Berry Global Group, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the third quarter 2023 Berry Global Group earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dustin Stilwell, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Barry's third fiscal quarter 2023 earnings call. Throughout this call, we will refer to the third fiscal quarter as the June 2023 quarter. Before we begin our call, I would like to mention that on our website, we have provided a slide presentation to help guide our discussion this morning. After today's call, a replay will also be available on our website at barryglobal.com under our investor relations section. Joining me from the company, I have Barry's Chief Executive Officer, Tom Salmon, and Chief Financial Officer, Mark Miles. Following Tom and Mark's comments today, we'll have a question and answer session. In order to allow everyone the opportunity to participate, you do ask that you limit yourself to one question at a time and then fall back into the queue for any additional questions. As referenced on slide two, during this call, we will be discussing some non-GAAP financial measures. The most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of the differences between the GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are available in our earnings release and investor presentation on our website. Please note that in our commentary today and within our presentation, when we compare our results to the prior year, quarter, or four year, we have adjusted to present on a constant currency basis and remove the impact of divested businesses to provide the appropriate comparable results. A reconciliation to reported results have been provided in our earnings release and the appendix of our presentation. And finally, a reminder that certain statements made today may be forward-looking statements. These statements are made based upon management's expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company, and therefore involve a number of uncertainties and risks, including but not limited to those described in our earnings release, annual report on Form 10-K, and other filings within the FDC. Therefore, the actual results of operations or financial condition of the company could differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. And now let's turn the call over to VARI's CEO, Tom Sandler.

Thank you, Dustin. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for being with us today. Turning to our key takeaways for the quarter on slide four. Today, we're pleased to reiterate our outlook for fiscal 2023, which is in line with our previously announced range. Our commitment to improving our mix of high-value growth products and implementing structural cost reductions has effectively offset weaker demand from customers, including these stock initiatives. Our cost actions include site rationalizations, moving business to more cost-efficient facilities, and labor cost reductions, all enabling improved productivity. Notably, we've made strategic investments in high-growth markets such as food service, health and beauty, dispensing, and pharmaceuticals, with a strong focus on sustainability-linked customer projects. Moreover, we have been dedicated to returning capital to our shareholders, having already purchased nearly 7 million shares in fiscal 2023, amounting to 5.6% of total outstanding shares. Looking ahead, we expect to meet our commitment of repurchasing $600 million of shares in fiscal 2023. Our unwavering commitment to strengthen our balance sheet has led us to lower our long-term leverage target to 2.5 to 3.5 times and expect to be at 3.7 times at the end of this fiscal year. with plans to be below 3.5 times by the end of fiscal 24 and well within our new targeted range. While we recognize that overall market demand may present challenges for the remainder of the calendar year, we remain very optimistic. By making long-lasting structural cost improvements and advancing our strategic initiatives, we are confident in exiting 23 as a much stronger and more focused company. Turning now to the financial results on slide 5. Earnings for the June 2023 quarter were modestly below our expectation, mainly due to higher inflation impacting market demand. During the quarter and throughout the year, the teams have performed exceptionally well on things within our control. We achieved another quarter of positive price-cost spread from inflation recovery, and we successfully implemented strong cost reductions and mixed improvements across our businesses. Although our efforts were partially impacted by overall soft and marked demand, we're encouraged by the fact that it aligns with what our global customers have experienced and the trends they've reported across various regions. Looking ahead, we anticipate an improvement in volumes in all four segments sequentially compared to prior year quarter, especially with the inflationary pressures easing on consumers. In addition, We are thrilled to announce our inclusion in the S&P MidCap 400 Index on June 20. This is a significant milestone for Barrie, reflecting our strong progress as a leading global packaging company committed to providing protective and sustainable solutions to our worldwide customers. During the quarter, we performed well, achieving strong operational performance, including progress on energy reduction and labor stability. We also took additional cost reduction actions, including rationalizing facilities To optimize our assets, reducing our footprint by a total of 20 facilities resulted in a total annualized savings of $140 million from our cost initiatives, of which $75 million is expected to be realized in fiscal 2023. Additionally, we remain dedicated to providing strong capital returns for our shareholders, having returned $513 million through share repurchases and dividends in the first three quarters of the year. Furthermore, and in line with this commitment, we expect to repurchase nearly 3 million shares or 2.5% of our total shares outstanding during this fourth fiscal quarter, bringing our anticipated total share repurchases for fiscal 23 to $600 million. We continue to believe our shares remain undervalued, and these repurchases reflect our confidence in the outlook for our business and long-term strategy. Before handing over to Mark, I want to review slide six and emphasize our continued focus on driving consistent, dependable, and sustainable organic growth. We are investing in our businesses, particularly in key end markets like healthcare, personal care, beauty, and food service, which offer greater potential for differentiation and long-term growth. We have grown these select markets over the past 10 years from 20% to now more than 30% of our portfolio, which has a compounded annual growth rate of more than 15% over the same period. Our emerging market presence is also expanding, supporting our commitment to global growth. Moreover, We are passionate about the innovation and sustainability utilizing our product design leadership to continuously develop products that meet our customer needs and expectations. Our efforts have resulted in significant growth in sustainable polymer purchases, and we're working towards our goal of achieving 30% circular material by 2030. These combined efforts, along with our ability to deliver continual cost improvements through our scale advantages and capabilities, instill confidence that we will consistently deliver solid earnings growth from our stable portfolio of businesses. Now, I'll turn the call over to Mark, who will review Barry's financial results.

Mark? Thank you, Tom. I would like to refer everyone to slide seven for our quarterly performance in our four operating segments. Our teams continue to execute well and focus on bringing value to our customers and generating cost productivity while driving long-term sustainable revenue and earnings growth. The segment review will focus on the year-over-year changes for Q3. Starting with our consumer packaging international division, revenue was down 4%, primarily from softer demand, partially offset by improved product mix to higher value products. EBDA was up an impressive 6% driven by our cost reduction efforts along with the improved product mix by increasing our presence in healthcare packaging, pharmaceutical devices, and dispensing systems. We continue to recover cost inflation through pricing actions and cost reduction initiatives while driving revenue growth from our sustainability leadership. Next on slide eight, revenue in our consumer packaging North America division was down 15%, primarily from lower selling prices due to the pass-through of lower resin costs in the United States, along with softer overall demand, mainly in our industrial markets. We again delivered strong results in our food service market, including double-digit volume growth for the last four consecutive quarters. As we continue to see conversion from other substrates, to our clear polypropylene cup. We continue to add incremental cup capacity, including the startup of one of our manufacturing locations that has been repurposed with this technology, as demand for our innovative products continues to outpace our ability to add supply. EBDA was lower by 8% from the softer market demand and the timing impact of increasing polypropylene costs in the United States. which is expected to be recovered in the fourth fiscal quarter. The team continues to drive improved cost productivity from structural cost reductions and focus on delivering differentiated products in areas such as food service, closures, and dispensing systems. And on slide nine, revenue in our engineer materials division was down 19 percent due to the lower selling prices from the pass-through of lower resin costs in the United States and volume softness primarily in European industrial markets, along with some customer destocking. Volumes were also impacted by our focused effort to mix up in certain categories like consumer and transportation films. Consequently, our sales in advantaged higher value products has moved from around 25% of engineer materials portfolio in 2018 to now 45%. EBDA in the quarter was modestly lower as the software overall customer demand offset our continued and focused effort on improving sales mix to higher value product categories and structural cost reduction initiatives. On slide 10, revenue in our health hygiene and specialties division was down 17% due to lower selling prices and the pass-through of lower resin costs, along with a decline in volumes. The business continued to see ongoing inventory destocking, along with softer demand inside many of our specialty markets, such as filtration, building, and construction. As a positive takeaway, both disinfectant wipes in the U.S. and adult incontinence products in Latin America both saw nice growth in the quarter. EBDA was down 23% for the quarter, which was in line with our expectation as our improvement initiatives were offset with weaker demand in some of our higher value specialty markets. As we look forward for the division, we expect to improve earnings sequentially as demand improves and on a year-over-year basis as we have now lapped the tough comparisons from COVID and related inventory adjustments in the market. Overall for the company, through the first three fiscal quarters, our teams have delivered similar EBITDA by driving substantial cost savings, offsetting weaker market demand from inflation and destocking initiatives. As Tom mentioned earlier, given the easing of inflation and easier comparisons, we expect volumes across all four of our segments to sequentially improve when compared to the prior year quarter. As we stated from the beginning of the year, we will continue to take proactive structural cost reduction actions to help offset softer demand here in fiscal 23. These cost-saving initiatives are expected to provide annualized cost savings of $140 million, and we expect to realize $75 million of these savings in fiscal 23 with the majority of the balance realized in fiscal 24. Our fiscal 23 guidance and assumptions are shown on slide 11. We are now targeting adjusted earnings per share of $7.30 for fiscal 23, The updated estimate assumes operating EBITDA of $2.05 billion as we expect cost reductions to offset softer volumes. Our fiscal Q4 assumes EBITDA of $540 million or a $20 million increase over the fiscal third quarter. The two sequential key bridge items which give us confidence in our Q4 EBITDA target include a $10 million charge from a third-party warehouse fire in fiscal Q3 and the timing tailwind of lower polypropylene costs, which will benefit us in the fiscal fourth quarter. We expect free cash flow to be $800 million, assuming cash flow from operations of $1.45 billion, less capital expenditures of $650 million. The increased level of capital spending from our prior guidance is due to the timing of payments, and we would expect fiscal 2024 capital spending to be less than $600 million. We are proud of the team's execution as we expect to achieve our free cash flow guidance. Our teams have generated incremental working capital savings to offset additional capital investment and restructuring costs from our cost out actions. For the last four quarters through fiscal Q3, we generated substantial free cash flow of over $1 billion. Our cash flow year in and year out has been dependable key strength and core value for our company. It provides us the opportunity to invest in our businesses to grow and become more efficient while returning capital to shareholders. As you can see on slide 12, our capital allocation strategy is return-based and includes continued investment in growth markets, share repurchases, debt repayment, and a growing quarterly cash dividend. In line with our strategy to reduce debt, we repaid a total of $200 million in June and July on our outstanding term loans. In fiscal 23, as we stated before, we expect to return $700 million or more to shareholders via share repurchases and dividends, including further reducing our shares outstanding by 8% at current valuation levels. Given our strong dependable cash flow and earnings, last quarter we moved our long-term leverage range down to three and a half, or excuse me, two and a half to three and a half times as we continue to focus on delivering long-term value for our shareholders. Based on our current view, we expect that we will be at approximately 3.7 times at the end of this year and within our long-term range by the end of fiscal 24. We believe we are well positioned for continued value creation through both our resilient business model and strategic portfolio management opportunities. This concludes my financial review, and I'll turn it back to Tom.

As you just heard from Mark, our business model has proven to be exceptionally resilient with a diverse range of consumer-stable and industrial packaging solutions. We've achieved strong, dependable, and stable cash flows, allowing us the flexibility to drive robust returns for our valued shareholders. As demonstrated on slide 13, we've made remarkable progress in reducing our net debt by nearly $3 billion since mid-2019, with further plans to return over an anticipated $1.3 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends in fiscal 2022-2023. We take great pride in being a top five global toolmaker and a top five recycler in Europe, which gives us unmatched scale advantages and differentiation capabilities compared to our competitors. Our in-house design centers, along with our ability to serve local and regional customers and markets, reinforce our position as a leader in the industry. As you can see on slide 14, we remain committed to enhancing long-term value for all stakeholders by maintaining a stable and dependable portfolio. Our history of driving top-tier results across various key financial metrics, such as revenue, earnings, and free cash flow, highlights our consistent growth as a publicly traded company. Our annual adjusted EPS CAGR of 23% from 2015 to 2022 holds the leading position amongst our peer set and well above the average CAGR of 10%. Our strategic investment choices and focus on driving shareholder value are at the core of our priorities. We've invested significantly in growth, targeting faster-growing markets and regions, and improving the mix of our product portfolio, as shown on slide 15. Also, by maintaining a lower leverage range and returning cash to shareholders together with our recent inclusion into the S&P 400 mid-gap, we believe we'll continue to close the valuation gap, presenting an attractive investment opportunity. Moreover, we are deeply invested in innovation and sustainability, which provides us with a competitive advantage. We are investing in several markets and product categories that we expect to drive long-term organic growth and complement our ongoing efforts of building an increasingly resilient portfolio of products, including a few of those which we've highlighted here on slide 16. The increased demand for sustainable packaging solutions aligns perfectly with our design capabilities in producing and sourcing recycled resins globally. Our leadership in these areas position us for higher growth opportunities, supporting long-term value creation for our customers and shareholders. As you can see on slide 17, our long-term targets emphasize the consistency and dependability of our model, with EBITDA growth of 4% to 6%, adjusted EPS growth of 7% to 12%, and total shareholder returns of 10% to 15%. We've consistently met or exceeded these targets over the past three years, and we expect to continue doing so in the future. Additionally, our newly initiated dividend is set to grow annually, and we aim to achieve our updated long-term leverage target by the end of fiscal 2024. In summary, we are focused on delivering sustainable growth while providing safety and service to our customers. With agility, strategic evaluation, Of our portfolio and dedicated cost optimization efforts, we are determined to maximize shareholder value. As you can see on slide 18, our strong cash generation supports our ability to drive returns for shareholders through, first, a broader global portfolio. Second, we have an abundance of investment opportunities in high-value end markets, such as healthcare, food service, and beauty, along with leadership positions and sustainably-led product offerings. Third, we have demonstrated historically we have an ongoing opportunity to consolidate a fragmented set of high value end markets to drive significant revenue and cost energies. And fourth, all while returning capital to shareholders and operating in a leverage range between two and a half and three and a half times. And finally, we are extremely optimistic about our outlook for fiscal Q4 as we anticipate a positive impact from the ease of inflation and more favorable comparisons. We anticipate that volumes across all four segments will show sequential growth over the prior year quarter. Additionally, our aggressive repurchases of nearly 3 million shares further demonstrate our unwavering confidence in the strength and potential of our businesses. We are looking forward to an improved quarter ahead. I want to close with how grateful we are for the hard work of our employees, and we remain dedicated to building on our progress, delivering greater value for all of our stakeholders. Thank you for your continued interest in bearing, and with that, Mark and I are happy to address any questions you may have. Operator?

Thank you. At this time, we'll conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. One moment for our first question. Our first question comes from Josh Spector with UBS. Your line is open.

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to ask on the volume cadence here. So clearly, I mean, you're talking about some easing sequentially on a year-over-year basis, part of that on comps. It's just The last couple of quarters, I think two-year stack, you've been down about 8%, 9%. Is that the right way to look at how things are trending into the next quarter? And then any comments on what you're seeing on destocking within that mix versus underlying demand to help us think about trends into next year? Thanks.

We gave a couple of reasons why we're optimistic relative to Q4 and the sequential improvement. Clearly, as we've said, I believe on the last call, we believe that destocking and that phenomenon will probably continue to exist through our fiscal fourth quarter and perhaps into our fiscal Q1. But nonetheless, that's going to become a more normalized environment. And frankly, we're encouraged that from our brands that we serve, you're hearing a lot more conversation around, increased promotional spending with an effort to ultimately draw more people into the stores, which should create more demand for those targeted products, as well as the impulse purchases that we'll benefit from. So those are a couple of the aspects of our confidence in that sequential improvement. And frankly, you know, the consumers are facing now a more stable inflationary environment. There was a pretty significant run-up for a while. It's a little more stable at this point. And that, you know, coupled with, you know, the brands having a stronger objective now to drive organic vine growth, we should benefit from that.

Yeah, Josh, and on your volume, first part of your question, Q3 to Q4, we're normally pretty similar. So our Q4 volumes are relatively similar to Q3 with the exception of Europe. uh you know can have a touch weaker volume and uh in q4 typically but um overall for the company pretty similar q3 and q4 in most years one moment for our next question

Our next question comes from George Zafos with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for the details. I joined the call a bit late just given the conflicts here. I had one question. I hope it hasn't already come up. Apologies if it has. When we look at HHNS and the performance, certainly, you know, you've been going through a D stock and kind of the other side of the hill after COVID, but we are now, you know, certainly on our math, seeing profits trending somewhat below where you had been prior to COVID. And so Tom and Mark, if you can talk about how business has been relative to your expectations, say from a couple of years ago, in terms of how things would transpire, if you agree with the premise, what's been driving that performance in HHNS. On the other side of the ledger, I think I heard you say that volumes are stabilizing and you're hoping to see some improvement in the fourth quarter. If you could confirm that, and which of your new products in particular are you most positive about relative to what will hopefully drive volume growth for fiscal 24? Thank you very much and good luck in the quarter.

Thank you, George. Relative to HHS, clearly the specialties business is probably one of the most unique aspects of the profitability inside HHS. You know, specifically with specialty items like house wraps, pool chemicals, filtration, and the likes. higher margin products that have been negatively impacted from a demand perspective. The team's doing a very good job as we continue to pivot more of the portfolio into the higher growth category, like adult and condoms, like premium femcare, as well as the wipes offering that not only we're a leader in in North America, but also develop in a burgeoning growth position in Europe as well.

Yeah, so relative to expectations, George, Q3 was right on top of what we've expected for that business. And as Tom mentioned, on a year-over-year basis, the headwinds are, again, as expected, but due to that specialties business being softer that Tom referenced.

Mark and Tom, if I could just sort of pick at that for a second. Is the level of competitive activity worse than you would have anticipated a year or two ago in HHNS? And maybe it's just natural because you had that downturn cyclically in house wrap and the like, or no? How would you have us sort of think about it from your perspective? And then my other question, you can answer it. Thank you.

I would simply sum it up that we continue to be a leader in this space. and we continue to serve the customers that are most valued in this category. And as we continue to do that, it's going to continue to create more opportunities for incremental growth opportunities for us, no doubt about it. You've seen the prints from many major brands around the world. We take some comfort that our demand outlook is very consistent with what they're experiencing, and as they improve, we're clearly going to improve alongside them.

Yeah, well, I mean, we have very strong products in that portfolio that have, you know, brands and the quality and service we provide are very good. And so we're comfortable that we're maintaining our share position, just that market is just weaker. And I will say, you know, there's a little bit of a lag, but if you look at some of the market data around permitting in the U.S. and some of those things, you know, the outlook appears more favorable. which gives us some optimism in our outlook. But, again, there will be a slight timing lag as to how that impacts our B&C business.

I do expect to see increased promotions. You hear it marketed by many of the world's leading brands to ultimately combat some of the organic growth dynamics that they've been facing. And as those ultimately get launched and rolled out, it's going to increase store traffic, which will, again, benefit us for sure.

Okay. Okay. Thank you so much.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Ghanshyam Panjabi with Baird. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Good morning. I guess first off, how are you thinking about the outlook for volumes between the US and Europe? The transfer decline is very similar and it's one region further along. destocking than the other just based on what you're seeing at this point and then separately you know it looks like you're going to be spending about five percent of sales as relates to capex uh you know just given the persistent volume declines in 4k of 21 year of year is that the right level is that the right threshold for spending as we think about fiscal year 24 as well thanks

The volume dynamic between CPI as well as CPN is very similar between the two product categories. I will say Europe's been in more of a deeper or a recessionary cycle, more so than the United States and for a longer period of time. You'll notice that the majority of the efforts that we've made relative to plant closures has taken place inside of our CPI portfolio. to make certain that we've got, you know, the right footprint ultimately to manage the business going forward. But that's how we see the dynamic between the two. And I think, you know, it's really, these are typically very stable product categories, specifically food and beverage, food service, you know, continues to lift both of those particular businesses. But, yeah, we were very conscious and focused at the cost reduction efforts in CPI around, you know, around plant closures was tied to the economic environment that they were facing.

Yeah, on the CapEx question, looking at it on a percentage basis is a little tricky just because, as you know, resin can move around our sales dollars and not the capital dollars. But I think in terms of absolute dollar spending, we continue to believe that $600 million of capital or so a year will drive the results that we commit to, which is low single-digit volume growth and mid-single-digit EBITDA growth. Again, next year might be a touch lighter than that as just timing of some of the spending is coming through in 23 versus 24. But on an outlook basis, I think $600 million or so of capital is the right number for us. Perfect. Thank you.

Thanks, John. George, I wanted – there was a third part of your question that we didn't get to, but Relative to the categories that give us the greatest cause for optimism, clearly, food service continues to be a very strong category for us. With the opening of our new facility in Bangalore and it going through the regulatory approvals for startup, we're excited about the prospects for emerging market growth for that unit. The continued investments that we've been making in trigger sprayers, airless pumps, and frankly, in general, you know, sustainability-led product categories, as well as our lending spa site, all give us, you know, great cause for optimism as we look forward to the 24th. Next question.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Aaron Vishwanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks for taking my question. And just wanted to ask, I guess, about two things. So first off, thinking about a bridge maybe for EBITDA as we look into fiscal 24, it looks like the volume impact was a negative $44 million in this last quarter. Is it fair to assume that you could return maybe to low single-digit growth in fiscal 24, especially given easy comps? And so maybe that would be a benefit of maybe $20 million a quarter. And then you'd have some of your cost reductions as well, also giving another $80 million. So I don't know if that's the right math, but are we somewhere in the ballpark maybe for thinking about... you know, mid to high single-digit EBITDA growth for next fiscal year based on low single-digit volume growth?

Thanks. Yeah, I think that the way you described it, I didn't quite follow all your numbers, Arun, but, yeah, we're expecting the cost-saved projects to benefit fiscal 24 by $55 million. And I think, you know, volume, obviously, we're a short-cycle business, but I think, you know, all the things that Tom referenced earlier, earlier that give us some optimism remain true. And, you know, we've given targets in terms of our top line and EBITDA growth, which is low single digit volume growth and mid single digit EBITDA growth.

And I would expect, you know, 24 to be in line with that. One of the, you know, parallel points to the growth outlook that Mark mentioned is You know, we're going to be in a position in 24 as we see growth and the general market environment improve. Ultimately, we're going to benefit from, you know, having actually executed against 20 facilities that have been shut down and not having a need ultimately to add incremental CapEx to serve that business. So that's, it's very exciting for us going forward that, you know, that optimized footprint, lower cost structure ultimately is going to benefit us on the bottom line as well. Great, thanks for that.

And just as a quick follow-up on that note then, so the $800 million of free cash flow, would it grow just in line with EBITDA next year, or are there any other discrete items that could maybe push it, you know, above EBITDA growth, maybe in the $900 or $1 billion range? Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, obviously we'll have some, you know, we'll have some spending relative to the cost-save program in 2024. As we mentioned in our prepared comments, we've done a really nice job here in 23 of delivering savings to offset those costs. So we'll see as we approach the year, but I can't think of any large items that would swing 23 and 24. Thanks. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from Phil Ng with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. You know, fourth quarter guidance mark, I think, implies about 12% uptick in DPS sequentially. You called out a $10 million tailwind reversing, I guess, effectively from the warehouse cost headwind. Any color on how to think about the polypropylene tailwind sequentially? And then you talked about demand being up sequentially. How has demand trended inter quarter into July? Have you seen any like pickup and what kind of sequential uptick are you assuming for volumes in the fourth quarter?

Sure. Yeah, with respect to your first question, at the beginning of calendar 23, U.S. polypropylene costs increased pretty rapidly. Subsequent to that, you know, in the second calendar quarter, all of it kind of fell back out. So it went up and down. And just the timing of the pass-through of that resulted in a headwind in Q3. But it will benefit Q4 as our customer prices will reflect the calendar Q1 pricing, but our costs will start to benefit from the lowering that occurred in calendar Q2. And it's roughly, you know, $10 million is our estimate of the Q3 versus Q4 impact from that dynamic. With respect to volume, you know, we're not expecting a significant change in just underlying demand. So the volumes that we experienced in Q3 will be similar to what we experienced in Q4, but the year-over-year change gets a little more favorable as a result of a lower comparison in Q4-22.

Okay, that's helpful. So you're not assuming a big snapback, it's just easier comps. But have you seen any notable shifts in inter-quarter trends?

We don't give, you know, inter-quarter guidance, but suffice to say, we continue to be confident in the outlook on a sequential improvement in quarter four versus quarter three. And again, you know, the The strong commitments from the brands relative to how they're looking at organic growth versus simply price is encouraging for our near-term and longer-term outlook that it should cause more foot traffic to be in stores where the brands are doing all possible to grow and show organic growth in those numbers versus just price. So we'll benefit alongside that as that occurs.

Yeah, I would add to that. You can see it in our pricing, right? For now, we're, I think, three or four consecutive quarters. Our prices are a couple hundred million dollars lower for the same SKUs. So our customers are paying less for the same product on a year-over-year basis. And, you know, I think to Tom's point, you know, history would tell you some of that money will get deployed into promotional activity and other things to drive demand.

Okay. Appreciate the color, guys.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Gabe Hasht with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Mark, good morning. I appreciate it's tough on a mic like this, but I'm just trying to maybe get a little better sense, Tom, for what you're telling us in terms of getting well within the two and a half to three and a half turns of leverage, thinking about divesting some non-core assets. And then on the other side, you kind of talked about potentially trying to consolidate what is a pretty fragmented market in some of your key focus areas. Is it safe for where you're deploying maybe growth capital or return capital would be the same places that you'd be looking to acquire assets? And then just from a timing standpoint, it still sounds like by the end of the calendar year is what you're expecting for maybe some of the deletes that you're looking at? Yeah, we were...

Good morning, by the way. We clearly look at our portfolio as a tool to maximize shareholder value and deliver more consistent, predictable, and profitable growth. That has not changed. And we said on the last call, we were very comfortable with the small bolt-on acquisition that we executed against, that the proceeds from those types of actions would more than offset the cost of that acquisition. We remain firmly committed that that, in fact, is the case. And the size of our portfolio is such that that provides a unique opportunity, a unique opportunity for us to continue to optimize the portfolio, an opportunity to take proceeds from such actions at close, to apply those towards the right components of the business based on the need that we see, whether that's leverage reduction, whether that's organic growth, or whether that's a bolt-on acquisition, all while staying within that targeted range. So we continue to believe we're in a really unique spot. We give the size of our portfolio. I continue to be encouraged with the pace of progress in terms of some of those things that we're considering exploring. And, you know, no different than, you know, the most recent acquisition is benefiting our consumer-packed North American business. You know, that will be fully offset by one of those transactions at the latest by the end of the calendar year. So we're very bullish, and it's a tool. Again, it's a tool to allow us to maximize shareholder value that we think still has some legs to it.

So we're looking forward to it. Does that help?

It does. Thank you, Tom. And I guess, again, I know it's difficult, but maybe we were expecting an announcement in terms of maybe any update there.

Our board is fully engaged, you know, relative to the identification of a successful candidate to take this seat. I'm very confident that, you know, between now and our fiscal Q4 call, that successor will be named and introduced to the broader market.

Understood. Thank you very much.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone. Hi, Adam. Hi. Maybe to start, Tom, you talked about some of the reasons for optimism in your more consumer-centric businesses. Can you maybe just comment on what you're seeing in your more industrial, non-consumer-oriented businesses in terms of activity levels? Is the destocking trend similar? Does any added color in that kind of part of the portfolio? Sure.

I'll start with the destocking again. You know, we basically lack the impact of destocking because at some point you get to a normalized level of inventory that companies are going to keep. And, you know, fortunately, Barry's well-equipped, you know, to be as agile as needed with our customers. to provide just-in-time inventory and the like. But I do expect that to normalize by the end of our fiscal Q4, at the latest, by the end of our fiscal Q1, to a more normalized inventory level. The other piece relative to the industrial businesses, I'll speak to housing specifically. I think we're at very close to an inflection point in housing at being, quote, at the bottom. You're not seeing a tremendous amount of... of people willing to walk away from very low interest rate mortgages as such. It's creating demand for more residential housing bills, and we'll clearly be a benefactor from that in areas like our house wrap business and parts of our Tate's business as well. I think you'll see that begin to materialize over the next couple quarters, you know, between building permits being issued, ground being broken, and structures being erected, but I think we're very close. I think that is really a very positive sign for some of our businesses that have been negatively impacted by that.

Okay, that's very helpful. And then just coming back to this discussion on 24 and return to growth, is there some of the discrete plant investments that you've made, think of the Bangalore Healthcare Facility, the Circular Facility in the UK come to mind? that are more discrete growth projects that would be kind of additive to underlying kind of market activity that would seem like you've got ample capacity to serve for the near term?

Yeah, I think those are at the early stages, and I think only have room to go. We've made concentrated levels of organic growth investment around dispensing solutions. The facility in South Florida will open to serve food service in our fiscal Q1. And as Mark has said in some of his comments, demand is just exceptional there, where not only are we growing the business, low double digits, But we're also taking share from other states and the demand continues to be wildly robust. The pharmaceutical excitement that we have around Bangalore and serving these emerging markets can benefit us not only from an organic perspective, but we also believe at some point inorganically as well. Again, all while staying within those targeted leverage ranges. and certainly healthcare and the introduction of our Lemington Spa site in Europe and our circular polymer solutions that we'll be introducing give great cause for optimism. I would clearly anticipate as we look forward into 2024 that you'll see additional announcements of other facilities that can provide these circular materials done in conjunction with leading brands around the world to demonstrate how both between using innovative design coupled with sustainable materials, it can be a strong organic growth vehicle for the company. We're an interesting business, and we've talked a lot about what we've done from a cost reduction perspective, but this company, And it's team members, all. We have a unique ability not only to innovate but optimize in a parallel path at the same time. And I think you've seen that from the actions that we've taken throughout the course of the year. We're not talking about things that are going to benefit us in 25 and 26. We're taking action in areas that are going to benefit us here now. in the current fiscal year and next year as well, and we'll continue to variabilize our costs as well as make the appropriate organic investments to drive that more consistent, predictable, profitable growth. And again, where we can use our portfolio as a tool to do that and help maximize that value for our shareholders.

Okay. I appreciate the color. I'll pass it on. Thanks.

Thank you. That concludes the question and answer session at this time. I would like to turn it back to management for closing remarks.

Well, first, I thank everybody for the time and interest in the company, but I want to share something I think is a nuance for our company right now. And when you think about the performance in the given quarter, I think it really demonstrates the resiliency of our portfolio. And in the face of what some would argue are somewhat unprecedented market conditions and dynamics. And I view it as a super, very solid positive for our full year results, both from an earnings and a cash perspective, given those dynamics. When you couple that, though, with us being on target to be inside our leverage range comfortably in 24, delivering on what was a substantial share repurchase program, optimizing our footprint, you know, for, you know, to be better suited to support organic growth in 24 and beyond. And as we just talked about, having an active program where we're evaluating our portfolio, you know, as a tool to maximize shareholder value, it's an incredibly exciting time for Barry. And I couldn't be prouder of this team, you know, putting out the results that they have year to date and what we expect to deliver. for the full year and well into 2024 and beyond. Team's doing a fantastic job. We're grateful for your interest in this company. Thanks, everybody.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.