Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Gabe Hajde: Okay. And then I guess relatedly on the guidance, I mean it sounds like you are reasonably confident on the price-cost element, you suggested kind of Q4 rebounding a little bit on the volume side. And as you pointed out, admittedly, no one else in your crystal ball isn’t maybe better than anyone else’s, why such the big range, I mean last year, you guys were able to kind of tighten to $100 million range. And I appreciate there is maybe a little bit more uncertainty as we said today than it was a year ago. But is there anything else in there that we should be mindful of thinking about as it relates to the range?

Mike Doss: No, Gabe, we just chose not to touch it. I mean at the end of the day, we have a long history of our ranges being guided towards the midpoint. That’s our history. And we just didn’t touch it. There is no message in there around variability that is any different than anything we have handled in the past.

Gabe Hajde: Okay. And then last one, I think the number that you threw out there, Mike, was once kind of fully integrated. And again, I appreciate it’s not closed yet, but the sell deal. It sounds like you would in fact be able to integrate nearly all the 95,000 tons which, again, if I kind of do the backward math implies maybe $100 a ton of incremental EBITDA that you are assuming as part of the synergy number. And that would sort of suggest maybe nothing on SG&A or procurement or otherwise. Are you guys being conservative there, or is there something else that we should read maybe just proximity to mills and things like that? When I think about – you mentioned it’s mostly all CRB?

Mike Doss: Synergies are a multitude of different things we go after. As you can appreciate, given our size, there are savings that we can generate in terms of procurement, it was bigger than a $200 million business on things like coatings, adhesives, corrugated boxes, freight, all those kind of things. And of course, we get to leverage SG&A profile across that as well. I would be careful just trying to back into numbers, dividing the tonnage by what the synergy numbers are. There are also sometimes some offsets relative to systems we have to install for a larger company that we have got here and how we do all that stuff. But in general, look, we are thrilled to add those tons, assuming we get approval to close the business here, which we expect that we will and ultimately, integrating those in, we are well over 80% now in terms of our integrated position in the marketplace.

And as all of you recall, when we closed the deal with International Paper and purchased our consumer packaging business, Steve mentioned this in his prepared remarks, it was 67%. So, that’s the key strategy of ours, both organic and inorganic. And we have made tremendous progress on that just to kind of de-risk our business going forward in terms of how we operate the mills in the business.

Gabe Hajde: Thanks. Thank you, Mike.

Mike Doss: You bet. Thanks Gabe.

Operator: This concludes our Q&A. I will now hand back to Michael Doss, President and CEO, for closing remarks.

Mike Doss: I would like to thank everybody for joining us for our second quarter call today and look forward to talking to you again in October with our Q3 results. Have a great day.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, today’s call has now concluded. We would like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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