Greif, Inc. (NYSE:GEF) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call March 2, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Ole Rosgaard - President and CEO

Larry Hilsheimer - CFO

Matt Leahy - VP, Corporate Development & IR

Conference Call Participants

Ghansham Panjabi - Robert W. Baird

Gabe Hajde - Wells Fargo

Aadit Shrestha - Stifel Financial Corp.

Justin Bergner - Gabelli Funds

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Greif First Quarter 2023 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Matt Leahy. Please go ahead, sir.

Matt Leahy

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Greif's first 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 Regulation Fair Disclosure, please ask questions regarding issues you consider important, because we are prohibited from discussing material non-public information with you on an individual basis. Please limit yourself to 1Question and one follow-up before returning to the queue.

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’ll be referencing certain non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP metrics can be found in the appendix of today's presentation.

And now, I’ll turn the presentation over to Ole, on Slide 3.

Ole Rosgaard

Thanks, Matt and good morning, everyone. During our first quarter 2023, Greif took several important steps towards advancing our Build to Last strategy. We completed the acquisition of Lee Container in mid-December, and are rapidly integrating this new growth business into Greif. We proudly announced our new 2030 science-aligned sustainability targets, a roadmap for achieving our goals around climate, waste reduction, and circularity. We divested one of our higher cost CRB mills, and today, announced that we will be reinvesting that capital into another growth platform with a significant majority ownership in Centurion Container, our IBC reconditioning joint venture. We are increasing our ownership from approximately 9% to 80% with a path to full ownership in the next few years. I am proud of the progress made so far in 2023, and I look forward to building on this new foundation in the year to come.