Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2023 Sonoco's Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Lisa Weeks, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator and thanks to everyone for joining us today for Sonoco's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. Joining me this morning are Howard Coker, President and CEO; Rob Dillard, Chief Financial Officer; and Rodger Fuller, Chief Operating Officer. Last evening, we issued a news release highlighting our financial performance for the fourth quarter and full year, and we prepared a presentation that we will reference during this call. The press release and presentation are available online under the Investor Relations section of our website. As a reminder, during today's call, we will discuss a number of forward-looking statements based on current expectations, estimates, and projections. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Therefore, actual results may differ materially. Please take a moment to review the forward-looking statements on Page 2 of the presentation. Additionally, today's presentation includes the use of non-GAAP financial measures, which management believes provides useful information to investors about the company's financial condition and results of operations. Further information about the company's use of non-GAAP financial measures, including definitions as well as reconciliations to GAAP measures is available under the Investor Relations section of our website. For today's call, we will have prepared remarks regarding our results for the quarter and 2023 and outlook for the first quarter and full year 2024, followed by a Q&A session. If you will turn to Slide 4 in our presentation, I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Howard Coker.

Thank you, Lisa and thanks to all of you for joining our call this morning to review our 2023 results and 2024 outlook. In 2023, we continue to make progress on strategic initiatives and delivered solid results in what was a pretty difficult year from a volume perspective. Despite these lower volumes, we delivered strong EBITDA margins of 15.7%, which is somewhat similar to last year. Our strong margins were the result of record performances in our consumer rigid paper cans and flexibles businesses. On the industrial side, despite volume level similar to 2008, our team delivered record profit margins through diligent cost management throughout the paper ecosystem. Our adjusted earnings of $5.26 were within our guidance range for the year and with intentional focus on working capital, we generated record operating cash flow of $883 million and free cash flow of $600 million for the year. We also returned capital to shareholders and increased our annual dividend for the 40th straight year. We completed acquisitions and divestitures according to plans and our teams did not skip a beat on executing initiatives to further strengthen our foundation. I want to close 2023 by thanking this incredible team of Sonoco for the resiliency and dedication throughout the year. Certainly, the global economic and external factors did not make this an easy year at all, but we did not stand still and we delivered the second best annual financial performance in the company's 125-year history. I'm grateful to work alongside these great people of Sonoco, as well as our customers and supplier partners and we continue to look to the future with optimism. And with that, I'm going to turn the call over to Rob to cover our financial results and outlook. Rob?

Thanks, Howard. I'm pleased to present the fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results, starting on page six of this presentation. Please note that all results are on an adjusted basis and all growth metrics are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise stated. The GAAP to non-GAAP EPS reconciliation is in the appendix of this presentation, as well as in the press release. As Howard said, 2023 was a record year for Sonoco. In 2023, we achieved the second best financial results in the company's 125-year history in key metrics such as net sales, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. By many measures, this was our best year ever. We achieved record operating cash flow, record free cash flow, record productivity and we invested a record amount to drive future growth and profitability. We've built a foundation for continued strong financial performance, building on our enduring operating model, strong market positions, investment-grade balance sheet and our differentiated dividend. We're excited about the future and feel good that 2023 was a year to solidify our improvement since 2021. Full year 2023 net sales decreased to $6.78 billion, due to the volumes that comes from destocking and consumer and an elongated cycle in industrial. While these factors impacted year-over-year results, we grew net sales at a 10% compounded annual growth rate since 2021, due to strategic pricing, new product wins and acquisitions. Adjusted EBITDA grew $297 million from $770 million in 2021 to $1.067 billion in 2023. Over $150 million of this increase was organic improvement due to strategic pricing and productivity. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.7% in 2023, a 190 basis point increase from 2021. We achieved strong profitability due to price cost in 2022 and retain this profitability in 2023 due to record productivity of $109 million. We are operating…

Hi. Thanks, Rob. If you please turn to Slide 12 for our view of segment performance drivers in 2024. Let me start with our first quarter outlook. In the Consumer segment, we expect volume to be up sequentially over the fourth quarter, but basically flat year-over-year from continued lower consumer spending due to retail price inflation. In rigid paper containers, we see volumes slightly down in North America versus a strong start last year, flat in Europe and some nice year-over-year sales growth in the rest of the world from new product launches and our expanded capacity in South America and Asia. Organic flexible volumes are projected to be flat to down slightly due to continued softness in our base soft baked goods and confection business, but aided in the first quarter from the benefit of the Inapel acquisition in Brazil. In our Metalpack business, we did see a recovery of our steel aerosol business in the fourth quarter, offset by some softness in food. In the first quarter of 2023, we expect low- to mid single-digit increases in both food and aerosol bottle cans. In the Industrial segment, volumes are up sequentially from last quarter, but down low single digits year-over-year with weakness primarily in Europe and Asia, as many of our end markets are tied to consumer staple and durable spending and inflationary factors that have slowed spending. We do expect higher paper mill utilization in the first quarter in our global paper system driven primarily in North America. During the first quarter, there will be an outsized impact from negative price cost as input costs continue to rise and the timing of pricing updates lag. We expect the impact of negative price cost to improve over Q1 levels as we move throughout the year. Productivity remains strong…

Great. Thanks, Roger. As I stated in my opening remarks, we are not standing still as we progress a robust set of plans and initiatives across the enterprise. And I thought, I'd just share a few of those with you. First, on the divestiture and closure front, we continue to execute our portfolio transition and footprint optimization activities. Last week we announced the closure of our Sumner, Washington URB paper mill. This was the oldest mill in Sonoco's North American network and the cost to recapitalize was just simply not feasible. We're moving tons to lower-cost mills in the network. We've owned Sumner for over 40 years and extremely grateful for the support of this team through these years. We also announced the expected sale of our Protective Solutions business from our all other category or segment, which should close in the first half of 2024. This has been a great business for Sonoco with great leadership team. We know their knowledge and skills will serve them well into the future. As we continue our portfolio resolution, we remain laser focused on simplification and the alignment and fit to what businesses remain in our core. Secondly, we're pleased to announce that we were recognized by Kellanova for designing, manufacturing and commercializing a paper bottom end for our rigid paper cans with Pringles to achieve sustainable and recyclable initiatives in Europe. This was a multiyear and a true partnership effort. We're pleased with the acceptance of our innovative package design in the marketplace, and we look forward to sharing more about this next week at our Investor Day. In December, we're also pleased to announce the acquisition of Inapel, one of the leading flexible packaging company space in Brazil. This is a strategic move to expand capacity for growing demand that…

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from George Staphos with Bank of America Securities. Your line is open.

Hi. Thanks very much. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for the detail. I'll ask three questions. First question related to guidance. Can you talk through what is baked in for price/cost for the year recognizing there are no guarantees in life? And how much of the URB and converted product increases in industrial are baked into that guidance? Relatedly, what is the effect of the divestiture of Protective Solutions within All Other relative to your guidance? And then last for me Howard, one -- I know you're going to talk more about it next week but why the integration of flexibles with thermoforming recognizing they're plastic-based they are somewhat different business processes. And what should we have baked in for productivity from that and broadly for the year? Thank you.

Right. Thanks, George. I'll turn over the more financial related to Rob. Yes, we'll talk in more detail next week about the combination. And I think you'll see the rationale and why we view this as an obvious combine of the two – you just at a very high level I can just say that synergistically, it makes a lot of sense. And then if you look at the markets that we serve and the customers we share and there's more beyond that. So I'm going to leave that where it is and we'll get into that with next week. Rob, do you want to talk about price cost and...

Yes George. That's a good question because price cost is going to be a meaningful driver for profitability – a meaningful factor for profitability in 2024. I'd say in Q1, we're anticipating that number to be between $0.50 and $0.55 of drag. We've said previously that Industrial was going to have $35 million of price cost in Q1 and we're expecting to see that. To your point on URB and price recovery there, we have continued to see OCC increase Tan Bending Chip is kind of held constant we're feeling really good about how that price is translating through the market but that's something that actually takes a fair amount of time to really translate through to the P&L. So there's a bit of a drag there. Overall, we do think that industrial price cost will continue to be negative going into the second quarter and we're hopeful for some opportunity in the second half of the year.

Okay. And then just – protective?

Yes. So Protective, we haven't closed the deal. We're expecting to close. We have a great counterparty there. We feel really good about that transaction on a gross basis. That divestiture would be $0.10 dilutive to EPS on a full year basis. So we are expecting to close that by the end of Q1 and have some visibility to that and it's not in the $525 million of guidance.

Okay. And the productivity for the year?

Productivity of the year. We had a great year this year. Obviously, we continue to invest behind that we see. We've got a better path forward this year than we did last year I would say. So we're expecting to have another record year.

Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Pettinari with Citi. Your line is open.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning. You're expecting consumer volume growth in I think the mid-single-digit to high single-digit range quarter-over-quarter in 1Q. And I'm just wondering is it possible to maybe parse that out between – and does that just reflect sort of typical seasonality? Or is there some end market demand improvement or deterioration or any destocking or anything just wondering if you can kind of parse that out between those drivers.

No, Anthony, it's Rodger. Consumer for the first quarter is basically flat year-over-year. So you've got slightly down in rigid paper containers versus a strong start last year in North America, basically flat to slightly negative flexibles. And again, as our base business, cookies, confectionery being soft, offset by some of the Brazil acquisition. Metal cans is actually projected to be up low to mid-single digits and we started in that way. And in plastics, up slightly. So you put it all together, Anthony is basically a flat volume for the first quarter. For the year, we do see that low single-digit growth for the year. And that's just recovery in some of our base business with some share that we've gained in flexibles some new products and flexibles and a good result. We're very hopeful on this combination between flexibles and thermal forming. So first quarter flat, mid-single digit -- mid to low single digits for the year with some recovery in our base business.

Yeah. And I said we're also cautiously optimistic as we see our customers starting to market more, you're seeing more discounting actions. So the expectation is that through the course of the year, we'll start seeing some improvements as Rodger just said.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then in Metal Pack, I'm sorry if I missed this, but would you expect full year volumes to be flattish or maybe slightly up or slightly down. And then I'm just curious on aerosol, another packager has discussed aerosol potentially being under some pressure due to cost and ESG concerns. I'm wondering if you're seeing anything similar to that. And then just broadly if I think about the composition of Metal Pack between food cans, aerosol and maybe closures. How that business has changed or if you've kind of shifted the mix around since you acquired it?

Yeah. No, of course, long shelf life destocking has carried a little bit further than you normally would expect against our portfolio. What we're seeing right now and we're expecting and what we're hearing from our customers and how the year started, we're actually looking at a net being up year-over-year call it low to mid-single digits. Aerosol in particular is actually on the favorable side of that. If you look at the fourth quarter alone, year-over-year aerosols were actually up mid to low single digits and food was slightly down. So pretty pleased with what we're seeing in terms of recovery from a volume perspective with a pretty weak, very weak start to last year. But very, very understandable. Again considering the long shelf life associated with these products. So pretty bullish about volume recoveries as we start the year as we finish out January and as we look into next year and as we finished last year in the fourth quarter.

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

Our next question comes from the line of Ghansham Panjabi with Baird. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. I guess going back to the Industrial segment, looking at the margins in the fourth quarter. This was the first quarter of year-over-year margin decline since the first quarter 2021. Just curious to your thoughts on the evolution from here and I know there's a lot going on with OCC and just the index-based pricing pass-through, et cetera. I would just love to hear your thoughts as it relates to 2024?

Ghansham this is Roger. As we look at the margins for the first quarter industry, looks basically flat to the fourth quarter. We are seeing -- as we've already said this will be our largest impact, negative impact on price cost, but we are also seeing recovery in our paper meal system primarily in North America. Our global URB system ran about 87% capacity in Q4. But our North American URB capacity was close to 92% in Q4, and we expect that to move up into the mid-90s in Q1 with increased demand, as well as the move we made on the Sumner mill. So we expect, yes, negative price cost, but we also expect better productivity through capacity utilization and our biggest part of our URB system, which is north of there.

And I would add that I think the acceptance of the price increase effective mid-quarter, mid-first quarter has been positive.

Yes. I think as you know we're about 60% weighted to the resi tan bending index about 20% related to OCC and 20% open market. So, obviously, we're going off to the open market now. But as Rob mentioned, the 60% weighted to tan bending will impact more the second quarter than the first.

Okay. That's helpful. And then back to the consumer business just volume weakness being persistent over the last several quarters. It's not just you. It's a peer group in terms of destocking, et cetera, that's impacted the supply chain. Can you just sort of characterize the competitive backdrop, as we kind of progress through this lower for longer sort of volume weakness paradigm and you have a bunch of different businesses within consumer? And I just would love to hear your thoughts as it relates to just the competitive backdrop in context of an industry that's typically very competitive anyway?

Yes. I mean we feel really good. I mean, from a share position perspective, I'm not aware of any material share loss. So, in fact, I've probably got a longer list of share gains. They're just not overcoming the overall segment, consumer segment situation and demand profile. Frankly, if you -- as we talk about volumes and it's across all our businesses through the year, and then you flip over and look at the productivity performance, and I thought about this before, we've invested extremely heavily in all our businesses in the core and are continuing to see our productivity increase. And as volumes do recovery and leverage starts really materializing or normalizing within our facilities. I'm pretty bullish about how we can convert that into even higher productivity than we've been seeing thus far. But no from a share position, we're in good shape from a share position as far as I'm concerned.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Gabe Hajde with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Howard, Roger, good morning. I wanted to revisit the integration that George initially asked about of flexibles with thermal forming. And just bigger, I guess, picture context around you guys, I think, you've talked about trying to build a franchise position in rigid metal packaging. And curious if this move changes that perspective. You guys have talked about the sustainability attributes of origin metal packaging? And then maybe if anything changes from your perspective? And is there further risk your outlook especially in the tinplate business given the announcement this morning from Cliff to Idle a facility here in North America.

Yes. Again, we'll get into this in more detail, and I think, it will be a lot more obvious to all of you next week of why it makes sense to combine these under one leadership team. And as we look at -- so look, we do think to open up the aperture in terms of acquisition opportunities within that side of the business, but it doesn't take away from many of the other core businesses at all. It just makes -- and you'll see that next week makes good solid sense. The Cleveland that not really a big surprise as related to the mill not a material impact to us at all from a supply position. And that's really all I can say to that. We don't view that as an impact to us in any way. this year or in future years going forward depending on how long they do and tend to keep that mill down.

Okay. And then the recovery in consumer we're reading about cocoa hitting new highs in terms of commodity costs. How has the recent dialogue going with your customers in terms of expectations there? I mean we're reading articles about smaller chocolate bars and things like that. I'm just curious if that's baked into your outlook?

Yes, I think as we said in my opening comments, I think we're being fairly conservative action on volume. Our customers are planning to react to the new weight loss drugs. They're planning for so far they say they see no impact on that. Really it goes -- in my view it goes back to the pricing on the shelf. And Howard mentioned it earlier, there's a lot of pressure from the big retailers now on our customers to start to bring their prices down. You're starting to see more promotions. A lot of these baked goods snacks, confection, or discretionary items and they had a price point where it's really impacted their volume. So, what we're hearing from our customers is they're going to be more aggressive on promotions and more aggressive on regaining some of the volume that's been lost over the last year. So, that's what we're depending on along with the good job our team does on new products and like the paper bottom for the Pringles can for Kellanova and the global expansion on those packages have been fantastic. That's why we're more confident about our recovery in consumer volumes as we go throughout the year.

Okay. Thank you. And one last one I apologize just for posterity sake. The divestiture that you all announced if I heard you correctly assuming it closes at the end of Q1. It's maybe a $0.07 $0.08 drag to the midpoint of your guidance. Is that what I'm hearing? And then on URB and downstream-related products price increases, are you assuming or embedding in your outlook today that the 20% of the open market there's price realization there and then we'll wait to see this Friday what's recognized by RISI, maybe specifically what's embedded in the Q1 outlook or H1 outlook? Thank you.

Gabe yes. So, we are -- we there we expect the sale of [indiscernible] to close at the end of Q1. And if it does then that will be a $0.07 drag on the year we anticipate. For industrial pricing, we're seeing that flow through. Certainly the trade market sales Howard and Rodger have said is flowing through well. That's a component of our current guide.

Thank you.

Thanks.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from Mark Weintraub with Seaport Research Partners. Your line is open.

Maybe kind of first more housekeeping. What did the metal over [Technical Difficulty] embedder for 2024?

We lost you for a second there Mark, but I'm assuming you're asking about metal price overlap. For the year, it will be slightly less than what it was last year. So, it's actually a slight positive on a year-over-year basis. In Q1, because of the timing, it's going to be net neutral.

Okay. Great. Hopefully you can hear me now. Do you -- so what did it end up being in 2023?

Yes. So last year, it was $41 million negative. This year, we anticipate just the Q1 component of that to repeat.

Okay. And can you quantify that for us?

Sure. It was between $20 million and $25 million.

Okay. Super. And then on URB, I think you mentioned that you expect to be in the mid-90s post the actions you've been taking in North America and demand getting a little bit better. Where are you now in terms of integration in URB in North America? Maybe we start with that?

Are you talking about integrated? Yes, integrated volume, we're in the -- we're about 55%, 56% integrated volume now, Mark with the RTS acquisition.

[Operator Instructions] And I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Lisa Weeks for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us today. If you have any follow-ups, we'll be around after the call to answer your questions or contact me to schedule a follow-up. As Howard stated, we look forward to hosting you at our Investor and Analyst Day in New York next week on February 22. This will be an in-person event and a webcast will also be available. Registration details are on our website. We also look forward to seeing you on the road at our planned conferences and events in the coming months and we'll talk to you again in May when we report our first quarter results. Thanks to everyone and have a great day.

And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.