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Silgan Holdings Inc. (SLGN)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 21, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Please standby. Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining the Silgan Holdings Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference to Kim Ulmer, Vice President and Controller. Please go ahead, ma'am. Kimberly I. Ulmer - Vice President & Controller: Thank you. Joining me from the company today, I have Tony Allott, President and CEO; Bob Lewis, EVP and CFO; and Adam Greenlee, EVP and COO. Before we begin the call today, we would like to make it clear that certain statements made today on this conference call may be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking 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 the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2014 and other filings with the SEC. Therefore, the actual results of operations or financial condition of the company could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn it over to Tony. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Kim. Welcome, everyone, to our third quarter 2015 earnings conference call. Our agenda for this morning will focus on the financial performance for the third quarter and to review our outlook for 2015. After the prepared remarks, Bob, Adam and I will be pleased to answer any questions. As you saw in the press release, adjusted earnings per diluted share were below our expectations at $1.26 for the third quarter versus $1.33 in the same period a year ago. While we fully expected 2015 to be a challenging and transitional year for each of our businesses, there is no question the performance in…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. We'll go first to Adam Josephson of KeyBanc.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Tony or Bob, can you talk about exactly what happened in the plastics business in the quarter such that your cost ended up much higher than you were anticipating just to give us some idea of what transpired? Adam J. Greenlee - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure, Adam, it's Adam. And just talking about the performance of plastics versus our expectations, a couple of things. One, we're working really hard to protect our customers and maintain the service and supply albeit at a significantly higher cost. So if you talk about our previous expectations, we said Q3 was going to look a lot like Q2. And in doing so, the difference really falls into three buckets. So we had about $4 million of incremental operating costs that hit us in the quarter, all to serve our customers. Volume was a negative on the quarter of about $2 million as well, and then we had inventory-related activities that hit us for about $3 million, all of which were not included in our guidance when we talked last quarter. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, what happened is, basically, you have a couple of plants that were – because of all this movement, the need to build inventory, plants just fell behind on the production side. And so the spend is basically – that creates pinch points of capacity, puts pressure on assets that you really want to move, et cetera. So I think Adam is talking about our costs we spent, basically it was all those issues, people costs, equipment-related costs, et cetera. And so, that – I think that answers the question.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Got it. No, thanks, Tony. And on the incremental costs that you talked about in the fourth quarter and beyond in both plastics and metal cans, can you give us some perspective as to how significant these incremental costs will be next year, and some idea of whether you expect these related costs to be higher or lower in 2016 versus 2015? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. If you – so if you talk about – we'll take the plastics side first. Kind of year-to-date, these incremental costs that we're talking about which are labor, et cetera. So, incremental spend is $10 million year-to-date. That number looks like it's going to – it will end up being kind of in the $15 million range, so another $5 million in Q4. In containers, the metal food can side; we have been talking all along about a $10 million to $15 million. So, just to be clear, in neither case are these numbers a surprise. We knew we have these – I think in plastics, the total number is bigger than we thought. And on the container side, that $10 million to $15 million, I think by the time we're done, that's going to look a little more like $20 million in the year. And so, you'll have another – in the current quarter, that was sort of an $8 million range, although this is our seasonally peak quarter. Both of those are going to continue into next year. In the case of plastics, it's going to continue as we – as we continue to stabilize the business and slowly try to recover. So, that's going to be a couple of quarters that we're going to see that come into the year. And then on the container side, as I said in the prepared remarks, until the line gets up in kind of late-ish – in the first quarter, as we begin qualification, it will kind of ease those costs off as that capacity comes available to us. But both of these spends will continue into 2016 for sure.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Thanks. And I – just two others, then I'll get back. Back to plastics, I mean, your margins have fluctuated rather dramatically in recent years in this business. And you've been asked on occasion about whether you should be in this business long term. Why today do you think you should remain in this business long term in light of what you're experiencing? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, what I would say is, what we're experiencing is, is transitional. I'm not trying to make light of it. It's a big deal. We've got a lot of effort on it. You can see just by how much we're spending. We don't take it lightly at all. But this is – we started the year by saying, we're going to go do a major rationalization, and there's going to be risks around it. And so, while the number is a little surprising to us, the risk that sits here is not at all surprising to us. We knew what we had to do was challenging. The reason we are doing it, as I said in prepared remarks, is we continue to believe that the plastics market, plastic bottle market is underserved by quality suppliers who do the kind of service that is needed by our customers. And so we believe an opportunity still sits there that's worth looking at. What we said on last call, I think, is that we believe this business could get back to – I think we talked EBIT margin, then I think we talked sort of in the 10%. We really think a little bit more in EBITDA and I think we've said mid-teens, and we believe there is a very viable business in that case. So we wouldn't take the transitional costs we're going to now and making any fundamental decisions on those. That's just the cost of what we have to do to get on to a better opportunity for the business, which we still believe sits there.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Tony. Just last one for Bob. Bob, on CapEx, you're assuming around $250 million previously, what is that number now and then what do you expect it to be, rough order of magnitude, next year? Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. I think as we look at the capital for this year, obviously, as we are taking a hard line at when we're making payments and how things are coming up to speed, there is probably something that looks like, call it as much as $20 million or so, maybe even $25 million, that could shift year-to-year. So that could bring the $250 million down by that in 2015. And then in 2016, we were previously talking about kind of getting back to our $120 million to $150 million kind of range.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Right. Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: So at a minimum, we probably start to look at the higher end of that range and maybe even just a touch above that for next year. Again, we're in the midst of beginning and reviewing our budget process, so I don't have good visibility to that, but that's our thinking right now.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Thanks a lot, Bob. Appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Chris Manuel of Wells Fargo.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Good morning, gentlemen. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Chris. Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Hey, Chris.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Okay. So, I appreciate the color thus far on the plastics and the containers business. But I kind of want to drill perhaps a little bit deeper into each. Let's start with the plastics if we can. The restructuring and the work that was going on, I mean, when I kind of think through the business, are there – what areas is it centered around? In particular, if I kind of think of the High Barrier Food piece, so that was a plant that was kind of doing its own thing. So that's 20% of your revenue that's not impacted by this. It's probably not happening in the two – when I kind of think through the pieces, is this primarily geared towards what you're doing in food and personal care or – can you give us some color there? Adam J. Greenlee - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Chris, it's Adam. Yes, it's – that's exactly where we're focused on, it's our targeted growth markets going forward. So, food, healthcare, personal care, and really trying to get our footprint in the most optimal spot from a geographic location and ability to support our customers standpoint. So what this entails is moving lines that we have existing in our infrastructure to a more strategically located geographic footprint.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Okay. Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Hey, Chris, this is Bob. Just to be crystal clear here, this isn't impacting the High Barrier Food business. This is really, we're talking about our legacy plastic business here.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Right. Okay. That's what I thought. So, the plan was, you were going to be relocating some equipment during 3Q, 4Q. It sounds like now that sort of – so you gave us some color early on what the costs were that maybe not as much as I was hoping for with respect to why it's taking longer and what the pressure points have been that have caused you to increase your expense stuff. Is it that you've had difficulty getting site prep to move in? I mean the volume doesn't seem to be hurting you unlike maybe we'll talk about metal in a moment. But what are the issues here? Maybe if you give us a little more color as to help us understand what they are that helps us understand how long that could persist. Adam J. Greenlee - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. And what I would say is, number one, our new plant construction schedules are right on schedule. So this does not have to deal with the new facilities that we're building. This is really about again kind of our high volume customer-specific dedicated assets moving from one plant to another to be closer to our customers. And as we started that process, as Tony kind of talked about earlier, there's a whole bunch of things that have to go right in order for that process to work smoothly and we definitely have hit some bumps in the road. If you look at kind of what we've done historically in this business, we've had something like 20 activities, 25 activities around line moves and relocations over time. We had an aggressive plan for 2015, something to the tune of 80 line moves and new lines being installed. So we knew it was aggressive. We knew it was stepped up versus prior year. As you mentioned, Chris, and as Tony did as well, we have slowed some of those activities here for the back half or the final quarter of the year and we're going to focus on continuing to service our customers. So we have slowed down to some degree. When we stabilize, we'll reinitiate and we'll continue down the path. But one final step removed, I would say that we – this program was really a multi-year program from a footprint optimization. We had expected to complete the process in 2017. So we are in the middle of it and we do have a ways to go, but we'll get stabilize, before we really reinitiate.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Right. Last question on this before I kind of flip to containers, are you buying from outside suppliers and vendors today to meet demand? Adam J. Greenlee - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes, we are.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Okay. Adam J. Greenlee - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: In some cases.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Okay. In the metal side, again, I'm grossly oversimplifying this, but my understanding was you were consolidating activity from handful of plants into two locations, maybe three, four, five into two, and then – that was new equipment going into the new facilities. So I guess you had a big volume quarter here, and maybe had to draw down more inventory than what you anticipated, but, A) are the new plants kind of building online? And then, B) perhaps what were the costs from if you weren't going to take these down until the new one was ready to go. I guess, I'm maybe a bit perplexed as to what the extra cost expense might have been? Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Great question and having read some of the write ups this morning, I think this deserves some discussion, because the majority of the cost we're talking about in container side, we knew about, we talked about and we had in our forecast. So the costs are basically all of the inefficiency, recall that two things, we had two customers, sizable customers, that move their field to the Midwest, which tightened up our Midwest systems.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Yeah. Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: We also added the Van Can business and so that all tightened up our system. And so, as you mentioned that we have a plan to deal with that by building a new plant. But we knew, no matter what, the plant wasn't going to be here to help us this year. We were absolutely going to have higher cost to move products around to where it had to be for our customers. And to tighten – basically run less sufficiently in the Midwest region where we needed to have the cans. And so that was all known, we talked about $10 million to $15 million items. The quarter had a couple of million of higher costs in it and that's just mix related. It's not anything out of control, you just – it depends what customers have pulled in what product. And so, little bit higher costs in the quarter. But the bigger point on the container side for the quarter was that we were having a boomer path, and we are feeling very good. In fact, we really – there was a point in the mid-quarter where we thought the metal food can business was going to help sustain some of the issues we're using in plastics. Unfortunately, our packs kind of across the board stopped early. You had a cold in the Midwest that stopped corn particularly in the upper Midwest and then you have water and moisture in California that stopped the tomato pack. So while you have great growing conditions all the way up, everything looked record – it all kind of stopped. Now, that doesn't mean it was a bad pack. We view it more of the normal kind of pack in terms of total volume, but it wasn't normal in terms of when it came in, came in sooner and ended. So that had more to do with the metal food cans third quarter than did – anything to do with costs inefficiencies.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Okay. That's helpful. So then perhaps as we think about 2016, again just a follow-up in the container space, you seem to indicate that some of these issues or problems would continue to linger through the year, but if the equipments are running again in the first quarter as you kind of had suggested, I think you had suggested, why would those continue to persist so long? Or is there anything perhaps it's delayed or that we're not appreciating or realizing there? Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: No, the new plan is basically on schedule. We're expecting kind of first cans off of it in half of the lines in the first quarter. I will say that we did have a very wet beginning season for building the buildings. So that schedule hasn't moved, has definitely compressed in terms of the finishing of the building and equipment delivery. So I would say that risk on that has gone up a little bit. But in any case, sort of a Q1 we'd be getting first cans off, but because these are food cans, you got to go through individual customer qualifications. None of this is news to us by the way, maybe we didn't talk a lot about 2016, when we first talked about that. But – so we're going to be going through qualification in kind of Q2 and Q3 of next year. Now, some customers will get qualified and we'll start producing cans for them. So, it will begin to give us some relief, but it's going to be kind of incremental through Q2 and Q3. We should end the year with full capacity released from the new lines on and the ability to get out some of the other capacity in the system that we said we're going to be taking out. And that's all on plan.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

That's next year Q2, Q3 you said? Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Q2, Q3 would be the transitional time when we're getting qualified and beginning to lead the pressure. And then by the end of the year, we would expect to be getting – shutting down capacity.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to George Staphos of Bank of America. George L. Staphos - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: Hi, guys. Good morning. I'll ask a few questions and turn it over, so that everyone can get in. I would say, first question I had, maybe piggybacking on Chris' question. How much incremental cost are we looking at in plastics and in containers – metal containers for 2016 versus 2015? And I know you're not in a position to guide now. I respect that, but is there a chance assuming normal volumes, normal pack, normal economy relative plastics that 2016 earnings could be relatively flat because of these incremental costs or how would you have us think about that? Adam J. Greenlee - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Good questions, George. This is my normal time where, I do say, we have not done our budgets yet. And as you can tell, there are a lot of moving parts as there are every year. So, I think, we'll be getting a little ahead of ourselves to answer the question. I think it's a legitimate question because what we are saying is we're coming in with the cost load. So I think there are going to be parts of 2016, that are going to look a little like 2015 in reverse, coming in a little bit, heavy loaded on the cost side and then getting some of the benefits on the back end. Where exactly that gets unfortunately is – guidance we can't really give you yet with any kind of certainty around it. As per the cost, as I said, we're going to be somewhere in the $15 million to $20 million of the sort of incremental costs in that the food can business. George L. Staphos -…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ghansham Panjabi with Robert W. Baird. Matthew T. Krueger - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hi. This is actually Matt Krueger sitting in for Ghansham. How are you guys doing? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Matt. Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Hi, Matt. Matthew T. Krueger - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Right. So my first question kind of revolves around some of the capital spending and free cash flow. So how much total capital has been spent on the optimization efforts across the businesses? And then do you have any update on free cash flow for 2015 given all the moving pieces? Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. So the update on free cash flow, maybe I'll take them in reverse is that we reiterated approximately $100 million free cash flow, so what you've got there is a little bit of a reduction in the profitability being offset by the timing of which capital gets spend. So kind of moving from 2015 into 2016 aggregate total still kind of being pretty similar, but moving some, call it, $20 million or so between the years – really between Q4 and Q1. In terms of the capital dollar spent on the programs, the bulk of it is associated with the $100 million spend or so relative to the can plant, and then you've got another $25 million in the plastics plant, and then you've got some equipment rebuild that pales in comparison related to those other two pieces of costs. Matthew T. Krueger - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay. That's helpful. And then can you guys provide a brief update on…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Debbie Jones of Deutsche bank.

Debbie A. Jones - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Hi, good morning. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Debbie.

Debbie A. Jones - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

I was wondering, industry data this quarter, there is a big shift from three-piece to two-piece, and I think a lot of that is the new capacity that's come on. But can you just talk about the trends that you're seeing in your business? And you said there is kind of a bifurcation in how your customers feel about BPA. But just maybe talk about how they feel about those two different can sizes or cans. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. What we have said before into the case is that, with majority of what we make are some form of a two-piece can. Almost three-quarters of what we make is a two-piece can. So there is very little change in our system, because whatever could be a two-piece can is a two-piece can. There are some areas where it's going to be three-piece because of the size requirements or other reasons for that. So more or less, what is in three-piece today is there for a reason. And so, there is not a real shift on that. Customers are not looking for a shift. The reason it converted over time is it is a lower cost solution on two-piece, but it does have some trade-offs for certain applications. So I don't see any big shift on that. I think you're right, the big – the main change is that you had a new two-piece line built in the U.S. to service a particular customer who had been primarily serviced on three-piece. That was a can that could make a change, but there is not – in our system, there is not a lot of cans that meet that description.

Debbie A. Jones - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. And then my second question, not to beat up on plastics, but just $2 million you called out in volume, is that something that was specifically related to the moves you were making or is that something that we should expect is lost and will not come back? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's actually a couple of things. One, we see some continued weakness in certain markets that we serve and that's continued for the most part throughout the year and will continue in our expectation in Q4. We also have gone out and secured volume for our customers. In some cases, we've also turned some business back to customers. So, a little bit of it is self-inflicted with our footprint rationalization as well, but it's a combination of both.

Debbie A. Jones - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thanks. I'll turn it over. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Thanks

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Anthony Pettinari of Citi.

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Good morning. Just following up on plastic containers. Outside of the footprint optimization efforts which are internal, are you seeing external pressures in any plastic container categories, healthcare, consumer, et cetera, or changes in competitive behavior that are impacting the business outside of some of the internal headwinds? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, Anthony, not at all. I think what we see is again the target markets that we're intending to grow in are actually doing quite well. There is some softness in other markets, some of our household and ag chem businesses is a little bit softer, but for the most part, the target markets that we're focused on are doing fine, food, healthcare, personal care, et cetera.

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Okay. That's helpful. And then just following up on Debbie's question. The $2 million in volumes in the segment, is that business that was just where you saw volume decline or did you walk away from business because it became less attractive from a margin standpoint? Are you shedding volumes? Or if you can give any color there. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's a good question. It's a combination of things because the answer for Debbie was really versus our expectation. So, if you go back a step and talk about our portfolio rebalancing efforts that we've been doing in the last couple of years, I think that's a – maybe a better answer for your question. So we have left certain pieces of business back to the market, because of the profitability of that business. So part of our year-to-year comparison is that we've rebalanced our portfolio. Another part is market softness in certain markets, and then, obviously by giving circulars back to customers, they've got out and secured that business elsewhere. So it is a combination of kind of those three attributes.

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

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

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Scott Gaffner of Barclays.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Thanks. Good morning. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Scott. Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Good morning, Scott.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Just following up couple of questions on the plastic container business. Can you talk a little bit about your competitive advantage within the segment? I think you mentioned, there was no other large high quality competitor. But what is it that really makes you stand out there? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I don't know that I said – I think what I said is that, we don't think anybody has really nailed the service models that this market needs. And I intentionally said – I didn't say other than us. I believe it's still open for many to grab. We'll see who gets it. So I think what we have said all along, what we are very good at it is new product launch for almost any kind of package that you need in plastic bottle market. We've got diverse technology types, decorating capabilities, et cetera. So when you're trying to get a new product out, launched, et cetera, we've got the right capabilities to get that done and that's been a really good opportunity for us, but that becomes more and more of a service model. The customers need it quicker, they need it better, they need certainty. They need you to help them more because they got a lot on their agenda. And so they need you to be bulletproof in providing that capacity and doing it in a very timely manner. And we have to enhance ourselves there as well. And so, I was not trying to imply at all that we necessarily have that solved. What I said is that I think we've got the right people in place and once we're done here, we've got the right assets in place that I believe we can do it.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Okay. And if I go back a few years, well, just now on this call, you said you made some management changes within the plastics business. Did you make management changes a few years back? I remember this business was having some margin difficulties then as well. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes. We did.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Okay. So I guess that – my question is more around than organizational support for this segment, obviously, metal food containers is a much larger piece of the total company and you're making optimization changes there as well. How much of this do you think is current management change that you had to make within the segment versus maybe lack of support from the broader organization for the changes? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I would not – I don't – my view is that it's not the latter. It's not immediately clear. I think what the broad organization could have done is insisted on a slower path here, but that had its own trade-offs. So even on that, it's not clear to me that that would have been the right answer, but that's probably the only thing. In terms of support – let's remember, this is a $600 million business. It's got full capability. We have 2,300 people who have been in this business most of their careers. So it's not – even though it is not our largest business, it's not a fly-by-night operation. They know what they're trying to do. And again, I got to repeat, we knew problems were going to come up. We don't really know how to forecast them and budget them, but we knew problems were going to come up. These are worst than we thought. It hit us a little quicker than we thought, but this was – some level of this was inevitable in what we're trying to accomplish. And then finally, management change. I think really the key there is our view is that the changes we made will just make us that much stronger for the kind of customer service model that we want to get to.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Okay. Fair enough. Last question. A couple of people asked about the working – I'm sorry, the CapEx shift in the 2016, but when you think about the businesses there, any significant changes to working capital maybe in the first half of 2016 because of these slower shift to the new capacity or maybe even it's lower because you're buying more in the outside market? Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. I think we kind of came into the year thinking that working capital was probably a little bit of a use of cash for the reasons that you just suggested, kind of around managing the conversion here. If anything, that probably shifts a little bit to the first quarter. But I don't see that as really being a meaningful change, one way or the other.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thanks, Bob. Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: You bet.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Chip Dillon with Vertical Research Partners.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Management

Hi. Yes, good morning. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Chip.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Management

The first question is, obviously from what you're saying, you're going to be quite busy from pretty much the next year. I think by this time next year, a lot of this will have sorted itself out in both the plastics and container division. But as you think about the next six months or so, does the challenges of just making sure that a lot of these operations do get back to their correct footing where they need to be with all the changes, does that make any difference in terms of your view toward M&A at this point, in terms of perhaps entering a different type of rigid business? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, again, we knew we were in that. But, I mean again, the amount of work involved here is not a surprise to us. So there is no news there. I mean, and again, I don't want to make light of it we got. We're very focused on it. But we're in the business of focusing on a lot different things and different businesses who are always active in doing something. So it does not change our view in that either way.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Management

Okay. So you still feel you have the same capacity as you always did to look at what's out there? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes, we do. Yeah, and further, we're quite optimistic on the long-term for our businesses, that's why we're making these investments. And I want to go further even in and say, we feel, while there may be bumps along the road that we are feeling, what we're doing, we believe in, and we believe that it's a stronger business on the back end and that business will always have the opportunity to improve through the right M&A, which is how we've grown all along.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Management

Got you. I got you. And maybe I'm simplifying this too much, but it looks like both the third and the fourth quarters are about $0.15 less than maybe what we would have thought back in July. And I guess you would verify that and then clarify that. And then as we look at next year, would you expect that rate of impact start to be reduced in the first quarter and then maybe down by more than half by the third quarter and pretty much go away by the fourth quarter next year? I'm not trying to hold you that, but I'm just saying, is that roughly the pattern you would expect to see? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: First of all, you're correct in your analysis, so kind of $0.14 in the third quarter, and $0.14 or $0.15 in the fourth quarter. So that part is right. And I would say one thing, there is a little about the pack season in the food can business that affect that Q4, so I mean that's not all incremental spend, but the majority of it certainly is. And I think the answer to that is that we are expecting a reasonable amount of continuation into Q1 and Q2. The only other point there is we have a little bit of cost around it in Q1 in the food can business already in 2015. So now you're going to cycle against a couple of million of those costs that were already in the comparative period.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Management

Okay. So maybe $0.10 to $0.15 in each of the first two quarters of next year roughly, and then it starts to drop back? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's correct. Yeah.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Management

Well actually in the third quarter, it might even go the other way, right? Because you had that sort of full $0.14 impact this year's third quarter, and by next year the impact should be less, so it actually might be a tailwind for you? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's correct. That's correct.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Management

Okay. I see, all right. That's very helpful. Thanks, guys. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mark Wilde of Bank of Montreal.

Mark Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

United States

Tony, I hate to beat plastics to death, but I just, I got one more question here. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Fair enough.

Mark Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

United States

I think I heard you guys say earlier in the call, that you'd actually expected this sort of plastics restructuring to actually carry into 2017, and now you're also talking about delaying kind of the near-term moves a bit. So what kind of headwind can we expect to be there yet in 2017 for plastics? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, I wouldn't view it that way. It is true that this program is going to take us into 2017 for sure. I mean, again this is a pretty major footprint we're working on. That's not a surprise either, we knew that, that to finish this, we have more still to do. But I think what you're – right now you're going through a lot of excess costs, more than we thought, to deal with customer issues. At some point we believe that it's going to fade away as we get lines moved and stable again. And so I think through 2016, as Adam said, we expect that we'll see that fade away, and yes, it's true that the comparison in the back half if that is what happens is helpful, plus you start to get some savings. And so I think as you get out into 2017, you're going to get some of the savings what you've already done. You're going to be sharing the incremental costs that you've been incurring, and then you'll be doing some other stuff that will create some of its own cost. But the net of that ought to be helpful to us in 2017.

Mark Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

United States

Okay. All right. I got it. And then just in both plastics and metal, by the time we get into 2017, would you want to quantify about how much actual benefit we're getting? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, that we did when we started all this, what we said is that, we're going to be getting kind of our 15% to 20% type returns on the capital that is being spent, and that capital was some $25 million on plastic side and $100 million-ish on the can side. So that's kind of the magnitude of improvement we were out working on. But I think, again I want to – on the plastic side, there is a lot more to it than that. It's the savings, but it's also kind of getting ourselves positioned for the future. It was going to be a hard long-term answer for us, for some of these plants, given where they were or where the customers were.

Mark Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

United States

Okay. All right, that's fair. And just one last one if I could. I think it's been about four years or five years since you did Vogel & Noot. And that's we haven't a heard a lot about that, it seems like it's generated less leverage than you would have expected. Any lessons you take away from that one? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: When you say less leverage, maybe I'll come back to you, but first of all, I would say that that business was certainly, it did very well at first, then Europe went through, whatever Europe has been going through. And then we had a very rough patch. So it was definitely disappointing to us, let's say, two years ago. Last year, it actually came back quite a bit, had a really good pack. And in fact what we said is, we didn't think we were going to be able to compete against that pack, and in fact that's not true and the business is going to actually should improve itself just a bit this year. FX is going to mitigate a lot of that. But I would say that the big storyline of that business is, it's been pretty good for us. We think it's good for us to have exposure in those markets. It think the big storyline there was growing into developing markets where we really believe that Russia for example had a very sizeable markets that they were going to be and consumers et cetera. Clearly, we're much more cautious about that right now. That doesn't mean we're not watching it, looking and then we've got two plants there. But it's pretty hard to say we've got this strategy now where we're going to become the dominant player of Russia and invest in five new plants. That does mean as obvious. So the strategic element of it is a little bit different. But we got a really good team, they're very entrepreneurial, they find ways to get it done. And so we see it as a plus to the overall portfolio.

Mark Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

United States

Okay. That's really helpful, Tony. Good luck in the fourth quarter and good luck going into next year. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks. You sure you don't want to talk about plastics anymore?

Mark Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

United States

It's good.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Alex Ovshey of Goldman Sachs. Alex Ovshey - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Good morning, guys. Actually, I have a few plastics one's for you. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I'm happy with it. Alex Ovshey - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Late in the call. The two plant closures, I may have missed that, but I think those are – that's a new data point. Was that always in the cards or did something change in the quarter that precipitated the decision to close the two plants? Adam J. Greenlee - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Those two plants have always been part of our overall program. Again, it was a much broader multi-year program, but the rationalization that we talked about in the press release, those have been planned and implemented. Alex Ovshey - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Got it, Adam. And then just thinking about the end market exposure in the plastics business. So the targeted markets, personal care, healthcare, food, can you say what the growth rates has been for you there, and ultimately what percentage of the business that currently represents, and over time where you see that number going to as you execute on this restructuring program? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. We've talked about – one of the two new plants is, a new piece of business was a new food customer. So there has been growth in there. If you talk about the relative market, these are low growth markets. The foods market is pretty well grown and personal care is pretty well grown. It's more about position in that market and because Silgan is such a sizeable food and packaging supplier across our portfolio of products. We view that as a really good area where we can help the customer, we can work closely with customers to forge longer-term solutions. And so that's an area where we see growth opportunity on our own side, but the market will be a couple of percent growth. Personal care is kind of at same level growth. But again, we were seeing very solid sales growth. We're slowing that a little bit while we go through the optimization program right now, but we do see the opportunity, a good sales force in place. And if we're successful in having service model that I'm describing to you, we'll have a really good solution to sell. Alex Ovshey - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Got it, Tony. Thank you. I'll turn it over.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to George Staphos of Bank of America. George L. Staphos - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: Hi, guys. A couple of – last question was on plastics. Just can you remind me, the reimbursement impact in the third quarter, what drove that? And was that something you called out in the second quarter, I don't recall. That's question number one. And then a question on level of competitive activity there, but I'll come back in a minute. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: On the customer reimbursement we called that out last year, in Q3 of 2014. George L. Staphos - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: Oh, that's right. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So what that was, it was a contractual obligation of payments for the reimbursement of kind of historical costs and the development of a new product that the customer ultimately decided not to take to market. George L. Staphos - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: That's right. I do recall that. Sorry about that. Now, I want to come back. I think you were answering Debbie's question or maybe Anthony's in terms of the volume factor. So you said there were three components. You said you rebalanced the portfolio, and then you reintroduced some volume back to the market, that was number two. And then customers, then found alternative supply. Did I get that all correctly? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. George L. Staphos - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: Okay. So, what's the difference between the second and the third? Is it that because you reintroduced some volume back into your market, the customers were affected, chose to then find alternative supply for business that you already had and wanted to…

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Adam Josephson of KeyBanc.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Thanks for taking my follow-ups, I appreciate it. Just one more on next year just to make sure I'm just correct on these incremental costs. You talked about plastics cost being flattish next year compared to this year. I think metal can you said might be $10 million lower or so. Is that correct roughly? Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah, that's what I've said but don't forget what I said on the metal food can side that I don't have that exact number. We haven't really done that...

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Sure. Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: ...but yes, that is the guess that we made, yes.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

And just aside from that, Tony and Rob, anything aside from uses of cash, any notable items next year that might move the needle, tax rate, interest anything else? Robert B. Lewis - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Pension maybe is the only one that I would point out as being probably still unknown at this point, right. Because we got to wait till the end of the year to see what the discount rate is, and I think it's anybody's guess as to what direction that's going right now. I think the underlying feeling right now is that, pension expense is probably a bit of a headwind for us next year, largely because asset performance this year hasn't been what we would have expected and that's been true across the markets. I don't think we're unique in that case. Order of magnitude could be call it $3 million to $5 million, so still income, but less income.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Got it. Thanks Bob. And just Tony, one last one, just in terms of managing the business. You're obviously in the three business lines, in numerous geographies. Has the business gotten any more difficult to manage than it was say five years to 10 years ago? Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, it's a good question. Certainly, as we went international, that added a scope to it. Beyond that, I don't really think so. I think it is good to remember kind of how Silgan manages, right. We run a holding company. We've got very complete management teams in each of our businesses. So we have the luxury here where we don't have to sweat the day-to-day details. We can think more strategic. We can certainly stay involved with the important points that are happening. So, I think our structure is perfectly suited for increased complexity as we go forward. So yeah, to the extent it has, I think we're very well structured to deal with that. I don't think there is anything about that and what's going on right now. The plastic issue that we're facing, as we said, was going to come up in some form in any case. It's a little more expensive than we thought, but I don't attribute that to the fact that we've got more complexity and more issues to deal with.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Thanks a lot, Tony. Best of luck. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You bet.

Operator

Operator

We have no other questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to our presenters for any additional or closing remarks. Anthony J. Allott - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Great. Well, thank everyone for your time. We appreciate it. We look forward to talking about Q4 and 2016 in more detail early February. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude today's conference. Thank you all for your participation.