Ball Corporation

Greetings, and welcome to the Ball Corporation 4th Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Brandon Pottoff, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Thank you, Christine. Good morning, everyone. This is Ball Corporation's conference call regarding the company's fourth quarter 2024 results. The information provided during this call will contain forward-looking statements. Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those that may be expressed or implied. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made today. Some factors that could cause the results or outcomes to differ are described in the our most recent earnings release and form 8K and other company SEC filings as well as company news releases. If you do not already have the earnings release, it is available on our website at ball.com. Information regarding the use of non-GAAP financial measures may also be found in the notes section of today's earnings release. In addition, the release includes a summary of non-comparable items as well as a reconciliation of comparable net earnings and diluted earnings per share calculations. References to net sales and comparable operating earnings in today's release and call do not include the company's former aerospace business. Year-to-date net earnings attributable to the corporation and comparable net earnings do include the performance of the company's former aerospace business through the sale date of February 16, 2024. I would now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Dan Fisher.

Thank you, Brandon. Today I'm joined on our call by Howard Yu, EVP and CFO. Hello. I will provide some brief introductory remarks. Howard will discuss fourth quarter financial performance and key metrics for 2025. And then we will finish up with closing comments and Q&A. Before I talk about the business and results, I want to highlight the amazing work our employees and teams have done to give back to their communities. In 2024, our employees volunteered more than 23,000 hours of their time across 23 countries and to more than 1,880 different causes and organizations, working to create a positive impact in the communities where we live and work. In partnership with the Ball Foundation and our dedicated employees, we invested more than $4 million into our communities to support local causes and disaster relief efforts. I want to thank all of our employees who devoted time in 2024 to uplifting our communities. You truly represent our values of we care, we work, we win. I also want to take a minute to highlight the work our teams have done to continue to improve our safety performance. Because our people are our most valuable resource, we set aggressive targets to improve our total recordable incident rates. We continue to be well below industry incident rates, and our continuous improvement mindset requires us to constantly improve. Through that mindset, we were able to decrease our 2024 incident rates versus 2023 and outperformed our goal for the year. For us, our safety metrics represent more than just numbers. They exemplify the health and wellbeing of our employees, and we will continue to do everything in our power to improve every year. Turning to business performance, we delivered solid fourth quarter results and returned 1.96 billion to shareholders via share repurchases and dividends in 2024. And we continue to execute on our goal of repurchasing at least 3 billion of shares between 24 and 25. Aluminum packaging continues to outperform other substrates across the globe. In EMEA, fourth quarter volume remains strong, driven by continued investment by our customers in canned filling across the region. In South America, Volume growth in Chile and Paraguay was more than offset by softer than anticipated volume performance in Argentina, as well as supply-demand tightness in Brazil caused by slower-than-expected ramp of idle capacity. In North America, persistent economic pressure on the end consumer and our exposure to U.S. domestic beer led to softer-than-expected volume. Our regional performance culminated in Ball's global beverage can shipments being down low single digits year over year in the fourth quarter and up 1% in 2024. Looking to 2025, our ball business system is in place and our teams are focused and excited about the opportunity that lies ahead of us to drive operational performance, volume growth, and productivity gains. We are laser focused on delivering on our stated goal of exceeding 10% comparable diluted earnings per share growth in 2025 and beyond. As we begin 2025, we feel confident in our ability to deliver 11 to 14% comparable diluted EPS growth. We anticipate growing global volume in the 2 to 3% range and expect all of our businesses to grow in or above the ranges we laid out at our 2024 Investor Day. In EMEA, customer movement to cans from other substrates will continue in 2025. We continue to be bullish on the opportunity to drive long-term growth across EMEA as sustainability legislation and the competitive advantages of aluminum packaging increase can penetration from a low base. In South America, recovery in Argentina and Chile coupled with growth in Brazil is expected to drive volume above our long-term range and operating earnings growth in 2025. And while our North America business faced volume challenges last year, we have confidence in our ability to deliver volume growth in line with or slightly above market. We have been proactive about extending contracts and have over 85% of our 2026 volume under contract. That includes signing an extension with one of our largest customers that will take us to nearly the end of the decade. This extension with our global partner also means that we will be building what is effectively a two-line can plant in Oregon. This investment will not change our expected CapEx plans or our share repurchase targets, and will give us needed capacity in the market where our customers are also investing. Additionally, in January, the company entered into an agreement to purchase Florida Can Manufacturing and its beverage can facility in Winter Haven, Florida. The transaction, which carried a $160 million purchase price, closed this morning. Our North American business is running at high utilization rates in part of the U.S., and with the growth we expect in the coming years, this capacity will provide us the fuel for growth we need to deliver on our customers' plans. We are purchasing this asset for well below replacement value, and with our strong balance sheet position, there will be no impact to our share repurchase plans. Lastly, on CUPS, During the fourth quarter, our board approved for the company to pursue alternatives for the business. This includes an option to form a strategic partnership in early 2025, which is expected to result in deconsolidation of the business. We expect to complete the process in the first quarter. And with that, I'll turn it over to Howard to discuss full year and fourth quarter 2024 results, as well as key metrics for 2025. Thank you, Dan.