CCL Industries Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to TCL Industries' third quarter investor update. Please note that there will be a question and answer session after the call. The moderator for today is Mr. Geoff Martin, President and Chief Executive Officer, and joining him is Mr. Sean Washchuk, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, gentlemen.

Good morning. Thanks, Tom. Thank you everyone for joining us on our third quarter earnings release. Geoff and I are here in Brea, California, our Avery headquarters today. And we can turn everyone's attention to slide two, our disclaimer regarding forward-looking information. I'll remind everyone that our businesses face known and unknown risks and opportunities. For further details of these key risks, please take a look at our 2021 annual MD&A. Under this section, risks and uncertainties, and you can also see in an update in our third quarter report to those risks and uncertainties. Our annual and quarterly reports can be found online at the company's website, CCLIND.com, or on CDAR.com. Moving to slide three, our summary of financial results for the third quarter in nine months. For the third quarter of 2021, 22 sales increased 11.4 percent with organic growth of 8.8 percent acquisition related growth of 4.9 percent partially offset by a 2.3 percent negative impact from foreign currency translation resulting in sales of 1.66 billion dollars compared to 1.49 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2021 operating income was 246.8 million dollars for the 2022 third quarter, compared to $223.9 million for the third quarter of 2021, an 11.6% increase, excluding the impact of foreign currency translation. Geoff will expand on our segmented operating results of our CCL, Avery, Check Point, and Inovia segments momentarily. Corporate expenses were up for the quarter, principally due to a higher expense for long-term variable compensation versus the prior year quarter. Consolidated EBITDA for the 2022 third quarter, excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, increased 7.9% compared to the same period in 2021. Net finance expense was $17.1 million for the third quarter of 2022, compared to $14.2 million in the 2021 third quarter due to an increase in total debt outstanding and an increase in variable interest rates on our revolving debt. The overall effective tax rate was 22.9% for the 2022 third quarter compared to an effective tax rate of 24.1% recorded in the third quarter of 2021, primarily reflecting a higher portion of our taxable income earned in lower tax jurisdictions. The effect of tax rate may change in future periods depending on the proportion of taxable income earned in different tax jurisdictions with different rates. Net earnings for the 2022 third quarter were $163.9 million, up 8% excluding foreign currency translation compared to the 2021 third quarter. For the nine-month period, sales increased 15%. Operating income increased 7%, excluding a $3.5 million non-cash acquisition accounting adjustment to fair value the inventory from our Adelbra acquisition. And net earnings increased 7% compared to the nine-month period of 2021. 2022 included results from 12 acquisitions completed since January 1, 2021, delivering acquisition-related sales growth for the period of 4.8%, organic sales growth of 10.1%, and a foreign currency translation headwind of 1.9%. Moving to the next slide on page four. Basic earnings per Class B share were 93 cents for the third quarter of 2022 compared to 85 cents for the third quarter of 2021. Adjusted basic earnings per Class B share were 95 cents for the 2022 third quarter, a quarterly record. Thank you for joining us. from increased corporate costs. Moving to page five, free cash flow from operations. For the third quarter of 2022, free cash flow from operations was $148.7 million compared to $152.4 million in the 2021 third quarter. The slight decline in cash flow from operations of 3.7 million is attributable to an increase in capital expenditures almost entirely offset by increased proceeds on disposal and improved cash flow by operating activities. For the 12 months ended September 30, 2022, free cash flow from operations decreased approximately $91 million compared to the 12 months ended September 30, 2021. This comparative decline is primarily attributable to an increase in net capital spending. Moving to page 6. Returns to Shareholders During the first nine months of 2022, the company repurchased almost 3.4 million shares at an average price of $58.95 for total proceeds of $200 million. Including the 14.3% increase in our 2022 annual dividend announced in February of this year, dividends year-to-date have amounted to $128 million. representing a healthy 26.3% dividend payout ratio. Moving to slide seven, our cash and debt summary. Net debt as of September 30th, 2022 was $1.78 billion, an increase of $529 million compared to December 31st, 2021. This increase is principally a result of new borrowings to finance the company's acquisitions During the first nine months of this year and the repurchase of shares under our normal course issuer bid. Although the company's net debt increased, the balance sheet closed the quarter in a strong position. Our balance sheet leverage ratio was 1.46 times, increasing from 1.06 at the end of December 2021. Liquidity was robust with almost $700 million of cash on hand. 0.8 billion of available undrawn credit capacity on our revolving bank facility. The company's overall average finance rate was largely unchanged at approximately 2.67% at September 30, 2022, compared to 2.42% at December 30, 2021, reflecting an increase in variable interest rate on our outstanding borrowings under our revolving credit facility. The company's balance sheet continues to be well positioned to finish the year. Geoff, over to you.

Thank you, Sean. Good morning, everybody. I'm on slide eight, highlights of our capital spending for the year, $288 million so far net of disposals. We're forecasting to spend in the range of $380 to $390 million for the year of 2022. Turning to slide 9, highlights of the CCL segment this quarter, 13.2% organic sales growth, only partly price-led, probably the majority of that 13.2 came from price, but there was some volume increase too. North America and Asia Pacific up high single digit, Europe up double digit, and Latin America up more than 40%. We had a strong quarter in the personal care, healthcare, and food and beverage businesses. It was pretty good at CCL secure. Thank you. Slide 11, highlights for Avery. We saw some softness here that came as a little bit of a surprise, but we did worry about it going into the quarter. The back-to-school season started much earlier in Q2 this year than it's ever done, due to retailers taking caution with their inventory positions with all the supply chain disruption. But that same caution also affected us at the back end of the season when normal replenishment orders, which we typically had in and many retailers ended the season early. We also saw some destocking in some of the channels, distribution channels where we sell our high-margin printable media products. Of studying that, we had strong gains in our direct-to-consumer channels. Horticultural acquisitions were soft on slower demand, but the tapes acquisition in Brazil met our expectations. Raw materials availability, especially paper and metal rings, held the sales growth somewhat. Slide 12, checkpoint. A solid quarter here in the MAS business. We had a good period in the Americas, but that was offset by declines in Europe and Asia. Profits were down on lower volumes, unit volumes, of our MAS business in our Asian supply plants. But that was offset by good results in the apparel labeling segment again, on double-digit organic growth in RFID. and acquisitions in that space also contributed. We did have an 11.9 million gain on excess real estate in China which drove most of the profitability improvement you see on this slide. Slide 13, Inovia. The volume situation was up in America's but down in Europe and all the down in Europe was all in our plant in Poland where we moved an old film line that made packaging films and replaced it with the Echo Float line which is a strategic long-term investment. We did have some stark costs for that but by far the majority of the problem in the quarter was really the unprecedented summer energy cost spike in Europe and freight inflation. So that was really responsible for all the profit decline for the quarter in Europe. In the Americas, we were affected by the margin squeeze from higher cost inventories as resin indices declined, reducing our selling prices, the reverse effect of what we experienced in 2021. Outlook for the coming quarter, the core CCL business units, orders, pictures still remain solid. In the CCL design space, we see improving automotive output, but that's likely to be offset by slower conditions in the technology space. Comps for CCL Secure were much easier in the second half of the year than they were the second half of last year, but are harder in Q4 than they were in Q3. At Avery, direct-to-consumer strength remains stable. Augmented by recent acquisitions, but the distributed destocking in the core business remains potentially an offset, although we did see some improvement in that in the month of October. The checkpoint strong RFID growth at ALS may not be offset this quarter by apparel destocking, so we're a bit slightly worried about the apparel supply chain and softer MAS picture in broad retail. We do expect another challenging quarter in Inovia for the same reasons we've just been through. We did see some improvement again in October on the better situation with the energy markets in Europe. We have a slight modest FX headwind to contend with in the coming quarter. So with that, operator, we'd like to open up the call for questions.

Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you would like to enter the queue to ask a question at this time, you may press star 1. on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. We do ask, if listening on speakerphone this morning, that you pick up your handset, if listening on speakerphone, to provide optimal sound quality. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that will be star one on your telephone keypad at this time if you would like to enter the queue to ask a question. Please hold a moment while we poll for questions. And the first question this morning is coming from Mark Neville from Scotiabank. Mark, your line is live. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, Geoff. Morning, Sean. Morning.

If I can start with a novia, Geoff. I guess two-part question.

First, I'm just curious, how much inventory do you typically keep in this business in the U.S.?

And second part, the surchargers that you put in place in Europe effectively is market-to-market on energy prices?

Yeah, so... The reason we get the squeeze on the margins, which I think is the underlying of your question, our pass-through of what happens on the indexes is immediate. So if the index goes up or down, we have an immediate pass-through, and that benefits us in a rising resin market because we have lower-cost inventory in the system, and we get the reverse impact in a declining market, and that cost us a few million bucks this quarter, mainly in the Americas. where the resident declines have been higher. What was the second part of your question?

The surcharges that you put in place in Europe, did that sort of get you up to where you need to be?

We didn't get any real benefit for that. We did put them in place as soon as the energy market spiked. It was very sudden and very quick, as I'm sure you all know. So we did see some benefit from that in the month of October. So we had a much better October than any of the months we had in Q3, largely as a result of the energy surcharges we put in place.

Okay. And maybe just given all the volatility and I mean, should we be thinking, is it better to think about sort of profit dollars than profit percentage for this business?

Yeah, well, it's a pass-through industry. So we get swings in the revenue line driven by pass-through. So your point's not quite valid, Mark. Yes, the answer.

Okay. And maybe on an Avery, it feels like there's quite a few moving parts involved. Primarily on the margin, would that be sort of the mix in the lower direct-to-consumer?

No, the big impact has really been the de-stocking on the margin side was in the de-stocking in the printable media business. So we had a couple of our very large distributors de-stocked in the quarter. We've seen some reversal of that in the month of October, but it's a high-margin business. So when that happens, that's where the impact really comes.

Okay. Just to ask more broadly, Geoff, obviously you guys touch a lot of geographies, touch a lot of markets. I listened to your commentary. It still stands reasonably constructive, but obviously a touch of conservatism or uncertainty. But just again, I'd love to get your thoughts sort of just broadly sort of what you're seeing in your business and sort of how you're thinking about as we move into 2023. Thanks.

Well, it's a mixed picture. You probably wouldn't be surprised to hear me say We still see some solid areas of growth. So the month of October was pretty much a reflection of what happened in Q3. So the CCL business continues to do well. We had a much better October in Avery than we had in Q3 because some of those impacts in Q3 reversed. Checkpoints still hanging on in there, doing quite well. and then the commodity inflation and deflation depending on which side of the coin you're on. So at Inovio, we've got the problem of the resins going down and the impact on pricing and then you've got the energy markets all over the place. So having to manage our way through that month by month.

Thanks, Geoff.

No problem.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Steven McLeod from BMO Capital Markets. Steven, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Good morning, guys. Morning, Steven. Morning. I just wanted to follow up on Avery. You talked about some of the margin impact. So given the fact that some of those destocking impacts have reversed in October, would you expect to see margins sort of reverting back to that 20% range in Avery?

No. Not until next year, no, because Q4 is a low quarter for Avery. So when we get into next year, we would certainly expect to see that. And I think you might need to look at the excess margin we had in Q2. So our margin is surprised on the upside in Q2. So if you combine Q2 and Q3, you've probably got a more realistic reflection of what's really going on in the business, because Q2 was, because of the early start of the back-to-school season, really inflated Q2 at the cost of Q3. So that's really one of the other underlying themes at Avery.

Oh, right. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And then just as you think about Inovia and the EcoFloat business, well, I guess a couple of questions. One is on the EcoFloat. Can you just give an update as to where you stand on those production impacts? And then you talked about Inovia results declining comparatively. I assume you mean on a year-over-year basis. Correct. Yeah.

Okay. October was significantly better than any of the months we had in Q3 at Inovia. And echo floats, I think is your question. So we're building that business from scratch. So we don't have any volume to load onto the line. We have to qualify each volume. But the interest is very significant. So we've got inside the company at CCL, but also outside in the free converter market. We've got a lot of interest in the EcoFlow product line. So it'll take a quarter or two to get through the startup phase while we go through customer qualifications and approvals, but we're very pleased with the progress we're making.

Okay, great. And then just on acquisitions, the acquisition backdrops, I know there's been a lot of macro noise out there, but I'm just curious if you're seeing any easing in multiples or anything like that. How are your conversations trending?

Well, I would say we've all seen some contractions in multiples in the public space. Still some pretty hefty transactions going on in the private space. So there's been a few public announcements about a couple of transactions in the industry. still in double-digit EBITDA margins. So we haven't seen any real change in the transaction multiples that are going on out there. So we still have a good flow of bolt-on transaction deals in the pipeline, but nothing of any major scale.

Okay, great. Thanks, Geoff. Thanks, Sean. No problem. Thank you. and your next question is coming from Ahmed Abdullah from National Bank of Canada. Ahmed, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Thanks, and thanks for taking my question. On the 2023 outlook commentary and acknowledging the fact that visibility is usually between four to six weeks, could you speak maybe to the magnitude of the impact that could come from higher inventory levels at customers? Are you already seeing orders?

The outlook commentary slide is really about the coming quarter. It's not a 2023 outlook. It's an outlook on the coming quarter. So, you know, I think it'll be a picture that looks quite similar in terms of Q3. So I think I've provided some comments there. Quantifying those beyond that, I don't think we'd be able to do.

Okay. That's fair. And on Avery's As we look into a possible recession in 2023, how has this business performed in previous recessions, and is there room for you to cut costs to maintain or boost margins in the case of top-line pressure?

Well, it's a consumer staple, so it's a fairly resilient business to macro influences. So we're quite optimistic about Avery for next year. We've done a few deals in the industry that are going quite well. So I think it's really the Q3 performance at Avery really has to be seen in the context of Q3 and Q2 together because it's really driven by timing of shipments more than it's driven by anything else.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from David McFadgen from Cormark Securities. David, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Oh, great. Yeah, a couple of questions. I'm just wondering where we're at in terms of putting through all the cost input pass-throughs, because I'm just wondering, going forward, when would we expect to see that most of the organic growth is actually volume-driven versus price?

Well, I think it'll be a little while yet because the quarterly comparatives still include a fair amount of price. But we did see volume increase in that 13.2%. It's very difficult to measure in that segment, but we think it's roughly two-thirds price, one-third volume, something like that, to give you a rough idea. So we certainly saw unit volume increase in the CCL segment space this quarter. But I think it'll be well into next year before we cycle through and get into markets where we're not comparing inflation.

Okay. And then just on MAS, you know, in Q2 it was weak. This quarter is actually up. And then Q4 it looks like you're saying it's going to be down again. Just kind of wondering what's going on there with the MAS. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it was up only slightly this quarter. It was better than it was in Q2. Some of that was price-driven, price recovery-driven. But the profits were down this quarter because the unit volume was still below prior year. So most of those products are sold into retail. So the retail markets are not strong at the moment. But... We expect Q4 to look, so far, it's looked like pretty much the repeat of what happened in Q3, so far. Okay, okay.

All right, thanks.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Daryl Young from TD Securities. Daryl, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Just two quick ones for me. Around CCL design, In the release, I think you made mention to some new applications that were able to offset some of the weakness in the technology sector. Can you just give a little bit of detail on that, and is that expected to carry in the next several quarters?

Yeah, I mean, the CCL design electronics tech industry, as you probably all know, is somewhat challenged at the moment. But we have won some new applications, mainly in functional parts that are used on laptop display screens. That's the main area of gain we've had. We can't go into more details than that. But that's been the main source of the gain. And that share gain has offset some of the decline in just the unit volume going on in the industry just in general.

Okay, great. And then with respect to Checkpoint, the $12 million gain from the China real estate sale, do you have a normalized EBIT number for Checkpoint that would have happened in the quarter without that?

Well, take $11.9 million off the number and then you got it.

Okay, perfect. Thanks.

That's all for me. Okay.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Michael Glenn from Raymond James. Michael, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Geoff, some of the large CPG companies that you would do business with have seen some volume declines in the recent quarter. Are you seeing that at all? in terms of the CCL label business?

So far, not. And I'll just caution you a little bit. It's a mixed picture in the CPGs. So in the beer sector, a lot of the world's largest brewers reported pretty strong volume gains. So it's really in the personal care space I think you're probably referring to where we saw some of the customers in that space reporting declines, not all of them. So the ones that are more focused on the beauty care industry and some of those reported quite nice gains. So I'd say it's a mixed picture in the CPG space, but with the customers we have on balance, we've seen so far reasonably solid orders picture. But we read the same release as you do and have the same concerns that you do about 2023, and we'll see what happens.

And just to understand that a bit more, The volume of labels that you sell to, say, one of your larger home and personal care product CPG companies, are they largely just in time, or is there any sort of inventory lag to think about there?

Well, the revenue line is determined more than anything else by mix, not by unit volume, because label sizes and label complexity really determine revenue rather than the number of units the customer sells. So there's no translation relationship between a customer's unit volume and our revenue volume. But so far, we haven't seen too much softness in the HPC space. It was a strong quarter, and the order picture is still quite solid.

Okay. Thanks for taking the questions.

No problem.

Thank you. And your next question is coming from Ben Jessick from PI Financial. Ben, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I just have one question, Geoff. On account of sales with Check Point in China, is that a reflection of sort of efficiencies in consolidating production and less real estate, or is it some strategic sort of geographic repositioning?

What's the question, Ben?

When it comes to your sales of excess, can you hear me okay?

Sales of what?

When it comes to sales of excess real estate in China.

Real estate. Yeah, so we inherited a factory in downtown Shanghai, very close to the Disney Park in Shanghai, where Check Point used to make and assemble its MAS product line. And we built a new factory two or three hours outside of Shanghai in a much lower cost place. and a much nicer facility. And then we sold the real estate from the original building. That's what happened.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to join the queue at this time, you may press star 1 on your telephone keypad. And we do have a follow-up question from Mark Neville from Scotiabank. Mark, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Thanks. I'm just curious about the The buybacks. You didn't buy anything in Q3. Obviously, very busy first half. Just how you're thinking about that. How we should think about that. Is it more just sort of opportunistic around price? More sort of weighing macro? Just how you think about it and how we should think about it. Thanks.

Yeah, I think we think about it. We have an ownership mentality here. So if we feel the stock is undervalued, So you saw we had a buyback at an average price of $58.95 at the time when the stock was selling. We thought the market was probably $10 below real value for the company. So if we ever felt that situation arrived again, we'd be buyers of the stock. So we'll have to wait and see what happens next year, depending on how things unfold in the markets.

All right. Thanks, Jack.

No problem.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Walter Spracklin from RBC. Walter, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Louis on for Walter. Hi, Geoff. Hi, Sean.

Morning, Louis. Going into a slower economic environment, are you seeing any weakening in any of the demand segments where you have historically seen a reduction first?

You mean competitive prior recessions?

Correct.

I would say we haven't seen a lot so far. We're still more wrestling with inflation, volatility, and energy than we are weakening demand in that respect. We have the same concerns everybody else has, but so far the orders picture has been decent. It's not spectacular, but it's decent. and so but you know we read the newspapers like you do and we've got the same concerns as you do but so far we haven't seen any early signals so the one area that's noticeably weak is the tech space the computer industry, laptops, servers, cloud computing, cell phones you know that industry we've seen some you know some slowdown but we've also gained share in new applications so We've been able to, so far, net that off against each other. So far.

Okay. Okay, that's fair. And then, does moving into a weakening economic environment provide you guys with any opportunity to acquire a weakened rival?

Yeah, we hope so. It has in the past. So... We've got a very strong balance sheet, as you've seen. So we're certainly investors in times when other people are running for the hills, we like to buy. But probably needs a few more things to unfold, a few more things to become clearer before those kind of opportunities arise.

Okay. Thanks for taking my question.

No problem.

Thank you. And there are no further questions in queue at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back to Geoff Martin for closing remarks.

Okay, everybody. Well, thank you very much for joining our call. Appreciate it. And we look forward to talking to you again early next year.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.