Crown Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CCK) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call April 25, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Kevin Clothier - Senior Vice President and CFO

Tim Donahue - President and CEO

Conference Call Participants

Christopher Parkinson - Mizuho

Ghansham Panjabi - Baird

Mike Leithead - Barclays

Kash Rangan - Bank of America

Phil Ng - Jefferies

Gabe Hajde - Wells Fargo Securities

Bryan Burgmeier - Citi Group

Mike Roxland - Truist Securities

Angel Castillo - Morgan Stanley

Kyle White - Deutsche Bank

Arun Viswanathan - RBC Capital Markets

Adam Samuelson - Goldman Sachs

Jeff Zekauskas - J.P. Morgan

Cleve Rueckert - UBS

Operator

Good morning. And welcome to Crown Holdings First Quarter 2023 Conference Call. Your lines have been placed on a listen-only until the question-and-answer session. Please be advised this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Clothier, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Sir, you may begin.

Kevin Clothier

Thank you, Marcia [ph], and good morning. With me on today’s call is Tim Donahue, President and Chief Executive Officer. If you do not already have the earnings release, it is available on our website at crowncork.com.

On this call, as in the earnings release, we will be making a number of forward-looking statements. Actual results could vary materially from such statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to vary is contained in the press release, in our SEC filings our Form 10-K for 2022 and subsequent filings.

First quarter earnings were $0.85 a share, compared to $1.74 a share in the prior first quarter. Adjusted earnings per share were $1.20 in the quarter, compared to $2.01 in 2022. Net sales in the quarter were down 6% from the prior year reflecting higher unit sales volumes in Americas Beverage, offset by lower unit volumes in most other businesses. The pass-through of approximately $100 million of lower raw material costs and $36 million from the impact of a stronger U.S. dollar.

Segment income at $320 million in the quarter, compared to $383 million in the prior year and reflects the benefit of contractual recovery of prior year’s inflationary cost increases in European Beverage, cost reduction initiatives in Transit Packaging, offset by $60 million of year-over-year steel repricing in North America -- in the North American Tinplate businesses. That is $48 million of gains in Q1 of 2022 versus $12 million of losses in Q1 of 2023.