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

Page 4 of 13

Arun Viswanathan: Okay. Great. And then just lastly, just on Europe, it sounded like Europe, you’re somewhat a little bit more constructive on. Could you just describe that? I’m just trying to square that away with some of the inflation that they saw. Last year, you had some energy price inflation that was pretty stiff. So, is that what’s also giving you some relief and potentially pushing some volume upside in Europe? Thanks.

Daniel Fisher: Well, we had a really strong volume year in Europe, and it wasn’t impacted despite the end consumer being impacted with less discretionary spend. The aluminum package did really well. And I think it’s more of the aluminum package story and the resiliency of the can in Europe than it is discretionary spending levels that helped us. Your point is valid. So, the way our contracts will work. We’ll be able to pass through a lot of the inflationary headwinds that we experienced in 2022, we’ll pass that back in 2023. So, if we’re — if inflation moderates, which it has, even if it dissipates a bit, then you’ve got the underpinnings of volume that continues to grow at a high single digit rate. We’ve got capacity online — coming online in two major facilities that will take advantage of that growth.

And we should be able to make more money given the stability of the inflation and the fact that we’re catching up in arrears on a lot of the inflationary pass-through. We’re really excited about Europe for 2023.

Scott Morrison: And just to your comment on EBITDA, I would expect — I’d be disappointed if we didn’t exceed $2 billion of EBITDA in 2023.

Arun Viswanathan: Okay. Thanks.

Operator: Next question from the line of Ghansham Panjabi with Baird. Please go ahead.

Ghansham Panjabi: Yes. Good morning, everybody.

Daniel Fisher: Morning.

Scott Morrison: Morning.

Ghansham Panjabi: So, Dan, just kind of building off your recent comments, you’ve been quite vocal about how higher beverage price pressure volumes along the supply chain, including at your end. How much do you think volumes were impacted in 2022 just based on the dynamic in Beverage North America? And as it relates to your comment on Europe resilience, was that also boosted in 2022 by just the comparison from the reopening across Europe relative to the prior year? And do you still see sort of that momentum continuing into 2023.

Daniel Fisher: Yeah. I’m not entirely sure your first question, I could parse out that delta. I will tell you where it had an impact and where we’ll be able to point to it is in the fact that it’s really the promotional activity during the peak season that we didn’t see any of last year. We still grew a little bit. I would probably go back to sort of that 2018, 2019 range of growth that we saw. And I would put that up against what we actually saw in 2022. And I would say that delta, just speaking out loud, is probably what we lost out on because of a lack of promotional activity in the peak season. So, maybe 1% to 2% during that period, which as you know, those — that last billion cans is kind of where you make your money at the end of the year in a fixed cost business.

So, yeah. Let’s see. Right now, we’re off to a good start relative to how the beer companies are promoting and how our customers are looking at what they need to do from — elasticity curves have changed here in the last four to six weeks.

Page 4 of 13