Ranpak Holdings Corp.

Hello and welcome to RANPAC Holdings first quarter 2026 earnings call. Please note that this call is being recorded. After the speaker's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during that time, please press star and then one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Sarah Horvath, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that we will discuss forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those discussed in our press release and the risk factors identified in our Form 10-K and our other filings filed with the SEC. Some of the statements and responses to your questions in this conference call may include forward looking statements that are subject to future events and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. BrandPak assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on these forward looking statements, all of which speak to the company only as of today. The earnings release we issued this morning and the presentation for today's call are posted on the investor relations section of our website. A copy of the release has been included in a Form 8K that we submitted to the SEC before this call. We will also make a replay of this conference call available via webcast on the company website. For financial information that is presented on a non-GAAP basis, we have included reconciliations to the comparable GAAP information. Please refer to the table and slide presentation accompanying today's earnings release. Lastly, we'll be filing our 10-Q with the SEC for the period ending March 31, 2026. The 10-Q will be available through the SEC or on the investor relations section of our website. With me today, I have Omar Asili, our chairman and CEO, and Bill Drew, our CFO. Omar will summarize our first quarter results and market conditions, and Bill will provide additional detail on the financial results before we open up the call for questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Omar.

Thank you, Sarah. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are pleased with how we started the year and how effectively we are navigating a dynamic environment. I believe the work we have done over the past several years and strategic focus we have taken towards developing paper-based, value-added, and differentiated solutions positions us well to advance our position in this environment. Our strategy is working and the business is demonstrating strong momentum across critical areas such as automation and large enterprise accounts that we have been investing in for years. Automation delivered an exceptionally strong quarter, increasing 111% year over year on a constant currency basis and excluding the impact of foreigns. The momentum is evident and anchored by our European business, where we continue to build strong reputation across a wide range of accounts, as well as our larger customers, such as Walmart in North America. Automation is a major growth engine and clear differentiator for us in the market. The cost savings our solutions deliver through lower freight, labor, and higher throughput are significant and mission critical for large organizations. PPS volumes increased 0.8% year over year, marking growth in 10 out of the last 11 quarters. Europe was the outperformer and exceeded expectations that we shared on our fourth quarter call. The trends we shared regarding North America in our fourth quarter call came to fruition as we saw strength with our large enterprise e-commerce customers But the distribution channel faced a challenging comparison with the first quarter last year, as many customers were reinvesting in inventory due to paper market disruptions. Overall, we expect this trend to normalize throughout the year and get back to growth in this very important channel. We have invested a great deal in new product introduction related to our PPS business. and believe many of our new products in cushioning, wrapping, and voicemail are reinvigorating the channel. Cushioning in particular is gaining tremendous momentum through our Guardian24 launch in North America, and the launch is timely given the current disruption in pricing in the resin markets. Now, more on to our results. Consolidated net revenue increased 4.5% on a constant currency basis for the quarter, or 5.4%, excluding the impact of warrants, driven by an excellent, almost 100% growth in automation on a constant currency basis. We also benefited from strong currency tailwinds in the quarter, which added 6.5 percentage points to top line growth on a reported basis in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased 1.6 million to 18.9 million on a reported basis and was flat in constant currency terms. Excluding the impact of foreign, adjusted EBITDA increased 5% on a constant currency basis and roughly in line with growth in gross profit on a constant currency basis. Now moving to the market environment and with how we are positioned. Prior to the start of the war, we had been seeing positive movement in economic activity in Europe following several years of challenging conditions driven by energy price shocks, tariffs and elevated inflation. The global conflicts that have unfolded since the end of February are creating a new flavor of energy price shocks and uncertainty across the globe that we are navigating. So far, we are not seeing a meaningful impact on demand side of the business, but customers are understandably nervous about the impact higher gas prices may have on the consumer and the resulting demand for goods. At the same time, the goods economy has been soft for the past number of years as consumers have shifted dollars to travel and experiences. With travel now becoming significantly more expensive due to fuel price increases, we could see some rebalancing if folks decide to stay home and order more goods. It's too early to say how this will play out, but we are positioning ourselves conservatively when it comes to managing the business and being extremely mindful of our margin profile by taking cost reduction measures and continuing our focus on operational efficiency in north america the import cost environment for paper has been stable which positions us well against resin where we have already seen meaningful price increases begin in the marketplace we're pushing the sales team to be aggressive in accelerating the plastic to paper transition as this is a dynamic we have not seen in North America in years. In Europe, Dutch net gas pricing has been volatile since the start of the conflict, moving from the low to mid 30s to more than 60 euros per megawatt hour, quickly following the start of the conflict before retreating to the current levels in the low to mid 40s. Paper producers in Europe are passing on price increases beginning in the second quarter, and we will in turn protect our margins through a temporary surcharge. We are being transparent with our customers, and when conditions normalize, we will remove the surcharge. From a commercial perspective in Europe, we see additional opportunities for paper to gain share versus plastic, as resin costs and availability in the region are experiencing greater pressure than what we are seeing flow through the paper markets. Conditions seem to be changing daily, but overall, we believe they are manageable and are far better than what we experienced in Europe in 2022 following the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, where the continent lost nearly half of its gas supply overnight. For everybody's sake, we're hopeful for a speedy end to the conflict, but are positioning ourselves for this prolonged uncertainty. Fortunately, we have some very powerful structural tailwinds at our back and strong momentum in automation, as well as with our largest customers, Amazon and Walmart, where our relationships continue to deepen. Our sequencing and priorities are consistent with what I shared in our last call, drive top line growth to achieve scale, leverage that scale to unlock operational efficiencies and enhance purchasing power, which will flow through to adjusted EBITDA as revenue continues to grow. This, in turn, will support deleveraging and ultimately enable us to generate meaningful cash. The strategy remains the same in this environment. With that, here is Bill with more information on the quarter.