O-I Glass, Inc. (NYSE:OI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

We’re also focusing on the capital structure, as you know and trying to improve that position that will benefit the organization. And of course, a little bit longer terms while we starting in 2024, we got MAGMA coming online and that starts to change the capital intensity and margin position of the company in a more favorable way. So I think we’ve got a lot of levers, a lot of arrows in the quiver to be able to continue to drive improvement going forward. At this point in time, we’re not providing necessarily long-term guidance and things like that and we’ll reintroduce those once our — once we see a little bit of stabilization in the macro.

Arun Viswanathan: And then just as a quick follow-up on free cash flow then. So how do you see that evolving, say, from the $2.36 in ’22 Working capital. I would imagine could be a slight positive in ’23, just given some of the pullback in some of the raw materials? Or is it the other way that you’re still building inventory and that’s going to be a drag? Is there a possibility for free cash flow to approach $400 million in ’23 maybe?

John Haudrich: So first of all, I would say that we expect continued progress in our adjusted free cash flow. I mean that takes out due to the changes in capital allocation expansion investments. So the big drivers there, obviously, is a continued improvement in EBITDA. The CapEx, as we’ve noted, at least with the planned activities we have right now, 2023 has $300 million of CapEx. Considering what we did in 2024, that leaves about $150 million for expansion in 2024. So that’s a drop off, right? And so that should go and benefit the cash flow position of the business. Some other levers, interest expense, obviously, is up quite a bit this year. Hopefully, that stabilizes at its particular level or we’ll see what happens with rates and see what goes on in there.

And so I think we’re pretty optimistic about the ability to generate improved cash flow, in particular. Just to reinforce the adjusted free cash flow this year will be $450 million or higher and that’s an improvement over what we saw in 2022.

Operator: Our next question today comes from the line of Gabe Hajde from Wells Fargo.

Gabe Hajde: Congrats on the year and the quarter. I just had, I guess, 2 quick questions. One, regional specific to Brazil. And just trying to, I guess, compare contrast what we saw in the last couple of months of the year on beer production down in Brazil and I guess relative to some, call it, political instability down there and then sort of what you’re seeing with your customers as they’re managing the different pack mix down there. So maybe in tougher economic times folks go back to reusable. And then any insight into where you think the fleet might be on the resalable side. If that’s something that needs to be replenished? Appreciating again, that you guys are adding some capacity down there Andean inventories are pretty tight.

Andres Lopez: Yes. So we have data for Brazil through November year-to-date 2022 for beer. And in that data, for the entire year to that point, glass was growing close to 5%. So the performance of glass has been very strong. It’s both in returnable and one way. Overall, the Brazilian market, despite of the capacity increases, continues to be very short of supply. Imports are very large and that’s driven by beer performance which is quite good but it’s also driven by good performance across all end users. So this market and the markets are in that same boat. They are both performing quite well across end users. They’re both short of capacity and we’re building in both markets to be able to address that challenge. The returnable containers are doing quite well because of 2 reasons.