Silgan Holdings Inc.

Thank you for joining the Silgan Holdings First Quarter 2021 Earnings Results Conference. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference call over to Ms. Kim Ulmer, Vice President, Finance, and Treasurer. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you. Joining me from the company today, I have Tony Allitt, Chairman and CEO, Adam Greenlee, President and COO, and Bob Lewis, EVP and CFO. Before we begin the call today, we would like to make it clear that certain statements made today on this conference call may be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made based upon management's expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company, and therefore involve a number of uncertainties and risks, including, but not limited to, those described in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for 2020 and other filings with the SEC. Therefore, the actual results of operations or financial condition of the company could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statement. With that, I'll turn it over to Tony.

Thank you, Kim. Welcome, everyone, to our first quarter earnings conference call. We trust that you are safe and healthy as we enter the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many of you, we're eager for this difficult situation to come to an end, but we're also committed to remaining diligent until it does so. In light of the significant changes at Silgun over the past several years and culminating with the recent addition of Albea dispensing, We thought 2021 would be a good time to rename two of our operating segments to better capture the evolving nature of their products and align with our ongoing strategic focus. The closures segment has been renamed to dispensing and specialty closures to better reflect the importance of the wide variety of dispensing technologies offered by this segment in addition to the specially designed performance attributes of our entire closures line. Our custom container segment, formerly plastics, have been increasing its focus and investments targeted to customers and containers requiring custom design and elevated customer support. With that said, I'll make a few comments about the first quarter, our thoughts about the remainder of the year, and then Bob will provide more details, and Bob, I'll be happy to take any questions that you have. As you've seen in this morning's press release, we reported another strong quarter with adjusted earnings of 75 cents per diluted share at the high end of our estimate and 32% ahead of the record first quarter 2020 results of 57 cents per diluted share. On an adjusted basis, each of our businesses exceeded a very strong prior year quarter that benefited from the initial pantry stocking in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. and earnings grew solidly despite significant headwinds from severe winter weather throughout the southern U.S. and unparalleled increases in resin costs. We're pleased with the results of each of our business segments. Volumes have held strong and we continue to expect strong performance for the year. Accordingly, we're reconfirming our full year guidance of $3.30 to $3.45 per diluted share. representing a 10.3% increase at the midpoint over record 2020 levels. In the second quarter, we anticipated adjusted earnings per diluted share of between 75 cents and 85 cents as compared with 85 cents in the second quarter of 2020. Recall that the second quarter of 2020 was particularly strong as we benefited from an outsized inventory liquidation to meet the significant Customer pantry loading and ongoing increased demand as home lockdowns were enacted across the globe. In addition to this tough volume comp, we also anticipate a significant impact from the contractual lags in passing through and unprecedented inflation in resin and other raw materials. Our full year estimate assumes some return to more normal resin cost levels later in the year. In summary, our end markets remain strong. Our businesses are executing exceptionally well in these volatile times, and our strategic positioning for further growth has never been better.