Ball Corporation (NYSE:BALL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Adam Josephson: Good morning, Dan. Dan, one on back to North America. So, your long-term target is 2% to 4%. Last year, you were down a touch. You’re seeing the beer companies promote more. It sounds like you’re encouraged about what you’re seeing in January, yet you’re expecting flattish shipments, so that would be two years in a row of flattish shipments compared to that long-term target of 2% to 4%. I guess, just given the low base, and the promotional activity you’re seeing, why are you not expecting more growth in North America, particularly given your long-term target? I’m just trying to understand if there’s something I’m missing.

Daniel Fisher: No, I just think it’s earlier in the year, Adam. And we’ve seen a couple of weeks’ worth of promotion. That’s not enough for us to get overly excited that we’ll return to some modicum of growth. And candidly, the inflationary, but all of the things relative to a soft economy are still present. I think the can will do well. I think you’ll see trajectory in the second half of the year. That will be helpful with these promotions continue. I’d love to come back to you in six months and say, hey, we’re right back on track with the 2% to 4%, but as we sit here today, I don’t have enough data points to say that that’s going to happen in 2023.

Scott Morrison: But over time, we’re still kind of in the post-COVID adjustment period, I think. And 2023 will kind of — I think 2023 will kind of be the end of that. And I would expect those historical rates that we saw before COVID with sustainability tailwinds and all of those things, those aren’t going away. Those are going to continue. And so that’s why we think, longer term those growth rates make sense, but we’re still kind of in a period where we’re getting through COVID and now through rapid inflation. And we’re starting to see things settle down and that gives us more optimism, I think.

Adam Josephson: Just one follow-up to that, which is I know you said two plants. I think that was about 8% of your North American capacity middle of last year. So, you were down 0.3%, you’re expecting to be flat this year. Do you think the market grew by more than what you were — did you underperform the market last year and do you expect to underperform the market this year? Can you just give me any sense of how you think you’re performing in terms of North American volumes versus the broader market?

Daniel Fisher: Yeah. I think we have — it’s a great question, probably a tick underperformance relative to the market because of the size of our beer portfolio, and that was the most distressed category last year. So that certainly had a knock-on effect. The good news is if that area reverts back to a more positive promotional activity, then we should be the beneficiaries of that shift moving forward.