Berry Global Group, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2024 Very Global Group Inc. 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 participate, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear a message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, simply press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I will hand the call over to Dustin Stilwell with Very Group. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and thank you to everyone for joining Berry's third fiscal quarter 2024 earnings call. Joining me this morning, I have Berry's chief executive officer, Kevin Kowalinski, and Berry's chief financial officer, Mark Miles. Following our prepared remarks today, we will have a question and answer session. In order to allow everyone the opportunity to participate, we do ask that you limit yourself to one question with a brief follow-up, and then fall back into the queue for any additional questions. A few things to note before handing the call over. On our website at veryglobal.com, you can find today's press release and earnings call presentation under our investor relations section. As referenced on slide two and three during this call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. These measures are reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings press release and presentation, which were made public earlier this morning. Additionally, we will make forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those that may be expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. Some factors that could cause the results or outcomes to differ are in the company's latest 10K, other SEC filings, and our news release. I will now turn the call over to Berry's CEO, Kevin Kowalinski.

Thank you, Dustin, and thank you to everyone for joining us today to discuss Berry's third quarter results for fiscal 2024. Our team delivered 2% organic volume growth and strong financial performance during the quarter. Our results were consistent with our expectations and we made substantial progress toward our long-term strategic objectives in delivering on our multi-year cost improvement initiatives. We delivered third quarter adjusted EPS and operating EBITDAG growth of 16% and 6% respectively, over the prior year quarter, with volume growth and strong operational performance driving our results as our team remains focused on managing the items that are within our control. Our proactive measures around repositioning our portfolio to higher growth markets and reducing our cost structure have allowed us to outperform in a weaker than normal macro demand environment. We continue to be confident in our outlook, bolstered by our steady sequential improvement and the fact that our customers are communicating their focus on driving growth over price, including increased promotional activity. As a result, we are confirming our fiscal 2024 guidance within our previously announced ranges for adjusted EPS and free cash and expect our fourth fiscal quarter to deliver low single digit volume growth, aligned with our long-term targets. As part of our ongoing commitment to maintaining a strong and stable balance sheet, we remain committed to achieving a year-end leverage of 3.5 times or lower by the end of fiscal 24. Including our September quarter expected cash flow generation of $1 billion and anticipated portfolio optimization proceeds, we expect to deliver over $3 billion of cash over the next four quarters. Specifically, we believe cash proceeds could exceed $2 billion from strategic divestitures alone within the next year. This includes approximately $1 billion from the already announced proposed spinoff merger and another $1 billion from future portfolio optimization opportunities within fiscal 2025. With respect to portfolio optimization, we continue to make progress. Not only will these divestitures accelerate deleveraging, they will push us toward our goal of increasing our consumer products focus from over 70% to over 80% of volume. The Barrie HHNF and Glatt-Felter transaction is still expected to close before the end of the calendar year and is subject to approval by Glatt-Felter shareholders and completion of customary closing conditions. Our teams continue to work on integration activities and we remain optimistic about substantial upside potential in our base synergy case. We made great progress during the quarter on furthering our continuous improvement focused culture. We stood up our first lean transformation site at our healthcare focused facility in Franklin, Indiana. I had the opportunity to visit Franklin again a few days ago, and I'm very excited and encouraged by the level of engagement by our associates and leadership there. The focus in this facility has shifted from how do we win the month to how do we win the hour? And this shift brings in a whole new level of urgency for results. We've begun hosting visits from other business units to see what is being built in Franklin so that they can begin replicating our business operating model in other areas of the company. We have also begun to recruit additional lean leaders to support and scale a faster implementation path across the business. We're also seeing substantial improvements in how we deliver quality and service to our customers. Our capability to identify root causes and quickly apply corrective actions has increased and accelerated. The result is improved product and service differentiation that is allowing us the opportunity for faster organic growth. Faster organic growth is also being enabled by our efforts to improve the capability of our commercial excellence process. During the quarter, we began the second phase of our pilot in Consumer Products North America, where we are building a world-class conversion engine to produce the right innovation, deliver that innovation to the best target pipeline, and convert that pipeline at world-class rates of conversion. As with Lean, this pilot is serving as a center of excellence from which we will replicate the new processes across the other Barrie business units. Now I will turn the call over to Mark, who will review Barrie's financial results. Mark.

Thank you, Kevin. Turning now to our financial

results highlights on slide eight. As Kevin pointed out, our quarterly results for both revenue and earnings aligned with our expectations. Our global teams have persistently worked towards optimizing our manufacturing footprint, enhancing our customer experience, and improved product mix across our businesses. We've made considerable strides in consolidating our higher cost assets and as volumes continue to recover, we anticipate an incremental earnings benefit for more efficient assets. These strategic actions and our focused approach are effectively countering the challenges posed by softer global market demand due to inflation. For the quarter, adjusted earnings per share saw a 16% increase, amounting to $2.18 per share. Operating EBITDA also increased to $546 million, a 6% increase compared to the previous year. In line with our expectations, volumes increased delivering 2% year over year growth with all four operating segments delivering organic volume growth. I would like to refer everyone to slide nine for our quarterly performance by each of our four operating segments. The segment review will focus on the year over year changes for fiscal Q3. Starting with our consumer packaging international division, revenue was down 5% from the past through a polymer costs, partially offset by organic volume growth of 1%. Our industrial and personal care markets improved compared to the prior year while food service markets were weaker. We continue to execute our strategy to drive improved product mix to higher value products. Operating EBITDA was up 5% compared to the prior year quarter driven by our structural cost reduction initiatives, lower energy costs in certain European regions and positive organic volume growth. We also continue to invest and expect improved product mix by utilizing our sustainability leadership and increasing our presence in healthcare packaging, pharmaceutical devices and dispensing systems. On slide 10, revenue in our consumer packaging North America division increased by 3%, primarily driven by 2% organic volume growth. This growth was broad based across many markets, including food, beverage, personal care, home care and industrial. Our food service business saw a modest decline against a strong prior year quarter. Our teams have successfully mitigated a weaker demand environment driven by inflation through share gains. Notably, we've witnessed numerous substrate conversions from paper, foam, glass and metal to plastics. Our ongoing efforts include integrating more circular materials, offering sustainable solutions and enhancing the end consumer experience. Operating EBDA showed strong performance, increasing by 10% compared to the prior year quarter. This growth was primarily attributed to our cost reduction efforts, focus on higher value products, timing of polymer pass throughs and a 2% organic volume increase. And on slide 11, revenue in our flexibles division declined 2% due to lower selling prices, partially offset by a 2% organic volume increase, primarily in our consumer categories and European film products. While our industrial markets experienced modest headwinds when compared to the prior year, we continued to see recovery as overall volumes increased over Q2. Operating EBDA for the quarter increased by 2% compared to the prior year quarter, driven by positive volume growth and structural cost reduction initiatives, partially offset by unfavorable mix. On slide 12, revenue in our health hygiene and specialties division remained flat compared to the prior year. This result was driven by a 2% organic volume increase, which was offset by lower selling prices from polymer pass throughs. Notably, we observed strong volume growth in our surgical suite, hard surface disinfecting wipes and adult incontinence markets. Encouragingly, overall volumes have shown sequential improvement over the past four quarters. Additionally, operating EBDA for the quarter increased by 5% compared to the prior year quarter, fueled by volume growth and our ongoing structural cost reduction initiatives. The HHS segment delivered solid volume and earnings growth during the quarter, while at the same time continuing integration activities of the previously announced spin merge transaction, including the creation of the Magnera brand. Magnera will be a global leader in the specialties materials industry with the broadest global product offering in high growth markets for both polymer and fiber-based product applications. Our consistent cash flows have allowed us the ability to deliver substantial returns to our shareholders, a testament to our company's core strength and value. This financial fiscal strength and stability enables us to channel investments into our businesses to drive organic volume growth, boost efficiency and concurrently distribute capital to our shareholders. As shown on slide 13, our unwavering capital allocation strategy is rooted in returns and captures ongoing investments in growing markets, strategic portfolio management, debt repayment, share buybacks and a growing quarterly cash dividend. As Kevin mentioned, we expect to deliver over $1 billion in free cash flow in our fiscal fourth quarter. Additionally, we foresee generating proceeds exceeding $2 billion within the next year, inclusive of our proposed spin merger transaction with Cloudfilter that we've previously announced. These divestitures align seamlessly with our long-term strategy, which aims to streamline the portfolio, bolster earning stability and augment long-term growth. Capitalizing on our robust and reliable cash flows, we have strengthened our solid balance sheet with a focus on driving long-term value for our shareholders. We project to be within our targeted leverage range by the close of fiscal 2024. We believe we are well positioned for continued value creation. Our strong cash flows have allowed us the flexibility to drive returns for our shareholders. As demonstrated on slide 14, Barry has reduced net debt by more than $3 billion since mid 2019, along with more than $1.5 billion return to shareholders through both share repurchases and dividends in fiscal 2022 and 2023. By the end of fiscal 2024, we expect that we will have returned an impressive $5.4 billion of cumulative net debt reduction and capital returns since fiscal 2020. As you can see on slide 15, Barry's track record of delivering top tier results across various key financial metrics, including revenue, earnings and free cash flow, underscores our consistent growth, a testament to the effective implementation of our strategies. We remain committed to enhancing long-term value for our stakeholders by maintaining a reliable and balanced portfolio. This consistency has withstood numerous economic cycles and since our last notable acquisition of RPC in 2019, we have generated free cash flow annually ranging from 850 million to $1 billion. Furthermore, from an earnings standpoint, our annual adjusted EPS CAGR of over 20% from 2015 to 2023 significantly surpasses the peer adjusted EPS CAGR of 8%. This achievement further solidifies our leading position in the industry. This concludes my financial review and now I'll turn it back to Kevin.

Thank you, Mark. Our fiscal 24 guidance and assumptions outlined on slide 16, reflect a solid three quarter performance. We are now targeting $7.60 earnings per share for fiscal 2024. This EPS target assumes operating EBITDA of nearly $2.1 billion. Specifically, fiscal Q4 assumes EBITDA of $560 million or a .5% increase over the prior year quarter and low single digit volume growth. We continue to expect free cash flow in the range of $800 to $900 million. Furthermore, and in line with our focus on driving long-term shareholder value, we expect to prioritize repayment of debt to meet our leverage target commitment along with further share repurchases. We continue to believe our shares are undervalued and our repurchases reflect our confidence in the outlook of our business and long-term strategy. As you can see on slide 17, you'll observe that Barry has a track record of meeting and often surpassing our objectives. Our long-term objectives underscore the reliability and steadiness of our model, targeting an EBITDA growth of 4 to 6%, an adjusted EPS growth of 7 to 12%, and a total shareholder return of 10 to 15%. We foresee our dividend growing year on year, and we're on track to reach our recently reduced long-term leverage target by the close of fiscal 2024. To summarize, our strategic objectives are unchanged. Optimize the portfolio, apply lean transformation, and expedite growth through top tier commercial excellence. With a clear trajectory to attain a low threes leverage in the next 12 to 15 months, a lean transformation pipeline that enables a 2 to 3% annual reduction in conversion costs and the capacity to achieve organic growth of 2 to 3% per year, we anticipate delivering performance above that of our peers. Our positive outlook for the next several quarters is fueled by several elements, including the ongoing mitigation of inflation and a resurgence of more standard levels of customer promotional activity. Lastly, we have acted on areas to enhance our valuation multiple. We have fortified our robust balance sheet, reduced our targeted leverage range, and returned significant cash to shareholders. And as we persist in showcasing sales volumes at or above the peer average, we are confident that we will persistently narrow the valuation gap to our peer group, thereby offering a compelling investment opportunity. Thank you for your time and interest in Barry. And with that, Mark and I are happy to address any questions which you may have. Operator?

Thank you so much. And as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To remove yourself from the queue, press star one one again. And we ask that you please keep your questions to one and one follow up. One moment for our first question. And it comes from the line of Josh Spector with UBS. Please proceed.

Hi, good morning. Actually, this is Sean speaking on behalf of Josh. Thank you for taking my question. So, well, in terms of our interest expense, the guidance in the fourth quarter, it looks much higher than the average positive three quarters. So any color on that, thank you.

Yeah, sure. Good morning, this is Mark. The incremental increase in interest expense is primarily driven by some non-cash interest income, if you will, that falls off or did fall off in Q3. And that was always projected in our outlook for fiscal 24.

Okay, got it, thank you. And in terms of our, I mean, so they take out the carbon market share trends and we mentioned before that we are getting market share. So any color on the current trend, thank you.

The question was about volume trends in general or anything specific?

Oh, sorry, for the takeout of the CUP.

Sorry, you broke up a little bit.

Oh, sorry, for the takeout of the CUP.

Takeout CUPs, yeah, so there were some, as you probably saw in many of our customer reports, foot traffic has been a little weaker than expected, driven by predominantly inflation. So as a result of that, you've seen many of our customers increase promotional activity here recently, and we are starting to see the benefit of that in our volumes here in the short term. And we expect those customers to continue to focus on growing their business. So we're optimistic about the outlook going forward. Yeah, I would

say we've, in the last few weeks, seen a notable improvement. Thank you a lot, I will turn it over.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Philip Eng with Jeffreys, please proceed.

Hey guys, I guess on that note, a lot of the QSRs and even the CPG guys have talked about consumer being weaker, inflation and all that. So my question is, have you already felt the pain and seen it in your numbers? Pretty encouraging to hear that you're seeing some uptick here. So I guess, predicated in your guidance for the fourth quarter, that low single digit volume growth, are you assuming things kind of pick up from here because of the promos already? And what do you have kind of supporting that low single digit growth? Is it just easier to come up? Just give us a little more context of what you're seeing.

Yeah, that is really, and has been all year, our view is that we would just have improved comps. We expected the second half to not continue to see any deterioration, but to show some very modest improvement, but still to be kind of down from where they historically would have been. And that's really what we're seeing. So our fourth quarter projection is, it's not dependent on any market improvement. If there is market improvement, I would say that would give us some upside, but it's really just what we see happening now, translating versus what we saw in the fourth quarter of last year.

And what have you seen, Kevin, I guess, in the month of July so far?

We're having a good month. It's positive and encouraging.

And then can you give us an update on the process of the potential divestitures? I just gave in the three billion of cash coming in, and then just help us contextualize this, given the EBITDA profile will be different post-its bin. How do you kind of see leverage shaping up by the end of 2025? Could you kind of actually get below three times? Just give us some color there. And with your balance sheet in that leverage target ratio by the end of 2024, how are you prioritizing capital deployment? You talked about maybe buying back more stock. Give us a little more context in terms of capital deployment, M&A, buybacks, and debt pay down from here.

Sure. Yeah, we're committed to getting to that 3.5 or lower this year. I would expect in 25 with our divestiture plan, the cash flows that we see coming, we should be in the very low threes. I mean, possibly you could hit the high twos, but I would say safely in the very low threes. And I think we're very focused on the value of our stock being below what it should be. So we continue to see share buyback as meaningful value for our shareholders. Of course, we're always looking at bolt-on acquisitions that are highly accretive. So we would balance that with what opportunities we see transpiring the market.

Okay, appreciate the color, Kevin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of George Staffos with Bank of America Securities. Please proceed.

Hi, everyone. Good morning. How you doing, Kevin, Mark, Dustin? Thanks for the details. My two questions, I wanna talk about the two pipelines that you talked about. First of all, can you talk about how the pilot at Franklin has evolved and what you've learned? You gave us a little bit of detail. Would like to get maybe some quantification there relative to what it can mean for the broader business over time in terms of improved efficiency and margin and the like. Second question, you talked about the innovation pipeline that you're developing. We'd like a little bit of color, a little bit more on that. And in particular, with customers now beginning to promote more, especially at the food service side, what are they asking from you now in terms of promotion, excuse me, in terms of innovation, right? So if they're dropping price and trying to come to the customer with a reason for them to show up through their doors, how is the packaging, how is your product helping that occur and what's new beyond kind of the clear cup from a couple years ago? Thanks and good luck in the quarter.

Sure. Yeah, I'll start with the second one. First, the innovation and growth. I'm extremely encouraged by the progress that we've seen in a very short period of time. In our CP&A business, we are tracking $75 million of wins ahead of where we were at this same point last year. And we see really strong momentum developing there. Of course, a piece of that business is in fact, food service. And where we really differentiate and help drive success in these promotions is in two ways. We have a excellent sustainable solution in a very clear product that the consumer has shown in multiple tests to have a high preference for, which is why we continue to win share in that space. And we have the ability to service customers with rapidly changing demand requirements in a very consistent way. And they rely on us to be able to move with them when they start to promote and they wanna go quickly, we have the ability to go quickly in a way that most of our competitors just can't match. And then in the first area, lean, we focused on Franklin because it was a ripe environment in a very meaningful growth area for our business in healthcare. And one where we knew by driving productivity, we could immediately impact sales. Since we began the effort, we have seen north of 20% improvement in throughput. And it's really coming from a couple of key areas. One is the daily management processes that have gone out to really drive hour by hour focus at the shop floor level, to quickly raise areas of opportunity to drive improvement, fix issues with machines, with how we schedule with the supply chain side of the business and quickly respond and remove those bottlenecks. We think that that process will have dramatic impact across all of our facilities, which we have around 200 facilities post HHS divestiture, and very few of them have that sort of daily management process in place today. The second big lever we're finding is in the area of total predictive maintenance, preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance in general. We have, we're asset intensive in terms of conversion, and we need to make sure that those assets are running at a very high uptime. Our OEEs have room to improve and we've seen substantial improvement in those OEEs through a focus on that predictive maintenance and being ahead of the game and avoiding breakdowns. That is another area we are building out as part of this lean transformation, which will ultimately help us to be more capital efficient to achieve the same growth levels. And as we grow faster than we have historically, we should be able to do that without having to raise our overall capital requirements.

Kevin, is it too soon to say what the raising of the OEE could mean in terms of your earnings? Thanks, sorry to come back, but it was kind of a hanging question. Yeah,

I mean, we're building into our 25 outlook what we think it can mean in 25, but we're definitely targeting this two to 3% continual conversion cost improvement. And we see no reason why we can't continue to focus on that as the goal.

Thank you very much.

Sure, thank

you,

George.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Roxland with Truett Securities, please proceed.

Thank you, Kevin, Mark and Dustin for taking my questions. Just one quickly on the EBITDA guidance. It seems like you lowered EBITDA to 2.06 billion from a prior range of 2.05 to 2.15 billion, despite better volumes and positive price costs. So I just wanna get a sense for you of what's driving this lower EBITDA outlook. And also can you just give us some color on how you expect to generate 1 billion in free cashflow in fiscal 4Q as your negative about 176 million on a -to-date basis?

Yeah, so the first part on EBITDA, we did not lower our EBITDA guidance. We are coming in in the range that we've talked about. You know, we just are reporting the third quarter, we have one quarter left. So we're being more specific in where we see the final number for the year. What really drives the range for us is how much resin inflation we see and our timing on recovery of that. And that is by far and away the biggest impact in bringing us to the outcome of the range where we are. We have seen supply side constraints around the world with areas that you will know in terms of transportation, getting through the Suez, I'm sorry, yeah, the Suez and the Red Sea. We also have outages in North America that have affected the markets to move price higher. So that just puts us a bit behind in terms of the timing of recovery of that. It's not a long-term issue. When we look at the actual results of the business, our margins are better than we would have expected and we see really strong momentum and performance on cost. So when I look at our EBITDA performance, I'm actually very encouraged by it and very happy with the results. I would say the other, the final thing I would focus on is I've come in as a new CEO and I have certainly caused a level of disruption. And I'm doing that with a focus on driving the ultimate long-term rate of improvement in EBITDA, even though there are some short-term impacts from that activity. So I think all in all, I am very positive about where our EBITDA has developed and what it means, momentum going into 25 and beyond. And then on a cash side, we just have so many moving parts with the vestitures. We still see the opportunity to manage our cash, short-term working capital and still come in within our range. Yeah,

just to add on that cash point, our outlook for Q4 is actually below what we've achieved the last two years on average, so very achievable. And this is normal in terms of the cash flows on a quarterly basis.

Got it, and appreciate the comments, very helpful. And then just one quick question on flexible. You mentioned persistent weakness in North American transportation and shrink-time, I believe. Previously, I think you said the same thing this quarter. Any initiatives underway to drive better performance from that sector? And if you could just share some, put some horizon call around what you're doing to try to improve that, or if not, what are your considerations for possible divestiture or something else? Any call you can provide would be helpful, thank you.

Yeah, I mean, really our North American business in those areas has been really strong. I would say we're outperforming the market. We have shifted such a large portion of our volume to value-added, higher level of engineered product that allows customers to use less product because the performance is there, through light weighting and material science. And we are continuing to win share in that area at margins that we really like. I would say what you mentioned, I think is really more limited to some of what we've seen in Europe, and it's just a slower recovery in Europe. But ultimately, we do see recovery happening in Europe. It's just happening at a slower

rate. Got it, thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ganshan, Punjabi with Baird. Please proceed.

Hey guys, good morning. Your volumes are obviously up a little bit year over year, but we're still at a very low threshold as are most of your peers in the industry, just given the challenges with consumer affordability that seems to be spreading, et cetera. How is that dynamic starting to impact competitive activity as you see it at this point, in context of some of your peers calling out price competition in areas such as food service, for example?

Yeah, I mean, we certainly are seeing higher levels of competition. We are offering a product offering specifically in food service that is quite superior, and we see really the ability to maintain margins there. We are continuing to win share in that space without sacrificing our margins in the space, and I think we will continue to be able to do that going forward. In general, I think our growth was good to see. It was what we expected, but seeing that validated was positive. I think when we look at the negatives that some of our peers experienced in prior years and periods, we didn't go to the same level of negative. So what we're seeing, they're flashing maybe a couple of numbers that are a little higher, but they're coming off of a much worse performance, and we were much more consistent through this cycle. And I think we've really set up the business well for consistency, and as we continue to refine this portfolio, we will just become more consistent going forward.

Yeah, I think, as you may recall, Ganshem, we moved pretty early in fiscal 23 to right-size our footprint and remove our higher-cost assets. Our peers did the same. I think many of them were a little slower to respond, but I think much of that higher-cost capacity has been taken out of the network across many of our product categories.

Okay, got it. And then in terms of Europe, any update you can share in terms of the obvious questions on substrate shifts, the wafer plastics, into paper, et cetera, have you seen any shift in that dynamic, and how does the European consumer just more broadly feel at this point in terms of core spending, et cetera?

Sure. The number one metric in Europe that is extremely encouraging to me is our growth has moved from 5% to 7%, so kind of our growth top line wins rate, and we seem to be picking up momentum with products that are really differentiated, especially multi-component products in dispensing and deodorant, in these sorts of categories. We are having a lot of success, and we see momentum building. And that's really from very sustainable mono-material, lightweighted products that are better than the competitive offering. I would say the one area where there has been shift in terms of substrate is in drink cups. And in Europe, drink cups are really paper-based, and we see, because of the regulation, a shift to reusable plastic cups, and we are participating in that plastic cup space. So for us, it's a net positive driver of growth on a forward basis. The other thing that is causing us to have some superior growth in Europe is also related to regulation. It's the tethered cap. So on bottles, there's regulations that require the cap to be fixed to the bottle for better recycling, and we have a superior product, and we are winning with the big players there, and that is a net positive and increasing driver of growth for us in Europe. The consumer, obviously, is, I would say, in a behind what we see in terms of the US, in terms of recovery, but we are seeing recovery, and we've seen stabilization, and really, in the quarter, we saw our first positive growth.

Okay, thanks so much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Great, thanks for taking my question. I hope you guys are well. I guess it's encouraging to see the 1% to 2% or low single-digit volume growth in fiscal Q3. I guess how do you see that kind of evolving as you move into fiscal Q4 and 2025 for each of the different segments? I guess you do, you know, would you maintain that rate? And maybe if you can discuss if that's possible, if there's any specific drivers as far as new business wins, or if it's merely just market-based recovery.

Sure, I think we expect similar low single-digit growth in the fourth quarter, and we would expect to have accelerating growth in 2025 based on our performance in those markets, not due to recovery of the markets. If we see recovery of the markets really happening in 2025, that should be additional upside to our current outlook.

And then when we think about that in the context of, you know, maybe some of the planned divestitures, do you expect EVIT dog growth next year? You know, or how should we think about, you know, the earnings power of the business? Is there any other cost reductions and operating leverage kind of drivers that you would have to, you know, leverage that low single-digit growth maybe to mid singles, or how should we think about that? Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, we're not giving guidance today on 25, but I expect that we will see EVIT dog growth in roughly the way you characterize it. Yeah, I would just add

to that. Sorry, I was just gonna ask similarly on free cash flow, and also in light of some of the divestitures, would you be seeing lower capex and maybe some increased free cash flow growth, or how should we think about that?

Thanks. Yeah, it's Mark. Yeah, I would say, you know, we've again consistently delivered between 850 million to a billion of free cash since the RPC acquisition. Obviously, you know, that would have to be adjusted for the spend merge, but you know, there's nothing that, free cash flow is an important metric for us, and there's nothing that, you know, a substance that would change our outlook other than again, the obvious adjustment you have to make for that

spend merge. Great, thanks. Thank

you. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Samuelson with Gomez-Sachs, please proceed.

Yes, thank you, good morning everyone. I guess first question is again, thinking about 2025 at a high level. One, how much of the price cost kind of catch up from the second half of this fiscal year that you haven't fully reached that lag? How much, can you quantify that in terms of what's carrying into 2025 that we should think about normalizing all else equal?

Yeah, this Mark, you know, there's kind of two items to that, I guess, one on polymer lag, which again is just a timing lag that Kevin referenced earlier that is about a headwind of 20 million this year. You know, again, depending on what polymer does next year, you know, we would typically assume a flat environment, but you know, we'll see as we approach our November call what happens with polymer and what the outlook is, but you know, our typical assumption would be flat. So that would be a tailwind eliminating that negative lag. And then I would add, you know, our cost reduction program that we increased last quarter, does have some incremental benefits that are gonna help 25, about 35 million is the number for fiscal 25 incremental benefit from that program.

Okay, that's very

helpful, Mark. And so, and maybe Kevin just, responsive to kind of the prior question, you kind of alluded to accelerating organic volume growth, kind of absent any market recovery. So we're assuming kind of similar market conditions to where we are today. Between those kind of costs, between those two cost items, kind of incremental productivity and cost actions that you'd be looking at as you continue to push lean principles through the organization and better volumes, I guess it'd be reasonable to say that as you would look right now, the you'd be tracking comfortably ahead of that kind of longer term, four to 6% EVITA growth, growth target is that, Dr.

I mean, I think that's the long-term trajectory if we continue to execute at that level. It's really a matter of timing of wins and progress on the pipeline and when that manifests throughout 2025. But we have good momentum going into the year and I feel positive about us delivering meaningful EVITA growth.

Okay, all right. That's, maybe just one more quick one, the change in tax rate for the year, which is really what drove VPS to the midpoint of the range for the full year. Is there anything notable about that or should we be thinking about that tax rate reverting back to the historical low 20s rate next year? Thank

you. Yeah, we've consistently done a good job in that area of beating our target and fiscal 24 is

no different. So, just really happy with the

progress we've made on tax and really there's nothing more to say other than it's a consistent beat that our tax group has been able to achieve.

Okay, all right. That's helpful. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Roberts with Raymond James. Please proceed.

Hey, Kevin, Mark. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Kevin, on the resident increase you touched on earlier, maybe explicitly, what is the price cost that you're embedding in that four Q guide in your underlying resident cost assumptions or said differently, if residents move up in the next month, is that incrementally worse versus the current guide or are you baking in some further increases from here?

Yeah, we have a modest headwind built in for Q4 and that's based on, it's not yet settled for the month of July, but the market is projecting potentially an increase. So we've taken a conservative view on that to the extent it doesn't happen. That would be a tailwind. Anything that happens beyond July is really more a fiscal 25 matter than 24, just because of the lag in it passing through our inventory.

Yeah, that's

what I was gonna say.

Perfect. Thank you for the color of the market. And then maybe on the price side of that equation, what are you embedding there? Is that gonna be a drag in four Q from incremental competitive pressures or do you think you're able to pass through price and be positive in four Q? Thanks again for taking the questions.

Yeah, I think

we're offsetting that lag with the cost reduction initiatives that we continue to deploy. And so net-net, there's a modest favorability as the cost reductions are able to more than offset that lag that

I referred to on timing of polymer pester.

Thanks again.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Parkinson with Wolf Research. Please proceed.

Great, thank you so much for taking my question. The first question is, in terms of the volume growth that you're seeing in the back half of the fiscal year, it does appear things are getting better on the margin in a lot of different areas, personal care and obviously some quick service stuff and obviously promo activity seems to be picking up. So when I think about that, it seems the end user demand is pretty good. You're also coming off of some de-stocking in various areas over the last couple of years. Is it possible to parse out how you're thinking about volume growth for not only for the fourth fiscal quarter, but into the next fiscal year in terms of what those key drivers are and where there could actually be potential areas of upside? I just wanna dig into the details there a little bit more. Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, we're doing that work as we finalize our view for 25. I would say we see those pluses and minuses playing out around all the end segments we participate in, which are extremely broad and very broad geographies also. Net-net, I would say we see slightly positive market growth for 25 developing. And that's probably the best I would be able to do at this point in time.

Got it. And just a quick follow up. In terms of the implied fiscal fourth quarter EBITDA versus your prior citations,

given

the fact that volumes do appear to be, let's say getting sequentially better, especially in QSRs, is there anything else going on that we should be considering? Is that just conservatism on behalf of management that we should be factoring in in terms of kind of the trajectory here? Are there any competitive pressures you're considering? Just price cost, you already mentioned earlier in the call. Can you just kind of break that out and how we should really be thinking about that as we progress towards the end of the fiscal year? Thank you.

Yeah, I would say our outlook was dependent on low single digit growth in the second half. And we delivered what we expected, what our outlook was based on. And we don't really see that changing a whole lot between now and the end of our fiscal, which is not a month and a half off. What I would say is the change, or what really within the range that we talked about has driven us to the lower side, is the resin we discussed. And then we've also done some divestitures. And if you Pareto this out, you've got the resin leg as the number one driver, and the second driver, which would be at roughly half the level of impact if I just round it off, is from divestiture. But again, the core business and the strategic business going forward is performing extremely well.

Got

it. That's very helpful, Collor. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Etline Rodriguez with Mizuho. Please proceed.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Kevin, just a follow up to the volume question. What you're seeing right now, how would you characterize it? Is it real fundamental improvement in the man, or is it purely inventory destocking that you see it? I mean, restocking,

sorry. Well, I would say that the destocking has run its course in all meaningful categories for us. And so there's certainly been some strengthening, but that is really what we anticipated would be the case to drive us to kind of low single digit second half of the year, cons versus negative low single digit in the first half. What that suggests is that the actual demand overall is not greatly improved. And we don't anticipate, you know, in the next month and a half, it's going to dramatically change either. I do think there is reason to be optimistic that 25 could see demand actually beginning to improve in some of these poor non-discretionary consumer goods categories that make up a big piece of our business and an ever growing portion of our business.

Okay. In terms of that one billion of potential divestitures you have for next year, like how far along are you in that process? And also like how are those businesses that you plan on divesting different from the other businesses in the portfolio?

Yeah, we're in various stages of discussions with a handful of businesses that kind of add up to, actually if all were executed would be more than the billion dollars. We expect them to be deleveraging and they in general would trade at a similar multiple, perform at a similar multiple to the overall average of the business. What they do have characteristics of is more industrial exposure and lower overall growth rates

than the core business that we're focused on moving forward. Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you. And our last question is from the line of George Tafos with Bank of America Securities, please proceed.

Hi, thanks for taking the follow on guys. More of a strategic question and recognizing it's gonna be hard to talk live mic on something like this. As you think out the next four quarters, on the one hand, Barry is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very important person he's working rather diligently to improve his already good cost position, at least as you would see it through lean and the like and you're getting some benefits from that. And you're also working the pipeline. In an environment that maybe is more difficult from a macro standpoint from where your customers are, do you think your growth on a relative basis versus your peers will come more because you can become more aggressive in terms of where you are in the cost curve versus peers? Or do you think it's, hey, we are finding that we're much more able to drive new products more quickly and that gets you the volume growth? I recognize it's gonna be all the above, but if you think about 25, is it gonna be a year where you leverage cost or leverage pipeline to get the growth that you're hoping for? Thanks and good luck in the quarter.

Thank you, George. Yeah, by far and away, innovation, the pace of innovation, our ability to deliver higher levels of sustainability, more circular product is going to be the number one driver of our ability to win in the markets that we're operating in. When we embark on the lean transformation journey, and I said this several quarters ago when we first began to talk about lean, I wanted to go into lean not as a cost driver, although it very much is a cost driver, but as a way to drive variation out of our business. And the way variation manifests in our business is it ends up causing inconsistencies in how we provide service on time in full, lead times on a -to-day basis, and the quality of the product to our customers day in and day out. And from 30 years in this industry, I have learned the lesson that if you perform consistently on service and quality, you will gain wallet share and you will have much less pressure on price. And I think that is exactly what will play out. So the second driver of growth will in fact be better performance, differentiated service to customers from the lean transformation. And the third, and it's really more of a distant third, is the cost advantage that comes from the process of lean and driving out labor and energy and waste and all those things.

Thanks so much. Very clear. Good luck in the quarter, guys.

Thank you. And we have time for one more question. And it comes from the line of Rosemary Morbelli with Gabeli Fonds. Please proceed.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I was wondering if I could follow up on that one billion of proceeds from upcoming diversities in 2025. Could you share with us more or less the potential impact on your top line and EBITDA line from those businesses going out?

Thank you, Rosemary.

I think the revenue of those is a bucket is. Yeah, I mean,

I think half range. Yeah, I think you can do the math that Kevin just mentioned about proceeds divided by about our multiple. We'll get the EBITDA impact. As Kevin pointed out earlier, the margins are slightly lower, but not meaningful. So I think if you do that math, that'll give you both the EBITDA and revenue impact depending on the level of proceeds you want to assume. But again, as Kevin said, we've put out a target of a billion, but the target portfolio list would drive a result better than that if we're able to execute all of them.

And should we assume that all of those potential businesses are small and are split around your different segments?

Yes, the target list includes businesses from multiple reporting segments.

Thank you, that is helpful. And if I may ask one last question, you are working on efficiencies, you are working on eliminating volatility, you have 200 facilities, you pointed out. Do you need 200 facilities? Should we add facility consolidation as part of your improvement program?

Yeah, our cost improvement program certainly is contemplating additional rationalization of facilities. We've completed a number of those this year, we will complete a number of those next year. As lean accelerates, it should give us further opportunities to drive a more efficient footprint.

Thank you very much, appreciate your help.

Thank you. Thank you. And this ends the Q&A session for today. I will turn it back to management for closing remarks.

Just thank you to everyone for your interest and participation today. We're very excited about the future of Barry as we close out our fiscal year, this quarter that we're in, and we're really encouraging it with what we see developing for 2025. So thank you very much.

And with that, we thank you all for participating in today's conference. You may now disconnect.