Greif, Inc. (NYSE:GEF) Q3 2023 Results Conference Call August 31, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Matt Leahy - Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations

Ole Rosgaard - President and Chief Executive Officer

Larry Hilsheimer - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Michael Hoffman - Stifel

Ghansham Panjabi - Baird

George Staphos - Bank of America

Gabe Hadi - Wells Fargo

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Greif Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

And I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Matt Leahy. Mr. Leahy, please go ahead.

Matt Leahy

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Greif's Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Conference Call. This is Matt Leahy, Greif's Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. And I'm joined by Ole Rosgaard, Greif's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Larry Hilsheimer, Greif's Chief Financial Officer. We will take questions at the end of today's call. In accordance with regulations fair disclosure, please ask questions regarding issues you consider important because we are prohibited from discussing material nonpublic information with you on an individual basis. Please turn to Slide 2. As a reminder, during today's call, we will make forward-looking statements involving plans, expectations and beliefs related to future events. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed. Additionally, we will be referencing certain non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures [Technical Difficulty] the appendix of today's presentation. And now I turn the presentation over to Ole on Slide 3.

Ole Rosgaard

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Our global Greif team executed very well in our fiscal third quarter and posted strong performance despite a continuation of historic volume headwinds. Our teams are leaning on our Build to Last strategy to drive results in this difficult environment and I could not be more prouder of the work we are doing to manage and improve the business and better serve customers. Our performance in the first nine months of 2023 with strong EBITDA performance and margins and free cash flow conversion well above our targeted 50% is a testament to the growing resilience of our business model and our commitment to both manage the present while building the future. Before further covering our results, I want to share an exciting update on two of our key missions in our Build to Last strategy, creating thriving communities is a mission devoted to cultivating a culture of appreciation, inclusion and recognition for all our internal colleagues and external stakeholders. In the third quarter, we launched our Colleague Stock Purchase Plan, a program that enables colleagues from corporate down through production to acquire Greif Class A shares at a discount to market prices. We believe in the power of ownership to drive greater accountability and commitment to excellence across the organization. And this program will provide the means for our colleagues to participate in the economic benefits of value creation. I'm proud to welcome our colleagues to the table as fellow owners of our company and look forward to expanding this program in the months and years to come.