Ball Corporation

Greetings, and welcome to the Ball Corporation full year and fourth quarter 2025 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 Potthoff, Head 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 full year and fourth quarter 2025 results. During this call, we will reference our fourth quarter 2025 earnings presentation available through this webcast and our website at investors.ball.com. 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 company's latest Form 10-K, other SEC filings, and in today's earnings release and earnings presentation. If you do not already have our 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 for 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. Prior 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 16th, 2024. I would now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Ron Lewis.

Thank you, Brandon. Today I'm joined on our call by Dan Rabbitt, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I will provide some brief introductory remarks and discuss full year and fourth quarter 2025 financial performance and our outlook for 2026. Dan will touch on key metrics and then we'll finish up with closing comments and a question and answer session. With this being my first call as the CEO of Ball Corporation, I would like to take a minute to share my background and our vision for our company. I grew up on a farm in central Montana, working alongside my mom and dad, and that's where I learned the value of hard work, teamwork, and treating everyone with dignity and respect, values that define Ball today. I spent 20 years in the Coca-Cola system, leading supply chains and buying cans from Ball, and over those years, I was asked several times to join Ball, and six and a half years ago, I did. And since then, I've led our EMEA business, served as our COO, and most recently led our global supply chain and operations. I'm honored to step into this role because I believe in Ball. And I believe Ball is well positioned to win. Not only do I believe this, but the numbers back it up. It starts with the fundamentals of the beverage packaging market. Packaged liquid volume continues to grow globally and aluminum cans are taking share as consumers, customers, and retailers favor a package that is convenient, functional, and increasingly aligned with sustainability goals. This backdrop creates a long runway of demand for our products. Within that growing market, Ball is outperforming. Across our regions, we are consistently outpacing the can market in shipped volumes, supported by strong customer partnerships, innovation in formats, and a commercial and operational footprint that is unmatched. Our long-term volume range remains intact, and in 2025, we exceeded it. We pair that commercial momentum with financial strength. In 2025, we delivered record adjusted free cash flow and record comparable diluted EPS. We also returned more than $1.5 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends. Our disciplined capital allocation remains rooted in EVA. deploying capital only where it earns returns above our cost of capital. And operationally, we've never been stronger. Our plants are executing at a high level, driving meaningful improvements in profit per can through cost management and standardization. Our utilization rates across our business are as strong as they have been in multiple years, and our unmatched global scale is a competitive advantage. While we've made meaningful progress, we continue to see significant opportunity for further improvement. That opportunity is energizing our teams and provides additional operating leverage and cost performance upside as we look ahead. When you combine industry tailwinds, commercial outperformance, financial discipline, and the operational excellence through our ball business system, the result is a company that is exceptionally well positioned to win today and over the long term. As I've met with dozens of customers and investors since assuming my role, I've been asked a lot about what will change. I want to reinforce that our strategy is intact and it is working. It's about executing every day, staying close to our customers, accelerating the substrate shift to aluminum, and managing complexity to our advantage. And we are doubling down on profitable growth. This will be a significant focus for us in 2026 and beyond. We execute our strategy through our operating model, the Ball Business System. The Ball Business System is simple and powerful. First, are we listening to our customers? Are we their indispensable business partner? Are we the easiest can maker to do business with? You can see that our commercial excellence agenda is working as we're growing faster than the market across all of our regions. Second is our laser focus on operational excellence. Every shift, every day in 67 plants around the world, we are bringing stability and standardization to our business so that we can all continuously improve. Then we are leveraging these efficiencies and our scale to fuel our growth. This allows us to reinvest back in our business to compete and win in the marketplace. And purposefully at the center of the Ball business system is our people and our culture. I'm privileged to have the opportunity to drive and lead this company because our culture is one where we're not only focused on what we do, but also how we do it. This is a low ego, high collaboration environment where we are focused on empowering our people to work shoulder to shoulder to help our customers and our company to win. I believe that the team with the best people and the most motivated people is the team that wins. In short, people matter and leadership matters. And while the Ball Business System is the backbone of our operating model, EVA remains our North Star. It's more than a metric. It's a mindset that ensures disciplined capital allocation and returns above our cost of capital. This focus underpins our long-term algorithm, 10 plus percent annual comparable diluted EPS growth, strong free cash flow, and consistent returns to shareholders. Through the Ball Business System and our EVA mindset, we will continue to work as a team to leverage our scale, strengthen customer partnerships, and create fuel for growth. These principles position us to deliver sustainable results in 2026 and beyond and maximize value for our shareholders. Now, let me turn to our performance on slide eight. 2025 was a record year for Ball, reflecting the strength of our strategy and disciplined execution. We delivered strong volume growth across our global aluminum packaging businesses, with fourth quarter global shift volumes up 6% and full year growth of 4.1%. We achieved record earnings per share of $3.57, an increase of 13% from 2024. Adjusted free cash flow reached $956 million, a new high watermark for our company and up 2.4 times year over year. We return significant value to shareholders through $1.54 billion of combined share repurchases and dividends. And we are also pleased to close late last week on the previously announced acquisition of two BenePak beverage can facilities. These European plans enhance our regional footprint and strengthen our ability to serve growing customer demand in both the near and long term, while remaining fully aligned with our disciplined EBA-based approach to capital allocations. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect another strong year where we deliver our financial algorithm of 10 plus percent comparable dilutable EPS growth. With that outlook in mind, I'll let Dan walk you through the details of our fourth quarter and full year financial performance and provide more color on our expectations for 2026. Before I turn it over, I want to congratulate Dan on being named CFO. This was my first leadership decision as CEO, and it was an easy one. Dan's extensive knowledge of Ball and the industry, coupled with his financial expertise and strong leadership, made him the clear choice for this role. Over to you, Dan.