Ball Corporation (NYSE:BALL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Daniel Fisher: Yeah. Reflecting on your comment and question around innovation. Certainly, in the alcohol space, we continue to see a lot of innovation, which is a good thing because the combination of the innovation. Something is going to win. As we always say, George, we don’t know what’s going to win, something is going to win, but it also increases the pressure on the beer category to compete. Those two things will equate to improve volume outlook. So, we’re helping to fuel the innovation, number one, but we also have a heck of a lot of customers that we sell beer cans. We’ll benefit one way or another depending on who wins.

George Staphos: Yeah. We’ll be hoping for more consumption during the Super Bowl and other things. My other question, I’ll turn it over. Thanks for all the color. So, you talked about reduced CapEx. That’s certainly not a surprise, but that also includes your tail on spending for existing plants as they are coming up. I know it’s not 2024, but is there a view you can give us on what CapEx might look like or what the delta might look like as we look out to 2024 and 2025. Thank you very much, guys.

Scott Morrison: Sure. Most of the spend this year, George, that 1.2 are things that are already in flight. And as we’ve talked about we’ve got — we’ll have enough capital on the ground after completing these couple of things in Europe. We’ll be in a pretty good spot. So, I would expect, although it’s February 2 of 2023, I would expect in 2024, we’ll see that drop further.

Daniel Fisher: Yeah. The internal conversation, George, quite candidly, is we’ve spent the capital we need to grow into over the next two to three years. We could most likely spend at D&A levels in 2024 and 2025. If we have a reason to invest, it will be with a strategic customer, one or two. So, I think you’ll start to see a much more disciplined level loaded capital approach relative to D&A spend moving forward.

George Staphos: Thanks very much.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Parkinson with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Christopher Parkinson: Great. Thank you so much. Can you just talk a little bit more about North American volumes, specifically how much you believe was more just industry sell-through, specific customer destocking? And anything idiosyncratic to Ball given the shutdown in Phoenix. Just anything to break down those three variables, would be very helpful. Thank you.

Daniel Fisher: Yeah. I think, it was back half of the quarter, and it’s no different than probably every other end consumer product in the retail shelves. Customers pushing price, pushed it too far, and there was price elasticity that kicked in. Beer was down the most. And I think what we’re seeing is a return to more promotional activity here right out of the gate in Q1. So, I think there’s recognition of what happened there in the last four to six weeks of the year, which is well publicized. Since we sell to everyone and every category and every channel, we were impacted by all of that. But I can tell you, there’s a different behavioral patterns setting in relative to our customers and their promotional activity. So, I think this will normalize and we’ll start to move into a more sustainable underpinning for growth moving forward.

Christopher Parkinson: Got it. And just as a very quick follow-up on some of your Latin American commentary. Could you just very quickly just discuss the market dynamics? Obviously, it was pretty difficult during the first half with Carnival and everything else and then kind of easing that helpful. World Cup rebound, which didn’t necessarily materialize. But just given the easy comps on 2022 and your comments on a preliminary basis for the beginning of the January, how do you think you believe the market will ultimately materialize throughout the balance of the year given the low comps just given the industry? And then also any perhaps just very quick comments on market share trends. Thank you so much.

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