Ball Corporation (NYSE:BALL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Dan Fisher: No, I don’t believe the captive can makers will benefit. Obviously, they’re going to prioritize in the short term their assets. One in particular that’s having the marketing issue, we’ve come to an agreement that we’ve got a stable go forward position where we understand what the bottom is. And so, we should see inflection off of that, if they’re able to turn around. And then to your point, we are with everyone in the beer space. So we should see net benefits into 2024. I would characterize Q2 and Q3 as a bit of a trough for us right now. So relative to that, and then what happens in the mass beer space and clearly the economy writ large, there’s reason for optimism for sure in 2024 and beyond.

Adam Samuelson: Okay. All right. Now, that color is very helpful. I’ll pass it on. Thanks.

Dan Fisher: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Christopher Parkinson with Mizuho. Please go ahead. Your line is not open.

Christopher Parkinson: Great. Thank you so much. I want to circle back to the Brazilian market and everything going on. There’s been some macro volatility debates about glass recycling, the relative cost of various packaging substrates. Obviously, the rebound is highlighted and the potential for the rebounds highlighted in your press release. Can you take a step back and just how should we be thinking about that, that evolution during the kind of the fourth quarter which you already highlighted and in the 2024 in terms of kind of like the normalized progression there, just because it seems like they’re just a plethora of moving parts which we have to consider? Thank you.

Dan Fisher: Yes. So what we’ve stated in an inflationary environment, recessionary environment, which is clearly what Brazil’s been saddled with here the last couple of years. Two or three times when we’ve had similar macro events in that country, we’ve seen shared shift to returnable glass in the five to high single digit range. We experienced the same thing from second half of 2021 all the way through today. As — a lot of it has to do with the economics, lot of it has to do with the per unit price point of aluminum, the aluminum package in the hedge positions that were constructed by our customers. The cost of aluminum has come off, the hedge positions have come off, the economy is rebounding, inflation is declining, interest rates are coming off.

So, all of those things point to we should normalize back to mid 50%, low 50% can penetration in Brazil. So we’re betting on can penetration improving in Q3, Q4 and stabilizing in Q1 for 2024. We haven’t done a ton of work on 2024 right now, but I would think about it’s principally an improved economy and a returnable glass shift that took place during inflationary period, which has always come back to cans, because that’s the preferred choice and the preferred choice of our customers. We expect the same thing to happen. It’s too early in the process given, excuse me, in the year given it’s winter there to see much movement if anything, but we anticipate that tailwind into Q3 and into Q4, more in Q4. Hopefully that helps.

Christopher Parkinson: Of course, understood. And just a very quick follow-up on the North American market regarding your volume commentary there. There’s been a lot of start and go on various promotional excitations this year and euphoria and then waning, euphoria and then coming back. How do we think about that in the mass beer market? I mean there’s been some competitor commentary and optimism for CSD at least a little bit, but what are you actually seeing from your customer base and how is that actually flowing in to your outlook for the second half? Thank you.

Dan Fisher: We began the year with the expectation that we wouldn’t see promotional activity, but promotional activity does not generate volume momentum. We thought volume momentum would come in Q4 when there are more challenging comps. We still anticipate that. We didn’t build in much in terms of volume momentum happening in the first three quarters of the year. And even though you’re right, there’s increased activity on promotion. It hasn’t been enough to move volume. There has been share shift from the major CSD players into private label over the last four weeks. That is usually a light bulb that goes off and folks behave differently as a result of that, but I’m encouraged that what we built into our plan heading into the year will manifest in the fourth quarter. I don’t see any appreciable movement in the third quarter, because the promotion to your point is happening, but it’s not manifesting in volume momentum yet.