to come in at approximately $370 million as the business catches up on its maintenance capex following two years of tightly managing capex given liquidity constraints. Cash interest of around $380 million. Cash lease payments of approximately $110 million. and we continue to expect a positive working capital inflow, i.e. working capital to be a source of cash. Cash tax of approximately $50 million, cash operating exceptional costs of $45 million, which includes costs related to the closure of the Gerberschein facility in Germany. We also recently launched an excess proceeds offer in which approximately $90 million of the $290 million of the preferred shared proceeds received from AMP last December will be offered to redeem outstanding notes. This tender process is underway and runs until 5 p.m. New York time on the 27th of July, unless extended or earlier terminated, and we will not be making any comments in advance of the conclusion of the tender process. For further details, please see the relevant press release concerning the initial launch of the offer on our IR website. I'll now turn it over to Alexander Kuzan, who will provide some additional comments on the European market performance.

Thanks a lot, Todd, and hi, everyone. I'm very pleased to be here talking with you today about our European glass business. I joined Ardahl almost two months ago from the valleys where, as Mark said, I spent over 12 years in my most recent role serving as vice president of the beverage packaging division in Europe. We were serving the beverage and food packaging sector. I was thus very familiar with Ardahl as an organization, and I've always been impressed by the culture and spirit of the people. So when the opportunity to join presented itself, it was an easy decision. It's been a busy couple of months during which I've traveled extensively. I've met the various teams and visited multiple plants. What has impressed me is the deep knowledge and experience in this business and the pride in what we do. Both are reflected by the long-standing tenures across many of our workforce. Our operations and expertise are very strong. However, we have two fundamental issues in Europe. The first one is the challenging external demand environment and the impact this has in terms of pressure on our capacity. As Mark indicated, we are moving forward with the closure of Germersheim, and we will continue to assess our capacity needs going forward. I am optimistic that getting our capacity position back in balance with demand will strengthen the resilience of our region and help improve our performance. The second issue we have is hate and pressure on input costs and the challenge in passing through these costs. I therefore see the need for a more fair and appropriate balance in our commercial agreements so that we can sustainably invest and support our customers. Now, looking at performance for the European business in the quarter, second quarter shipments increased by 3% compared with the same quarter last year and in line with our expectations, showing a sequential quarterly improvement. Operationally, although we had volume growth in the period, our production levels were below prior year levels as we actively took down inventory in the quarter. We will continue to drive down our inventory levels through year end. This impacted our financial performance as did higher inflationary pressures post the Middle East conflict. We revisited our hedging strategy for our future years with the use of external advisors recently, modifying our rolling cover plan to reduce our risk profile and to help mitigate future volatility and input costs. To elaborate on this a little further, a significant portion of our customers elect to hedge themselves. We actively hedge against our remaining customer exposures under our own program through forward purchases of energy requirements. Looking at performance by category, we experienced growth across the spirits, food, and beer categories ahead of expectations. This was partly offset by declines in wine and sparkling wine impacting Germany in particular, and this justified our footprint action in Germersheim. which predominantly serves the wine category. We also had a strong finish to the quarter in June following a weak May, helped by higher than average temperatures and customer activity into the World Cup, supporting beer sales. Reflecting increased customer and consumer uncertainty, Our current expectation is for full-year shipments to decline by a low to mid-single-digit percent, which is slightly worse than our prior expectation for a low single-digit percent decline. But to highlight that there are also opportunities and growth in the glass industry, we are pleased to announce our intention to make a modest growth investment in our Badmunder facility to expand capacity to service growing volumes with our pharmaceutical customers. With that, I'll hand over to Paul to talk you through the African business.

Thanks, Alex. Hello to everyone. It's great to be here today to discuss the African business. In terms of my background, I've been working in the glass industry for more than 25 years, joining the then-Consul back in 1998. Over the years, I've worked in engineering, capital projects, supply chain, procurement, operations, and commercial roles across the continent. I took over the role of CEO of Consul in early 22, and I'm part of Acquired Consul. So looking at the performance of the African business in the second quarter, shipments increased by 16%, in line with our expectations, but also citing a weak prior year comparison, where our largest customers undertook maintenance to reduce their finished goods stocks. By region, we saw strong growth in our largest market, South Africa, which also benefited from export growth into neighboring countries, as well as strong growth in Kenya. Nigeria also grew, but shipments reduced versus the prior year in Ethiopia, as our facility remained closed in the quarter. but we are pleased to announce we expect to restart production underpinned by customer commitments in the second half of this year. We had a strong operational performance in the quarter but despite strong volume growth our financial performance was held back by a negative category mix and we also faced high inflationary pressures post the Middle East conflicts in the second part of the quarter and particularly through high furnace fuel oil prices which is a component of our direct energy mix. Looking at performance by category versus prior year, we experienced strong growth in beer and food, as well as in non-alcoholic beverages and spirits. We had a decline in wine and sparkling wines, as this category remains under pressure globally, and domestic demand was negatively impacted by weather events in the wine region in South Africa. Versus expectations, it was the beer and food categories that performed well, while spirits and wines were weak to expectations. So while we had a strong volume performance in the quarter versus a week prior year comparable, where shipments fell 9%, our mix was negative. Our expectation of full-year shipments is for loads of mid-single-digit percentage growth, despite a later than expected restart of the Ethiopia facility. With that, I'll pass it over to Brian to talk you through the North American business.

Thanks, Paul. First, great to be speaking with all of you today, and just to share a bit about my background. Similar to Paul, I've been working in the glass industry for more than 25 years, with deep experience across a variety of roles. I joined R&R back in 2021, and since joining the company, I've helped the roles of Vice President, of Planning and Capacity Analysis, during which we initiated a successful footprint rationalization program, as well as the Chief Commercial Officer before accepting my current role as North American CEO in 2024. So looking at performance for the North American business in the quarter, second quarter shipments were down 2% compared to the same quarter last year, in line with our expectations and also showing a sequential quarterly improvement. The redeployment of volume across our rationalized footprint optimized our network utilization, driving improved margin performance. Operationally, we had a strong performance in the quarter, although we took a conscious decision to reduce our inventory levels, while positive from a cash perspective does impact profitability. We continue our curtailment actions and will closely monitor market conditions before making the decision to bring production back online. Looking at performance by category, we experienced growth in food, as well as beer and flavored alcoholic beverages. Performance in the beer category was favorable, which reflected the increased customer activity into the World Cup. But it's too early to assess the impacts of this on a full year basis. We experienced a modest decline in non-alcoholic beverages and more significant decline across the spirits and wine categories, which remained pressured due to changing consumer taste, continued destocking in spirits, and import competition in wine. are our expectation for full year shipments remains unchanged, which is for us a low single digit decline, reflecting the challenging demand backdrop. Now I'll hand the call back to Mark to make some closing comments.

Thanks to Brian and all the regional CEOs for their participation on the earnings call for the first time, which we hope you will find useful. So before moving to take your questions, I'd like to briefly recap

Our performance and provide some comments on our 2026 outlook.

The group continued its strong start to the year in the second quarter with adjusted EBITDA growth of 6% versus the prior year quarter. Performance in AMP was strongly ahead of expectations and performance in glass packaging was broadly in line with expectations. This performance is a testament to the resilience of both businesses, and we welcome the growth in global glass volumes in the quarter. AMP has upgraded its adjusted EBITDA guidance range for the current year to between $775 to $790 million. For R.Glass Packaging, reflecting the added external headwinds facing the business post the ongoing Middle East conflict, in terms of higher inflationary and volumetric pressures, we now expect a low to mid single-digit percentage negative impact to our prior adjusted EBITDA guidance of $700 million. So, from an overall perspective, in terms of the combined outlook for 2026, the gains in metal may offset the shortfall in glass performance. The market environment for glass packaging remains challenging, and in response, we recently launched our clearly R&R turnaround strategy to make AGP more resilient and better place to compete. We're now pleased to take any questions that you may have.

Thank you. If you are dialed in via the telephone and would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star 1 to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment. We'll take our first question from Roger Spitz with Bank of America.

Thanks very much. Just on the very last bit, I wanted to make sure I understood the 2026 EBITDA guidance. I heard you say down low to mid single digits. Was that down versus the prior guidance of 700, meaning 700 NOAA that's down low single digits to mid single digits? Or do you mean that off of low to mid single digits down versus 2025 EBITDA?

Yeah, it's against the 700, Roger. Low to mid single digit percentage negative impact to the 700.

Great. And is there any steer you can provide for Q3? I know you don't give a specific guidance, but can you talk about, you know, sort of what's going on now and how Q3 might, you know, look as a general matter, as a steer?

Yeah, I'd say, Roger, it's still a little too early for us to call Q3. So I'd prefer to not do that.

Okay. How about this? The last is you talked about some energy hedges and changing energy hedges, but from an overall blast restricted group basis, can you speak about how much of your energy is hedged? The one you're responsible for is what I mean. Yeah. For 26 and 27?

Yeah, Roger, this is Todd. Yeah, as we commented on our last call, we shared that we ended the year over 85% hedged going into 26 related to the energy purchases that we have exposure for in terms of price volatility. So that's how we entered the year. And then our rolling cover program takes it up and out over, not up necessarily, but out over future years as well. So locked in for 26. Still have some, obviously we're being impacted by energy prices even at that hedging level. that we're at now, and then the program extends out a couple years into the future.

Thank you very much. Pass it on.

We'll go next to Edward Brucker of Barclays.

Hey, thanks for taking the time this morning. This is Abhanikash on for Ed, just a couple from me. Maybe in terms of demand environment in North America, what kind of benefit did you see from the World Cup and the America 250 in the second quarter?

Yeah, so actually we saw benefit. I mean, we were up 2.2% in the second quarter, but I would tell you that We saw the first quarter very strong as well, and we're up 12%. So total year to date, we're up about 7% on the beer basis in the first half. So we did see an uplift given the World Cup.

Correct. And in terms of given that benefit will kind of roll off, how do you view in the third quarter and the second half volume performance in the region?

Yeah, I think as mentioned in my comments, right, we're not sure what the follow-through will be, if you will, in the second half. We're expecting to see continued benefits, but we don't have the visibility to that yet.

Got it. Maybe in terms of the transformation initiatives, including the rationalization effort in Europe, I think you mentioned the closure cost for the Europe facility is part of the $45 million guide, but beyond that, how should we think of any costs associated with the initiatives themselves and additional rationalizations for

I think the question was on possible additional closure costs through 2026 and 2027.

Okay, yeah, I'll let Alex address that one.

Thanks a lot for the question, Edward. This is Alex again. And, you know, glassmaking is a heavy cost, heavy fixed cost business, as you know. And so, the minutes you don't have plants loaded and utilization drops, it creates inefficiency. We seek to mitigate this wherever possible through curtailment activity. And, you know, we obviously don't quantify the dollar amount, but, you know, it has represented the headwind, hence our action in Germersheim, and we will continue to assess our capacity versus demand continuously.

Got it. And maybe last one from me. You mentioned an update to the hedging strategy. in terms of rolling the hedges with the energy prices like they continue to remain elevated. How should we, can it give some color on what that entails?

Yeah, this is Todd. Yeah, what, as Alex mentioned, we revisited kind of our program. We brought in some outside folks to help us assess it and came up with some adjustments to it. So I don't want to share the details of exactly what, you know, the program itself, but we made some enhancements to it that we think are going to help be even more effective as we go forward.

Got it. That's helpful. I'll hand it back. Thanks.

And once again, to ask a question on today's call, that is star 1 on your telephone keypad. We'll go next to Ning Yang with Jupiter Asset Management.

Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I have two questions. When is that you mentioned 20% EBITDA growth between 2025 and 2030? I wonder what is the underlying shipment assumption behind the growth, kind of the EBITDA growth that you're projecting? And my second question is that previously you mentioned there is a separation of RDA and RDA Metal IT through infrastructure. And I wonder if you have a timeline of when that separation will be completed?

Thank you.

Mark Porto here. I'll take the second question first around IT. As I mentioned on the last call, we do have a project that's underway to separate the applications, and we're expecting that project to end likely at the end of quarter one or into quarter two of 2027.

Thank you. And I'll address the first part of your question on the volume assumptions under the clearly are not plan, and it is for flat volume over the course of the plan.

Understood. Thank you so much. So I guess the growth is mainly coming from cost of initiatives.

Yes, it's not. Cost of emissions, the customer and the commercial go-to-market activity, that's where the savings are coming from and the earnings .

Understood. Thank you.

And at this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back. I do apologize. If you do have a question, please press star 1. And at this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back to Mark Porto for any additional or closing remarks.

Thanks, Jenny. Stephen here. Just before we have to mark, just to remind investors that to gain access to the investor portal, we encourage you to visit the RDAG Group IR site where you can request access after filling out the relevant credentials. With that, I'll hand it over to Mark for some concluding comments.

We'd like to thank everybody that is on the call today. You know, again, this continues our intention of being more open and transparent with you and answering your questions in a forthright way. We hope, as Stephen said, that you visit the portal and please register. And we look forward to seeing you on the next quarterly call. Thank you very kindly.

This does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation.