Graphic Packaging Holding Company (GPK) on Q4 2024 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Melanie Skijus: Good morning, everyone. It's great to see all of you here at the New York Stock Exchange. And in addition to all of you here live, we have a large number of investors joining us remotely. I think the number is now 150, but it's climbing. So thank you everyone on the webcast. My name is Melanie Skijus, I'm the Vice President of Investor Relations. Before I kick it off today, for safety, I want you to be aware of 2 stairwells that you can exit if needed, directly behind me down the hallway is a stairwell as well as one by the elevator bay. Before we get started, I just -- I told you about the exits -- the presentation materials you have at your desk. We welcome you to walk through those with us today. On the webcast, you will see it in the webcast view as well as a PDF is available on our Investor Relations website. The presentation this morning are being recorded so they will be available to listen in replay probably later this afternoon. We have a great agenda for you this morning. You'll be hearing presentations from senior leadership. We're going to kick off with 2 and then we'll go into a 10-minute break. when we get back from the break we'll have 3 more and then we'll have a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] Forward-looking statement. I encourage everyone to read through this. Our presentation today will contain forward-looking statements that will have -- or subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause these statements to not come into reality. So please look through the list of risks, and they're also available in our filings with the SEC. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to our first speaker today, Mike Doss, our President and CEO. I'm sure most of you are familiar and know Mike. He's been with the company since 1990, has been our CEO since 2016. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mike. Michael Doss: Great. Thank you, Melanie, and I also want to thank Alexandria, who's over in the corner here, as all of you know it takes a lot of work to pull together one of these Investor Day. They've been working really hard to pull things -- all the materials together that you see today, and we're going to cover. So thank you guys for all that. I also want to acknowledge Mike Ryan, one of our senior designers who is -- drove all the way down from Philadelphia -- a lot of the samples you see here today out in the lobby. So Mike, I don't know where you are, wave your hand. Thank you very much for doing that. Much appreciated. I'm going to start with a few comments around a few announcements we made last night, and then I'll jump right into the presentation, and then I'm going to introduce our speakers that you'll see today. And then as Melanie said, we'll go through that cadence and ultimately -- we'll have a few breaks in there. And then I'm sure there will be a very robust Q&A session, which we're really looking forward to. Let's start by talking a little bit around the first announcement that went out last night, and that's the sale of the Augusta mill to Clearwater Paper Company. Now what you need to know is that really, over time, Arsen Kitch and I've had a number of conversations around kind of the overall fit of some of the mills that we've got. And for them in the vision of the future, they have for their company, it became pretty clear that the Augusta mill, which is an outstanding mill with excellent people and a very good infrastructure is a better fit for them and what they really want to do over the long term than it is for Graphic Packaging. And so as we kind of went through those dialogues, we worked through a deal. You saw it announced last night. We're happy to go into whatever level of detail you'd like to do in terms of talking about that in the Q&A. But the reality of it is for Graphic Packaging, the Augusta mill, the Augusta manufacturing facility didn't offer the same strategic benefits over the long term as some of our other wood fiber manufacturing facilities or our recycled manufacturing facility. So it's the right thing to do for our shareholders to monetize that, which we'll do. And again, we'll talk a lot more in detail about what that means during Q&A. Second thing I want to hit on real quickly and there's a few questions I got in the lobby here was the pricing declarations from RISI over the weekend. And many of you know because I've expressed a fair amount of frustration on this over time in terms of how they do it. And I can absolutely tell you that on cupstock they got it wrong. We're in that market every single day. It's one of our strongest markets. If you look at over the last 3 years, what we've done with our Foodservice business, it's grown every quarter, and it's growing here in Q1. So that made no sense to us, it's a 180 degrees out from what we're currently experiencing. And really -- and you've heard Steve and I talk about this, it just strengthens our resolve to continue to move away from third-party indices that really lack any level of what we believe to be accuracy as well as transparency. And so over time, third-party indexes that really aren't accurate or have transparency hurt packaging companies and they ultimately hurt the customers as well. So we are going to strengthen our resolve to continue to march away. We've been doing it for a number of years. It's one of the reasons why several of the analysts in the room, you guys have had difficulty trying to track our pricing because we've been moving to a more value-added pricing model, which we'll get into a lot of detail today in terms of how we look at that, and it's going to continue to be the case. So third-party indices will be an increasingly smaller part of our business going forward, and our resolve is very high to make that happen. So with that as a backdrop, I'm going to pivot now and talk a little bit about our overall results, which also were released last night. Look, by any measure, if you're a consumer goods company last year, food beverage or just actual goods, it was a very challenging year as consumers really pivoted in terms of their preferences in some cases, and our customers had to adapt to that in a real-time basis. It really resulted in a fair amount of inventory destocking, which is well chronicled, you're all aware of that. And against that challenging backdrop, Graphic Packaging held up very, very well. You see our results here on the page. I mean, a few high levels. Our sales were actually flat on a year-over-year basis. We had $200 million of innovation sales in that number. And our value-added pricing actually more than offset the volumetric decline that I talked about, which for the year was about 4%. Fourth quarter -- third and fourth quarter, most pronounced down around 5.6%. Steve will get into those numbers in a little bit more detail. But what we're really encouraged about here going forward is the fact that as we've rolled into 2024, our volumes actually -- to date through today are flat on a year-over-year basis, which is actually a very good thing because as you recall, last year, in the first quarter, we were actually up. So we've seen some stabilization. Fourth quarter was really most pronounced in the last probably 3 weeks of December. It was almost like many of our customers just threw in the towel. And that really manifested itself in Europe in a big way. We saw volumes that were down the last 3 weeks pretty substantially, and they bounced back really well here to start the year off. So that's what really gives us confidence in the year, but -- and a return to organic growth. But what I would also say -- and this is -- and you're going to hear this thematically through my conversation is that our confidence is really more in what we do control versus what we don't. And if you think about Graphic Packaging, and I'll go into to a lot of detail on this, we're just a fundamentally very different company than we were just a few years ago. Our innovation is wide and deep. You will -- [indiscernible] spend a lot of time talking about that. Our customer relationships are strong and growing, and we're managing them different than we were before, and we're getting paid for the value that we bring. So with all that is the backdrop. I'm really pleased with the results that we generated. Our EBITDA was up almost 20% on a year-over-year basis. You see EPS that on an adjusted basis is approaching $3. Remember, in 2019, when we talked to you about this, it wasn't even $1. So we've made dramatic progress in a very short period of time and that momentum, I expect to continue to move on. Look, Graphic Packaging is a leader in sustainable consumer packaging. You all know that, and you really touch our products every day. So think about the cup of coffee you have in the morning or the cereal box that your cereal comes in, the snack you have at lunch, maybe a frozen dinner you eat late afternoon, soft drink that you may have as an afternoon snack or hopefully a beer, you have later on in the evening. All of those things are things that we do. You literally touch our products each and every day. It's rare that you're a U.S. consumer of almost any demographic doesn't, in some way, use our products within a 24- to 48-hour period of time. That's the reach that we've got at Graphic. We really do package -- life's everyday moments for a renewable future. Thematically, you'll hear us talk a lot about that. And again, that's what gives us a lot of confidence in the company that we've built and that the one that we will build over the next 7 years as we roll out our Vision 2030 here to you today. Look, you see our 100 facilities we've got around the globe there. We package thousands of different customers, but we also do it with some of the biggest brands in the world. In order to do that, you've got to have scale. You've got to make investments. And investments are much more than just physical assets. Yes, we've made those. A lot of those were done as part of our Vision 2025. Think about the investment we made in Kalamazoo, Think about the investment we're making in Waco. Think about the investment we made in A&R. All of those were foundational to kind of build the company that we have today. And what you're really going to see and what we're going to talk about here is just how that will be leveraged as we bring 2030 to life -- our Vision 2030 to life here. The investments in people and capabilities, sometimes are much harder to see than the physical assets, but they're very real, and they're very important. You'll see our speakers really bring those to life today with their comments as well. Okay. Look, that's an impressive customer portfolio by anybody's definition. The depth and breadth of that is really unmatched in the paper packaging world. If you take a look at -- really all the different segments we're in, we've trued those up now to really reflect the overall impact of A&R packaging at the year-end and what those sales are. So some of you may say some of those are slightly different. That's really what we did there. But our customers -- our customer base is really as diverse as our innovation portfolio, and that's a big point to make. And it wasn't that way, just a mere few years ago. I'm going to show you that translation from one side to the other as we transform the company over that period of time here in a few minutes. Look, we've got a strong presence in the at-home markets. That's always been kind of our core. It's gotten stronger over the last few years. You see that in food, beverage, household products, health and beauty. All those things are strong businesses for us. But we also have an increasingly strong and growing position in the foodservice part of the market and really what -- one of our key themes that we're going to try to strike home today, today, and if I do my job right, I'll probably hit it on about 5x is just how our portfolio moves with the consumer. That's a big part of what we purposely built over the last 7 years. All right. A little bit about our speakers today. In addition to getting Steve, who -- many of you -- all of you know, I should say, you probably know Steve better than anybody. Steve will come up in chat, but we've got 3 other speakers that are actually going to present today. The first one that's going to talk to you is Maggie Bidlingmaier. She is our Executive VP and President of our Americas business. So Maggi really controls and manages those relationships with the customers that I'm talking about. And they've changed and evolved very dramatically over the last few years, a lot under Maggi's leadership. She'll talk to you about how we're building deeper relationships with customers than we've ever had before. And that's really foundational relative to the innovation that we're driving and the sustainability benefits that we bring that are valuable to customers in ways that we couldn't even have those in conversations with them because it was just kind of a bid-ask situation, not anymore. So Maggie bring that to life. She leads our global innovation effort. Ricardo works for her, Ricardo where are you? Right there, Ricardo, many of you know Ricardo. And so she'll actually give you a lot of insight and more depth into what we're really doing there too. We have Jean-Francois Roche also here. Wave your hand, Jean-Francois. Jean-Francois, I would challenge you to find a more knowledgeable person in terms of the breadth of experience he has in the European market than Jean-Francois. He is an expert in that market. He's chaired the ECMA organization for the last 3 years. So that's the European Carton Manufacturing Association. His knowledge around regulation in the EU as well as our large brands in Europe and the retailers, which is really important in Europe, and the intersection of the consumer are unmatched. So he'll do a town hall, and we'll bring some of that out for you and you'll be able to ask him a lot of questions later on. Look, Europe is a great business in and of itself. But what we really love about Europe is it's the most sustainable consumer in the world. So what that really allows us to do then is to take all we learn in Europe and export it all over the rest of the globe where we compete, including North America. The trends there is we like to say, start 24 to 36 months before they wind up here, but almost invariably, they wind up here. We have that knowledge, and we're able to take advantage of it much faster than many of our competitors are able to do. We think that brings real strategic advantage for us. Mark Connelly, is our newest member of the team, but he's not new to Graphic Packaging, certainly not to Steve and I. For the last decade, Mark has followed our company as an analyst. And I would also say, and I think Steve, you'd agree with me that one of the analysts that really helped us frame some of our thought process relative to capital allocation and challenges along the way. Are you making the right decisions? Are you putting money to work to really drive ROIC. He's the key architect of what you'll see today in terms of what we're rolling out. We're thrilled to have you on the team, Mark. Mark can facilitate that town hall discussion with Jean-Francois. And we have Michelle Fitzpatrick up here in the front. Michelle leads our sustainability efforts. You'll get a presentation from her that will talk about all the different things we have to do to make sure we're compliant in terms of sustainability and regulation that's constantly evolving and changing. The good news is she will lay a plan out that you will be able to see that we actually have between now and 2032 to achieve all of the goals that we made for our -- science-based target initiative goals that will be out there today. I challenge you to challenge any other packaging company to drive a proposal or to lay something like that out, like we're going to lay out to you today. We're going to deliver on that, and it's really important because what you'll also hear from me today and talk a lot about from the speakers is -- you'll hear from the speakers on this is that not only do -- are we going to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we generate, the amount of fossil fluids that we use, the amount of water that is used in our facilities. Ultimately, almost every product we make helps our customers meet their sustainability goals. I'm going to say that again, every product we make helps our customers meet their sustainability goals. Not very many people can say that. That's also one of the things that gives us a lot of confidence in our ability to grow our volumes over the next few years and really be a key part of the consumer packaging leadership position that we want to have because we're at that intersection. They need us to do that. You think about the ambitions they've laid out, some of the targets they put out there to be greenhouse gas neutral or carbon neutral by 2040 or 2050, they need people like graphic packaging to help them bring that to life, and we'll be able to do that. Once we're kind of -- what I'm going to do now is actually lay out kind of the from to where we were, give you a little context on background in terms of the transition we've made over the last 7 years. Steve will come up later on in the presentation, and bring the financial targets to life in more detail. He'll also talk about the large amounts of free cash flow that we're going to generate and the optionality we have for value creation over the next 7 years, which is pretty exciting. Okay. Let's take a little step back. Look, many of you were here in September of 2019, and thank you for that when we rolled out our Vision 2025. It's hard to believe that's almost been 5 years now, and a lot has happened. If you think about it, it's really been pressure tested over that period of time. And for us, that really was an opportunity to kind of revamp our growth and our ability to actually compete and transform the company. And as you look at the company we have today, it's just very different than what it was in 2025. And as we look at some of what we're laying out with Vision 2030, some of the targets that we had for Vision 2025 are no longer ambitious enough and in some cases, not as completely aligned with really the company we need to be and will be over that period of time. So we'll introduce Vision 2030 to you today, but maybe it's helpful to take a little bit of a review around this journey we've been on really since 2017. So if you think about 2017 for Graphic Packaging, who are we? I've been CEO for 1 year. And the reality of it is, is we had a solid business. We had a good business in North America. We had a decent business in Europe, primarily focused on beverage in the U.S. It was more center of the store type stuff. We had a good position on recycled paperboard as well as unbleached paperboard. And we had a business in Asia that was principally focused also on the beverage business. We had high customer concentration. In our markets, we're also pretty large. If you think about beverage as an example, as a percentage of our overall customer concentration, it was quite high. There were starting to be some signs in the European market that sustainability was going to be something that could be an opportunity for us in the U.S., not so much yet. And yet we had a very big problem. Our problem was that we weren't growing. We weren't generating any real growth. and our margins really were quite economically sensitive and really more commodity-based through a cycle. And so that impacted our ability to really drive long-term sustainable shareholder value. Think about that for a minute. So what we were doing for customers was making a highly personalized branded product with excellent printing, in many cases, coatings, specialty thinning, unbelievable delivery terms. And yet in many cases, we were getting paid less because of the terms we had and the way the industry operated at that time than really what even a corrugated box was able to get, which is generic as it comes, right? So we had to change that. That was a key initiative for our company at that time. So we look inward. What are the levers that we could pull. We saw this trend around sustainability. We knew we had to invest in innovation. We also looked at kind of what we have to do to expand our customer profile so that we reduce the amount of concentration we had with some of our largest customers as well as we had to make our portfolio move more with the consumer. We didn't know exactly how we were going to do it, but that -- we knew it needed to be done. And then we started doing some work as far back as been around what we thought would be a pretty interesting value creation idea for a large investment in coated recycled paperboard. And so kind of that is the backdrop. You wind the clock forward to 2018, we had the opportunity to partner with International Paper and get their Consumer Packaging business. That was a huge deal for us because it gave us a whole bunch of options we didn't have then. And so it was a great transaction. I think IP would say it was great for them. It turned out excellent for us, key milestone for us. 2019, we rolled out our Vision 2025. And our Vision 2025 was broad in a lot of ways to be transformative and has exceeded our expectations in many ways. If you think about the financial goals that we -- targets we put out there, we've largely exceeded all of those and then some. I went through some of the results today. I think Steve, as an example, we had $2 for EPS, which obviously, we've well since surpassed. So a lot of those targets were done. We made real good progress on the other nonfinancial goals as well. But again, many of those targets just aren't ambitious enough or consistent with how we want to run the company going forward. But what I would tell you is that within Vision 2025, there were really 4 main objectives we laid out there. First, we knew we had to expand our innovation capability in a big way because we wanted to take advantage of being able to leverage the sustainability movement, which was now starting to take place here in the U.S. too. Our speakers will talk a lot more about how we're doing that on Vision 2030 today, but that was a key initiative for Vision 2025. We had to realign our portfolio to move more with the consumer, which meant that we had to make some acquisitions of different businesses that would allow us to actually do that. We had to capture a more reasonable value -- for reasonable share, I should say, of the value that we are providing to our customers. And we had to invest in both our people and our assets. So those were the big things that we laid out there. If you look at Vision 2025, I think there were 21 targets that we assigned to it. But there were really 4 big things, strategic steps that we took that transformed our company during Vision 2025. The first, and I mentioned it already, was the IP consumer business. That was big for us. Because if you think about it, we had no exposure of any scale to the Foodservice business, which I think about Americans, they love mobility, they like being on the go. We didn't have exposure that drive-through window. We didn't even make a cup. So you put that all together, that created a huge optionality for us in a whole new part of our business that we didn't have before. Secondly, we need to grow our U.S. And European manufacturing capabilities. And what I mean by that was we put out a target as part of our Vision 2025 in terms of integration. And integration back when we laid out Vision 2025, kind of post the IP acquisition, was around 67%. We finished this year around 80%. So we've kind of grown that integration. But integration is really more was a yardstick for us in terms of how we measure. There were 2 things that we were really looking for in terms of building out our business and how we want to invest in it. First, we wanted to acquire businesses and markets that ultimately move with the consumer different than what our core business did. The most recent example I can give you that is Bell. Maggie and her team have integrated that business now well into our business, but Bell brought consumer mailers. That was something we didn't have before. And if you look at the prior 10 different acquisitions, every one of them brought something along those lines that helped us build out our portfolio, and I'll show it to you in a minute and why it's transformed the way that it has. Secondly and importantly, any business that we could find that had innovation capabilities that we could lever across a wider group of customers, both domestically or internationally was prioritized. The best example I can give to you of that was AR packaging. It was an absolute home run for us. Yes, it was a good business in its own right. And it helped us get into Eastern Europe and build out our portfolio in a way that we couldn't do on our own. But they were excellent at driving innovation and had a lot of new products there that you're going to see as profile today that have allowed us to really scale across the globe. And that's really what we need to be able to do as a consumer packaging company. So those 2 things were really what we were looking for there. Our customer relationships had to change. As I mentioned earlier, we bring more than just basic design elements and manufacturing. That's what we were getting paid for before because that's what we were charging them for. But when you think about the security supply we bring, the sustainability benefits, the innovation benefits, our customers know that what we bring is more than just raw materials and freight. I had a boss one time who said, you don't want your product to be treated like the commodity, stop acting like it is. And that's really what we did and so we put this value-based pricing methodology in place. You guys know we've done it because the pricing has flowed through our P&L in a way you can't follow based on just movements of paperboard. Maggie you go in a lot more detail there. So that balance is much more important for us going forward and something that is kind of core to our DNA, and you'll see us continue to leverage that as part of our Vision 2030. Lastly, we saw a significant opportunity to generate an unmatched cost position in the most attractive part of the paperboard packaging market, and that's really the recycled packaging, CRB. And when you look at what we've done with Kalamazoo and the start up on that, it's been nothing but a home run. Our cost position is unmatched. The grades that we have come off that machine are fantastic, and it's integrated well into our business, and we're leveraging those opportunities with customers as we speak. So listen, all of that really transformed the business very dramatically. And what I'm excited about with Vision 2030 today is that now as we lay this out, our ambitions will line up more with how we're running the company and give you a framework so that you can hold us accountable going forward in terms of what we're going to do. Very exciting for us. Now I'd like to tell you that everything we did with Vision 2025 really worked out the way we thought it. We executed perfectly, there were no mistakes. But there were some things that we learned along the way there that really have helped us. Of course, this is September 2019, we dealt with COVID kind of -- during that middle period of time. But even before that, we started having conversations with customers around innovation. We had some early success. And what ended up happening is customers will say, look, you did this good for us. So why don't you do these 2 or 3 things, too. So we had to scramble in many cases, to add resources back into the company, something we did. Those are resources that are now part of our business and part of our innovation engine that you'll hear Maggie talk a lot about. We also learned a lot of things during COVID. Some of them were just heard. The first one I'll point out to you was just kind of supply chain resiliency. I mentioned earlier that our customers care a lot about security of supply. More now than ever, the worst thing you can have if you're a CPG is to have a stock outage. And our system had been optimized because for years, everything just kind of flowed nice and we were able to take costs down to the last penny, and our supply chain was long and expensive. You go through COVID. And then you add winter storm Uri in February of 2021, and we had a lot of challenges, a lot of force majeure letters, things we had to deal with. We had to build a more robust supply chain. And for a company that prides itself in execution, we talk that seriously. And those are learnings that we will not forget. And our customers know it, too, and that is a part of what they buy, when they buy from Graphic Packaging. Also during COVID, we saw these massive shifts in overall demand, casual dining went way down. And after about a month or 2, you saw the foodservice side of the business really take off. Center of the store kind of came back. And again, we had run this kind of perfect [indiscernible] taking facilities down and optimizing our footprint to the point, our customers had some doing in that as well because they were pushing us for obviously, savings and things there as well, which is to be expected. But we learned that we got to have some flex capacity so that we can take care of customers' demands as they shift and they will shift based on different demand pulses that they have to deal with out there. And so you'll see us not have everything on 3 shifts, we're going to have some flex capacity that allows us to be able to do it. We're not going to run everything 7 days a week because it doesn't give us the ability to manage our business. We have 100 manufacturing facilities, and the balance on that will be reflected there. Sure, we'll have some that run 7 days a week, 365 days a year. But there's going to be a number of them that have that flex capacity. We also learned some things by spending $700 million in Kalamazoo essentially making and creating a brand-new mill. We went into that project thinking it was going to be totally an economic play. That's how we introduced it. And we said, look, we had this unique opportunity to be able to take a bunch of costs out and drive a lot of really top line product through the marketplace, and we're uniquely positioned because of the concentration we had with our Midwestern manufacturing facilities of paperboard. But what we really found -- we got those savings, but what we really found there was the grades and the quality coming off that particular manufacturing process is just superior to anything else that's out there. You've heard us launch Rainier. Rainier is not even in a lot of the numbers you're going to see today. I think it can be bigger than many of the innovations we have out there. It will compete with the very best paperboard out there and SBS is an example, the brightness, the coding characteristics, the smoothness, it's fantastic. And we've got some early wins there. Maggie will talk about that when she's up during her conversation. The point to make that around integration, though, and this is an important point to make, is integration for Graphic Packaging is a bit nuanced, and this is important. If you think about what we're doing in Kalamazoo, and you think about what we're doing in Waco, if we have the opportunity to really grow with customers and generate excellent ROIC and consistent returns for shareholders, we are all in on integration. I'm going to say that again. We are all in an integration when it makes sense, consistency results in higher ROIC. However, when we don't have a path to do that, like I just outlined with Augusta, then we're better off putting that capital somewhere else. So you'll see us put our capital where it will get the greatest return for shareholders, hard stop. So you're not going to hear us talk a lot about our integration rates anymore because we're really focused on our end-use markets. We're a consumer packaging company. But ultimately, that's how I want you to think about our overall integration strategy in terms of how we're building the business here going forward, and that's exciting. And the implication for that really kind of comes in the form of -- if you think about A&R packaging and that acquisition we made, for a minute. We got a lot of questions from a number of people, "Hey, you guys are going to integrate with AR." And Steve and I answered it this way, at the time when we acquired that, we said, we have no plans to immediately do that, but over time, it could be -- provide some optionality. The reality of it is, is as we've gotten deeper into this, and we've watched our European business, which generates outstanding results and excellent ROIC, we don't need to integrate that business right now. And it doesn't make sense. Things would have to change very dramatically for us to see a scenario where we would have to backward integrate into Europe. That's a big change. And I think the points I'm making on these things, we've learned through some of the things that we've come through is we form our opinions based on fact and how we actually generate returns for investors and shareholders over the long term. And that's really why you want to buy a company that is constantly learning in that regard, and that's Graphic Packaging. So I want to talk a little bit now about the company that we've actually built from the inside out. And I think if you look at the left-hand side, I think it's -- yes, on the left-hand side that you're looking at there versus the right-hand side back to 2017, it's a completely different company. Look at that for a minute. Look at the different segments we have, and I talked about that march we were on and why we had to build the company out the way that we did. Our market participation strategies have just changed. We went from $4.4 billion to last year, $9.4 billion, and we're going to build on that. And ultimately, if you think about that growth, some of that came from acquisitions, some of it came from innovation. We averaged about 2% sales growth over that period of time in our core markets and compare that against any other packaging substrate out there, whether it's glass, aluminum, corrugated, that's on par at the very best. And it's really, really all driven by the innovation we see. And what you can see there and what I'm excited about is our ability to move with the consumer. As the consumer moves, we'll be there, and that's the portfolio that's really been generated and what we have. We have the scale to take care of the very biggest customers out there. If you're a QSR operator and you have 7,000 stores in the -- in North America. You're probably going to do business with 2, maybe 3 packaging suppliers. That's it. You don't want to do it with 27. Why? You can't control the quality. You can't control the materials there. And we have the breadth and investment and the capabilities to take care of the very largest customers as well as take care of the regional business that we have. We're uniquely positioned in that regard. That's the company we've built over the last 7 years and it's really going to be on display over the next few. So let's talk about what we're doing and why. The bottom line is our core values have not changed. But we have, as we've transformed the business, our aspirations have grown alongside of our confidence. And that's just -- as you look at how that all kind of comes together, I'm going to introduce you a number of key elements of our Vision 2030 right now. And then the most important one, we start with this one here is really all around innovation. You're going to be a global leader in consumer packaging. You have to be a leader in innovation. And we're going to continue to invest in our people and our capabilities so that we're the very best. Our Vision 2025 laid out some pretty big investments. I've already outlined what they were. But what will really define us with our Vision 2030 is the investments we've made in innovation and the people and capabilities that we execute on the scale that customers require. We set 3 targets for this one, and they're ambitious. The first one is 2% of our annual sales growth will come from innovation. We've done that over the last 2 years. You think about 2022 and you think about 2023, both those years, we grew over $200 million in innovation sales under very different market conditions. So we've demonstrated the ability to be able to do that. We're pushing our teams to continue to find ways to build that funnel. And our confidence level here in 2024 to deliver the $200 million is high. If you think about the selling cycle for us, many of those things are already in the queue. And so we know exactly what they are, and they're flowing through. And Maggie will talk about that in her prepared remarks a little bit as well. Look, every new product we make needs to be more circular, functional and convenient than the existing product that it's replacing. This is nuanced too. I mean there are certain things from a material science standpoint that obviously have to be met. But it's also pretty simple in many ways. I've yet to ever have a customer say, "Hey, thanks for making that product that's less sustainable, less convenient or functional." They just won't do it. They won't put their customers into that. So that's kind of the lens we put against and all these things are iterative to help us get better over time. And then the last one that I will put out there is that our multigenerational portfolio is really iterative to. And what I mean by that is if you think about things like KeelClip as an example, that product started over in Europe with carbonated soft drink. And then it moved quickly to beer. And it also went to some food applications. And each time we did one of those, we learned some things different. In that particular case, we also made the machines that went into both those applications. Our Boardio product, which you saw out there started with infant formula. And now it's gone to confectionery, gum, you see the Mentos out there as well as well as coffee. And again, Maggie will take you through that. And that's really important. That iterative learning that we get there. And why it's so important we have a big business in Europe and in the U.S. because those trends go back and forth, and we take that knowledge and we can do that a lot faster. And that's what a leading consumer packaging company does, and that's the company we have built. Culture. Look, to be a leader in innovation, I can't overemphasize the importance of culture. We've got an incredible team and we've done some really good work. But to stay the best, we're going to have to continue to focus on our culture of safety, inclusion and take our customer focus to a whole new level. This is among my highest priorities as the CEO. We've set forward targets for this one as well. Zero life injuries is up first. Look, I'm proud of the safety record our company has. It's by far one of the best in the industry, but we need to make it better. And that really starts with me and my executive leadership team and the tone and tenor we set from the top. We invest in well-run facilities. What we do is incredibly important, but it's never important enough for someone not to go home hole at the end of the day. That's something we take real seriously. And as an investor in Graphic Packaging, you can rest assured that we do it the right way there. We also won't really need -- second bullet point here, 75% engagement score. So you say why is that important? It really comes down to the fact that, again, those 24,000 employees that we have, we have to have their very best every day. They come with ideas. We need them. We need them to get better. We need them to get better on safety. We need them to get better in terms of productivity. We need to get better in terms of innovation. And when we harness all of that and we can kind of bring that forward, they're proud of what they do. They bring that energy to work. They're part of a winning company and it's infectious, and it really helps us drive our results. So driving that is something that Elizabeth Spence, who is right there in the purple, who leads our HR organization. She and I work on all the time. So the other part of that, that I'll also say is women in leadership is something that is really important for us at Graphic Packaging. Right now, our women leadership is around 25%. We're going to take it up over 35% over this next 7 years. It's an important element for us. We get a lot of -- you think about what that's like in my staff room, we have a staff meeting, and it's kind of funny, and I joke about this sometimes is you look at women in terms of many family units out there. They're the largest population in terms of making decisions around purchasing decisions as well as provisioning for families and they're -- the people that are part of their family. And I'll be railing on something I joke about and I say, this is -- and I'll look over and Elizabeth and Lauren and Maggie might be laughing like you really don't work that way. And that's important for me to know, and it's important for all of our business to have insight like that because it helps us get better. It helps us stay very close to the consumer, and that's insight that helps us drive our innovation. So it's a big goal for us. Our ethnic diversity, we want to make sure that, that's representative of what we see in the U.S. around 40%. And, we've made good progress on that over the last few years. We have more work to do. Some of our locations are harder than others, but this is an important goal. We want a very inclusive company and it's one that, again, when we have that level of inclusivity and that diversity, we get better insights into what is going on in the marketplace and what we can do to take advantage of it to service customers better. Last bullet point here is really enhancing the communities we operate in. This is really important. We've got 100 facilities around the globe. And what we want is that logo to mean something in each one of those towns. Of course, our employees are proud to work there. We want the community to be glad that Graphic Packaging is there. That -- it's seen and has a reputation as a safe, sustainable company that invests in its employees and in its facility. When we have a job opening, we want many people to apply because that's a place where ultimately we want to -- where they want to work. So that's a key focus for us. We've made progress in this regard. We're going to make more as part of our Vision 2030. Transitioning a little bit here to planet. Consumers want more sustainable, functional and convenient packaging. I talked a little bit about that. And our brand owners and retailers know that we can deliver it, and so they're coming to us more and more. Our commitment to you and to our customers is. And all our stakeholders is to steadily and measurably improve our environmental footprint of our consumer packaging. And really, as I said earlier, why is this so important? Because it's not just the reductions that we're driving in our business, but ultimately, what our customers need in order to hit their objectives and our goals our packaging helps them accomplish their goals and the commitments they've made out there. And that's what a true consumer packaging company does that's in a leadership position. So a responsibility we take for -- it's a responsibility we take very seriously, and we've got a high level of confidence that we can hit the plans and targets when we roll out to you today. We have 4 targets for our footprint. First one up is the hit our SBTI targets. And you're going to see Michelle take you through a very detailed look around exactly how we're going to do that. And a big part of that for Graphic Packaging is the decarbonization effort of our wood manufacturing facilities. It's about 75% of all the electricity that we make, as an example, comes from those operations. Right now, -- that particular part of the business is around 67% we make our own. We're going to take that number up over to 90%. And all that's reflected the investment that's required to do, that's all reflected in the targets you're going to see today. We're really excited about that. Again, that helps our customers hit their objectives. And as all of you know, the materials that we make tend to be some of the most recyclable out there. They start with trees, they go through our wood manufacturing facilities and then we're able to recapture them anywhere between 5 and 10x. So it's a circular loop that truly does have a sitting at the prominent spot on a circular economy, and that's exciting. The remaining electricity that we don't generate ourselves, we're going to find ways, which is kind of a hedge, more than anything else, to buy renewable energy. There's a lot of ways you can do that. We're going to do it in Europe. We're going to do it in the U.S., too. But the big part of it, I want you to walk away from Michelle will walk you through this is just how we're going to do this ourselves with our biggest spend, which is at our wood fiber manufacturing mills. We're also going to ensure that 100% of all the fiber that we use is -- goes through a sustainably sourced methodology. This one, I've got a lot of passion around. I actually sit on the sustainable forestry initiative or SFI. Some of you are familiar with that. I've been the Chair of that for last couple of years. Making sure that we can ensure and represent and certify to all of our customers that you can use our material, you can feel good about it and your end-use consumer can really feel good about what they're doing is critical for our business. We're very passionate around that, and it's something that we're really not only for ourselves but for the entire industry, take a leadership role in to make sure that they can feel good about them because it's a great story. We need to make sure no one tarnishes it, and that's what we're all about at Graphic. Okay. Talk a little bit about results. What I can tell you about this is that with Vision 2030, we're going to bring the full force of what we built here to be able to -- whether it's innovation capabilities, our manufacturing capabilities, our execution capabilities to bear for customers. And ultimately, the end-use consumers that use them. And I believe we can actually compete with the very best consumer packaging companies in the world, for sure. For our shareholders, and Steve will talk about some of the specific financial goals, what you can count on from us is that through all economic cycles, you can expect strong financial results. I think the last few years have really demonstrated our ability to be able to do that. The moves we're making, we announced last night, and we'll go forward here today. We'll further build on that. And again, our portfolio will move with the consumer, and so it will reflect that balance and that consistency of the results. So if one side of the business is down, the other side of the business is performing well, that's the balance we sought. That's the companies we built the company we built, and it will be reflected in our results. That again is what it means to be a true consumer packaging company and a leader in that market. Finally, we're going to prioritize our people and our investment in our people because that's how we'll stay on top. We have the company we need today to run it is here. And we're going to bring out some of these investments we're making in people and our sustainability and innovation process in a way that I think will give you more confidence that we can really do all the things that we're saying and hit this ambitious set of targets that we've rolled out as part of Vision 2030. Look, I'm really proud of what we've accomplished here through 2023. I talked about the results earlier today. They were excellent against a very challenging backdrop. But our company is very different in 2024 than we could have ever imagined when we put together Vision 2025. Our innovation is stronger, it's broader and it's deeper. Our team has delivered through exceptionally challenging circumstances, and we've been tested along the way. And we've been tested, we have learned and we're applying that knowledge, which is something that the very best companies always do. We've made excellent progress on our own sustainability program. You're going to -- we're going to make more of it over the next 7 years as Michelle will walk you through. And again, we are a critical part of our customers meeting their sustainability targets. Our goal is to make graphic packaging the undisputed consumer packaging company in the world in our Vision 2020 -- our Vision 2030, that's too many visions. The Vision 2030 really puts that stake in the ground today, and we're very excited to have you here. So with that, I'm going to ask Maggie to come up, and she's going to go in a little deeper in terms of bringing some of the things that I talked about to life. Maggie Bidlingmaier: Good morning, everyone. I'm very excited to be here today to share with you information about the innovation capability at Graphic Packaging. As Mike just mentioned, innovation is a core component of our Vision 2030. And after my discussion today, I hope you have really 3 key takeaways. The first is the demand from consumers for more sustainable packaging is accelerating. Secondly, our innovation -- our global innovation capability is competitively advantaged and ready to meet that opportunity. And lastly, we see a $15 billion sales opportunity for paperboard packaging, which gives us confidence in our path to a 2% growth in innovation to achieve our vision. As Mike mentioned, our products are in the hands of millions of customers multiple times per day. Over the last several years, we've made many investments to dramatically expand our global product and our customer portfolio. We work with the leading companies and brands around the world. And with them, we meet consumers in many of life's everyday moments. We have a great responsibility because our consumer packages are at the interface between our customers' products and the consumer. We have to deliver on a product that meets those consumer needs while also delivering value to the brand owner. Our packaging meets consumers whenever and wherever they consume while also providing convenience, freshness, safety and a host of other functions. We understand there are many trends driving consumer decisions today, health and wellness, convenience, experience, but most importantly, consumers are increasingly concerned about the impact their decisions have on the environment. Consumers want more sustainable packaging and 68% of them view that paperboard packaging is more sustainable than other alternatives. They're putting a lot of care and thought into the decisions they're making around the products and the brands that they buy and how they impact the environment. This is increasingly true for the next generation of consumers. A recent first insight shared that an astounding 73% of consumers and GenZ shoppers are willing to pay more for sustainable products. As a result of this pressure, you're seeing that other stakeholders are driving actions. Retailers and brand owners, they're developing their own sustainability strategies to help meet those consumer expectations to support their own environmental visions while also navigating a very changing regulatory environment. This regulatory environment in the Americas is accelerating, really being primarily led by areas like Canada as well as the coastal regions. And then there are materials like foam that are clearly gaining much broader adoption across the Americas. Leading the way by a long shot in terms of scale and scope is Europe. And Jean-Francois will be sharing more about that acceleration when he gets up here. But activity across all of these stakeholders is accelerating as consumer demand for more sustainable packaging continues to increase. The core at every package we design is really 3 things. Everything starts with what the consumer wants. But we are also obviously very focused on our direct customers and their needs in terms of driving their brand values, their operations and overall value proposition. But we're doing all of that while keeping the environment front and center. We strive for every new package that we introduced to have a smaller environmental impact than what came before. And that's whether that's our package or someone else's package. I want to take a moment to explain how Graphic Packaging manages their innovation capability because we believe it's part of our winning path here. We are very intentional with how we align our people, our structure and our process. And this is especially true since our acquisition of AR Packaging as we become more global. And while we have become a broader, more global footprint, we are still remaining centrally organized. At the same time, we clearly understand that within different geographical areas that there are unique consumer insights, regulatory environments and other insights that require us to maintain a really sharp focus in terms of those regional trends. But to really drive our competitive advantage, we need to be globally connected and ensuring that as we unlock those -- that knowledge and the insights that we get from one customer in one region that we're sharing that to benefit all of our customers and regions across the globe. Today, we have 8 innovation hubs. We have 120 fully dedicated innovation employees, and we protect what we create with nearly 8,000 active patents. We leverage these investments along with the structure and process that we drive to keep accelerating our launches of new unique solutions that help support the customers and the markets that we're in across this global network. Next, I want to take a couple of minutes to walk you through the innovation journey that we take hand in hand with our customers to develop these solutions. Over the past 7 years, we've made significant investments in many key areas across this process in terms of people and capability, and we are delivering more value for our customers than we have in the past. Starting with market insights. We have made investments in our consumer insights capability, along with marketing. We've made talent acquisitions from CPG companies like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. And as a result, we're seeing faster consumer insights while also developing stronger relationships with our direct customers and retailers to unlock their unique needs and goals. One of the areas that I was most excited about when I joined Graphic Packaging is in the first few months when it started to unveil to me how deep our talent and our capabilities are within R&D and the creative design group. I can't express how impressive and extensive these capabilities are. And more recently, obviously, going beyond that really competitive foundation that we have, we've been investing in things to help accelerate the front part of that funnel, things like rapid prototyping. So we can be in an ideation session with one of our customers at one of our 8 innovation hubs, and we can be ideating and creating new packaging concepts, and we can turn that into a tangible sample on that day, which is very powerful, and it really drives speed in our process. When I think about all the centers of excellence that we have across the company that comprise all the components of packaging, it's very extensive. Everything from our paper science capabilities, our overall paper packaging capabilities, really strong breadth across material science. And then you take our machine capabilities on top of it, and it really is unmatched. And what it allows us to do is to really drive innovation across our entire value chain that we operate in. And that's really critical important when we think about the creative design process because one of the most important things that we do is when we design a new package, we are designing that with the end in mind. And what I mean by that is our teams are looking at that package, and they're being able to adjust and understand how to develop that, so it can apply seamlessly into our manufacturing and our supply chain as well as to our customers, which is even more critical. This is what helps us drive cost efficiency and speed to our innovation funnel. Also, we have some other fun new tools in terms of 3D visualization and also using augmented reality. And this helps us make designs come to live faster than ever before. We are leaders in the design and implementation of packaging machinery, which in some cases, is a critical component of our overall solution. This is something that we've developed for many years as leaders in the beverage market, but we're finding new homes for this capability in the Food segment as well. But be very clear, our #1 goal when we design new packaging is to get it to work in the existing machine and equipment at our customers. That's what really drives cost effectiveness and speed to the market. In the event that we have new innovative solutions that do require machines, our team is extremely capable to help them both in the testing and the piloting phase as well as a full global rollout when it's ready. They are very good at designing machine types that are flexible, which is important to accommodate different substrates as well as different sizes of substrates while also minimizing the footprint impact of that machinery for that precious manufacturing space at our customers. The final stage is commercialization, which is very complex, and this is where -- this requires a very close working relationship with our customers to make that happen seamlessly. We have dedicated technical resources around the globe to help execute on these pilots as well as these experiments and these pilots. And at the same time, we have unmatched scale with over 100 manufacturing facilities with discrete printing and finishing capabilities that allow us to meet our customers wherever they are. No one else can match the scale that we deliver. And our large global customers really value that about Graphic Packaging. At the same time, we provide a lot of benefit to the small- and medium-sized brands as they can benefit from the sophistication of our innovation capabilities. And we really value working with the small to medium brands as well because they are often early adopters of some of these innovations. All in all, this journey that we go on with our customers is anything but linear, but it's -- I hope that you can take away a lot of -- obviously not able to talk about all the things that we've been doing, but I hope you take away and understand that we've made an incredible amount of investments and advancements. And again, having worked for lots of other companies, I cannot tell you how impressed I felt like I had the lottery when I started unveiling some of the key technical capabilities and you pair that with the tailwinds of sustainability, and it's a really exciting place to be. Our capabilities, our team and our collaborative process is really helping us drive to new and exciting winning solutions. So speaking of winning solutions. We have an unmatched portfolio of 5 global innovation platforms that are competitively advantaged and constitute an opportunity of $15 billion for paper packaging. Some of you may recall the unveiling, that Mike was just talking about, of our Vision 2025. At that time, we identified a $5 billion opportunity. So as part of these investments that we've accelerated as a company, we've been able to triple our addressable opportunity during that time. In addition, these platforms offer a value proposition over and above sustainability. There are discrete value propositions related to functionality and convenience for these products. And equally important is they are leverageable across our geographies, across markets, product categories, and they are ready to be deployed at scale. In addition to packaging innovations, we've been busy innovating on paperboard with the launch of our most recent PaceSetter Rainier. Customers and consumers are asking for recycled content. As a result of our 2 transformational investments in recycling paperboard, this has enabled us to create a unique sheet that brings many of the advantages that bleached board has today. With this new sheet, it's going to allow us to access underdeveloped markets here in the Americas, like oral and personal care, health care and beauty. The good news is as a result of our acquisition of AR Packaging, we have strong strategic relationships with the global brand owners that support these markets. I'm very excited about PaceSetter Rainier. And while it's still relatively new, we are getting very positive feedback from our customers and the market. And to be clear, we view this as an incremental opportunity, that's over and above the $15 billion, that I just highlighted for the Consumer Packaging Innovation. Next, I'm going to take a drink of water. Next, I want to highlight how these 5 global innovation platforms and PaceSetter Rainier come to life, in the retail and foodservice channels that we operate in. Traditionally, our stronghold has been packaging in the center of the store in cookies and crackers and cereal and pasta. These transformational investments that we've made in recycled paperboard, has secured our long-term advantage in these categories. The expansion of our diverse capabilities and portfolio, let us move with the consumer, as their spending habits shift between traditional grocery store, club stores, e-commerce, and quick service restaurants. The next slides I'm going to walk through each of the 5 platforms and give you an example of a couple of the innovations and help them become more real for you. Our products like paper seal and punnets are expanding Paperboard Packaging. We have a lot of Ps in this business, I've realized. Yes. Moving those to the perimeter, another P, outside of the center of the store, into areas like the deli, in the bakery, in the produce section and in products like fresh proteins and fresh pasta. At the same time, consumers are increasingly asking for more convenience, when they prepare their foods. Our proprietary microwave and convection oven technology allow us to work with our top branded customers to provide products that not only give you that convenience but they do it without sacrificing quality for themselves, as well as their families. One of the most exciting developments in our platform here is the work that we've been doing to drive paperboard substitution for film, both in Retail as well as in our Foodservice. We expect this opportunity to continue to grow based on foam regulation expanding. And this portfolio is well positioned with unique solutions, that offer performance characteristics that either meet or exceed foam today. Many of you have seen our Chick-fil-A, Cold&Go Cups are some great examples out there for you to take a look at. And this is an area where, obviously, it provides benefits in terms of insulation for beverage in the quick service market, and we'll continue to drive penetration of that across those markets. At the same time, we've developed a unique microwave coating, that will allow our Cup portfolio to move into the Food section of the grocery store and other channels. We have a recent launch with Nissin Cup Noodles, that's a microwavable product, which I'll share a little bit more information about that in a bit. But this product is allowing us to move into those types of applications that support things like noodles and other ready-to-eat microwaveable meals. Our Boardio canister was originally developed by AR packaging. This gained early traction in Europe as brand owners were facing oncoming regulation. Many of these same global brands are looking to utilize this canister in the Americas market as well. And this slide, as you can see here, is being used to replace other types of packaging materials, like plastic, metal and composite packaging. The original package was actually delivered -- developed for infant formula, but it's finding its ways in many new segments, just a handful here highlighted. As many of you know, we have a strong position in the beverage market today. However, our new innovative offerings allows solutions for customers, who are looking to replace their plastic rings and shrink film, across the globe. Our comprehensive portfolio of multipack products and machinery, it's equipped to accommodate all the beverage formats that are in the market today. We've since expanded these into newer markets outside of beverage into food, as you can see examples here. And we're excited about that because we know as club store volume continues to grow, we're seeing that the multipack configuration is gaining in popularity. You can see here examples of condiments and sauces, and it works well in other cylindrical food items. Club store, they are accelerating. And the good news is
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Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) Faces Downward Trend in Price Targets Amid Financial Challenges

  • The consensus price target for Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) has decreased from $31.5 to $28 over the past year, indicating more conservative expectations from analysts.
  • GPK reported quarterly earnings of $0.59 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate and showing a decline from the previous year's $0.75 per share.
  • Despite a decrease in net sales and net income for the full year 2024, GPK is focusing on growth through strategic initiatives like Vision 2030 and renewable energy investments.

Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) is a prominent player in the fiber-based packaging solutions industry, catering to sectors like food, beverage, and consumer products. The company operates through three segments: Paperboard Mills, Americas Paperboard Packaging, and Europe Paperboard Packaging. They offer products such as coated unbleached kraft, coated recycled paperboard, and solid bleached sulfate paperboard, along with packaging items like folding cartons, cups, lids, and food containers.

The consensus price target for GPK's stock has seen a downward trend over the past year. A year ago, the average price target was $31.5, which decreased to $29 in the last quarter and further dropped to $28 in the last month. This trend suggests that analysts have become more conservative in their expectations for GPK's stock performance, as highlighted by Raymond James, which has set a price target of $25.50 for GPK.

This shift in target prices could be influenced by various factors, including market conditions and company performance. GPK reported a quarterly earnings of $0.59 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.63 per share. This performance also marks a decline from the $0.75 per share earnings reported in the same quarter last year, indicating a challenging period for the company.

For the full year 2024, GPK achieved net sales of $8.8 billion, a decrease from $9.4 billion in 2023. The net income for the year was $658 million, down from $723 million the previous year. The adjusted EBITDA was $1.68 billion, compared to $1.88 billion in 2023, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.1%, slightly lower than the 19.9% margin in 2023. These figures reflect a decline in financial performance, which may have contributed to the downward trend in price targets.

Despite these challenges, GPK has launched Vision 2030, aiming for positive packaging volume growth and innovation sales growth of $205 million. The company also executed a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement to boost renewable energy use in Europe and repurchased 2% of its common shares, returning $322 million of capital to stockholders. These strategic initiatives may influence future stock performance and investor sentiment.

Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) Faces Downward Trend in Price Targets Amid Financial Challenges

  • The consensus price target for Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) has decreased from $31.5 to $28 over the past year, indicating more conservative expectations from analysts.
  • GPK reported quarterly earnings of $0.59 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate and showing a decline from the previous year's $0.75 per share.
  • Despite a decrease in net sales and net income for the full year 2024, GPK is focusing on growth through strategic initiatives like Vision 2030 and renewable energy investments.

Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) is a prominent player in the fiber-based packaging solutions industry, catering to sectors like food, beverage, and consumer products. The company operates through three segments: Paperboard Mills, Americas Paperboard Packaging, and Europe Paperboard Packaging. They offer products such as coated unbleached kraft, coated recycled paperboard, and solid bleached sulfate paperboard, along with packaging items like folding cartons, cups, lids, and food containers.

The consensus price target for GPK's stock has seen a downward trend over the past year. A year ago, the average price target was $31.5, which decreased to $29 in the last quarter and further dropped to $28 in the last month. This trend suggests that analysts have become more conservative in their expectations for GPK's stock performance, as highlighted by Raymond James, which has set a price target of $25.50 for GPK.

This shift in target prices could be influenced by various factors, including market conditions and company performance. GPK reported a quarterly earnings of $0.59 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.63 per share. This performance also marks a decline from the $0.75 per share earnings reported in the same quarter last year, indicating a challenging period for the company.

For the full year 2024, GPK achieved net sales of $8.8 billion, a decrease from $9.4 billion in 2023. The net income for the year was $658 million, down from $723 million the previous year. The adjusted EBITDA was $1.68 billion, compared to $1.88 billion in 2023, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.1%, slightly lower than the 19.9% margin in 2023. These figures reflect a decline in financial performance, which may have contributed to the downward trend in price targets.

Despite these challenges, GPK has launched Vision 2030, aiming for positive packaging volume growth and innovation sales growth of $205 million. The company also executed a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement to boost renewable energy use in Europe and repurchased 2% of its common shares, returning $322 million of capital to stockholders. These strategic initiatives may influence future stock performance and investor sentiment.

Graphic Packaging Holding Company's Financial Performance and Strategic Moves

  • Missed EPS estimates: GPK reported an EPS of $0.46, missing the estimated $0.63, indicating financial pressures.
  • Revenue shortfall: Reported revenue was $2.095 billion, slightly under the estimated $2.172 billion, with a year-over-year decrease in net sales.
  • Strategic initiatives: Launched Vision 2030, returned to positive packaging volume growth, and executed a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement to enhance renewable energy use in Europe.

Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) is a prominent player in the sustainable consumer packaging industry. The company specializes in providing innovative packaging solutions to a wide range of consumer goods. GPK competes with other packaging giants like International Paper and WestRock. Despite its strong market presence, GPK's recent financial performance has shown some challenges.

On February 4, 2025, GPK reported earnings per share (EPS) of $0.46, missing the estimated $0.63. This decline from the previous year's EPS of $0.75 highlights ongoing financial pressures.

GPK's revenue for the reported period was $2.095 billion, slightly under the estimated $2.172 billion. This aligns with the full-year 2024 net sales of $8.8 billion, a decrease from $9.4 billion in 2023. The company's net income for the year was $658 million, down from $723 million in the previous year, reflecting a challenging market environment.

Despite these challenges, GPK has made strategic moves to bolster its position. The company launched its Vision 2030 initiative and returned to positive packaging volume growth in the latter half of the year. It also achieved innovation sales growth of $205 million and executed a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement to enhance renewable energy use in Europe.

Financially, GPK's metrics provide a mixed picture. The company's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is approximately 12.16, and its price-to-sales ratio is about 0.90. The enterprise value to sales ratio stands at 1.48, while the enterprise value to operating cash flow ratio is around 16.38. These figures, along with a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.72 and a current ratio of 1.46, indicate the company's financial structure and market valuation.

Graphic Packaging Holding Company's Financial Performance and Strategic Moves

  • Missed EPS estimates: GPK reported an EPS of $0.46, missing the estimated $0.63, indicating financial pressures.
  • Revenue shortfall: Reported revenue was $2.095 billion, slightly under the estimated $2.172 billion, with a year-over-year decrease in net sales.
  • Strategic initiatives: Launched Vision 2030, returned to positive packaging volume growth, and executed a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement to enhance renewable energy use in Europe.

Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) is a prominent player in the sustainable consumer packaging industry. The company specializes in providing innovative packaging solutions to a wide range of consumer goods. GPK competes with other packaging giants like International Paper and WestRock. Despite its strong market presence, GPK's recent financial performance has shown some challenges.

On February 4, 2025, GPK reported earnings per share (EPS) of $0.46, missing the estimated $0.63. This decline from the previous year's EPS of $0.75 highlights ongoing financial pressures.

GPK's revenue for the reported period was $2.095 billion, slightly under the estimated $2.172 billion. This aligns with the full-year 2024 net sales of $8.8 billion, a decrease from $9.4 billion in 2023. The company's net income for the year was $658 million, down from $723 million in the previous year, reflecting a challenging market environment.

Despite these challenges, GPK has made strategic moves to bolster its position. The company launched its Vision 2030 initiative and returned to positive packaging volume growth in the latter half of the year. It also achieved innovation sales growth of $205 million and executed a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement to enhance renewable energy use in Europe.

Financially, GPK's metrics provide a mixed picture. The company's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is approximately 12.16, and its price-to-sales ratio is about 0.90. The enterprise value to sales ratio stands at 1.48, while the enterprise value to operating cash flow ratio is around 16.38. These figures, along with a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.72 and a current ratio of 1.46, indicate the company's financial structure and market valuation.

Graphic Packaging Drop 6% Despite Better-Than-Expected Q4 Results

Graphic Packaging (NYSE:GPK) shares fell more than 6% on Tuesday despite the company reporting better-than-expected Q4 results. EPS came in at $0.59, compared to the Street estimate of $0.58. Revenue was $2.39 billion, better than the street estimate of $2.33 billion.

According to the analysts at Deutsche Bank, Graphic Packaging continues to beat expectations on underlying performance, but the market clearly did not appreciate the company's decision to increase CAPEX in order to construct a greenfield CRB mill that will add a net 200,000 tons of capacity in 2026.

The company's 2023 EBITDA target of $1.7-$1.9 billion was also above the Street estimate of $1.746 billion.