Crown Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CCK) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Crown Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CCK) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript April 30, 2024

Crown Holdings, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Good morning and welcome to Crown Holdings’ First Quarter 2024 Conference Call. You lines have been placed in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session. Please be advised that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Clothier, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Sir, you may begin.

Kevin Clothier: Thank you, Elle and good morning. With me on today’s call is Tim Donahue, President and Chief Executive Officer. If you don’t already have the earnings release, it is available on our website at crowncork.com. On this call, as in the earnings release, we will be making a number of forward-looking statements. Actual results could vary materially from such statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to vary is contained in the press release and our SEC filings, including Form 10-K for 2023 and subsequent filings. Earnings for the quarter were $0.56 per diluted share compared to $0.85 per diluted share in the prior year quarter. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $1.02 compared to $1.20 in the prior year quarter.

Net sales for the quarter were $2.8 billion compared to $3 billion in the prior year, reflecting higher beverage can shipments in Americas and European beverage offset by the pass through of lower raw materials and lower volumes in most other businesses. Segment income was $308 million for the quarter compared to $320 million in the prior year, reflecting improved results in global beverage offset by lower volumes in the other business and $12 million higher corporate costs, which include $8 million of costs related to a facility fire. Free cash flow in the quarter improved by $296 million, driven by improved operating cash flow from lower working capital and lower capital spending. The balance sheet remained strong with net leverage at 3.4 times at quarter end compared to 4.1 times for the same period last year.

As stated in the earnings release, second quarter adjusted earnings per diluted share are projected to be in the range of $1.55 to $1.65, with full year projected to be $5.80 to $6.20 per share. The earnings guidance includes net interest expense of approximately $380 million, average common shares outstanding of approximately $120 million, exchange rates at current levels, full year tax rate of approximately 25%, depreciation in the range of $310 million, non-controlling interest in the range of $130 million to 140 million and dividends to non-controlling interest of approximately $110 million. We currently estimate 2024 full year adjusted free cash flow to be in the range of $700 million to $750 million with no more than $500 million of capital spending.

At the end of 2024, we would expect net leverage to be at the lower end of targeted leverage range of 3 to 3.5 times. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Tim.

Timothy Donahue: Kevin, thank you. Good morning everyone. I’m going to actually be very brief and then we’ll open the call to questions. As reflected in last night’s earnings release and as Kevin just summarized, first quarter performance came in better than expected with global beverage can results up more than 11% over the prior year. Increased shipments of beverage cans in both North America and Europe offset lower shipments in Asia. Cash flow performance was again strong due to lower working capital usage combined with lower CapEx. Americas beverage recorded unit volume growth of 5% reflecting 7% growth in North America and a 1% decline in Brazil. And while the Brazil market grew mid-teens in the first quarter, our shipment performance reflects a comparison against a very strong first quarter last year in which we grew 23%.

We maintain our full year volume growth target of 4% to 5% for the North American business and expect low to mid-single digit growth in Brazil in 2024. In Europe, shipments bounced back nicely from the destocking of the prior year’s fourth quarter and in contrast to the fourth quarter, our weighting towards southern Europe delivered benefits versus the overall market as that region, combined with the Gulf States where we’re more heavily represented, performed better than Northern Europe. Perhaps too early to declare an inflection in Europe, but April shipments were also strong and the sentiment for beverage can shipments is more positive than only three months ago. We continue to expect 2024 segment income will exceed the 2021 level and the relocation from our Braunstone, UK plant is now complete with the Peterborough plant in full startup.

Our income performance in Asia Pacific advanced 15% as cost reduction efforts initiated in the fourth quarter more than offset 8% lower shipments in the region. We do expect full year income improvement in the segment as continued benefits from capacity pruning offset the impact of lower volumes. As expected, first quarter transit performance was down to the prior year, with price and volume contributing equally to the overall shortfall in both revenues and income. Specific to the various lines of business, the protective products businesses accounted for more than 50% of the revenue and income decline, reflecting weakness in the freight industry during the first quarter. We are expecting conditions to improve later in the second half, in line with expectations across the trucking industry.

Performance in Other reflects lower demand for beverage can equipment and aerosol cans that we previously discussed. So in summary, beverage cans had a very good start to the year and we see that momentum continuing into the second quarter. We continue to grow share in North America, maintain and restore margins to more appropriate levels, and generate significant free cash flow per share. 2023 was a record year of EBITDA for the company and we aim to match that performance despite the headwinds previously discussed. And I think Elle, with that we are now ready to take questions.

See also 11 Best Music Stocks to Invest In and 15 Tax-Friendly Countries To Consider for Your Retirement.

Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you, sir. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ghansham Panjabi of RW Baird. Your line is now open.

Ghansham Panjabi: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everybody.

Timothy Donahue: Good morning, Ghansham.

Kevin Clothier: Good morning.

Ghansham Panjabi: Good morning. Tim, the 7% growth in North America that you’re forecasting for 2024, you mentioned share gains were a part of that. One of your peers when they reported last week, were talking about having lost share and having line of sight towards filling that share, what time period that is. Can you give us a sense as to your confidence on your share position as we look out to 2025 at this point or is it too early to tell?

Timothy Donahue: So just a slight correction, Ghansham. We had 7% in the first quarter and I said we reconfirmed our growth target for this year in North America, 4% to 5%, so just a slight correction. And I can’t comment on what one of the other peers said, but I would tell you that we are, as we sit here today, based on the activity, even the lighter promotions or more sporadic promotions that we’re seeing, that we used to see in the past, extremely confident in that 4% to 5% for this year and we have no reason to believe that our share would do anything other than be slightly positive in 2025 versus where we are today.

Ghansham Panjabi: Okay, that’s great to hear. And then for my second question on APAC, the improvement, I think some of your customers were talking about an improvement in regions such as Vietnam as well on a relative basis for them. How are you feeling about that region overall from a growth standpoint, in terms of sustainability, relative to what you delivered in the first quarter?

Timothy Donahue: So our shipment, as we said, our shipments down 8%, I do think the market in Southeast Asia was probably up on the order of 9% to 10% in the first quarter, and our lower shipments versus the market reflective of capacity pruning. I think we took out five lines. So if I had to sit here today, off the top of my head, I think we have 29 beverage can lines operating before the program, and now we have 2024. So we took out 15% to 20% of the capacity or 15% to 20% of the lines, probably more on the order of 12 to 13 of capacity. So a capacity realignment, cost reduction more appropriate for what we see in the near-term. So I do think that the market will, over the medium term, three to five years, continue to grow. We still have great expectations for the Southeast Asian market for growth, and we think we’re exceptionally well positioned, and the cost structure is more reflective of that now.

Ghansham Panjabi: Okay, thanks so much.

Timothy Donahue: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Parkinson of Wolfe Research. Sir, your line is now open.

Unidentified Analyst: Hey guys, it’s Andrew on for Chris. Main question is, how did America’s beverage volume break down not only by geography, but by category? So would you be able to speak to beer seltzer, the other products?

Timothy Donahue: So, up 7% in North America, down 1% in Brazil, flattish in Colombia, up mid-single digits in Mexico. Mexico and Brazil, we’re heavily weighted towards beer. And then in North America, we’re more heavily weighted towards nonalcoholic, although we do have some alcoholic, but more heavily weighted to nonalcoholic carbonated soft drinks, sparkling waters, juices, teas, et cetera and I’d say that in North America, we had a pretty solid performance. All the numbers are in now. Not everybody reports to CMI [ph], but based on what we do get from CMI and other commentary made from the peer companies, it appears that including exports, the market was flat in Q1 and we were up 7%, so we feel pretty good about that and we’re up 7% and growing margin.

The important thing is that we’re not just growing for growth sake, that we’re growing to improve margin. Just, while I’m on the topic, I think a few months ago we gave you an estimate of what we thought the market would do for this year, so the market is flat in Q1. I think at that time in early February, we said we expected the market to be flat to up 1%. If you want to change that to flat to up 2%, you can do that. Not necessarily my overall concern. I know we’re going to be up more than that and as I said, we’re growing our business and we’re growing our margin, which is the important thing.

Unidentified Analyst: Great. Thanks, guys. I’ll turn it over.

Timothy Donahue: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Pettinari of Citigroup. Sir, your line is now open.

Anthony Pettinari: Good morning. In the release there was reference to continuous operational improvement, and I was just wondering if you could provide any detail or quantification of that in terms of how much efficiency you think you can bring out of the system. Are there some newer plants that maybe haven’t reached the levels that you’re looking for or do you feel like you kind of lost some efficiency during the pandemic? I’m just curious how you kind of think about that opportunity, especially with, I guess, CapEx coming down 2024, 2025.

Timothy Donahue: Great question. I would say actually the opposite. I would tell you that our teams in the factories were incredible during the pandemic, and I don’t think we lost any efficiency during the pandemic. I would tell you that they rose up and they were absolutely wonderful. I think the efficiency losses or increased spoilage is a natural effect of putting new capacity in. As you disrupt the system, you move people around, you move support around, and newly hired workforces are learning how to make cans and that’s a learning curve, as you’ve heard us and others describe, that can take anywhere from 12 to 24 months, depending on any particular factories. So I think there’s always improvement to be made in the new factories and obviously even in the more seasoned factories, the goal is to get better and so today we might have a plant that is the best performing plant, next year it may not be.

So the goal for them is to try to become the best performing plant again. So it’s principally around productivity, less spoilage, more good cans out the back end of the line, but not an insignificant number. And it’s a number that we aim to achieve in all businesses globally, around the world. It’s used for a variety of things. Those gains are used for a variety of things. It’s incumbent upon us as we think about the value proposition that we deliver to our customers, to not only deliver them quality and service, but to deliver them the best priced package and make our product as competitive as possible compared to the other substrates they deal with, and to make them as competitive as possible on the shelf as they look at the market, their products.

And oftentimes our productivity gains, sometimes we keep them for ourselves, sometimes they’re transferred to the customers and the customers use that to market their business, which in turn helps us in the future.

Anthony Pettinari: Okay, that’s very helpful. And then maybe just on the full year guidance, I think you bumped up minority interest by $25 million, but reiterated the EPS guide. So I don’t know if there’s other puts and takes in there, but does underlying EBITDA go higher or just how is the view on full year EBITDA versus initial expectations?

Kevin Clothier: So, Anthony, in terms of minority interest, we’re generally, I think we initially guided to $130 million of actual expense and we now got in between $130 million and $140 million because we think the results are going to be a little bit better in those areas where we have minority partners. In terms of EBITDA, I don’t — we didn’t disclose it previously, but I think based off of what we saw in the first quarter, it’s trending higher than where we were, but it’s early in the year and we want to see where it goes from there.

Anthony Pettinari: Okay, that’s helpful. I’ll turn it over.

Timothy Donahue: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of George Staphos of Bank of America. Sir, your line is now open.

George Staphos: Thanks, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for the details.

Timothy Donahue: Hi, good morning.

George Staphos: How are you doing? Tim, could you give a bit more color, Kevin, a bit more color on in terms of why you think beverage cans have had a little bit of a stronger start to the year in your key markets, in as much as promotional activity, it doesn’t sound like it’s been anything to write home, that hasn’t been bad, but hasn’t really been a surge yet. And then I had a couple of follow-ons.

Timothy Donahue: So, George, let me start with Asia, and I’ll talk about the market in Asia, not our shipments. But I think the economies in Asia post the pandemic have really struggled. Obviously, disposable income is a much different number in economies in Asia than it would be in Western Europe or North America. So I think we’re back to the point where you’ve got a little bit more certainty or less fear in the environment for the consumer and the beer companies, principally beer, are doing a bit more promotional activity in Asia, and that’s why you see the Asian market growing again. But naturally, the Asian market is going to be a growth market. More and more people are moving up the economic ladder. I do think I agree with your comment when we talk about a change in beverage can shipment patterns in Europe.

Certainly, I think the destocking was so great last year in the fourth quarter, and there’s again, a bit more confidence in the market from our customers. Hard to understand because I do still think the consumers are relatively weak in Europe, and they’re certainly weaker in Europe than they are in North America. But I think that destocking was so great that we have a little bit of a restocking effect. But all signs point towards a pretty healthy summer as we sit here today and obviously, as you know, we’re going to have seven or eight weeks in a row where we go from the European Cup right into the Olympics beginning in mid-June right to the middle of August. So I think there’s a fair amount of excitement in the European marketplace around two large events, both of which are going to be held in Europe in the same time zone.

I think Brazil up, again we had destocking in Brazil last year, and as you know, the Brazil market fluctuates from time to time. It goes up and down and you’ve heard us say in the past that we don’t like to get too concerned about any one quarter versus the next. We take a longer-term view, and as we’ve always said to you, if you look at Brazil over any three to five-year measuring period, you always see the line going up, and we continue to expect that going forward. North America, as I said George, the market was flat, which is reflective. Let me just back up a second. Including imports, I think the imports were down about a half a billion units year-on-year. So the imports are not very large anymore. Excluding imports, maybe the market was up 1% or 2%, but including the imports, the market was flat.

So, that would not be a reflection of a, what you described, a churn in the market. But I think it is a positive sign in that, as you rightly point out, that promotions are at a lower level than we’ve seen historically, and perhaps even a lower level than we’d like to see and we’ll see how promotions look over the next couple of weeks as we get here ahead of Memorial Day. And then obviously we’ll have July 4th, and then after July 4th, we have the Olympics, although I don’t view the Olympics as a huge drinking event, certainly not to the level of the European Cup, and Americans not so interested in the European cup. So we’ll see what the market brings. I think, as I said, I think the market in North America from 0 to 2%. But as I said in reference to Ghansham’s question earlier, we’re exceptionally confident in our 4% to 5% projection for Crown.

George Staphos: Thanks, Tim. I guess the next question I have is, you’ve mentioned, as you have, that you expect to spend no more than $500 million of CapEx the next two years, 2024 and 2025. What is the overall volume growth that underpins that? And are there any regions where maybe it would be the high class problem where if you start trending much above a certain level, whatever level that would be, that you have to start spending more. CapEx. Are there certain growth thresholds in key markets and if you could identify them where maybe that CapEx number has to start bubbling higher? And then my last one and I’ll turn over and it’s really just a quickie. Asia-Pac Southeast Asia ex-China is not a huge market. You took your capacity down 12%, 13%.

You were down, I think you said 8%. The rest of the market was up significantly. That suggests that ex-crown the market, if I’m doing, if I interpreted what you’re saying correctly, was up really a lot. And I’m just trying to square that with your volume outlook there, if you understand what I’m saying, small market, you’re the biggest guy in the market.

Timothy Donahue: So I do and obviously, George, the 10%, that’s our best estimate of what we think the Southeast Asian market and keep in mind it’s a variety of countries, right? It’s eight or nine countries. That’s our best estimate. Maybe the number is wrong, maybe it’s six, but we think it’s nine to 10. And so that would imply, as you say, that the Crown perhaps lost a little share, which we knew we would when we took some capacity out. But we still have — we’re still by far the largest participant in Southeast Asia with in excess of 40% of the market. And again, as we’ve discussed repeatedly in almost every market that we’ve talked about over the last couple of years, we’re not here just to make cans. We need to make money for the shareholders.

So we’re focused on trying to return appropriate margin levels and so the pruning we did was necessary. But you are right. It does imply that some others really grew. As I said, it’s not a perfect science estimating the growth in Indonesia versus Thailand versus Malaysia, et cetera, because my memory is awful. What was the first question? Oh, I got it. Yes, now I remember. I think as we sit here today for the years 2024 and 2025, regardless of what comes at us, we feel very comfortable with no more than 500. And if you wanted to combine that and say over the two years, no more than a billion, but it’s not like we want to do 700 in one year and 300 in the other. So I think we’re going to be as measured as we can be and we’ve tried to be very measured over the last six years.

I do think that North America, we are highly utilized right now. We’re in the mid-90s. I do think we have some open capacity in Brazil and Europe, even. Not so much in Asia anymore. But I think we’re positioned well in most markets to handle historical growth or even double the historical growth we’ve seen in many of these markets over the next several years without having to add more capacity, unless something dramatic changes George. If we get a — somewhere in the world, if we get a government that outlaws one of the competing substrates for whatever reason, and we have a much bigger move towards aluminum beverage cans, then, yes we’re all going to have to spend a little bit more money, but we’d certainly welcome that opportunity.

George Staphos: Okay. Thank you, Tim. I’ll turn it over.

Timothy Donahue: Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Phil Ng of Jefferies. Sir, your line is now open.

Philip Ng: Hey, guys, congrats to a solid start to the year and still pretty choppy backdrop. I guess my first question is solid 1Q, 2Q guidance a little ahead of consensus. You guys rated the full year guide certainly very early in the year, but just kind of give us some thoughts on how you’re thinking about the cadence. Are you less confident in the back half or just being a little conservative here?

Timothy Donahue: Well, I think we’re, well as we sit here today, we’re very confident in the guidance we’ve given you. A bit early to change any guidance. We had a very good start to the year last year as well, and then we had a huge destocking effect in Europe in the fourth quarter, just perhaps too early to change. So I don’t want to say — we’re certainly confident. I don’t want to say we’re not confident and I don’t want to say we’re being overly conservative. I just think it’s early in the year, and we’ll know more as we talk to you in July.

Philip Ng: That’s helpful. And then, Tim, like what are your customers telling you? I mean, it sounds like promotion is still a little uneven in North America. Europe is off to a better start, but Asia as well, but what are your customers telling you today in terms of how they’re thinking about the year and how they’re planning the year at this point versus, let’s say, a few months ago?

Timothy Donahue: Yes, I mean, I don’t think they’re prepared to give up their value over volume strategy yet. It’s yielding incredible benefits for them and obviously, the more volume of anything you ship, the greater risk you take. So they’re able to make more money by taking less risk. And listen, I understand their strategy. If I was them, I’d do the same thing. So I think at some point they may get pressure from their bottlers or they may get pressure as they look at their share of the market versus their competition. And sometimes people get concerned about share, more concerned about share perhaps, than they should. And the way they deal with that is promotion, and we’ll see who goes first. But I think in Europe, I think it’s more just restocking.

Asia, it’s more restocking and the market returning the growth more healthy consumer. Brazil, I think it’s largely to do with, as in Mexico as well, largely to do with a transition away from one way or returnable glass to aluminum beverage cans in the near-term or returning back to the can after we came out of the pandemic. And in North America, I think they like the value proposition they have. So we’ll see how the year progresses.

Philip Ng: Okay. And then on transit, I mean, I guess your comments was fairly in line up with your expectations, at least for us, it was a little softer. I think we were expecting kind of flattish first half earnings. Once again, Tim, it’s my forecast, not yours. The view was maybe, perhaps cost that would offset a lot of that. So relative to how you’re thinking about that business, did you see incremental weakness on demand on the trucking side? How are things kind of progressing in 2Q and do you expect earnings to be up in the back half with perhaps demand getting a little better or incremental cost action? So just kind of help us think about the progression of transit in this year?

Timothy Donahue: Yes. So I think most of the cost that we described to you from the program we initiated in 2022 was out last year. So there’s always incremental things we do to reduce cost. But most of our cost out was last year. The markets, we did well last year. The markets are obviously digesting a lower volume environment, and anytime you have a lower volume environment, their price does come into it. So we’re constantly measuring price versus volume. But I think if you were to go back and take a look at how some of the large trucking firms performed in the first quarter this year compared to last year, you wouldn’t be surprised that we’re also slightly down. Some of the trucking numbers are down, some very large numbers.

So I think we expect similar performance in Q2 as Q1. Q3 may be a little flatter. And so we are hoping for a bounce back in Q4. We’ve got a lot of puts and takes. And to your earlier question, are we confident? Are we being conservative? Maybe in one business we’re being more conservative than in another. And we just see how the year progresses in each of the businesses. But I think in the overall context, fairly confident in the guidance that Kevin provided you, but it could move around by business. But the one business where we’re hoping for a recovery in Q4 is transit.

Philip Ng: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate the color.

Timothy Donahue: You’re welcome.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Leithead of Barclays. Sir, your line is now open.

Mike Leithead: Great. Thank you. Good morning, guys. First question, I think in the last quarter there was obviously a lot of talk about areas like Mexico glass, can making equipment, aerosol areas that are headwinds this year, I guess how did those areas perform in 1Q relative to your earlier expectations? And has your full year expectations for those businesses changed at all as we sit here today?

Timothy Donahue: So the Mexican glass business is inside the Americas beverage business. And I think we described to you previously that that business, which performed exceptionally well last year, would return to more historical levels this year. And I just want to clarify one thing. I saw somebody wrote something that we were losing money in Mexico glass not true. The business still makes high teens, low 20% EBITDA margin. Last year, it would have made high 20% EBITDA margin as some of the customers rebuilt the returnable glass float. So we’re just back to more normal levels. But I think we described that business as being down on the order of $30 million to $40 million year-over-year for you, but still a very healthy, very profitable business.

And then in the other segment, food cans North America, aerosol cans North America, and the beverage can equipment company business and I think previously, as we described, we told you that bev can equipment down on the order of $35 million to $40 million, but again, still profitable. Just not as profitable as it used to be, as we’re principally doing service and tools at this point, as opposed to new shipment, new equipment shipments. And then aerosol cans, I would tell you, in line with what we expected, the only business in the first quarter a little weaker than we would have expected was North American food shipments were a little softer than we expected. Having said that, April was strong, we have a couple of customers that were, I don’t know if they were delayed or their marketing plans were delayed, but they picked up nicely in Q2 or early in Q2 in April.

I think overall, the estimates we gave you earlier for those businesses, certainly Mexico glass in line with the earlier estimate and the other businesses, I think by the time we get to the end of the year, if we’re not right on target of where the budget was, we’ll be within a few million, so.

Mike Leithead: Great. That’s super helpful. And just a quick clarification, the facility fire impact, was that contained to the first quarter? Is there any lingering impact as we continue into 2Q here?

Kevin Clothier: Mike, that’s contained in the first quarter.

Mike Leithead: Great. Thanks, Kevin.

Kevin Clothier: Thank you.

Timothy Donahue: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Samuelson of Goldman Sachs. Sir, your line is now open.

Adam Samuelson: Yes. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Maybe following up on some of the earlier questions, just trying to think about the full year, and you give it first quarter 102 [ph] that you’ve given the guidance for the second quarter. It implies a pretty decent step up in the second half. EPS versus the first half, which, based on the company’s recent history, is less common. And a lot of the bloodline items don’t seem to be a big mover either way. Just trying to think about the businesses that are going to be notably stronger in the second half versus the first half that would drive that uplift and transit, I appreciate, can be a part of that based on the framing, but it wouldn’t seem to explain the full magnitude. So can you just help me a little bit on the strength implied in the second half of the year at the EPS level versus what you’re implying for the first half?

Timothy Donahue: I think the big mover in the second half this year versus the second half last year would be Europe.

Adam Samuelson: Well, I appreciate year-over-year, Europe will be up a bunch, but I’m thinking second half versus first half, and seasonality wise, your business doesn’t have that seasonality historically, kind of halves versus halves as clearly.

Timothy Donahue: Well, I mean, the third quarter is always bigger than the second, and traditionally the fourth quarter is always bigger than the first. And so I, without going back and looking at what specifically happened in prior years, I do remember we had a huge destocking in Europe last year in the fourth quarter, and we don’t anticipate that this year. So there’s going to be a, we believe, a large step up in Europe in the second half of this year versus the second half of last year, principally around what was a very weak fourth quarter last year.

Adam Samuelson: Yes. Okay. I mean, let’s take that offline. I appreciate the year-over-year point and then maybe following up on transit and just some of the better market environment in the second half of the year. Is that based on orders and a book-to-bill that is now above one, or is that just thinking that your freight customers are talking about better freight demand in the later part of the year? What gives you the confidence on the improvement in transit?

Timothy Donahue: Well, as I look at the first quarter performance, the protective businesses, which largely serviced the trucking over the road intermodal businesses was down. Equipment slightly down, but offset by tools and service. Steel strap up a little, plastic strap down a little. I think if you look at the commentary from the trucking firms, the trucking firms are all talking about very strong fourth quarter and they’re talking about being fully contracted or more heavily contracted in the fourth quarter than they are right now. So that gives us a little bit of confidence as relates our protective products businesses. We don’t see anything on the equipment or tooling sign that would give us any pause for concern as we sit here today.

Adam Samuelson: So that’s all very helpful color. I’ll pass it on. Thank you.

Timothy Donahue: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gabe Hajde of Wells Fargo Securities. Sir, your line is now open.

Gabe Hajde: Tim, Kevin, Tom, good morning. Tim, I’m going to try to take a stab at a high level question for you in the bev can business. During the pandemic, obviously it was about getting product on the shelf and servicing your customers. Post-pandemic, obviously there’s been some facility rationalization. You guys are obviously one of the bigger global players that are in Asia-Pacific. But my question is, we’ve had a couple of customers kind of move around choosing different suppliers. Again, historically speaking, you guys have won and lost with your customers. I’m just curious, on a go forward basis what your expectations are. I mean, talked about being mid-90s utilized in North America, got an announcement that there was another player here in North America, maybe a little bit bigger than what people we’re planning for.

Can you just remind us, bigger contracts that come up. Is it they renew in 2025 for 2026 or do you have something that renews for 2025? And then just from a competitive landscape and I’m really thinking about Brazil and Europe, if there’s anything that we should be mindful of thinking about.

Timothy Donahue: So North America, I would say that, as I said earlier to Ghansham’s question, we are very confident in our 2025 share as being no less, perhaps greater than where we sit today. And I’d probably tell you the same about 2026. So without commenting on customer contracts, I’ll say it that way. There’s always business that moves around in Asia. Asia with the exception of a few customers, Asia is more of an annual market. But we’re so big. We do have good coverage and good locations and high quality and service on the margin, you’re plus or minus the market. Some Brazil, Brazil is a healthy market. Brazil is going to get stronger. And I don’t think we’re overly concerned about Brazil. We have really good locations relative to most of the customers and Brazil markets looks like it might be inflecting a little bit from what was fairly poor last year or the last couple of years as glass was recovering a little, but we seem to be recovering against glass now.

And then in Europe, off the top of my head, I’m not aware of anything that gives me any great concern for next year. So there’s always, Gabe, it’s a business like any other business. There’s competition, and we’re prepared for the competition. That’s all I can tell you.

Gabe Hajde: Yes. Well, look, I mean, you talked about some of your customers value over volume, and it looks like you guys have elected to do that as you said you would. So that’s what we’re just trying to dial in on a little bit. A question about, I think I saw mandatory deposit laws going into effect, I think, in 2026 in the UK any context around that? I think Germany, and again, I know it was a completely different back pattern, but expectation for disruption, or does that tend to favor the can over time?

Timothy Donahue: Well, I think depending on which substrates are included in the mandatory deposit law. So we and others across the can and the aluminum industry working to ensure that we are not unfavorably challenged by new laws that go into place where they picked a can and they don’t pick all the other substrates, or they pick the can, which already has high recycling rates in an effort to subsidize other materials, which either don’t have high recycling rates or really don’t have any intention to get high recycling rates. So we’re aware of it. Generally, when you get deposit laws, initially, there’s a little bit of softness, but the market absorbs the, where the consumers in the market absorb it, and it returns to normal within a couple of years.

So we’re mindful of these changes. A lot of these changes are across Europe and would be good if we had one European law as opposed to a variety of them. But now, having said that, we generally are in favor as an organization, and I think as an industry, for deposits. I think as we think about the sustainability of the aluminum beverage can, I think using recycled material, we compare as favorably as any other substrate on carbon when we use higher levels of recycled content. So from where we sit, we’re very confident in the package we provide in terms of sustainability and the environment. I think you’ve now seen at least one very large global consumer products company step back their plastics reduction target. And in large part, I don’t think that has anything to do with, as I heard somebody call it pragmatism.

I think it has to do with, it was never achievable in the first place. The infrastructure is not there for plastics to be recycled at great levels, nor do the economics work for recycled plastics as they do for recycled aluminum. So, in general, we’re in favor of more recycling, and I think deposits give us more product to be recycled. We just need to ensure that it doesn’t unfairly punish the can, whereby the can pays for all the other products, which are not recycled or are not recycled economically.

Gabe Hajde: Agree. Based on our research, it looks like the aluminum can is sort of coordinating across the value chain, and you guys are doing good work there. One last point of clarification, I apologize for three questions. Asia Pacific, closing five lines, just is that, are those curtailments, or those are, in fact, uninstalling the lines? And then savings from that looks like maybe it’s $4 million to $5 million a quarter. Can you confirm that? Thank you.

Timothy Donahue: I’m sorry. What’s $4 million to $5 million a quarter?

Kevin Clothier: Savings…

Timothy Donahue: Yes. If you want to use $4 million to $5 million a quarter, that’s fine. I think we closed a plant in Singapore, which was a one line can plant with an end line. The Singapore market is a very small market, and we had used that for exports in the region as we built new plants or entered new markets until that market and the new plant was up and running. But a one line plant is really not efficient, and it’s a very high cost location. We had a plant in Saigon where the lease, the plant was built in 1993. We had a 30-year land lease. The government wanted the land back, so at the end of 2023, we had to terminate the operations, and we’re in the process of handing the land back now to the government. So, and we chose, based on where the markets are, not, to reinstall those lines currently.

And then we had another plant that also in the Saigon area, which is a combination of two companies that we purchased that we put together on the same site, and I think we probably were operating six or seven can lines on site. So we took two of the slower speed lines out just to modernize and make the plant more efficient. So…

Gabe Hajde: Thank you for the details.

Timothy Donahue: You’re welcome.

Operator: Thank you. We have our next question from Arun Viswanathan, RBC Capital Markets. Sir, your line is now open.

Arun Viswanathan: Great. Thanks for my question. Congrats on the strong results here. So I guess my first question is just around bev can growth in North America? You were up 7% this quarter, and that was off of a pretty tough comp. I think you made the comment of 0% to 2% maybe now for the year, I think. What do you think about longer term beverage can volumes, especially in North America? Do you think we have the ability to get into the 2% to 4% range as you look into 2025? I Just wanted to get your thoughts on kind of medium to longer term bev can growth.

Timothy Donahue: All right, so let me just, . apologize. Let me just take a step back and just clarify. We were up 7% in North America in the first quarter. Our estimate for our full year growth is 4% to 5%. We said the market for the year in the 0% to 2% range coming off as a flat performance in Q1. Just so we’re clear, I think that anything’s possible. I think that we’ll see where the market takes us if we get, if we return to a, a higher level of promotions. And perhaps some of the larger companies get a little bit concerned about share and they want to start promoting so they don’t lose share. They want to gain share. Then sure, we could get to the 2% to 3%, 2% to 4% range that you described. But if they’re going to stay with value over volume, we’re going to be in this 0% to 2%, 1% to 2%, 1% to 3% range.

You know there’s nothing wrong with that, right? That 1% to 2% growth that we’re describing now is coming off a base of 115 billion or 120 billion units. It’s no longer coming off a base of 90 billion units. So what I would tell you is, 2 billion units on 120. You can do the math. It’s 2.5 billion units. It’s two full can lines. So it is a new plan every year in the industry that somebody would need to put up. And as you’re well aware from, you’ve been around the industry a long time that we’re well oversold in the season. So we need to either make cans early and warehouse them, or we need to have more capacity so that we can run more balance. So I do think that even at a 2% level, especially where we’ve all been over the last 20 years, we all became very accustomed to running a flat to down business for 15 years before we had the uptick in 2019.

We all know how to do that, and it’s incumbent upon us to be responsible across the industry for our shareholders.

Arun Viswanathan: Great. Thanks for that. And then I guess, I just had another question around leverage and interest expense. So what is your longer term leverage target? I mean, would it make sense to maybe bring that down into the twos just so your interest expense will be much lower and you can see your EBITDA growth translate to nice EPS growth as well. And then just along those lines, I’m just curious if you are comfortable with the idea of pivoting to buybacks in 2025. Maybe you can just give us your thoughts on some of those issues. Thanks.

Timothy Donahue: So we haven’t changed our target range. We’re going to be at the low end of the target range. We’re pretty confident in that by the end of this year. To your point, you may be right. It may be as we think about a higher rate environment and in an economic environment where inflation, inflation could get bad again. I don’t know. We’ll see how the U.S. government does. If they got treasury auctions, they still need to sell bonds. At some point, we’re going to understand whether or not anybody wants to buy our bonds. If somebody thinks inflation is too high and they’re not getting well paid for inflation, which would tell us that if everybody else in the world believes there’s going to be more inflation, regardless of lower inflation right now, then perhaps it makes more sense for us to bring the levels down.

I do know, and you’re well aware that we have at least two competitors in the beverage can space. One, I think has leverage right around where we’re at right now. And they’ve described their long term goal, their historical long term goal in the low twos. And we have another competitor who’s probably stated they’re going to be in the mid twos by the end of this year, which would tell you that their view on rates and inflation and the economy is such that they believe it’s more prudent to bring leverage down. And so we’re mindful of that. It’s a topic we talk about with the board at every board meeting. And good question, though.

Arun Viswanathan: What about buybacks? Would that be of preference in 2025 next?

Timothy Donahue: Well, I think we can achieve both. We’re going to have significant cash flow, certainly as you pay down debt; you generate more cash flow, all else being equal. And so, yes, I mean, listen, we’ll review at the board what the uses of capital are and do they want to keep the dividend roughly where it is? Do they want to increase the dividend or not? Do they want to use all cash to pay down debt? Do they want to use some to buy back stock? You know, it’s a use of capital. Discussion we have at every board meeting. So at everything is available to the company. We have a lot of cash flow, so we’ll see what the board thinks. What the board believes is the most prudent thing to do in an environment, depending on what kind of environment we think we’re entering.

Arun Viswanathan: Got it. Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Roxland of Truist Securities. Sir, your line is now open.

Niccolo Piccini:

Niccolo Piccini:

Timothy Donahue: Well, I would tell you that the customer that we purchased the Mexican glass assets from, along with the Mexican can assets, the customer is core to crown. So as we think about the glass business in Mexico, we don’t think about the glass business separate from the can business. We think about the customer relationship. And I’ll leave that at that. But again, we’ve told you before, any business under the right terms and conditions would be considered as a yes or no in the portfolio. But as we sit here today, we have an excellent relationship with this global customer, and we view Mexican beverage as a business in which we service a very core customer to the global company. I think the joint ventures that we have around the world have served the company well.

We have, for the most part, in the Middle East and Asia ventures with partners who are also fillers. And in some of those markets, it would be very difficult to participate and grow the business without a venture partner. In South America, we have a partner who’s quite happy to be invested in the business. I don’t think they’re in any way contemplating wanting to sell their interest? So it’s a relationship and a partnership agreement that we’ve had in place for 30 years, and we continue to operate as such.

Niccolo Piccini: Understood. Thank you. And just one follow-up, I apologize if I missed it earlier on the call, but can you cover the utilization rates by segment?

Timothy Donahue: By segment?

Niccolo Piccini: By geography?

Timothy Donahue: I’ll do beverage for you. Because the other, the other markets, the other business lines, not so important. But North America, I think were utilized mid-90s. I think there is in Asia, with the capacity reduction, we’re going to be in the low 80s, which is pretty well utilized in a market like Asia. I would say in Europe and Brazil, Mexico were again mid-90s. Europe and Brazil, again in the low to mid-80s, high 80s, something like that.

Niccolo Piccini: Got it. Thank you very much. I’ll turn it over.

Timothy Donahue: You’re welcome.

Operator: We have our last question from Edwin Rodriguez [ph] of Mizuho Securities. Sir, your line is now open.

Unidentified Analyst: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I mean Tim take a quick question for you on transit. I mean in the past, you’ve talked about how this is like a very good business which doesn’t get much love from investors or analysts, and you wish you had more businesses like that. Stable, low mid-teens margins doesn’t require much capital. The question is, would you be interested, or can you still get bigger there? Like other opportunities to get bigger in that space?

Timothy Donahue: There are — we in as a matter of strategy or principle, and I’m going to take you back to late 2019. We delivered a strategy to the shareholders that more or less told the world that all of our growth would be focused on the beverage can businesses that we had around the world that we would not look to grow other businesses. So again, it’s always a use of capital argument, but you just summarized for me, and I don’t want to sound like I’m defensive, but you just summarized for me. I have a business where I spend no capital. And let’s be clear, just like you said, nobody gives us love for the business. I can assure you, the people in my transit business think I don’t give them any love either, because I don’t give them any money.

So we could always spend more money. But I think, as we said when we acquired the business that the growth in that business would more or less be from bolt-on acquisitions. There are still numerous opportunities to acquire businesses which are either directly in the same business that transit operates in or adjacent. And there are numerous of those businesses make EBITDA margins in the 20% to 25% range. And there’s an old saying, if you want to trade for a better multiple, you better buy better businesses. So we’re not, we’re not opposed to growing the business. But our sense right now is the, that our investor base would prefer to see us pay down the debt and buy back shares as opposed to grow that business. So we use that business to harvest cash.

That allows us to not only invest in beverage, but pay a dividend, buy back stock, and delever. So there are opportunities to grow it. But we don’t see that as the mandate from the investor base at this point.

Unidentified Analyst: Thank you. I think that’s the right strategy. Thank you very much.

Timothy Donahue: You’re welcome. Elle, did you say that was the last question, Elle?

Operator: Yes, you’re right, sir.

Timothy Donahue: Well, thank you very much. That concludes today’s call and we thank you all for joining and we’ll speak to you again in three months. Bye now.

Operator: Thank you again. That concludes today’s conference. Thank you everyone for joining. You may now disconnect and have a great day.