Ball Corporation (NYSE:BALL) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Bryan Burgmeier: Yeah. So the $28 million tailwind from the power agreement settlement in 1Q, was that part of full year guidance originally? I don’t remember hearing that on the 4Q earnings call. And when you talk about North America being kind of flat quarter-to-quarter, I assume this means it will actually be like an apples-to-apples basis, because I don’t expect this tailwind to repeat in 2Q, is that accurate?

Dan Fisher: You are correct. It will be up year-over-year, but flat with the first quarter. In terms of the virtual power purchase agreement and when we had our previous call, we were negotiating the settlement of it. So we weren’t really going to discuss it. Part of that was built into our first quarter numbers because we knew we were going to settle it, we just didn’t know what the amount would be and that amount would have run through our P&L over time and in last year. But the provider wanted to exit the contract and we were able to extract a very favorable outcome for us and all of that outcome hit us — benefited us in the first quarter, but that will not repeat. We have entered into other virtual power purchase agreements to make up for the lost clean energy that we were buying and so we are in a pretty good spot.

Bryan Burgmeier: Okay. Understood. Thank you for the detail. And last question for me in March, you announced you were having some discussions about the possible closure of the Wallkill plant. I am just wondering how are those discussions going and based on what you know right now, what you can say right now, is it possible to say when or if that plant will close?

Dan Fisher: Yeah. I would say in terms of filling out your model, I wouldn’t count on anything in 2023 relative to an uptick in fixed cost savings. We said we were entertaining closing it. I think we are committed to closing that facility now. That’s a subtle change. And the other thing is there’s just not a lot to talk about at this point, because we are entering into effects bargaining now. As we know more, we will update you. But you will see capacity coming out at some point this year and you will see that tailwind in 2024 is what I would anticipate, but I don’t know the specifics of it at this time.

Bryan Burgmeier: Okay yeah. Thanks a lot for detail there.

Dan Fisher: You bet.

Bryan Burgmeier: Good luck in the quarter.

Dan Fisher: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Arun Viswanathan of RBC. Please go ahead.

Arun Viswanathan: Great. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on the strong quarter.

Dan Fisher: Thank you.

Arun Viswanathan: I guess, first off, in North Central America — in the Americas region or North Central America, you were able to kind of hit very high levels of segment income in Q1 that I thought would be more likely to materialize in Q2. So just wondering now as you look into Q2, do you expect kind of flat performance there? And maybe you could comment also on Brazil, obviously, we have seen some inroads on the glass side. But what are your expectations, I guess, as far as substrate mix as you look into Brazil for the rest of the year? Thanks.

Scott Morrison: Yeah. I’d say North and Central America, what you are seeing is, all the hard work from last year in terms of cost-out, you see our SG&A is much lower, the plants are operating better. We are — I think we are getting our group back with how we operate. So it performed at or above our expectations, too. We expected softer volume and our game plan is to perform very well even if volumes are soft and so that’s exactly what you are seeing. You also got — we got a benefit of that virtual power purchase agreement in the first quarter that won’t repeat and so — but we will keep earnings relatively flat and that’s due to improved performance across the business.

Dan Fisher: In terms of the glass versus aluminum substrate penetration or shift that we have seen here in the last 12 months to 18 months, it’s in line with what’s happened historically. In a higher inflationary environment, you do see a return to returnable glass, somewhere in that 5% to 6%, 7% share shift. That’s what we saw last year. As Scott indicated in his comments at the outset, and I think, we characterized what we believe to in the second half, as inflation dissipates and some of the actual cost and hedge positions of our customers down in Brazil, allow them to step into what the true cost of aluminum are. We are anticipating a strong peak season that will show up in the second half of Q3 and Q4 for us. We are not hearing anything different.

I will actually be down in South America next week. So I anticipate to hear more of the same. But that — I don’t see it as a permanent shift, I guess, would be the answer if that’s the underlying question there.

Arun Viswanathan: Great. Thanks. And then as a follow-up on Europe, I guess, was there any work done on your side to renegotiate contracts for energy or any other cost items? Is there any requirement — extra work you have to do on that side or not necessarily?

Scott Morrison: A lot of that was already done. The European business has done a really good job both on the commercial front and the supply chain front to manage our costs. So that’s — and you are seeing that in their performance, too.

Dan Fisher: I think both in that business and equally excellent job by our aerosol business, which has a significant present in Europe. So both of those businesses and both of those management teams have done an extraordinary job to work as partners with our customers to get to a good medium and longer term outcome as we manage through a very different energy and inflationary backdrop in Europe. So I think we have done the right thing by our customers and our teams have done the right thing by our stakeholders.

Arun Viswanathan: Great. Thanks a lot.

Dan Fisher: Thank you.

Operator: Thanks. The next question comes from Mike Roxland of Truist. Please go ahead.

Mike Roxland: Thank you. Hi, Dan, Scott, and congrats on a…

Dan Fisher: Hi, Mike.