Sonoco Products Company

to the third quarter 2024 Sunoco Products earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. And if you'd like to withdraw that question, again, press star one. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Lisa Wheat, Vice President of Investor Relations, Ms. Weeks, you may begin.

Thank you, Krista, and thanks to everyone for joining us today for Sunoco's third quarter earnings call. Last evening, we issued a news release highlighting our financial performance for the third quarter and 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, during 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 condition 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. Please join me this morning in welcoming Howard Coker, President and CEO, Rob Dillard, Chief Financial Officer, and Roger Fuller, Chief Operating Officer. For today's call, we will have a prepared remarks section regarding our results for the quarter and our outlook for the fourth quarter, followed by a Q&A session. If you will please turn to page five in our presentation, I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Howard Coker.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our third quarter call. As we announced late yesterday, we had another solid quarter where we delivered sequential and year-over-year increases in adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margins, and earnings. During the third quarter, sales were $1.68 billion, adjusted EBITDA was $281 million, and EBITDA margins remained strong at 16.8%. Our adjusted earnings per share were $1.49, and operating cash flow was $162 million in the quarter. In consumer, volumes were higher year over year in metal packaging and TFP. Rigid paper can volume recovery continues to pace below our expectations, so we're hopeful this will improve as we head into next year. As expected, industrial volumes were flat sequentially and up year over year in North America and Europe. Industrial price cost impacts remain the headwind, which are expected to improve in the fourth quarter. Overall, another solid quarter from the Sunoco team, led by excellent productivity results of $39 million. I just wanted to express thanks to the entire Sunoco family. This has been a difficult six-week period. When the first Hurricane Helene track was posted, Sunoco had 63 facilities that were in the storm's potential path. We shut down operations and halted production for the last three days of the quarter in the affected areas, with supply chain disruptions continuing through the first week of October. A short time later, Hurricane Milton made a path towards our operations in Florida, with major damage to our plant city locations. Through all this, we maintained our focus on caring for our people and finding creative ways to deliver products for our customers. So to all the employees who gave generously to help your fellow team members and lift each other up during a time of need, we thank you. If you'll please turn to page six, where I'll provide an update on the two near-term strategic priorities. continue to operate with discipline by driving productivity from supply chain savings, production efficiencies, and fixed cost reductions. These focus efforts are underpinned by portfolio simplification and focused capital investment, which have resulted in $141 million of productivity through the end of the third quarter. I couldn't be more pleased with the efforts from the entire Sunoco team. We also remain focused on cost optimization activities, including footprint consolidations, most notably in industrial. We're in the process of closing one paper mill and three paper converting operations in China by the end of this year. These activities will continue across our global industrial network as part of our ongoing network optimization program. We also continue to invest strategic capital and innovation to support organic growth and sustainability initiatives. At the recent 2024 Food and Drink Federations Award, we received the Sustainable Innovations Award for our monomaterials Pringles can, and were recognized for inspiring European consumer packaged goods companies towards fully recyclable packaging. Innovation linked to sustainability as a competitive differentiator in our rigid paper container business, and we continue to invest for future growth in these products. Regarding additional strategic priorities, we were pleased to announce the acquisition of EBIOSIS in late June, representing an important milestone to scale our strategic metal packaging platform. The approval processes are well underway, and Roger and the team are making great progress on planning for seamless integration. Based on the current schedule, we expect to close the transaction in the fourth quarter of this year. If you'll turn to page seven, we're looking forward to the addition of Edeosis, which will position Sunoco as one of the leading metal food can and aerosol packaging manufacturers globally. With the combination of our existing innovative infrastructure and Edeosis' technically advanced and well-invested manufacturing footprint, we look forward to serving both existing and new customers and unlocking new opportunities and attractive end markets and geography. The financial profile of this combination is compelling. The transaction will be immediately accretive to earnings and cash flow, and this year's returns are expected to be well in excess, or I should say the first year returns, well in excess of our cost of capital. But most importantly, it gives a strong, powerful operating platform in which to advance both commercial and operating improvements that will help us continue to drive sustainable value in returns for our shareholders. We'll turn to page eight. In September, we announced that we were reviewing strategic alternatives for our thermal formed and flexible packaging business, EFP, which is part of the consumer packaging segment. The goal of the review is to accelerate Sunoco's portfolio simplification strategy, improve pro forma leverage, and continue to align value creating capital investments to the highest return opportunities to further increase shareholder value. With this expanded divestiture plan for TFT and our previously announced ThermoSafe divestiture, Sunoco will finance the EVOS's acquisition with debt and cash and no longer plans to issue equity. Based on our current plans, we expect to reduce net leverage from previous estimates within 24 months of the EVOS's acquisition. From a timing perspective, we still expect to continue the strategic review of TFP through Q4 of this year. TFP has been a valuable part of the Snoko family for many years, and the contributions have been and continue to be impactful to the company. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Rob for a brief financial update. Rob?