Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (NYSE:AMBP) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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And we saw that then come through in the second part of August and September. It has stabilized now in October, and that guidance has also been given by the customers that have come to – come out with the their remarks. Though, it’s still fragile, I’d say, but it’s definitely stabilized in October. We have, last year, a pretty strong end of Q4 in November, December. So we’re being cautious about our guidance through the remainder of the year. And as I said, I think there’s lots of reasons to believe they are a positive outlook in ‘24 despite the fact that consumer will remain under pressure. But I think that wage growth will catch up with inflation cost. Pressures will mitigate. I think the brands will look more to volume having played a strong game on price in their revenue growth for the last 12 months.

And so we’d be positive about growth in ‘24 in Europe. But at the moment, we can’t call the exact numbers because we haven’t got the details from our customers.

Operator: Our next question will come from [DeSilva] with Square Asset Management.

Unidentified Analyst: Apologies. I just have a quick question, which is I’ve seen the growth CapEx guidance for this year, but could you give a guidance on total CapEx spend for this year? And equally, on the restructuring costs, is there any kind of indication on what will be the total restructuring costs of the facility closures and the timing of those?

Oliver Graham: David, do you want to take those two?

David Bourne: Yes, I’ll take the following. So full CapEx will be of the order of $0.4 billion in terms of cash CapEx. That includes maintenance and IT and sustainability spend of approximately $130 million, which is around about our usual number and is fairly consistent year-to-year aside from the business growth investment CapEx. In terms of closure costs, our financial statements will give you the numbers if you look at the exceptional section there for Weissenthurm in terms of our current estimates around that. And clearly, White House is a too earlier stage of negotiation to comment on at this point.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And with that, I would like to turn the call back over to Oliver for any additional or closing remarks.

Oliver Graham: Thanks, Elaine. And so thank you, everybody. Just to summarize, we achieved Q3 guidance as our performance in North America, backed by strong volume growth was slightly ahead of expectations, and that offset some weakening demand in Europe. We delivered very strong operating cash performance again in the quarter, which reflected the success of our ongoing working capital initiatives. And as a result of that, we now expect stronger projected year-end liquidity at around $700 million. And we continue to manage our network in a disciplined manner to balance with demand. So with that, we look forward to talking to you again at our Q4 results. Thanks very much.

Operator: With that, that does conclude today’s call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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