Greif, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the GREIF First Quarter 2024 Earnings 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 that 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. Matt Leahy, please go ahead.

Thanks and good morning, everyone. Welcome to GREIF's Fiscal First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. This is Matt Leahy, GREIF's Vice President of Corporate Development and Investment Relations, and I am joined by Ole Rosgaard, GREIF's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Larry Hill-Schimer, GREIF'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 are prohibited from discussing material nonpublic information with you on an individual basis. Please turn to slide 2. As a reminder, during today's call, we will make forward-looking statements involving plans, expectations, and beliefs related to future events. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed. Additionally, we will 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 I'd like to turn the presentation over to Ole on slide 3.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, all. Ahead of covering our first quarter results, I would like to briefly recap our strategy and philosophy of how we lead and serve customers. At GREIF, we are a purpose-driven company. We create packaging solutions for life's essentials. Our 13,000 colleagues around the world serve as a critical supply chain partner for our customers who are delivering the raw materials, ingredients, foods, beverages, medicines, and products that make the world work. Our packaging helps our customers deliver the juice and ketchup on your table, the paint on your walls, the oil in the car, the furniture in your home, the soles on your shoes, your Amazon boxes, and the vitamins or meds that you take. We help our customers do very important work. Our Build to Last strategy is designed to help us be better stewards of our customers' goods, and our vision is to be the best in the world at customer service. The way we do that is through our four strategic missions, how we work, and the principles that guide how we lead, support, and serve our colleagues and customers. We've built a powerful culture and business systems at GREIF that both serve as a flywheel to consistently improve our competitive positioning, attract, and retain great talent, and create value as we grow the business. Please turn to slide four. We believe the future of global industrial packaging will be driven by a focus on sustainable packaging solutions, including recyclable resin-based products. We have aligned our strategy with these broader industry trends, and through acquisition and organic investments, we are slowly transforming our portfolio. The five product groups shown on slide four are the same focus areas communicated at our Investor Day in 2022, and since then, we have made substantial progress on expanding in these verticals. We've executed three transactions in small plastics in the past year in Lee, Reliance, and IPAC Chem to build global scale in that important and growing markets. We intend to continue to build on our small plastics platform with high quality, high margin, specialty businesses. Our focus in IPC centers on building scale regionally at both the manufacturing and the reconditioning level to offer our customers a full lifecycle solution of sustainable products and further our circularity mission. Our acquisition of Centurion Container has significantly increased our mix of washed, re-bottled, and reconditioned IPCs, and all with a growing margin. This business improves both the environment and our economics, a powerful combination. In our paper packaging business, our growth is focused on unique high margin converting businesses that improve our downstream integration as well as our end market exposures into more stable food, beverage, and consumer markets. Our cold pack acquisition, Dallas Sheet Feeder, and the Louisville LithoLaminator investments all meet this goal in paper. And while our closest business is predominantly internally focused, we see tremendous potential to grow beyond our current footprint both organically and through acquisition. In summary, we see a long runway for growth in many of our businesses and intend to continue along this path of transforming our portfolio to meet the market needs and better serve our customers. Please turn to slide five. Now into the first quarter, volumes remain under pressure in most parts of the world through the quarter, consistent with our expectations and full year guidance. Starting east to west, which is how we normally see volume trends emerge, our APAC business saw some bright spots in the quarter as volumes in our China business improved slightly on both a sequential and -on-year basis. China manufacturing PMI remained above 50 for all three months in the quarter, and lubricants, which are predominantly used by heavy manufacturing customers, were the primary improving end market in that region. In Amira, we also saw improving lubricants and end market demands reflected more of the low comparison versus an improving sequential trend as Eurozone PMI remained well below 50 through January. The agricultural and conical markets are still working through some of the year-end 2023 destocking, and we expect those businesses to improve throughout the year. Our land-sand business primarily serves the agrochemical, juice and beverage industries and is impacted by planting, yield and consumer demand dynamics in those markets. Volumes in that region remain weaker, and we do not at present see any material volume inflections. North America, still our largest and most diverse region with both red chips and paper packaging, remained our weakest market globally in the first quarter. US manufacturing PMI's remained in contraction territory through January, the 14th consecutive month at or below 50. This continued low level of industrial activity has driven GIP volumes down 19% in the quarter and 36% over two-year periods. This is a truly historic period for our GIP business and makes the results from that team over the past year and a half even more impressive. We are excited by the prospects when volume trends inflects. Our PBS business saw a mix of volume trends with container board clearly improving and our box board business still trending down slightly. Overall, it is clear we remain in a difficult point in the cycle and our teams are doing an excellent job controlling what we can control and focusing on serving our customers. I'm proud of our work this quarter and our continued resilience and commitments as we navigate the tough environments. I'll now turn it over to Larry to walk through our detailed financial results.

Larry? Thank you, Oli, and good morning everyone. Turning to slide six, Greif's first quarter results came in line with our expectations with $128 million of adjusted EBITDA, a use of free cash flow of $48 million. While our team's execution remained solid, the combined effect of extended slow demand and the significant negative price cost dynamic in our paper business led to a decrease in -over-year performance. We remain focused on execution leaning on our value over volume price discipline and cost management with continued focus on cash and working cattle. As Oli covered in his opening remarks, while we are managing through the short-term volume trends, we continue to focus on investments that will help us build a better business long-term. One of those investments is our recently launched pilot project with Ironcraft, a German-based startup that has developed a unique chemically inert and fully recyclable barrier technology for plastic containers. This partnership is representative of our commitment to innovation in packaging that meets the growing sustainability demands of the marketplace and will enable us to better serve our customers in many end markets, including agrochemicals and food and beverage. Combined with Lee Reliance and IPAC Chem, we think a successful outcome with Ironcraft will offer our customers a full suite of custom packaging and barrier options and provide multiple growth levers for gripe for years to come. Let's turn to segment results starting on slide seven. Our GIP business has continued to trend consistent with the previous few quarters with a sustained low level of demand offset by strong execution on price and cost. Volumes remain under pressure in most regions throughout the world and order patterns remain tight as customers face limited visibility to demand improvement. APAC and EMEA volume showed some signs of life on better petrochemical and lubricant demand as manufacturing activity improved in those regions while North America remains weak. The GIP team posted solid results given this backdrop with improving gross profit and flat EBITDA margins on lower sales year over year. Our teams combined pricing discipline and cost management in GIP in partnership with our global operations and supply chain teams drove another quarter of solid margin performance in our seasonably slow first quarter. I want to thank our global GIP colleagues for another quarter of excellent execution in a very tough environment. Please turn to slide eight. Our PPS business executed well in the quarter with improving volume trends in container board offset by weaker box board demand. Corrugated converting volumes were up 3% and container board mill volumes were up above that level year over year as converting customers began to reorder paper and rebuild low inventory positions as they saw the demand outlook improving in late 23 and early 24. Our tubing floor volumes remain stable sequentially through the quarter but are still down 4% year over year. A reminder that the largest end market for tube and core is the paper industry. So we expect that rising mill volumes in container board and elsewhere if they continue will lift volumes in our URB and tube and core business as well. On the margin side our PPS business was challenged in Q1 with a price cost driven by delayed recognition of our announced price increases combined with rising OCC costs which rose by $55 per ton or nearly 160% year over year for the quarter. The January published RISC index prices in both container board and box board were not at all in sync with what we experienced in the market. This is largely due to what we see as a flawed methodology of industry price tracking by the publication. RISC's survey-based approach of a small and shrinking third-party independent market does not reflect what we see real time in our businesses or with our customers. In a time of the increased use of data and analytics and the ability to track market information using automation or artificial intelligence tools we struggle to find relevance in a survey-based method with such a small non-representative sample size. Nonetheless, the lack of paper price recognition coupled with significant cost inflation resulted in a 540 basis point margin squeeze in Q1 which we anticipate will largely recur in Q2 but then improve in the second half as RISC indices better reflect market pricing. Please turn to slide 9 for our updated guidance and outlook. Given the lack of any compelling demand inflection but accounting for the RISC recognized price increase and other modest improvements we are raising our low-end EBITDA guidance by $25 million to $610 million and maintaining our adjusted free cash flow guidance of $200 million which is reflective of increased capex and working capital expectations for the full year. Our full year 2024 assumptions remain consistent with our guidance from the fourth quarter namely our expectation for a continuation of current demand trends, no improvement in RISC published index prices from the recent February publication and no contribution from IPAC chem which is expected to close in our fiscal Q2. As a reminder we present our guidance based only on a factual evidence available to us at the day we report. We think it makes sense to stick with low-end guidance at this time and we'll revisit and share our updated view including possibly introducing a broader guidance range during our next quarter call. With that I'll turn things back to Ole for a brief closing. Thanks Larry.

I will close by simply stating that we continue to demonstrate our ability to control what we can control and drive the business during a down cycle. The investments we are making on the business will position us well to better serve our customers and achieve breakout performance when demand returns. I'm proud of the dedication, commitment and resilience from our global drive teams and excited for what we are building together. We will plan to discuss our business and future in greater detail at an upcoming investor day on December 11th. Details will be coming but please make a note in your calendar December 11th. Before we start the Q&A session I have an important update for our investors. Matt Leahy is moving into a new position to oversee our Asia-Pacific operations and Bill D'Onofrio who has played a key role in developing financial planning and analysis and data analytics at Rife for nine years will now take charge of our investor relations. This is part of their professional growth plans and I want to thank Matt for his leadership as our head of corporate development and investor relations for the past several years and welcome Bill to the new role. With that I'd like to thank you once more for dialing in today and we will now open the lines for Q&A.

Certainly as a reminder to ask a question please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question please press star 11 again. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our first question which will come from Gansham, Punjabi. Your line is open.

Hey guys good morning. Congrats to you Matt. Good luck in the future. I guess first off you know maybe you can give us a sense as to how volumes during the first quarter compared to your initial plan and how things are looking so far in February. You know there's some you know recent indications on ISM etc on global basis that seem a little bit better. Just wondering if you're seeing any green shoots associated with that.

Yeah so as I said Gansham we you know

we've

throughout January you know volume has been depressed and we have seen some sequential improvements but it's not really enough to signal an inflection. We spoke a little bit about APAC and in Europe where we have seen a little bit of green shoots but it's on a spot by spot basis. What I would say is that when we speak to our customers they seem much more positive that they have been for a long time. Although we haven't seen that materialize into into volume yet.

Got it and then in terms of the EBITDA differential you know the 25 million between your previous low end versus now is that is that just purely a container board pricing?

It's predominantly that Gansham but we also the teams have done some good jobs so we're lowering our estimate of SG&A for the rest of the year about six million and our closures business has actually turned up. We mentioned a little bit about that in our comments that's another five of Lyft and then just some other items three million. So you got about 11 million of price cost across both businesses of Lyft and then the SG&A six closures five and another three of miscellaneous currency and other stuff.

Okay got it thanks so much guys I'll turn it over.

And one moment for our next question.

Our next question will be coming from Michael Hoffman of Stiefel. Your line is open Michael.

Hey Matt congratulations and Uli I always respect companies who treat Matt's position as a strategic role so good luck to Bill too. Thank

you.

Thank you Bill. On the Q&A side of it can we take a little bit in if you pick end market customers that if that if individually is there two or three of them that if they make a change here in North America this is going to shift the momentum you know it's not 20 of them it's you know it's two or three end markets maybe it's only one or two who are we watching at this point to shift their demand outlook.

Yeah I would really focus on the chemical customers or the chemical end segments both in the biggest segment is the bulk and commodity chemical and that has been significantly down and then the next one is speciality chemicals those are the really two big ones and then the third one would be lube petrol lube and oils.

So the lube market seems to have corrected their end market oversupply all the finished goods the de-stocking so is there early green shoots there?

As I said we've seen pockets sort of sporadic pockets but it's still not enough to say that you know it's it's permanent we still see a little bit of de-stocking but again it's very sporadic depending on you know what end segment we're looking at. I would say it's too early to signal that you know an inflection point.

Okay and then on the paper side there's a whole bunch of new capacity coming online in North America and Latin America how is that factored into virgin capacity making paper how is that factored into your outlook? Yeah you

know we have continued to see just demand being weak but like we said we did see some turn up in container board demand through the end of the first quarter and the new capacity you know this is the one Michael talked about often over the years that it every year since I've been here Armageddon's coming next week in this business and yet I think that the industry has managed to work its way through it and understands that you know focusing on you know serving the customers and retaining them by providing excellent service helps combat that in terms of loss of customers so you know it's like I said we adjusted our guidance up for the price that was recognized by in January but again I'll repeat what I said it stuns me that we are still dealing with some survey-based process to recognize price in this industry when everybody else in the world has moved on to data and analytics and facts because what we were seeing out in the street was no big on the price everybody knew you know cost driven factors justified the price and yet it didn't get recognized so that's the biggest factor in our in our container board business right now.

Okay and then when you think about the where you would like to sort of the next incremental M&A to fill in the white space in the model what's the sort of key place that you're watching that today?

Well we as we said our focus on M&A is in the resident resident-based products with high margins and paper converting products with high margins and you on paper you find that in niche markets.

Okay all right thank you very much.

Thank you as a friendly reminder if you would like to ask a question please press star 1 1 from your telephone in one moment for our next question.

And our next question will come from Gabe Haiti of

Wells Fargo your line is open Gabe.

Holy Larry good morning Matt congrats. On slide four yep you mentioned it briefly about some of the the recent acquisitions and and sometimes the pushback that we all hear is you know sometimes companies do acquisitions to mask some weakness in the underlying business or something like that. You know we we would contend hey look if you guys can deploy capital on M&A at a period of depressed demand maybe you can pick up a deal here and there. I'm just curious if you could give us any specifics as it relates to the couple deals that you guys have now integrated you know in terms of key learnings number one and number two if these deals are kind of hitting underlying or you know economics that run dependent underpinning those those acquisitions.

Yeah you know Gabe I would say so far we're extremely pleased all of these a big factor for us was cultural fit and the the lead acquisition has been particularly incredible from that perspective I mean it it has gone extremely well now you know they're they're you know the the entire industry is but we sort of knew that going in I mean it's a you know broader economic thing but the results that they are delivering are in line with what we were expecting the integration's gone extremely well you know reliance is a pretty small one plant kind of thing it's going very well too you know they're adapting to our safety culture and our focus on people and you know that that'll end up being you know successful but it's tiny the IPAC chem transaction you know even though it hasn't closed yet our integration activities are well down the path and as soon as that closed we expect that to hit the ground running that the cultural fit again seems extremely strong and then in in we couldn't be more pleased with COPLAC I mean COPLAC is just um I mean it's it's almost like they were part of gripe for the last 30 years so um yeah and these these aren't masking anything they're obviously along the strategic plan that we delivered and um and in all of these we're seeing actually volumes better than our legacy business so um yeah we're really pleased I gave this to uh

the comment you made about masking uh the strategy we have we developed three years ago we announced it to the investment community two years ago and what you have seen is just we are just executing on the strategy we presented to the investment community so it's very very intentional what we have now

appreciate that only um another one on

I

guess organic investment and what you guys are doing internally um if memory serves I think the with the laminator in Louisville was was up and running and the sheet feeder was sort of underway are you guys commercializing that at this point or it's gone you know just update us where you're at with the sheet feeder

the sheet feeder uh we in the final phases phases of getting a permit sorted out fire permits and that sort of thing uh and we will be operational by end of may this year and we'll serve the first customer on june 1st

yeah now laminators up and operating and actually yeah it's going very very well

okay thank you

I would now like to turn the conference back to Matt Leahy for closing remarks

thank you all again for joining have a great day

you this concludes today's conference call thank you for participating you may now disconnect

goodbye

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