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spk09: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to APTA's 2024 Second Quarter Conference Call. At this time, all participants are enlisted in learning mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. Introducing today's conference call is Mrs. Mary Scafidas, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications. Please go ahead.
spk00: Thank you. Hello, everyone, and thanks for being with us today. Joining me on the call are Stefan Tanda, President and CEO, and Bob Kuhn, Executive Vice President and CFO. A press release and accompanying slide deck have been posted on our website. If you are following along on our website, you can advance the slides by hovering over the presentation screen and clicking on the arrows on the right and left. As always, we will also post a replay of this call on our website. Today's call includes some forward-looking statements. Please refer to our SEC filings to review factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we are discussing today. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Stefan.
spk01: Thank you, Mary, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us on the call today. I will begin my remarks by highlighting our second quarter results. Later in the call, Bob Kuhn, our CFO, will provide additional details on key drivers for the quarter. Starting on slide three, for the second quarter, I'm pleased to report that AFTA achieved core sales growth of 3% and delivered adjusted EPS of $1.37 per share, a 12% increase over the prior year quarter. We grew adjusted EPS double digits for the first half of the year and in the quarter. Additionally, due to our confidence in our performance, we recently raised the dividend by approximately 10% on top of an almost 8% increase last year. The positive results in the quarter were driven by strong demand for our pharma proprietary drug delivery systems, as well as continued broad-based margin improvement. Our pharma segment continued to see healthy demand for our proprietary drug delivery systems, with 7% core sales growth in the quarter, following more than 13% core sales growth in the second quarter of 2023. Additionally, proprietary drug delivery systems had double-digit growth in the quarter on top of growing more than 30% in the prior year quarter. One of the key drivers for this quarter was our drug delivery systems used for central nervous system drugs. Over the last decade, we have seen a growing number of pharma companies repurposing drugs from injectable to nasal delivery. This spans from emergency medicines used to reverse the effects of opioid overdose to nasal treatments for migraines, depression, and epilepsy. The wider benefits of nasally-delivered medications, such as over-the-counter nasal sprays, have come to light even more in a new study. According to the July 2024 study funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, nasal sprays such as Vicks First Defense, the gel-based nasal spray featuring our nasal pump that was used in the study, We are shown to reduce the severity of cold and flu symptoms, decrease the frequency and duration of respiratory infections, as well as limit the need for antibiotics in at-risk patients. This report is timely also in light of the most recent surge of COVID cases spreading in the U.S. In addition to our proprietary drug delivery systems, we have also built a suite of service and digital offerings. These include formulation development support, analytical testing, human factors testing, generating patient insights, regulatory support, digital health, and drug lifecycle management, all to help our pharmaceutical customers bring their drugs to market successfully. We are focused on improving the patient experiences and helping them successfully administer the therapies. Now moving to injectables, sales declined when compared to prior year quarter as sales normalized following last year's strong second quarter catch-up from the ERP implementation in the first quarter of 2023. Our pipeline of elastomeric components is growing nicely, especially for our higher value offerings. Both our beauty and closure segments saw volume increases. For beauty, lower tooling sales pulled down core sales growth. Beauty saw pockets of strength in North America, Latin America with mastiche fragrances, and broad-based demand improvement for personal care dispensers. Sales in Europe, which represent more than 50% of beauty's revenue, normalized after a period of significant growth a year ago. In terms of margins, beauty improved a full percentage point over the prior year period, while closures margins were flat due to timing of the passing on of lower resin costs. During this talking period, we have focused on improving operational leverage. Now that we are seeing progressive improvement in North American sales, we expect to benefit as volumes rebound. Before I turn the call over to Bob to share further details on Q2, I want to speak about innovation and highlight recent technology and product launches as shown on slide four. Starting with pharma, our UNIDO system is used in the US to deliver medications that treat vitamin B12 deficiency and anemia. In China, our airlift system is used for new acne medication. And in Europe, our Actifile material science technology is used for Bayer's Iberobiotics Pro. In our digital health business, Migraine Buddy is now part of our portfolio of products and is the leading headache and migraine tracking app to help users report and self-manage their migraine symptoms. We have also added two digital solutions that enable patients to track their health and share reports with their care team through our partnership with Biogen, Clio for patients with multiple sclerosis, and Physio.me for people living with neuromuscular disorders. In beauty, our pump is used for Lancôme's refillable Idone fragrance. Guerlain's first fragrance formulated without alcohol features our fragrance pump, and Neutrogena's Hydro Boost skincare product has selected our monomaterial, fully recyclable pump. In Latin America, Aptar's custom overcap made from post-consumer recycled resin, is featured on the Fragrance Kayak. Turning to closures, we have a 14-year partnership with Kraft Heinz for their Moneo brand beverage concentrate, and the rebranded packaging in the U.S. has a custom closure with our Simply Squeeze valve. Our custom flip-top closure with PCR is used on an Adidas body cleanser in China. Turning to slide five now, During the quarter, we released our 2023 Corporate Sustainability and ESG Report, which highlights our significant progress across many key areas of our sustainability strategy. We pride ourselves on continuously raising the bar on sourcing renewable energy, certifying sites as landfill-free, and developing products that are more recyclable, reusable, refillable, and incorporate more sustainable materials. In June, USA Today named APTA among America's climate leaders, and Time Magazine named us one of the world's most sustainable companies, where we are ranked number 194 out of 500 global companies. Both recognitions reflect our broad-based leadership in sustainability, transparent data reporting, and continued commitment to advancing sustainable practices. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Bob.
spk03: Thank you, Stefan, and good morning, everyone. Starting on slide six, I would like to summarize the quarter. Our reported sales increased 2%. This included a currency translation headwind of approximately 1%. Therefore, core sales grew 3%, primarily due to strong growth in pharma's proprietary drug delivery systems, as well as a progressively recovering North American market for both beauty and closures. As shown on slide seven, we reported second quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.37, which is a 12% increase over the prior year's adjusted EPS. During the quarter, we achieved adjusted EBITDA of $193 million, which increased from the prior year's second quarter by 6%, driven by expanding margins. Free cash flow increased to $75 million in the quarter, compared to $7 million in the prior year quarter. Turning to some of the details by segment for the quarter, our pharma segment's core sales increased 7% due to volume growth, especially in our proprietary drug delivery systems and active film solutions. Looking at sales in the pharma segment by market, I will start by breaking out our proprietary drug delivery systems, which performed well in the quarter. Prescription core sales increased 16%, driven by strong sales of allergic rhinitis, central nervous system therapeutics, as well as pain and emergency medicines. Core sales for consumer healthcare increased 6% due to higher demand for eye care, nasal saline, and nasal decongestant solutions. Injectables core sales decreased 10% over the prior year quarter. As Stefan mentioned, sales declined compared to the prior year quarter as sales normalized following last year's strong second quarter catch-up from the ERP implementation in the first quarter of 2023. We continue to see good growth in our higher value elastomeric components, including those used for GLP-1 applications. Core sales for our active material science solutions improved in the quarter, increasing 7%, with demand returning for our products used on probiotics, oral solid dose applications, and wearables. Pharma's adjusted EBITDA margin was 34%, a nearly two-point improvement from the prior year's quarter due to increased sales of higher value products, increased royalties on customer sales and ongoing efforts around operational improvements. The beauty segments course sales decreased 1% in the quarter, driven by lower product sales in Europe after a period of significant fragrance launches, as well as lower tooling sales compared to Q2 of 2023. The segments saw modest volume improvement with stronger sales globally in the personal care and home care end markets and the beauty end market in North America. As we look closer at the segment's performance by end market, core sales for the beauty market decreased 6% in the quarter. Overall difficult comparisons for prestige fragrance dispensing solutions in the prior year quarter were the main reason for the lower sales. Regionally, sales were up in North America, Latin America, and more modestly in Asia, while sales in Europe were down due to tough fragrance comparisons. Core sales for the personal care market increased 4% due to demand for body lotions and hair care products. Growth was broad-based across most regions. Home care sales increased 10% driven by strong sales in North America, primarily for our products used on air care applications. This segment adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was approximately 14%, nearly a one-point improvement over the prior year's quarter despite softer sales. The margin improvement was due to continued focus on operational performance along with cost management. Turning to the closure segment, core sales were flat compared with the prior year's quarter. Volumes for closures increased slightly, but core sales were negatively impacted by the pass-through of lower resin costs. Sales increased for beverage, offsetting the softer food market. When looking at sales by market for closures, food core sales decreased 3%, driven by market softness in North America and Europe. Beverage core sales increased 7%, with sales of bottled water, functional sports drinks, and concentrates contributing positively to the results. Sales were driven by overall regional growth, including Europe, which is our largest beverage market. Core sales for the personal care closures decreased 3%. Growth in North America, Latin America, and Asia could not offset the decline in Europe. In our fourth category, which includes beauty, home care, and health care, core sales increased 9% as demand for dish care, surface cleaners, and laundry products grew in the quarter. The segments adjusted EBITDA margin was 16% for the quarter, which was flat compared to the prior year quarter, as ongoing cost containment efforts and operational performance were offset by the timing of pass-through of lower resin costs. In the second quarter of 2024, we had capital expenditures of approximately 68 million, and about 60% was spent on our pharma segment. Reported depreciation and amortization expense increased by almost $3 million over the prior year quarter to approximately $65 million, or 7% of sales. In the quarter, we experienced higher corporate expenses than usual, including more than $3 million in expenses for the review of potential acquisition targets. I also want to note that in early July, we amended and restated our multi-currency revolving credit facility to replace the existing facility that matures in June 2026. The new facility now matures in July 2029 and provides for unsecured financing of up to $600 million. Also in July, we entered into a term loan that matures in July 2027 and provides for unsecured financing of up to $330 million. This will be used to finance near-term maturities and for general corporate purposes. Slides 8 and 9 cover our year-to-date performance and show a core sales increase of 4% and our adjusted earnings per share, which were $2.63, up 21% compared to $2.18 a year ago, including comparable exchange rates. Moving to slide 10, which summarizes our outlook for the third quarter, we anticipate our growth to continue and expect third quarter adjusted earnings per share excluding any restructuring expenses, acquisition costs, and changes in the unrealized fair value of equity investments to be in the range of $1.38 to $1.46 per share. The estimated tax rate range for the third quarter is 23.5% to 25.5%. We are expecting currencies to have a small positive impact compared to the prior year quarter. We currently estimate depreciation and amortization for 2024 to be between 260 to 270M dollars. We expect our capital expenditures in 2024 to be between 280 and 300M dollars. With the majority of capital allocated toward our farmer segment. In closing, we continue to have a strong balance sheet with a leverage ratio of approximately 1.3. Which allows us to continue to invest in the business, pursue strategic opportunities. and continue to return value to shareholders in the form of dividends and repurchases. In addition to our cash dividend payments to shareholders, which totaled approximately $27 million in the quarter, we repurchased about 34,000 shares for approximately $5 million. Over the last five years, we have returned more than $780 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. At this time, Stefan will provide a few closing comments before we move to Q&A.
spk01: Thanks, Bob. In closing, we had a strong first half and see that growth continuing into the third quarter. We see good momentum for our proprietary drug delivery systems, driven by demand for nasally delivered central nervous system drugs, as well as our proprietary drug delivery systems for allergies and eye care. As a reminder, we expect our proprietary drug delivery systems to grow within our long-term core sales target range of 7% to 11% for the full year. While we expect 2024 to be a bit noisy for our injectable division, we see demand for higher value products continuing to grow. For our consumer dispensing technology, we see progressive recovery in North America. As volumes come back, we expect to benefit from our continued focus on cost management and improved operational leverage. Lastly, our strong performance and continued positive outlook led to our recent dividend increase of almost 10% on top of last year's 8% increase. Now, before I open the call out for questions, I want to touch on the announcement we made last night. My colleague Bob Kuhn, AFTRA's CFO, has decided to retire at the end of this year. Bob has been with AFTRA for 37 years, 16 of them as our CFO. I want to sincerely thank Bob for his guidance, leadership, and many contributions to APTAR. No doubt, Bob is one of the best CFOs in the business. He has played an instrumental role in our success while building a strong team and putting in place an incredible financial foundation from which APTAR can continue to grow and create shareholder value. After an extensive search process, I'm pleased to announce that Vanessa Cano has been selected as APTAR's next CFO as of the 1st of January, 2025. Vanessa is expected to start early in the fourth quarter of this year as CFO Designate. Vanessa brings tremendous experience as a CFO in financial reporting, global operations, M&A, and cost management that APTA and our shareholders will greatly benefit from. Most recently, she was the CFO of TELUS International, a technology services firm that operates in 32 countries. She also serves on the board of directors of Manulife Financial Corporation, a global financial services institution. I'm pleased to welcome Vanessa to the app team, and I look forward to working with her and introducing her to many of you listening on the call. As a testament to the strong finance team in place, we have also promoted Dan Ackerman, the chief accounting officer of the company. Dan has become a trusted advisor valued for his integrity and dedication to Aptar. He will continue to lead all corporate accounting functions, working closely with the second final team and continue to help set the company's long-term financial planning strategy. With that, I would like to open the call up for your questions.
spk09: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. In the interest of time and fairness to all participants, please limit yourself to two questions and then come back into the queue if you have more questions as time allows. Our first question comes from George Staffos with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk06: Thanks so much. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for the details. Bob, it's been wonderful working with you. We appreciate all your support of Our research and everyone's, I'm sure everybody in the community thinks that, and we congratulate Vanessa and Dan on their next chapters in their careers and Vanessa joining after as well. I guess my two questions, first of all, there's been a lot, as you might know, discussion of regarding destocking in the injectables market, not necessarily for you guys, but for some of your peers. How much of that is affecting your business relative to obviously the tough comps that you spelled out. And then secondly, what I'd say is this, you know, it looks like you're seeing a migration of share perhaps back into your traditional, your proprietary dispensing devices out of injectables, or at least if you can comment if that's happening. Given everything we've heard, you know, large molecules have been sort of gaining share in terms of remedies, and so how are you seeing growth in your proprietary dispensing systems when injectables was supposed to be where the growth was going to be? Thanks so much, and I'll come back in queue.
spk01: Great, George, and I can only echo your thanks to Bob and the team. On your questions, let me take one at a time. Look, we did not have a huge COVID boom for our injectable business. As you know, the major benefits of COVID in our injectable business was the credibility gain as we got vetted. Of course, we see somebody stocking antithrombotics and things like that that people consumed more than they were in the hospital. But in the context of the overall growth of the high-value products, the GLP-1, that is more than offset. And the noisiness of the quarter is quite simply last year's quarter two, we kind of did a quarter and a half in quarter two because we caught up from almost no sales in quarter one. That's why you have this noisy comparison. But injectable has grown through the first six months. in unit sales and we expect it to continue to grow in the second half. Nevertheless, nevermind the stocking in some SQs like antithrombotics. Now on your second question, this is really, you're talking different orders of magnitudes. Injectable medicines, it's like the Pacific Ocean. And then you talk about the drugs administered to the nose. It's maybe the Danube. So you're talking different orders of magnitude. There's not really a big shift. We continue to see injected medicines to grow, and especially biologics continue to grow. What the nasal delivery offers to many pharma companies is a way to lifecycle management, maybe older drugs, maybe well-established drugs, with a new delivery method, one that perhaps is more efficient for that type of molecule. Sometimes it's repurposing injected medicines like valoxone. Sometimes it's repurposing oral dose medicines. And sometimes it's maybe an alternative like, you know, epinephrine from the EpiPen to hopefully a nasal delivery. But this takes nothing away from the – the growth of the Pacific Ocean, so to speak, in terms of overall injected medicine and biologics. And we are a small part of this, but we are very excited about the growth, and that's why we invested in it.
spk06: Thank you, Stefan. I'll turn it over. I'll come back.
spk09: We now turn to Gontran Panjabi with Baird. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk04: Hi, good morning, and I just want to echo George's comments for Bob. Obviously, a big congrats on your retirement and amazing career, and you'll certainly be missed by all of us. I guess, you know, following up on the last question, so on pharma, I mean, you know, plus 7% core sales growth, you know, obviously prescription boosted that, injectables down. So if the assumption, Stefan, is that injectables continues to grow in the back half of the year or reverts towards that, should we expect a reacceleration in terms of growth core sales relative to that 7%? And how does that impact margins as well?
spk01: Yeah, we don't really guide by subunit. I think we already leaned out the window by giving you some comfort that our proprietary delivery dispensing will continue to grow in the 7% to 11% for the full year, despite the double-digit growth last year. And yeah, you can take from my comments that we see continued growth in injectables. And yeah, technically, technically, that is a reacceleration from a decline in quarter two. But you understand the quarter two comparison here.
spk04: I do. Yeah. And then for my second question, you know, sounds like, yeah.
spk01: Sorry, go ahead.
spk04: No, go ahead. Go ahead, please.
spk01: Yeah, look, on the margin, obviously, a part of that is mix-dependent, as you know. Certainly, proprietary dispensing devices are probably the highest market in business. Injectable is nice, but not in that range. So it will always have a mixed impact. On the other hand, as you heard Bob say, overall, we also have $3.5 million of non-recurring corporate costs in Q2 that we did not adjust out, so they will not repeat in Q3. Also, you know, we will start to have the benefits of having shut down the closures plant in France. So we continue across the board.
spk04: Okay. And then my second question was on the beauty segment. So, you know, as it relates to North America showing pockets of growth, you know, how do you see that unfolding in the back half of the year in context of just very, very mixed consumer spending? And then your comment on Europe specific to fragrances, I mean, clearly comparison is going to be tough for the back half of the year as well. Should we expect the same trend line for the back half specific to Europe also for that segment? Thanks.
spk01: Yeah. I would say first North America obviously we compared to a relatively low base and we see broad base recovery. not only in beauty, but also in closures. And I think that bodes well for the second half of the year. Now, given that Europe is so much bigger, clearly we have this avalanche of new prestige launches coming out of COVID that now don't repeat. We will also see that in the second half, albeit the comparisons will get a little bit easier. We actually have some nice growth of must-each launches, that's particularly in Latin America. But that's not large enough to upset the year-over-year comparison with Europe. So, yeah, it's going to be a bit of a mixed bag, but overall very positive for North America, good growth in Latin America. Clearly, we're all a little bit looking at China and wondering when it's going to start firing again on all 12 cylinders. And that also has an impact on European sales, as you recall, that a lot of our European beauty sales also feed into China. So that's why it's a bit trying to mix back for the second half of beauty. But overall, I feel good about it.
spk04: OK. Thanks so much. And Bob, congrats again.
spk02: Thanks, Gunsham. Appreciate it.
spk09: Our next question comes from Daniel Rizzo with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk08: Hey. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. You mentioned CapEx is mostly for pharma. I was just thinking how we should think about the cadence over the next few years, if there's any big projects ending or starting, and, yeah, how we should think about this, I mean, towards the end of the decade.
spk01: So, yeah, look, overall... Go ahead, Bob. Go ahead, Bob.
spk02: No, I was just going to say, I don't see... We don't have anything... Robert Marlayson, Today, on the long term rise in the term of major capex other than I would say, continuing to industrialize and increase capacity for for high performing product lines that you know as we've seen in pharma. Robert Marlayson, I see the trend towards. Robert Marlayson, Higher waiting of towards pharma could continue. Robert Marlayson, But again, opportunities are still out there and all three segments, we do see, though. the high point of $300 million that we've touched the last couple of years beginning to decrease as we start to leverage all those investments that we've made over the past couple of years. Overall, slight decrease from where we were at the high point, continued majority spend on pharma, and again, large capital, nothing building-wise or anything at the moment like we've gone through, but we'll continue to to increase capacity for, you know, product lines that are performing well.
spk08: And then you mentioned in prepared comments about royalties in pharma. I was just wondering if that's an ancillary business or something that's growing and could be a larger revenue driver in the coming years or how we really should think about it.
spk02: Danny, I can respond to that. So that's part of the business model, ongoing business model for our pharma team, particularly in the proprietary drug delivery system. So it is a new business model, slightly new leavening stream. We fully anticipate it will continue to grow. But at this point, we're not prepared to really disclose how big it could become.
spk09: Okay.
spk02: Thank you.
spk01: Yeah, if I just add to that, look, every time we enter in a new development project, and often that is with small companies long before they get bought by bigger companies, sometimes they don't have all the funds to pay for everything up front. So we enter into milestone payments, and sometimes we get royalties on the back end. It's just part of the overall revenue mix, and it's part of our value creation model.
spk09: Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad now. We now turn to Matt LaRue with William Blair. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk05: Hi. Good morning. You talked about progress you've made on HVP within injectable. So, would maybe just be curious for your assessment of your overall participation rate today versus pre-COVID and what you've seen since you've brought new capacity to bear and perhaps how that capacity and some of the new products have helped both with GLPs but, you know, more broadly in the market. Sure.
spk01: As you may remember from Investor Day, the capacity increase is really being split over a number of smaller projects. We had two legacy sites in France. Both of them have been upgraded. And then a new site has been built that's still being completed and validated. And then the Congress New York site. within those different steps in the value chain. But overall, we've increased our capability in high-value products. And because of the COVID event, more and more interest by customers to work with us on new projects, biologic projects. And of course, GLP-1 is part of that. There's a reminder in GLP-1. There are two SKUs, at least. One is the plunger, one is the needle shield. And we're quite happy with our participation rate overall there and see that business continuing to grow. So this is an ongoing growth trajectory. We got the capacity to grow with the market. And yeah, fortunately, we're not as much exposed to the destocking.
spk05: Right. And then, you know, in your prepared remarks, you obviously made comments about M&A diligence as well as some debt restructuring, you know, balance sheet moves. You know, Gershom obviously recently did the formula deal, so there's been some activity in sort of the M&A space within the broader packaging market. Just given that you made the comments proactively, curious either from an appetite or availability perspective what you're seeing.
spk01: Look, we have a strong balance sheet and that affords us strategic flexibility. As you know, we are fans of bite-sized bolt-on partnerships and acquisitions and have a solid track record. And, you know, periodically we evaluate opportunities, but we don't get into any of the details of those until they're ready to be announced. But there's nothing at the moment that's ongoing.
spk05: Thanks.
spk09: We now turn to Gabe Hady with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk07: Stefan, Bob, good morning. Echo the same congratulations, Bob. I'm sure you're going to enjoy the weather. And welcome, Vanessa. I had a question about the pipeline. It's sometimes always tough on the outside. We sort of have to trust the team, but you gave us some data points that, you know, in dollar terms project and number of projects, I think versus 2019, that pipeline has been up kind of consistently just above 40% or so. Can you give us an update maybe today where it sits and where you would expect that to trend maybe over the next 18 months or some timeframe that seems reasonable, 24 months, as you commercialize some of these things that are in the pipeline? You know, maybe central nervous system treatments that you guys are working on.
spk01: Yeah, sure. We feel very good about the pipeline. It continues to grow. We mentioned, I think, last time that even though we have commercializations, and that means things come out of the pipeline, we have replenished the pipeline with the same or larger amount. I think we'll give you an update on the pipeline again in October when we have our investor event, small commercial. We will be in France October 2 and 3. So anybody who hasn't signed up yet, Mary would love to hear from you. And I'm pretty sure at that time we'll be able to give you An update, and I don't expect significant deviation from the trend line overall, whether it's nasal devices, whether it's inhalation, whether it's ophthalmic, whether it's injectables, we see good pipeline inflow. Also on the digital health front, we make very good progress. I mentioned a few apps, the Biogen deal. continues to help us in our business development efforts. So overall, feel good about the pipeline, feel good about the prospects, and, you know, ultimately that has also informed our decision to raise again our dividend after the 8% last year, almost 10% this year. So that kind of gives you a feeling of the underlying confidence in the pipeline.
spk07: Thank you. And maybe just one more, I'll take another stab at the M&A question. From your vantage point, is there anything that you see in the pipeline from a size perspective that's different than what you all have done in the past or assets that you see potentially coming to market size-wise that are larger in nature versus Again, like what you've done in the past. Thank you.
spk01: Yeah, I would not say that. In principle, there is something different. Clearly, today we have a market cap that approaches 10 billion. So both on side means probably something different than when the market cap was half that size. But the general attitude is still the same. We love these. both on deals that come with good management, that give us additional capabilities, technologies that we can spread across the company and leverage or geographic footprint. And I'm not a big fan of large transformative deals that tend to be much riskier.
spk07: Perfect. Thank you and good luck.
spk09: Thank you. We have a follow-up question from George Staffos with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk06: Thanks for taking my question. Following on some of the questions here at the end of the call regarding M&A and the pipeline, obviously there were some headlines earlier in the week with some peers in the dispensing market getting together. And look, that happens all the time. Can you talk, Stefan and Bob, about how the competitive landscape may be changing? Do you view some of the more recent announcements as something that APTRA will have to navigate even more carefully now from a competitive standpoint in terms of making sure your moat is as solid as ever, making sure your pipeline is growing, to Gabe's point earlier? Or do you feel, hey, listen, this is a normal course and we'll focus on our our pipeline, our new products, our commercialization, and the rest will take care of itself. So that's question one. And question two, I recognize having covered you a long time, you're not going to guide necessarily on the fourth quarter, but should we expect at a minimum continued increases in earnings throughout the year? Can you maintain relatively consistent trends in earnings from third quarter into fourth quarter based on the pipeline, based on the fact you raised a dividend, based on the fact that comps maybe get a little bit easier in pharma from your earlier Q&A with Gancham. Thanks, and good luck in the quarter.
spk01: Sure. I'm going to leave the second question for you, Bob. Let me take the first question. Yeah, look, these packaging assets are very attractive assets, especially for PE firms. They change hands often. You referred to... where one of them was picked up by strategic. We don't really see a change in the competitive environment. So I would much more call this in the ordinary courts. I mean, to specifically talk about that one, Silgun is a respected company, a respected operator. We don't see a change in the competitive environment here. And we wish them good luck.
spk02: And, George, you're 100% right. We're not going to comment on the fourth quarter earnings looking forward. So I don't want to disappoint you. Come on, Bob.
spk06: You could go out with a bang here.
spk02: I got one more in me, George. Come on. Come on. I got one more in me. Don't push me out just yet. But I think the dividend increase of 10%, you know, in my opinion, was a strong signal in our confidence. in the near-term future of what we're doing. Fourth quarter, to be perfectly transparent, is always very difficult to forecast, right? You know, we've had really strong fourth quarters. We've had very weak fourth quarters, right? It depends on where we will be probably in the economic cycle and where the confidence level is. There's a lot of uncertainty going on, particularly with elections and things like that. So let's see where it goes, but certainly... George Leal, sitting here today, and you know that dividend increase should should be the indicator that we, we see a good a good near term future horizon.
spk06: George Leal, Okay, thank you so much, good luck in the quarter see you next one. George Leal, Thanks George.
spk09: George Leal, This concludes our Q amp a I want to hand back to Mr stephan candor for closing remarks.
spk01: Stephen Campbell, All right, thank you. So as you see, we continue to focus on executing the ambitious earnings growth plan that we shared with you at the investor day with a strong focus both on the top line and the structural and ongoing productivity gains, all to ensure that the bottom line grows faster than the top line. um in that range q2 was another solid quarter continuing our double digit adjusted eps growth for the quarter as well as for the first half and again as a reminder we had three and a half million under current costs that was not adjusted out in the quarter also uh we see how momentum continue in the second half with further farmer growth um As you can hear from my voice, COVID is alive and well, so Bob and I sit in separate rooms. So that will certainly help consumer health care also. Cost management and strong operational performance continue, and we will benefit from the productivity measures such as the quarter two planned closing in France. Also as a reminder, even in a slow economy, we're confident about our future trajectory. As we just discussed, it also underpins our decision to increase our dividend yet again by 10%. Orderbook and project pipeline remain strong, and customers continue to engage well with our innovations. They appreciate the technology and value we bring to their brands and their drug developments, including our ongoing leadership and sustainability develop positions from an operational perspective and our regional footprints gain increasing competitiveness around the world and as we discussed our larger investments are behind us and capex is kind of normalizing adding to our cash generation um we talked about the strong balance sheet and strategic flexibility And with that, I would say all this goes well for the second half. Bob, Vanessa, Mary, and I and Dan are looking forward to discuss with you more on the road. And again, a small commercial for our investor event in France on October 2 and 3. And with that, I wish everybody a good summer and see you on the road.
spk09: Ladies and gentlemen, today's call is now concluded. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
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