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

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Cleve Rueckert: Got it. Okay. Thanks very much.

Operator: Our next question comes from Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Arun Viswanathan: Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess I wanted to ask about the guidance. First of all, it seems like the volume mix side is a little bit weaker than expected, but then that is being offset by maybe a greater tailwind from the price to cost spread. Is that an accurate kind of summary of how the year is kind of playing out versus your expectations?

Steve Scherger: Yes. It’s Steve, I mean I think if you stand back and talk about the year, it’s pretty straightforward in some ways, made $1.6 billion of EBITDA last year in 2022, $500 million of positive price. Commodity input cost relationship this year, offset by $200 million of labor and benefits inflation and the costs that we are incurring to actively manage supply and demand. And so it’s $1.6 billion plus $500 million, minus $200 million and that’s the company as we are executing on it this year, and it’s us taking decisive action to manage through the temporary inventory destocking by running our business to the specific demand of our customers.

Arun Viswanathan: Great, Steve. And then just looking ahead then, it seems like the volume mix side, again, maybe below your longer term organic growth targets of 1% to 2%. What’s the path to get back there? I know that you guys have discussed some destocking amongst your retail customer base, bringing down weeks of inventory, maybe from six to four. Do you see that process kind of coming to an end in Q3? And then maybe as you look out into next year, likely very high probability of getting back into that 1% to 2% range or potentially even exceeding it with some of the actions like Bell and Kalamazoo productivity and Waco and continued substrate conversion?

Steve Scherger: It’s a very important question. And one of the things that we tried to do with today’s remarks is if you take a 4-year view, 2019 through 2023, so a very good cross-section of 4 years of consumer behavior and our innovation engine. When we execute on the second half of the year roughly as we are providing, that’s 2% organic sales growth over a 4-year period of time, the majority of which will be driven by new to the market innovative products that are fiber-based that are recyclable and renewable. So, our confidence that as we look out to ‘24 and beyond that we will continue to operate in that 100 basis points to 200 basis points with our recyclable, renewable, innovative packaging products is high. And as such, we should inflect back and continue to grow organically, consistent with what we have seen on balance over the last 4 years.

And yes, we operated a flow for a while. We have a correction as in inventory, 4-year view of the business would indicate 2%.

Arun Viswanathan: And lastly, if I may just ask one more. Just on the end market side, we are seeing some significant pullback in some volumes in beverage and some other areas. What are you hearing, I guess from your customers as far as future promotional activity? If there is any, are they looking for ways to potentially start pushing volume again, or are they still focused mostly on offsetting inflation? Is there any – are there any initiatives such as light-weighting or anything else that would affect you as you move forward? Thanks.

Mike Doss: So Arun, really, if you look what they have been focused on over the last 18 months to 24 months has really been pushing price, right. And they have been willing to sacrifice some volume in the form of getting higher prices. And they have been largely successful in doing that. But coming through this earnings season, as you saw, they are starting to get more pressure to get back to volume growth. I mean it’s – I mean you do this for living, you know how the math works relative to the modeling. You have got to have a company that grows its volumes and ultimately in sales and generates higher earnings year-on-year. And that’s done by growing volumes. And so what we have been watching like you have been, as these customers announced, they have been talking about the fact that they need to do that.

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