Sonoco Products Company

and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 2024 Sunoco Earnings Conference 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. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Lisa Weeks, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and thanks to everyone for joining us today for Sunoco's second quarter earnings call. Last evening, we issued a news release highlighting our financial performance for the second quarter, and we prepared a presentation that we will reference during this call. The press release and presentation are available online under the Investor Relations section of our website at sunoco.com. As a reminder, today's call, we will discuss a number of forward-looking statements based on current expectations, estimates, and projections. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Therefore, actual results may differ materially. Please take a moment to review the forward-looking statements on page two of the presentation. Additionally, today's presentation includes the use of non-GAAP financial measures, which management believes provides useful information to investors about the company's financial conditions and results of operations. Further information about the company's use of non-GAAP financial measures, including definitions as well as reconciliations to GAAP measures, is available under the investor relations section of our website. Joining me this morning are Howard Coker, President and CEO, Rob Dillard, Chief Financial Officer, and Roger Fuller, Chief Operating Officer. For today's call, we will have prepared remarks regarding our results for the quarter and our outlook for the third quarter, followed by a question and answer session. If you will please turn to page five in our presentation, I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Howard Coker, for business updates.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. As we announced late yesterday, we had a solid quarter where we delivered sequential improvement in adjusted EBITDA. In the second quarter, sales were $1.6 billion, adjusted EBITDA was $262 million, and EBITDA margins remained strong at 16%. Our adjusted earnings per share were $1.28, and operating cash flow was $109 million. These results reflect improved industrial volumes on a year-over-year basis, mixed with some continued softness and consumer sales. During the quarter, we had continued price-cost headwinds across the portfolio, primarily in industrials, that we believe will improve in the second half. Productivity in the second quarter came in at $51 million, continuing our strong operating trends and bringing our first half productivity total to just over $100 million. All in all, another good quarter from the Sunoco team. If you'll please turn to page six, let me now update you on recent progress with our near-term strategic priorities. As always, we're fully committed to operating with discipline. Our productivity results in the first half of the year were over $100 million. While these figures are ahead of schedule to our expectations for the year, they were not by chance. As you know, we have doubled internal CapEx in the last three years, targeted towards value-driving growth and productivity projects. We continue to make high return investments to drive better and more efficient manufacturing processes, and those investments are paying off. Our assertive actions to improve productivity from the right capital allocation, portfolio simplification, and strong expense management continue to yield results, and I couldn't be more pleased with the efforts from the entire Sunoco team. We also continue to invest strategic capital and innovation to support organic growth and sustainability initiatives. At the recent Environmental Packaging Live event, we were awarded the 2024 Gold Award in Snacks and Confectionary Packaging and a Silver Award for sustainable packaging innovation for a greater than 90% paper Pringles can design. We're delighted to be recognized for our proprietary designs that help our customer achieve their sustainability packaging goals. This new design is being rolled out in store shelves across Europe and will be launched internationally in the near future. Regarding high return capital investments, pleased to announce the acquisition of Eviosis in late June, representing an important milestone in our strategy to scale our canned packaging platform. The approval and review processes are well underway, and Roger and team are making great progress on planning for a seamless integration. Based on the current schedule, we expect to close the transaction in the fourth quarter of 2024. If you'll turn to page seven, With Eviosis, we're excited to expand our footprint and global capabilities to address the increased demand for innovation and meet growing expectations for the highest levels of customer service. The addition of Eviosis will position us as one of the leading food can and aerosol packaging manufacturers globally, and it represents a platform where we can drive differentiated value in the market by leaning into service, quality, and innovation. the absolute hallmark of successful Sunoco businesses. Through the combination of our existing innovations infrastructure and EVS's technical advanced and well-invested manufacturing footprint, we'll be a more effectively serve both existing and new customers and unlock new opportunities in attractive end markets and geography. We've initially identified meaningful near-term operating and procurement synergies that should drive roughly $100 million annually. and this does not include expected commercial and innovation synergies. The financial profile of this combination is compelling. The transaction will be immediately accretive to earnings and cash flow, and first-year returns are expected to be well in excess of our cost of scalping. But most importantly, it gives a strong, a powerful operating platform from which to advance both commercial and operating improvements. that will help us continue to drive sustainable value and returns to our shareholders, further demonstrating the strength of our clear and dynamic capital allocation process. Our businesses continue to identify and bring forward exciting opportunities for value-generating investment. To the clarity of our dynamic process, we will continue to support these opportunities where Sunoco can generate the strongest return and value proposition for shareholders. And you will see us continue to distance ourselves from businesses that do not regularly offer the same opportunities. We view capital allocation as the heart of our strategic planning process to generate increased value for our shareholders, and we'll keep you fully posted on our progress. With that update, I'm going to turn it over to Rob to talk about the financials for the fourth. Rob?