Greif, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Greif Third Quarter 2025 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, 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 be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Bill D'Onofrio. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Greif's fiscal third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Today, our CEO, Ole Rosgaard, will provide a strategy and market update, followed by our CFO, Larry Hilsheimer, with a review of our financial results. Please turn to slide two. In accordance with regulation fair disclosure, please ask questions regarding topics you consider important because we are prohibited from discussing material, nonpublic information with you on an individual basis. 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. We will be referencing certain non-GAAP financial measures and the reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP metrics that can be found in the appendix of today's presentation. This quarter's results reflect our planned container board business divestment within discontinued operations. Unless otherwise noted, the financials and commentary presented today will relate to our continuing operations. I'll now hand the call over to Ole on slide three.

Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. At the outset, I want to recognize our 14,000 colleagues around the world. Their execution discipline, bias for action, and commitment to our strategy make the difference. While all colleagues' contributions are meaningful, today I want to briefly go off script to recognize one in particular, Gary Matz, Executive Vice President General Counsel and Secretary to Greif will be retiring later this year. Gary is a cornerstone example of what makes Greif so special. Over his distinguished 20-plus year career at Greif, he has impacted so many lives through his work. For myself, Gary has been a constant source of servant leadership, reason, coaching, and strategic vision. And I know that both I personally and Greif colleagues globally foundationally better because of his guidance I'm sitting in the room with him right now and I can see from his face that even now he prefers to be recognized only as part of the greater drive team but today we need to recognize him as an individual to Gary thank you for everything you have done for us and best wishes for your upcoming retirement thank you all excuse me Dennis Hoffman, Greif's Deputy General Counsel, will assume Gary's role effective October 1st. Dennis has worked closely with Gary for the last 15 years, and we have full confidence in his ability to carry on Gary's legacy of legal excellence. Thank you both for your commitment to Greif. Now, back to the quarter. We're taking costs out and transforming the business. At times, that work can be uncomfortable, but our people know that is how the company grows, moves from good to great, and ultimately creates shareholder value. We continue to accelerate our portfolio transformation and cost optimization. The divestment of our container board business is planned to close at the end of the month, and our planned timberland divestment is set for October 1st. for favorable tax planning purposes. Cash proceeds net of tax for these transactions will be approximately 1.75 billion, which we anticipate will put our leverage ratio below 1.2 times. These divestitures sharpen our portfolio to concentrate our efforts on markets where we have the greatest ability to grow and deliver margin expansion. capital efficiency, and durable shareholder returns. Additionally, as of Q3, we have achieved 20 million in run rate savings towards our 15 to 25 million fiscal 2025 commitments, about 15 million of which is SG&A and the remainder through network optimization, such as the California closure, which was announced earlier in August. Another key component of our cost optimization is operating efficiency gain. To that end, we want to highlight a smaller but equally meaningful change occurring in one of our shop floors. Recently, our colleagues in the Wellcome North Carolina Cuban Core Plant improved progress efficiency related to changeovers, which improved line efficiency by over 40%. At Investor Day, we spoke about the aggregation of marginal gains. This is a great example. The standalone impact of this project is not material to drive as a whole, but when all facilities take the same mindset and drive from good to great, it will really move the needle. It is regular wins like this that daily increase our conviction in outpacing our stated 100 million cost reduction commitment. Please turn to slide four. Our Q3 results once again show that the markets we've chosen to invest in are the most resilient, even in a mixed macro environment. Customized polymer volumes were up 2.2% led by low double-digit growth in small containers. offset by mid-single-digit declines in IBCs and large brands. Our focused end markets, agrochemicals, pharma, flavor and fragrance, and food and beverage continue to outperform, underscoring the power of our portfolio shift. Durable metals volumes declined 5.8%, reflecting low double-digit softness in North America and low single-digit declines in EMEA. Housing and petrochemicals have been sluggish all year, and bulk chemical markets trended downwards in Q3, which also drove softness in EMEA. Our strategy in this business remains value over volume and past generation, which is evident in our improved year-over-year gross profit margins. Sustainable fiber volumes declined 7.6%. URB mills operated at above 90% capacity. However, converting was mixed with tube and core down low single digits and fiber drums down high single digits due to sluggish North American industrial end markets. Integrated solutions volumes grew 2.6% led by strong volumes in recycled fiber. So from a big picture point of view, our volume performance clearly shows our strategy is working. But for the time being, customer sentiment remains cautious, and the macroeconomy as a whole is not robust. We will consider that operating environment as we look to full year 2026 guidance next quarter. Larry, please take over on slide five.