Berry Global Group, Inc. (NYSE:BERY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Tom Salmon: It’s all around shareholder value creation. We want to deploy and maintain a leverage level that’s ultimately consistent with maximizing shareholder value. As we said right now, we think the share price is a very compelling value and that the company is very undervalued. And as a result, we’re taking the actions we are, coupled with attracting, both addressing existing shareholders’ interest in dividends as well as looking to attract new shareholders that may not have been attracted to the company by initiating this dividend. We’re very — we’re happy that we have the type of resiliency and stability of this portfolio that generates the kind of cash that it does to allow us to do this. So we’re very pleased with this evolution in our company in paying its first dividend and reupping the share repurchase authorization we’re pleased where we’re at.

Arun Viswanathan: Thanks.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Kieran de Brun with Mizuho. Your line is now open.

Kieran de Brun: Hi. Good morning. Just had a quick follow-up on the mechanical recycling side, it seems like there’s a lot of demand from customers for a mechanical recycling, given potential from recycling. How do you think about those investments forming part of your portfolio? And what kind of percentage of CapEx you might focus on those going forward? Thank you.

Tom Salmon: I’d say this, there’s not going to be one solution that solves all the problems. That said, we’re the fifth largest mechanical recycle if you will in Europe. We’re excited about our new Leamington Spa site that ostensibly is fully committed by our end customers. And this will be the first of its kind ultimately allowing us to have Food Safety Association-approved material coming off that line which is an FDA-like equivalent. So we’re excited. And this could certainly be models for us going forward to drive more circularity, to address some of our carbon goals and objectives all while not impacting both customer as well as our end customer expectations in terms of quality. And we’re very bullish on it. And I’m proud.

This team has continued to quietly lead in this space. And we believe this continues to be a growth opportunity for our company globally. And our teams have been doing a great job. I couldn’t be proud of the team, ultimately implementing our Leamington Spa investment as part of our CPI group. And the alignment we have with end customers is really encouraging in that regard. It’s one of those — when you think about true value propositions that we can bring, this is a true value proposition that we can bring that’s unique to our company.

Kieran de Brun: Great. Thank you. And then, maybe just a really quick follow-up, when you mentioned bolt-on acquisitions now that you’re kind of in that three to 3.9 times range, is there any area where you’d be focused on adding capabilities or any regions where you would want to be more focused on, when we think about kind of your potential to do M&A on a go-forward basis?

Tom Salmon: I’d answer it generally. We’ve been very clear that the areas of interest are in faster-growing markets or geographies that ultimately can support our organic growth objectives. The company has done a great job in terms of both increasing its exposure to emerging markets but also, increasing exposure to faster-growing markets. And we didn’t have a chance to speak of it today, but the expansion that we have in Bangalore in India to support health care and pharmaceutical is on track. It will become fully commissioned this fiscal year for our company. And we’re very excited about it. So those types of investments aligned with customers in faster-growing markets and geographies are always of interest. Health care, pharmaceutical, dispensing solutions are some core areas that we’ve been very prominent in our investment priorities.

Kieran de Brun: Great. Thank you.

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