Berry Global Group - Q3 2022

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Berry Global third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session.

If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dustin Stilwell. Please go ahead.

Dustin Stilwell (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Berry's third fiscal quarter 2022 earnings call. Throughout this call, we will refer to the third fiscal quarter as the June 2022 quarter. Before we begin our call, I would like to mention that on our website we have provided a slide presentation to help guide our discussion this morning.

After today's call, a replay will also be available on our website at berryglobal.com under our Investor Relations section. Joining me from the company, I have Berry's Chief Executive Officer, Tom Salmon, and Chief Financial Officer, Mark Miles. Following Tom and Mark's comments today, we will have a question-and-answer session. In order to allow everyone the opportunity to participate, we do ask that you limit yourself to one question at a time and then fall back into the queue for any additional questions.

As referenced on slide two, during this call, we'll be discussing some non-GAAP financial measures. The most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of the differences between the GAAP and non-GAAP measures are available in our earnings release and investor presentation on our website. Finally, a reminder that certain statements made today may be forward-looking statements.

These statements are made based upon management's expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company, and therefore involve a number of uncertainties and risks, including, but not limited to, those described in our earnings release, annual report on Form 10-K, and other filings with the SEC. Therefore, the actual results of operations and financial conditions of the company could differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Berry's CEO, Tom Salmon.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Thank you, Dustin. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for being with us today. As safety is our top priority and most important value, let me start on slide 4. Keeping all of our teammates healthy and safe is our highest priority. We're very proud of our industry leadership on safety performance. As you can see, we delivered an OSHA incident rate below one for fiscal 2021 and expect fiscal 2022 to deliver another year of improvement with an expected rate of 0.8, which is significantly better than the industry average of 3.7.

Our entire global team's emphasis on working safely and servicing our customers in what has been a challenging environment has made us a stronger, better, and safer company. Turning to our key messages for the quarter on slide 5. First, our business delivered solid quarterly results, including record revenues for any June quarter and record adjusted earnings per share for any quarter in our history. Secondly, throughout the last two years, we've seen significant inflation and have taken aggressive pricing action and invested in cost reduction projects across our businesses.

Our team has done an exceptional job and continues to make additional progress on both fronts. Third, our ability to provide a one-stop shop for our customers on a global basis with local supply chain is unique and differentiated. We're investing for long-term growth with a focus on faster-growing product categories and geographies, along with innovation and sustainability-led opportunities for additional growth and value creation.

We've made great strides towards our sustainability goals, and we will continue to be ambitious with our commitments, which are being driven and led by the needs and demands of our extensive global customer base. Finally, we continue to return cash to shareholders as we repurchased $285 million, representing another 4% of our total shares outstanding in the quarter. This puts our total at nearly 11 million shares or approximately 8% of our total shares outstanding through the first three quarters of fiscal 2022, returning almost $640 million of capital to shareholders.

As we stated on our last earnings call, we anticipate repurchasing at least $700 million of shares in fiscal 2022, with a plan to use the remaining cash towards debt reduction. Given our top priority of driving shareholder value, we were fortunate to repurchase our shares and take advantage of the attractive return opportunity at prevailing prices. Turning now to the financial highlights on slide 6. Our June quarterly performance was in line with our expectations, including improvement in our price-cost relationship, offset by modest softening demand and the stronger U.S. dollar.

For the quarter, we delivered June quarter record net sales of $3.7 billion, which is a 6% improvement versus the prior year on a comparable basis, adjusted for foreign exchange and recent divested businesses. On a two-year basis, organic volumes were up 3% and in line with our normal volume expectation as we reported strong organic volume growth of 5% a year ago compared to a 2% decline in this quarter.

From an earnings perspective, operating EBIT was up 2% for the prior year quarter on a comparable basis, in line with our expectations, including a favorable price cost recovery of $41 million when excluding the prior year COVID mix benefit. As we've demonstrated historically and during this most recent quarter, we remain committed to passing through cost increases and believe we are well positioned.

Given our scale, along with our ability to service our customers from our facilities in close proximity to their locations, which provides both cost and sustainability advantages. We continue to work collaboratively with our customers to pass through inflation as our selling prices were over $300 million higher than the prior year quarter and up a substantial $2.3 billion over the last four quarters, the highest ever recorded in our company's history.

To put it into context, our average selling price inflation since our IPO was 3% contrasted to our recent LTM change of 16%. We've nearly offset all of this unprecedented inflation while still expecting to deliver significant free cash flow for our full year. Finally, adjusted EPS increased 10% on a comparable basis versus the prior year, driven by solid earnings and opportunistic share repurchases.

Before I hand over to Mark, I want to cover two slides, 7 and 8, which touch on some of our investment growth opportunities as well as our resiliency during a softening recessionary economy. Berry has a top two market position in over 75% of our product categories, which collectively generates over $10 billion of annual sales.

Our business model is very resilient through any economic cycle and includes the broadest portfolio of packaging solutions with strong, dependable, and stable free cash flows, as you can see on slide 7. In addition, we have consistently driven top-tier results in nearly all key financial metrics, generating strong compound annual growth rates for revenue, earnings, and free cash flow, and have grown our adjusted earnings per share every year as a publicly traded company.

Through past recessions, our volumes were modestly negatively impacted given that demand for our products are primarily nondiscretionary and stable. While both earnings and free cash flow increased as raw material costs historically dropped, given that cyclical markets which use similar materials typically fall sharply. Finally, on slide 8, we continue to invest in each of our businesses to build and maintain our world-class low-cost manufacturing base with an emphasis on key end markets which offer greater potential for differentiation and growth, such as healthcare and pharmaceutical.

Additionally, we will continue to invest and expand our emerging market position in support of our commitment to global growth. We believe that by increasing our presence in faster-growing end markets, along with continuing to invest into emerging market regions, we will further enhance our ability to provide consistent, dependable, and sustainable long-term growth. Longer term, we believe our emerging market presence can be 25% or more of our total revenues.

Lastly, innovation and sustainability are increasingly embedded in everything we do, and we continue to believe this represents a great opportunity for growth and differentiation. By making these deliberate choices on these higher value growth markets and regions over time, they will represent a larger portion of our sales mix and become an increasingly more relevant driver of both earnings and volume growth. Now I'll turn the call to Mark, who will review Berry's financial results. Mark?

Mark Miles (CFO)

Thanks, Tom. When we compare our results to the prior year June quarter, we have adjusted the prior year to present on a constant currency basis and remove the impact of divested businesses to provide comparable results. Reconciliations to reported results have been provided in the appendix. I'd like to refer everyone to slide 9 for our quarterly performance by each of our four operating segments. Overall, our businesses continue to perform well and focus on both our near-term priority of recovering inflation while driving long-term sustainable organic growth.

Specifically for the quarter, our Consumer Packaging International division delivered a 12% increase in revenue over the prior year, primarily from the pass-through of inflation. On a 2-year basis, organic volume growth was 2%. In the quarter, we saw relatively flat demand across our consumer-facing categories such as food, beverage, and healthcare, while industrial categories experienced some softness.

The lockdown in China also had a modest negative impact on our volumes in the quarter. Operating EBITDA improved 6%, driven by pricing actions to recover inflation along with cost productivity, partially offset by modestly weaker demand, primarily in our industrial markets. Next on slide 10, our Consumer Packaging North America division delivered a 9% increase in revenue over the prior year, which included higher selling prices from the pass-through of inflation and flat volumes in the quarter, coming off a very strong 6% organic volume growth delivered in the prior year.

On a two-year basis, organic volume growth was 3%. From a market perspective, we continue to see strong demand from food and beverage markets, including strong demand for our clear polypropylene, fully recyclable drink cups used by quick service restaurants and convenience stores. Supported by our pipeline and nondiscretionary end markets, we expect to deliver organic volume growth in fiscal Q4. Operating EBITDA increased an impressive 21% on a year-over-year basis as we have continued to progress on recovering inflation along with cost reductions from recent capital investments.

Next, our Health, Hygiene & Specialties division revenue was down modestly, primarily as a result of the moderation of advantaged products related to the COVID-19 pandemic benefit a year ago. As we are lapping the majority of the impact from the pandemic-driven inventory correction, along with continued strength in demand, we are anticipating a return to organic volume growth in fiscal Q4. Operating EBITDA was down 32% in line with our expectation as a result of the benefit from the pandemic-related mix a year ago and a lag in recovering inflation.

On slide 12, our Engineered Materials division delivered a 5% increase in revenue over the prior year, primarily as a result of the higher selling prices from pass-through inflation, partially offset by lower volumes. The volume decline, as expected, versus the prior year, was primarily related to our focused effort to mix up in certain categories, along with softer demand from the distribution market, which we believe included some destocking in anticipation of lower polymer costs.

On a two-year basis, organic volume growth was 4%. Additionally, we expect volumes to sequentially improve as we continue to onboard new business and lap the strong prior year-over-year comparison. Operating EBITDA was up an impressive 22% compared to the prior year from our focus on improving our sales mix to higher value product categories and recovery of inflation. Next, as you can see on slide 13, we are now targeting adjusted earnings per share of $7.40 for fiscal 2022, which would be another fiscal year record and our 10th consecutive year of delivering EPS growth.

The updated estimate assumes reaffirming our outlook for operating EBITDA of $2.15 billion as improvements in price cost have offset expected foreign currency headwinds from the strengthening U.S. dollar. Next, on slide 14, we are now targeting free cash flow of $750 million for fiscal 2022. This includes cash from operations of $1.5 billion, less capital expenditures of $750 million.

Our updated cash flow expectation includes the strengthening U.S. dollar, continued inflation, and our proactive decision to carry higher inventory levels for our customers to mitigate potential supply chain risks and challenges which continue to impact our business. We expect these higher inventory levels to be temporary and will therefore increase future cash flows as we return to normalized levels as supply chains improve.

Excluding these uses of cash for working capital due to inflation and supply chain challenges, our free cash flow for fiscal 2022 is expected to exceed $900 million. Our cash flow year in and year out has been a dependable key strength and core value of our company. It provides us the opportunity to invest in our businesses, automate, and become more efficient while returning capital to shareholders.

Our capital allocation strategy remains clear and opportunistic and includes continued investment in organic growth and cost reduction projects, share repurchases, and debt paydown. Our guidance for the year includes returning $700 million to shareholders via share repurchases and ending the year in our targeted leverage range of 3.0 to 3.9 times, as we have previously committed.

We believe we are well-positioned for continued value creation and returning capital to our shareholders through both our dependable and consistent free cash generation and strategic divestiture opportunities. This will allow us additional capital for opportunistic share repurchases and further debt repayment. This concludes my financial review, and I'll turn it back to Tom.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Thank you, Mark. As you can see on slide 15, the strategic choices we've made guide how we prioritize our investments in our business, which is why we're invested in several markets and product categories that we expect to drive long-term organic growth, including a few of those which we've highlighted on this slide. We continue to invest in each of our businesses to build and maintain our world-class, low-cost manufacturing base with an emphasis on key end markets which offer greater potential for differentiation and growth like healthcare, personal care, and pharmaceuticals.

As you can see, these recent strategic investments expect to contribute over $300 million in revenue over the next two years and are not only in faster-growing end markets, but are largely focused in regions such as China and India, with growth rates expected to be in the mid- to high-single digits%. We will continue to focus on global mega trends and believe there will be considerable demand for our protection products in regions with rapidly increasing populations.

We are very well positioned to continue to deliver significant value for our customers and shareholders through investments like these presented here with an unmatched global footprint and design capabilities to support circularity. Lastly, as pictured in the center of the slide, we have recently invested in our second mechanical recycling facility located in Europe that will enhance our capacity for post-consumer recycled products that are more and more demanded by our customers.

Our investments in both innovation and sustainability provide us a competitive advantage and are increasingly embedded in everything we do. Those advantages include our ability to both produce and source recycled resins globally, along with our manufacturing capabilities to innovate and design the necessary protection from a more sustainable solution, and our scale to produce sustainable packaging solutions desired by our customers.

We will continue to invest in global innovation capabilities and centers of excellence to capitalize on what we believe is one of our strongest growth opportunities, that being the overwhelming demand for sustainable packaging solutions. Moreover, as you can see on slide 16, we have committed to minimizing product impact by enabling 100% of our fast-moving consumer packaging products to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025. We are continuously innovating and investing to work toward the global goal of a net zero economy.

Additionally, I would like to highlight Berry has been recognized as one of the 100 best corporate citizens by 3BL Media. This benchmark is widely recognized by assessing publicly traded companies in the United States on their fundamental environmental, social, and governance, transparency, and responsibility commitments. This recognition reflects the huge strides we've made to prioritize ESG at every level of our business.

Furthermore, from a collaboration standpoint, we have recently begun our partnership with both Cleanfarms and PolyAg Recycling on a closed loop approach to advance Canada's circular economy. Also, we recently announced our collaboration with McCormick, which leverages our expertise and access to provide a new McCormick assorted and neon food color bottle made from 100% post-consumer recycled material.

A life cycle assessment compared to their current offering estimates that McCormick will realize an 86.8 metric ton or 59% reduction of CO2 emissions with this new PCR bottle. At Berry, continuous improvement is at the heart of everything we do. 3 areas of note are important to consider. Material. We continue to make investments that give us access to quality streams of recycled content to help our customers meet their sustainability goals.

Labor. We have recently invested in projects that will help our annual target of reducing 2 million labor hours from our operations, and have tripled the capacity of our internal automation teams to execute our growing productivity pipeline at a faster pace. Energy. Our third largest cost category and nearly 90% of our scope one and two emissions. Plastic products in most applications enjoy the lowest greenhouse gas footprint of alternative substrates.

We intend to build on this advantaged area to meet our annual target of removing 100 million kWh from operations. Like the innovations mentioned earlier, our intense focus on sustainability, we will continue to commit resources and thoughtful advances to improve the overall footprint for our products through their life cycles.

While plastics can and will continue to improve recycling rates, our primary raw material, plastics, has the best environmental footprint versus alternative substrates in almost all applications reviewed in the recent McKinsey & Company research paper published in July 2022, titled The Climate Impact of Plastics, shown here on slide 17. This study concluded that in almost all applications reviewed, plastic solutions have a lower total greenhouse gas contribution than alternatives.

Greenhouse gas emissions are increasingly important given the need to dramatically reduce anthropogenic carbon emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The role of plastics packaging enhances use efficiencies and can help decarbonization efforts, particularly in terms of reducing food spoilage and improve energy efficiency.

The debate on materials choice should take a balanced and science-based perspective and include the emissions profile as one factor. In summary, we are pleased with the hard work of our employees delivering solid quarterly results in the face of persistently higher costs and tough year-over-year comparisons. As we stated earlier, and have demonstrated in the quarter, we are confident and will continue to recover inflation and generate cost productivity.

To close, utilizing our dependable and consistent cash flow complemented with strategic divestiture opportunities, we will continue to focus on driving organic growth while providing more consistent return of capital to create maximum value for shareholders. I thank you for your continued interest in Berry. At this time, Mark and I will be glad to answer any of your questions.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Again, that is star one. Our first question will come from the line of Ghansham Panjabi with Baird. Please go ahead.

Ghansham Panjabi (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Good morning. Tom, you know, just given all the acquisitions over the past few years, including Avintiv and RPC, you know, how do you think the portfolio is positioned to navigate a broader macroeconomic slowdown globally, you know, including a higher degree of consumer elasticity, given all the inflationary pressures?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Morning, Ghansham. 70% of Berry's portfolio continues to be in non-discretionary products, whether it's food and beverage, healthcare, personal care, and we think that positions us very well. History demonstrates that in prior economic downturns or recessionary periods, the company performs exceptionally well. We anticipate no change should that materialize to a greater extent in the coming quarters.

Operator (participant)

Our next question will come from the line of Karen DeBrul with Mizuho. Please go ahead. Karen, your line may be on mute.

Karen DeBrul (Managing Director and Senior US Machinery Analyst)

Hi. Good morning. Sorry about that. I was just wondering if you could dial a little bit into the demand you're seeing by end markets. You know, if you could touch a little bit on the industrial consumer and kind of food service side of things and the trends you're seeing into the fourth quarter, and maybe just following up on the prior question, some of the expectations, even if preliminary, that you're seeing in 2023. Thank you.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Yeah. I'd say this, you know, On a two-year basis that we've noted here, our business continued to perform, you know, very well. CPNA, HHS, CPI, and Engineered Materials, frankly. We've made great progress on price recovery, offsetting frankly more cost inflation than any time in our history. In that regard, we do anticipate Q4 to show some sequential improvement. Clearly, the 70% of our portfolio, tied to food, beverage, personal care, specifically both in CPNA and CPI, continue to be very consistent and stable.

We noted that the industrial portions of our business, specifically, the pieces associated with CPI and in some of the more industrial-focused categories inside Engineered Materials, were somewhat negatively impacted from a demand perspective. All in all, we think the portfolio is very well-positioned, and as I said in the previous response, historically has performed very well, you know, given that these are products that, you know, people consume every day.

Karen DeBrul (Managing Director and Senior US Machinery Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of George Staphos with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

George Staphos (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question, and thanks for all the details. Tom, my question is largely around growth and the investment program, and then along with investment, the investment of working capital. I wanna say going into fiscal third quarter, the expectation was for a bit better volume growth than what you ultimately saw, yet in your remarks today, you generally said things were as expected.

Can you give us a bit more color in terms of why it was as expected, even though volumes were off? I'm guessing it was the price cost battle that you're fighting. Why you are comfortable that fourth quarter will be better despite.

I mean, aside from the fact that you have easier comps, which is true, what gives you confidence you're gonna get growth out of the $300 million of growth that you targeted on the slides and what the cadence is on that? Then lastly, if I can, why are you holding working capital strategically for, to the tune of $150 million going into next year when raw material prices now look like they're coming down? Is that just a reflection of your customers see their demand now backing up, and we have an inventory issue in the pipeline? Thank you very much, and good luck in the quarter.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Sure, George. Happy to. You know, I'd say a couple things. One, the industrial impact inside our businesses probably eroded a little more than we anticipated in the quarter, which was somewhat of a negative offset. As we said, the food-based businesses continue to perform well. You know, inside our Engineered Materials business, you know, we made a concerted effort, you know, in that business to focus on price recovery as well as, you know, taking various opportunities to drive mix change, you know, inside that business when the opportunity presented itself.

I think we're striking the right balance between both growth opportunities and the opportunity to fully offset our inflation. As I said, we anticipate sequential improvement from Q3 going into Q4 in terms of our price realization. We are fully committed to 100% offset that inflation impact that we have. Relative to the inventory decision that we made in the period. You know, I'll state a brief fact, and that is in North America, George, the predominant way that we receive our goods is through rail.

Today, employment challenges in the railroads, you know, have led to a 14% drop in railroad average manifest speed. For us ultimately to be comfortable in the quarter, knowing that dynamic exists and that we don't have any near-term visibility of when it will be rectified, we're betting on making certain that we can serve our customers.

Given that dynamic, coupled with the reality that we're going into a hurricane season, we thought it was a prudent choice to prioritize our customers first and foremost. We anticipate we'll return to a normalized $900 million free cash flow profile for the company, and we're confident and comfortable with the decision.

Mark Miles (CFO)

Hey, George, it's Mark. I think you also asked about the growth CapEx. I mean, we continue to feel good about those projects. You know, as a reminder, those are customer-backed investments. I mean, while some of them have been slightly delayed due to, you know, the supply chain challenges and, you know, issues at customers, we continue to feel good about those projects and delivering the committed results that we had expected.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Another supply chain example, George, in that category, many of those high-performance films, in one instance that we're onboarding right now, EVOH is the primary raw material component that has been in short supply. While it continues to be on allocation, allocations are beginning to improve, and we're hopeful with some additional capacity coming online that we'll return to a more normalized basis. But as Mark said, all of our CapEx that we have spent is customer directed. None of it's tied to a Berry ambition or idea without the express partnership and alignment, you know, with an end customer.

George Staphos (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Anthony Pettinari with Citi. Please go ahead.

Anthony Pettinari (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hi, good morning. For HH&S, you discussed a lag in recovering inflation. Just based on raw material prices today and specifically polypropylene coming down, can you talk a little bit about the timeline for that recovery and maybe how much of a benefit could be seen? Just broadly, you know, as you exit the fiscal year, you know, how much will you have potentially unrecovered or to recover in 2023?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

The HH business and the opportunity will come relative to the renegotiation of purchase and sales agreements with those customers. The lag in recovery is tied to contractual obligations that we are under today. Over the next several months, we'll be in the process of renegotiating those agreements in alignment with their expiration, both related to volume and price recovery.

Anthony Pettinari (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. That's helpful. Just exiting the year, any view on total kind of unrecovered costs that you might be able to get back in 2023 or...

Mark Miles (CFO)

Yeah. Thanks, Anthony. It's Mark. I mean, obviously, the inflation is a moving target. So, you know, we're continuing to seek inflation recovery and also drive our costs down, right? I mean, we've got a lot of great capital projects that have been implemented and continue to be implemented to drive down cost, to drive profit improvement. You know, it's a little bit of a moving target, but I would say all four of our segments have made good progress. We expect that price cost relationship to improve again here in Q4.

And I would say that, you know, relative to a number, again, it's a little bit of a moving target. They're all four behind. I mean, we still have some inflation recovery in all four segments. We're making good progress.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

I think an add to that, you know, Anthony, was in my commentary, we've dramatically expanded the number of resources to support our internal productivity tied to automation. The quarter saw, you know, strong benefit from cost reduction projects. I think the benefit was in excess of $12 million for the quarter. That continues to be a focus and area of concentration for us.

Anthony Pettinari (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. That's very helpful. I'll turn it over.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Angel Castillo with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Angel Castillo (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to focus in on slide 14. Just a couple of pieces there that I think have, you know, are notable changes from kind of the way that we were thinking about capital allocation strategy in the past. For starters, I guess, you know, we have the dividend, future potential. Would love to hear some comments around, you know, how you're perceiving that as kind of if it's changed in any way. More importantly, maybe when we look at kind of acquisitions, seems like maybe that's kind of gotten pushed out, and share repurchases has moved up a little bit.

As we think about maybe normalizing free cash flow next year and just, you know, kind of going forward, if you could give us a sense for maybe how we're thinking about, you know, the level of buybacks versus acquisitions, potential for dividend, and maybe quantifying the divestitures, that'd be really helpful. Thank you.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Sure. You know, it's really intentional. You know, the focus in terms of how we're gonna disperse our cash flow from operations is prioritized around, first and foremost, organic growth. Given the fact that we have unique opportunities and we've executed pretty aggressively against that repurchase authorization, you know, we'll continue to do that, especially at current levels. The third piece clearly is divestitures.

We have a broad and extensive portfolio. I will tell you it's an active process, you know, that we engage in on a regular basis. We'll hopefully be able to make any type of public commentary should something materialize that, you know, puts us in a position to discuss and speak to. It is a specific intent, you know, for us to look at the portfolio, examine opportunities to potentially, you know, reprioritize one piece of the business in exchange for another.

Again, we'll update you as soon as we can, should something materialize in that regard. It was intentional. The acquisitions piece, again, and dividend side, again, from a shareholder value creation perspective, you know, the opportunity to repurchase our own shares right now, we think is an exceptional value. We think investing in the organic growth of our business is similarly a huge priority. If we can leverage divestitures to help facilitate that, you know, we'll do it.

Angel Castillo (Equity Research Analyst)

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Kyle White with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Kyle White (Director)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to go actually back up to George's questions on the working capital. I guess, should we expect you to hold this level of working capital for the foreseeable future until the supply chain and the rail environment improves? Or do we expect that working capital based on what you see going forward into next year could potentially come down next year?

Mark Miles (CFO)

Yeah, I think, Kyle, it's Mark. Good morning. It's totally dependent on the supply chains. You know, as Tom referenced, it's taking longer for material to arrive to our sites. We think it's prudent to make sure we're providing the appropriate service to our customers. If that means, you know, we need to carry a little bit higher inventory to take care of our customers, we think that's the right thing to do long term for our business.

As things normalize, hopefully sooner rather than later, you know, we'll certainly readjust those inventory levels. At this point, I think you know, I would be guessing, quite honestly, to try to predict when that's gonna happen.

Kyle White (Director)

If I could just follow on, is this mostly the North America supply chain that we should be monitoring, or is it more on a global basis? I know you called out the North American rails, so just curious there.

Mark Miles (CFO)

Yeah, I mean, I would say it's a global dynamic, but largely it's a North America factor.

Operator (participant)

Your next question will come from the line of Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Adam Samuelson (VP of Equity Research)

Yes, thanks. Good morning, everyone. I guess I'm trying to just make sure I'm squaring the fourth quarter commentary right. It looks like it implies $588 million of EBITDA if you were right on the number for the 2015 for the year. In that scenario, you're up a little less than $60 million year-over-year. If you're up low single-digits volume, that's a low double-digit EBITDA contribution. I think that's largely offset by FX. I guess I'm just trying to make sure, is it the right thinking then that price cost would be kind of that big bridge item to get you up to that, to hit that guidance number?

'Cause it implies a pretty meaningful step up sequentially on earnings when in the last few years, there's not usually that big of a step up in the fiscal fourth quarter. Kinda how do we think about that price cost tailwind as it would carry into the early parts of fiscal 2023? Thanks.

Mark Miles (CFO)

Yeah. No, no, thanks. Thanks, Adam. It's Mark. Yeah, no, you've got the math right. You know, it will be, you know, our expectation is to drive EBITDA on a comparable basis up approximately 15%, on a year-over-year basis, and that's largely driven by the factor you just discussed, which is continued improvement in price cost. You know, we continue again to take pricing actions to offset inflation, and then there has been some modest moderation in our primary raw material that will benefit the quarter as well.

Operator (participant)

Your next question will come from the line of Jeffrey Zekauskas with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Zekauskas (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks very much. In terms of demand for plastic products, recycled material or lower carbon emission material is really growing at a much faster rate than traditional plastics. Because of your access to lower carbon plastics, is that something that can increase your growth rate over a longer period of time if you have more access? Or do you see it more as a trade-off between, you know, the recycled part, you know, growing faster and that business being cannibalized from the, you know, the other side, the standard carbon emission plastics?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Yeah, great question. I'm gonna answer it two ways. One, you know, from a traditional resin perspective, you know, the industry continues to grow. As an example, there's an additional GBP 2 billion of polypropylene coming online and GBP 6 billion of polyethylene coming online. Berry's ability to design for circularity and innovate from a design perspective will continue to enable virgin-based materials, which, as you heard relative to the McKinsey study, in most instances have an equal or better carbon footprint.

You're going to see carbon becoming an increasingly important component around the sustainability discussion for the world to get to net zero by 2050. In terms of recycled content, both in terms of mechanically recycled, bio-based, advanced recycled materials, Berry's not sitting back idly. We announced and showcased in the earnings release an expansion of our post-consumer recycle capability that we'll be commissioning in fiscal 2023 to

complement what we already have to support incremental organic growth based on the value that that total portfolio between both access to virgin materials that can be responsibly designed and managed, in addition to how we can incorporate both mechanical recycling, advanced recycling, and bio-based materials into that portfolio with the global customer base that we serve, all supported by plants that are in close proximity to those end users.

That should not be minimized given that transportation is a significant component from a carbon perspective, and Berry's footprint is uniquely positioned to ultimately be in closer proximity to our end users to reduce that transportation cost.

Jeffrey Zekauskas (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Roxland with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Michael Roxland (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, Tom, Mark, Dustin. Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, given some of the issues that were experienced in rigid packaging substrates, if you look at cans and the magnesium aluminum issue, you look at glass and the issues with European natural gas, have you seen or experienced any increase in demand from existing customers or new customers that may want to to

look for a packaging substrate with maybe a little bit more stability? And can you also talk about some initiatives that the company may be pursuing to try to exploit some of the issues at these other with these other packaging substrates?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Each and every day, we have to understand the requirements for our end use base and make the best recommendation on material choices that meet those needs. Plastics continues to be a unique opportunity for those brands to meet both their physical requirements of the application cost competitively. That continues to be the case. You know, we showcase really for the business, you know, on a two-year basis, and we think that, you know, is appropriate given the pandemic nuances. You know, our CP North America business is up 3%, our CPI business is up 2%, Engineered Materials is up 4%.

You know, the demand for this substrate, and I think showcased by the incremental capacity being brought to the market, you know, provides a good level of confidence that this substrate will continue to grow, both in existing markets, as well as developing markets. Berry's aptitude to design responsible packaging for circularity and incorporate alternative materials that ultimately can increase recycled content is a great combination.

As you saw, you know, that third party investigative piece relative to carbon footprint of plastics versus other materials lends itself very well, when you look at the data to support plastics as a choice relative to your carbon goals.

Operator (participant)

Your next question will come from the line of Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Arun Viswanathan (Senior Equity Analyst)

Great, thanks for

Operator (participant)

Arun, you may be on mute.

Arun Viswanathan (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks. Can you hear me now?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Yep. We can hear you.

Arun Viswanathan (Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah, thanks. Hello, how are you doing? I guess I just wanted to get back to the volume question. You know, you have a slide in there that shows some of the organic investments that you're making that should drive $200 million of growth, I guess, over the next little while. I guess, could you kind of describe how that plays out on a volume basis, maybe by segment and timing? What should we expect? Are you still thinking about low single digit volume growth from here?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

We continue to believe all our businesses will be low single digit growers. We showcased a $100 million-plus investment in dispensing solutions for both Europe and United States in a sustainable alternative. We've showcased the investments that we've made in food service on our all polypropylene cup and lid, where currently U.S.-based capacity is all spoken for, so much so that it's justifying an incremental CapEx spend to expand that capacity.

Pharmaceutical with a new site in India to support both a growing segment as well as the geography. Recycled materials in Europe with Plasgran II being introduced, and the introduction of a new white substrate to support Europe, which is a new developing market for us. Yes, that's the specific purpose of those capital investments aligned with customers in growth categories that in many instances are incorporating both the feature benefits of the traditional material with the benefits of recycled content or advanced recycling.

Arun Viswanathan (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, thanks for that. If I could follow up on price as well. You know, with resin costs moderating, how should we think about and you know, you guys have enacted a lot of price increases as has the whole industry over the last you know, couple periods. With resin prices moderating, you know, how do you expect to kind of deal with the non-resin inflation? Is there potentially some surcharges that you can implement, or would you continue to implement price increases to offset that? How much do you expect to hold on to as far as price now that you know, potentially some of the input costs are moderating?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Yeah, I would tell you the majority of our resin obviously is on escalator/de-escalator, but there's a whole host of other materials that frankly are going the other direction still. You know, we see unprecedented inflation in the area of packaging materials and pallets and, you know, we've talked about energy and labor and everything from your machinery parts.

So our ability to get that on the table relative to you know, the pricing discussion is certainly warranted. We've used a variety of different vehicles to get that done. It continues to be an area of commitment that you know, we have a very strong resolve on and around and we were pleased with the progress in quarter three. We said we'll make strong sequential improvement in quarter four and well into 2023. We anticipate just based on the variety of inputs that we procure.

Mark Miles (CFO)

I would just add, Arun, I mean, obviously a falling cost environment for our primary raw material does help in the ability to get our price, right? So if whether or not it's on an escalator or deescalator, certainly it helps to the extent, you know, you can assist by not going down as much as the primary raw material drops. So it's definitely an enabler for sure.

Arun Viswanathan (Senior Equity Analyst)

You noted that the working capital increase is one-time potentially in nature, but could you just expand on that? Because many companies now have been dealing with supply chain issues. It sounds like you guys are making a conscious decision to help out your customers by carrying, you know, greater inventory levels. Wouldn't that be a, you know, a structural necessity? Wouldn't it take greater, you know, supply chain investments to not have that? Or, do you see that as just a, you know, kind of transitory here?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

We see that, in my view, as somewhat transitory. We believe that there'll be the necessary changes made both to access to labor as well as innovation that will drive greater efficiencies. Again, we did make the conscious choice in this period to support our customers with additional inventories and we wholly expected it at some point in the near term here that things will return to some normalized level.

Mark Miles (CFO)

Yeah, obviously, even if it didn't improve, it still wouldn't repeat itself next year, right? It would not be a headwind that you dealt with next year or the next year, even if the environment didn't improve. I mean, from that perspective.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Right.

Mark Miles (CFO)

It's one time. I suppose if you made a case that it continued to get worse and worse and worse, then potentially it could repeat itself. But that seems like it feels like an unlikely scenario.

Arun Viswanathan (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, thanks a lot.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Josh Spector with UBS. Please go ahead.

Josh Spector (Executive Director)

Yeah. Hi, thanks for taking my question. I guess you guys continue to highlight growth in emerging markets, and clearly, a lot of your organic investments are going there. Is there a way to think about your profitability in emerging markets versus the rest of the world? Is it significantly higher or lower? Do you need more scale in those regions? Just any thoughts around that would be appreciated. Thanks.

Mark Miles (CFO)

Yeah, I would say in general it's similar. You know, our investments tend to focus around global partners. The margin profile tends to be very similar. I mean, relative to scale, I think, you know, we continue to develop that scale. The reality is most of those markets are very fragmented. While, you know, we may not have scale relative to our other regions, on a competitive basis, I would say we do have that scale, and certainly, our global footprint helps provide that scale as well from a sourcing product capability perspective as well.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

We have the benefit also that expansions. I'll use Bangalore, India as an example. You know, we had an existing facility there, an existing management team that we felt was capable, you know, to ultimately help manage through an expansion. You know, another example of, you know, our breadth and our scale and using existing teams and capabilities that know how we operate and can take advantage of the entire Berry resource mix to execute.

Josh Spector (Executive Director)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Philip Ng with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Philip Ng (Managing Director)

Hey, guys. It's actually Phil Ng. Tom, you've highlighted a fair amount of polyethylene, polypropylene capacity coming on in the not so distant future, and certainly we're seeing some signs that resin prices could fade. So curious, how are you thinking about, you know, how that kind of trends, call it, the next six to 12 months? I think historically, just given your scale, when capacity comes on, you've been able to kinda leverage that from a procurement standpoint. So kinda help us think that through.

Then a question for Mark. I think implicit in your 4Q guide, you're assuming some fade in an inflation. Can you expand on that a little bit? What are some of the big assumptions, whether it's resin or some of the other inputs? Thanks.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

I can start with, you know, we're excited that, you know, the industry continues to grow to support these capacity expansions. Again, whenever this amount of volume comes on the market, you know, we'll compete openly, obviously, to try to secure the best pricing that we can based on our size and scale. I think the most important component of it is, you know, it's supporting an existing growing industry.

We're thrilled that it's coming online here in North America, you know, where, you know, Berry has, you know, close to 60% of its business located. You know, I'll let you speculate, you know, on what the benefit to us may be. We wouldn't comment on what we believe it could be on this call particularly, but nonetheless, it's really about growth. It's about its proximity to our largest region, and we couldn't be happier.

Mark Miles (CFO)

Yeah. Good morning, Philip. With respect to your question about assumptions and the guide on cost, you know, for polymer, which is the bulk of our cost, we've assumed July pricing, and as I mentioned earlier, you know, there was some moderation here in recent months that will benefit the quarter. You know, to the extent polymer changes in August and September, you know, that'll actually have very little impact on our fiscal year results given we close out here in September and the timing lag of the cost getting through the P&L due to inventory.

As Tom mentioned, you know, the other costs, we're continuing to see an inflationary environment, not at the same pace that we have seen the last four quarters. Nonetheless, we still see those costs and inflationary status. Obviously, some of those outside the U.S. are actually accelerating, like energy in Europe and all of those inflation assumptions are embedded in our guidance.

Philip Ng (Managing Director)

Thanks, Mark. Just on that note on Europe inflation, especially energy, pretty dynamic, how are you managing passing that through? It looks you did a pretty solid job there. As you kinda negotiate new contracts going forward, will that be a important element? I know historically resin's been the biggest piece, but energy, very, very dynamic, especially in Europe these days.

Mark Miles (CFO)

Yeah, I think on, you know, on the energy side, we're fortunate in that, you know, while we certainly do consume electricity that to generate our products, we actually use less energy than competitive materials. Yeah, as Tom mentioned, we're continually working to improve our operations by reducing the amount of energy that we consume to make our products.

Certainly, we're out in the market to recover those inflationary costs with our customers. You know, as you can see in our results, have had good success in doing so, and we'll continue to do that, you know. Obviously, procuring energy, you know, our sourcing department works diligently to get the best pricing that we can in each market that we operate.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

It's just too significant, you know, a component, you know, throughout the European market, that is on the table. You know, it's not an oddity to bring that to the forefront to get relief and recovery.

Philip Ng (Managing Director)

Thanks a lot. I appreciate the call.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Gabe Hajde with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Gabe Hajde (Research Analyst)

Good morning, Tom and Mark. Tom, in one of your responses to a question about productivity, I think you referenced $12 million net this quarter. I know that there's been a lot of discussion about labor availability and reliability, etc, talked about. I'm curious, kind of within your four walls, what you're beginning to see.

Then, you know, it's been opaque, I guess, to see it in results, given a lot of the disruption over the past 18, 24 months. Based on kind of, I'll come at it two ways. The $150 million of spend that you have embedded in your CapEx, and then again, kinda annualizing what you got here in this quarter, would suggest maybe $30 million-$50 million annually that you kind of expect to get out of productivity. A, can you confirm that? B, is that something that maybe we can start to see in the numbers again next year?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

I think that range is a reasonable expectation. The team's done a really nice job. We've morphed from, you know, inability to get any labor, and now it's really focused on, you know, getting the right labor to make certain that you can maximize productivity. We're doing two things. We are increasing our emphasis on both our frontline leadership and complementing our talent with further means to automate, you know, the business.

You know, one of the unique aspects of our global business is the means and ways by which we share best practices, and that continues to be, you know, a cadence that we're using very similar to what we use on safety. If you look at, you know, the business' safety performance, which is clearly an upper quartile performer inside and outside our industry, we think similar benefits are possible relative to that ongoing drive to increase worker productivity.

It's a journey because there's definitely been a dynamic change in terms of that labor pool and driving maximum productivity in it is critical, and we are really excited about the progress noted in the quarter and what we anticipate that will bring to us in 2023 and beyond. We think it can be a differentiator.

Gabe Hajde (Research Analyst)

Thank you for that, Tom. I know it's challenging kind of live mic here, but you referenced some contract renegotiations here in the back half of the year for HH&S. When I look at kind of a, again, the profitability cadence over the past five years, I know you guys have done a lot of work underneath the surface to transition to more, I wanna say adult incontinence products, etc. Do you envision that would be a mixed benefit for you kind of on a go-forward basis, or are you looking to maybe get better terms out of shorter contract lags or anything like that you can give us?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Yeah, all the above. The company made a concerted effort to increase its presence around, you know, premium fem care, premium baby, adult incontinence. You know, that was very stable for us in the quarter, and it really helped offset the strong comps that we had in masks and wipes and drapes and gowns. Absolutely, working through the pass-through mechanisms, our mix of material, our access to capital to invest alongside our customers to support their growth are all aspects of negotiation that we enter into to maintain the leadership position we have in that growing industry segment.

Gabe Hajde (Research Analyst)

Thanks, and good luck.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Leithead with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Mike Leithead (Director of Equity Research)

Great. Thanks for squeezing me in. Just real quick. For the recent divestitures, could you help us with the associated EBITDA with that? Tom, I just wanted to follow up on some of your divestiture comments to an earlier question. I guess, would you be looking at further column singles or doubles around the edges, or would you also be looking at maybe some bigger sized divestments as well?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

We review the entire portfolio with the board every quarter. We just completed a board meeting. It was a part of those discussions. Suffice to say, we're a very large company with a global footprint, scale, and we've got a lot of optionality. We're gonna make certain that it's in the best interest of creating value. And, you know, being able to be executed with minimal disruption, you know, to our customers. Won't be able to really tip one side or the other. I think we've got a pretty robust portfolio to draw from and to consider should the circumstance make sense.

Mark Miles (CFO)

Mark, on your first part of your question, the businesses that we've divested thus far in fiscal 2022 annually contributed around $20 million of EBITDA.

Mike Leithead (Director of Equity Research)

Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Your next question will come from the line of Mark Wilde with Bank of Montreal. Please go ahead.

Mark Wilde (Managing Director)

Thanks, Tom. I've got just a couple of quick cleanups. One, can you give us some sense of what the retail destocking that we're hearing about from a lot of the mass merchandisers, what effect from that you might be seeing in your business? Secondly, early in the year, you were talking about a $100 million-dollar drag from this mix switch in HH&S as we move away from some of the premium COVID products. Where are we at in that process right now?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Two areas I think that you're seeing more pronounced inventory destocking would be one in our distribution business tied to Engineered Materials. It's very typical that in that business, distributors will draw down their inventories in anticipation of falling raw material prices. That business is traditionally lumpy in that regard, and there's traditionally ebbs and flows in demand because of that factor. Again, 60%+ of our Engineered Materials business has served that channel.

In our HH&S business, you know, the primary area in terms of destocking would be around the hard surface disinfectant wipe category that coming off of the pandemic, you know, we saw and the industry saw a lot of excess inventory that, you know, continues to be drawn down. Those are the two primary categories, you know, that have been impacted by the inventory destocking.

Mark Miles (CFO)

On the last part of your question, Mark, I would say that's largely behind us at this point. You know, I wouldn't expect a lot of impact in Q4 forward. I think you know that mix benefit is pretty much removed from our LTM results at this point.

Mark Wilde (Managing Director)

Okay, very good. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question will come from the line of Adam Josephson with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Adam Josephson (Analyst)

Thanks a lot, Tom and Mark. Hope you're well. Just one more on capital allocation, if I may. Obviously, you're buying back a significant amount of stock this year. You're expecting $700 million or more. You're obviously still not paying a dividend yet. You're buying back stock because of the discount at which your stock is trading. Do you think that discount is likely to be lower if you were to initiate a reasonable size dividend that's steady and reliable compared to buybacks that obviously come and go, and consequently investors just can't necessarily count on?

Mark Miles (CFO)

Adam, it's Mark. I mean, we will regularly take feedback from both our current shareholders as well as prospective shareholders, and we think this, you know, this capital allocation strategy that we've outlined, is consistent with the feedback we got and is aligned with management's view on how to maximize shareholder value.

Adam Josephson (Analyst)

Thank you, Mark.

Operator (participant)

Our final question is a follow-up from the line of Jeffrey Zekauskas with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Zekauskas (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks very much. In your recycling efforts, which polymers do you focus on? You know, is it polyethylene or polypropylene or PET? What are the primary applications for your recycled material now?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

It's both polyethylene, as well as polypropylene. On the mechanically recycled material, it's predominantly in more industrial-based applications. On the advanced recycling basis, it's more consumer goods, given its ability to be readily used in food contact.

Jeffrey Zekauskas (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Where do you get advanced recycled materials from, or what polymers are those?

Tom Salmon (CEO)

They're predominantly polypropylene.

Jeffrey Zekauskas (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Polypropylene. Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Mm-hmm.

Operator (participant)

I will now turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Tom Salmon (CEO)

Thank you. That concludes this morning's call. Thanks, everybody, for your interest and time this morning. Look forward to talking to you next quarter. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.