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

Scott Morrison: Yeah. Now the second quarter EBITDA will be down and then it will accelerate in the back half of the year. And we explained both — we got a $40 million drag from Russia. We are getting our inventories right in South America. So we will take absorption hits. We will have negative mix in the second quarter. In the second quarter, in North America, the plants will perform very well and we will make more money than we did last year, but we don’t have the PPA thing that we had in the first quarter. So I think I explained exactly how it should shake out.

Gabe Hajde: Understood. And then, Scott, probably, one for you on the balance sheet and cash flow that you are talking about. Unless my model is wrong, your days payable are at 130, which is pretty good, I mean, I expect you guys wouldn’t want to extend it out that long yourselves. Is there anything that we should be mindful of thinking about that being a potential drag on cash flow in future years? And then I think you have $1 billion of debt due in November, is any change in the potential rate on that included in the $425 million of interest expense? Thank you.

Scott Morrison: No. The rate — the $425 million is kind of built in with any actions that we would take and when we would take those actions to deal with the maturity in November. We will generate a lot of cash in the back half of the year. So our debt paydown really doesn’t happen. This is kind of the peak leverage right now in kind of April, May timeframe, stays fairly even until through June and then it starts to come down, but most of it will come down in the fourth quarter. So that interest expense assumed kind of anything we might do on the debt front. What was the other part of the question?

Dan Fisher: And I think implied in that statement is, yeah, we recognize that we will be retiring cheaper debt than we would be stepping into…

Scott Morrison: Yeah.

Dan Fisher: … at this point in November and that’s anticipated in Scott’s number.

Scott Morrison: Yeah. And then next year we are going to delever more. I think we can both delever and start buying back some stock next year. But sure in the higher interest rate environment, you probably want a little less debt. The world has started to stabilize, so that’s good. But I am a hell of a lot older than you Gabe, but these rates are still not that scary. I was around when we were doing 8%, 9% debt. So 6% debt is really not — it’s something we have to deal with, but it’s not something that changes the direction or changes what we are doing.

Gabe Hajde: Right. Understood. Thank you. And then the other question was on the days payable or just working capital in general.

Scott Morrison: Oh! Yeah.

Gabe Hajde: I am seeing days payable 130 days.

Scott Morrison: Yeah. I think we got to manage both the supply side and the customer side from a working capital standpoint and we do that every day. And every new contract negotiation, those are key points. It’s not just about price and volume, terms matter and so we focus on that every day, and we have meetings on cash flow every month. So we are very keen and focused on it. But, yeah, in a higher interest rate environment, anything that has a time element of money is more expensive.

Gabe Hajde: Thank you.

Scott Morrison: Yeah.

Operator: Thank you. Our final question…

Dan Fisher: Thanks, Gabe.

Operator: … comes from Adam — oh. Pardon me. Go ahead.

Dan Fisher: Yeah. Thank you. I said, yeah, one more question and then I appreciate it.

Operator: Okay. It’s Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Adam Samuelson: Hi. Thank you and I appreciate you all squeezing me — yeah, squeezing me in.

Dan Fisher: You bet.