Greif, Inc. (NYSE:GEF) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Larry Hilsheimer: So, on the cash taxes, it’s really just the mix of income where it is. Some of it’s in slightly higher tax jurisdictions than where it had previously been predicted. And that’s all it is. It’s just a – it’s just tax rate on income generated over the remainder of the year. And it is – still, we didn’t change the rate range of our tax rate. It remains at 23% to 27%. So, it’s still right in that range. Relative to working capital, we built into – our bridge is obviously continued improvement on a year-over-year basis on working capital and a source, but only a slight improvement over what we had guided to before because we were doing well. But nothing there to concern – we actually think that we continue to have opportunity to drive improvement in working capital.

The teams are doing a great job, but sort of nothing to call out to say, yes, this will reverse. The only thing is if we have a rapid increase in the economy and you have growing sales again, you obviously build working capital, which should then be offset by growing profitability.

George Staphos: No, that’s fine. But there isn’t a watch out, hey, listen, next year, whatever the environment, there is something that we need to either build headwind in for or further tailwind in for from what I am hearing from you.

Larry Hilsheimer: No.

George Staphos: One last one while I have you guys and I will turn it over. So, Ole, Larry, if you reflect on the IBC business, do you have the platform you think you need right now, both there and also in reconditioning to grow with your customers and basically be the Greif you want to be from a total product suite, or should we expect that’s an area where you still look to grow inorganically, both in terms of, again, IBC and also reconditioning? Thank you and good luck in the quarter.

Ole Rosgaard: Yes. Without getting into what we have in our pipeline, George, yes is the answer. We are looking at some adjacencies, but they are very, very close to what we are doing. So, primarily everything within resin-based containers, reconditioning, life cycle services that supports our strategy. That’s what we are looking at. And we are not going to go outside our core business of that.

George Staphos: Okay. I appreciate the comments here. I will turn it over. Thank you, guys.

Operator: Please standby for the next question. The next question comes from Gabe Hajde with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Gabe Hajde: Thank you, guys. Larry, I wanted to dig in, I actually had it on my list, and you brought it up in terms of the competitive backdrop. So, intuitively for me, I would have expected sort of a rising interest rate environment, maybe tighter credit to translate into a more disciplined operating environment. And I am not asking you to speak for anyone specifically in terms of who you compete against just conceptually versus maybe where you guys are in your journey or from a balance sheet perspective and feeling pretty comfortable where you are at. Have you seen anything to-date in this kind of tough economic backdrop, or would you say that kind of the anecdotal feedback from your commercial folks is that no, the competitive response has been pretty disciplined up to now on the GIP side?