Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Steve Scherger: Yes, Mark, it’s Steve, and how that plays out in our guide is we continue to have very high confidence in the returns on Kalamazoo in the $80 million a year type level, and we’re offsetting that in our assumptions around our guide at kind of the midpoint of performance now down at zero, that will that incorporates in how we’re thinking about continuing to actively manage supply and demand with, as Mike mentioned, 80,000 tons of market downtime being taken in July. And so that’s how that holds together relative to how it’s incorporated into our full year guide – our full year thinking.

Mark Weintraub: Okay. Super. So just to clarify, so the unplanned downtime that was your decision to take market-related downtime as opposed to some operational issues or something like that. And then additionally, the cost of the market-related downtime is showing up in the – in your – your productivity in the way you are categorizing it?

Steve Scherger: Mark, that’s correct. And so the estimated cost implications of actively managing our supply to meet specific customer demand is incorporated in, so that’s where it flows through the P&L. And of course, Kalamazoo is also in there. So you positive, offset by the expected negative. And then what we’re speaking to specifically is exactly what you said. This is market-related downtime relative to supply and demand. Overall, our facilities have been operating very well. Actual while running operating rates have been very high, mid-90s. So overall, we’re executing and operating very effectively. We’re just doing so to match up with the demand of our customers.

Mark Weintraub: Sure. Thank you.

Operator: Our next comes from George Staphos with Bank of America. Your line is open.

George Staphos: Thanks. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for the details. I wanted to take a step back and talk a little bit about the PaceSetter Rainier board and Mike and Steve, how you see that and CRB relatively fitting into the substrate mix relative in particular to bleach board over time. And over time, do you see – clearly, you do with Kalamazoo and Waco, but do you see more and more share gained CRB over time for bleach and what does it mean for your bleached presence?

Mike Doss: Yes. Thanks for the question, George. I think from that standpoint, as we kind of take a step back, Rainier, PaceSetter Rainier the smoothness and brightness in particular do rival what we see with bleach paperboard and that opens up a whole bunch of avenues for us as we’ve talked in our prepared comments, so I won’t repeat those. But the initial trials and qualifications we’ve been doing with customers, both open market customers and internal customers, we show a lot of problems. And we’ve got a pretty heavy dose of those here in Q3 and we’d expect to actually be placing some of that material into the marketplace towards the end of Q3 and into Q4. So we like the momentum we’re seeing there. Relative to how it squares up with our overall SBS business.

You have to remember a big portion of our SBS business is uncoated and goes into cops, 400,000 tons, roughly about 1.2 million tons. And as you saw, as Steve talked about in his comments, our volumes on food were up 10% here from sales standpoint. We continue to grow that business. We continue to invest behind that. Bell – the acquisition of Bell is another element of that is they have got a large food service business that we’re excited to put as part of our portfolio. So again, part of run in a different race. We really know where we want those substrates to be surpass SBS both uncoated and coated is ending more towards food service, our open market customers we service with our SBS business tend to be more plate-oriented, which is not something we manufacture.

So we’re thinking about where we pick our spots. And when it comes to general folding carton, you’re going to see us push and flex our advantage on CRB because of the quality advantage we have and the cost advantage that we have in Kalamazoo and soon will have in Waco.

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