Greif, Inc.

Good day, and welcome to the GRIFE fourth quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would like to turn the call over to Matt Leahy. You may begin.

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. And first, let me apologize for the technical difficulties on our side. We were dialed in, and for some reason we lost audio, and we've been troubleshooting for the last several minutes. We truly appreciate your patience. Welcome to GRIF's fourth quarter fiscal 2023 earnings conference call. This is Matt Leahy, GRIF's vice president of corporate development and investor relations, and I'm joined by Ole Rosgaard, GRIF's president and chief executive officer, and Larry Hilsheimer, GRIF's chief financial officer. We will take questions at the end of today's call, and in accordance with regulation fair disclosure, please ask questions regarding issues you consider important because we're prohibited from discussing material non-public information with you on an individual basis. Please turn to slide two. As a reminder, during today's call, we'll make forward-looking statements involving plans, expectations, and beliefs related to future events, and actual results could differ materially from those discussed. Additionally, we'll be referencing certain non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP metrics can be found in the appendix of today's presentation. And now with that, I'd like to turn the presentation over to Ole on slide three.

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. And let me also apologize for the technical difficulties we had this morning. Looking back on fiscal year 2023, the second fiscal year on our Build to Last strategy, I'm humbled and in awe of the progress of our global growth team has made despite extraordinary macroeconomic headwinds. This year challenged us to execute with continued precision and excellence in a complex operating environment. I'm proud to say that in the face of ongoing demand challenges, the hard work from our teams resulted in the second best year in Greif's history on an adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow basis, surpassed only by our exceptional performance in 2022. Year over year, we improved both our EBITDA margins and our free cash flow conversion, even as primary product sales declined double digits across our businesses. A true testament to the commitment of our teams to operational excellence and our value over volume philosophy. Fiscal 2023 was a banner year for investing in the long-term health of Greif. We launched New organic growth projects in both PPS and GIP completed four acquisitions and announced the fifth in IPAC-Chem for an aggregate capital commitment of over $1 billion on M&A. We maintained our focus on returning capital to shareholders by increasing dividends per share by 7.5% and completing our $150 million share buyback program earlier in the year. And we did all this while maintaining a leverage rate ratio within our target range of two to two and a half times. At Greif, we often talk about managing the present while creating the future. We're doing both exceptionally. As we close out fiscal 2023, I'm proud of what we have accomplished and where we are going. But make no mistake, managing the present can be hard, especially when business is under pressure. And our business has been under pressure for some time, and we are continuing to face near-term headwinds, which Larry will cover with our low-end guidance and modeling assumptions for fiscal 2024. But as proven by 2023, we are built to handle exonerous impacts to our business by controlling what we can control. Our execution will remain strong and we will weather this storm and I have full confidence in our mission and our global drive team. After Larry provides a review of the fourth quarter, I will share with you a broader update about our growth strategy for future value creation on the build to last.