Greif, Inc. (NYSE:GEF) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript December 7, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Matt Leahy - VP of Corporate Development and IR

Ole Rosgaard - President and CEO

Larry Hilsheimer - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Ghansham Panjabi - Baird

Roger Spitz - Bank of America

Gabe Hajde - Wells Fargo

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Greif Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this call may be recorded.

I would like to turn the call over to Matt Leahy. You may begin.

Matt Leahy

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. And first, let me apologize for the technical difficulties on our side. We were dialed in and for some reason we lost audio and we've been troubleshooting for the last several minutes. We truly appreciate your patience. Welcome to Greif’s fourth 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. And in accordance with regulation fair disclosure, please ask questions regarding issues you consider important because we're prohibited from discussing material and non-public information with you on an individual basis.

Please turn to Slide 2. As a reminder, during today's call, we'll make forward-looking statements involving plans, expectations, and beliefs related to future events and actual results could differ materially from those discussed. Additionally, we'll be referencing certain non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliation to the most directly comfortable GAAP metrics can be found in the appendix of today's presentation.

And now with that, I'd like to turn the presentation over to Ole on Slide 3.

Ole Rosgaard

Thanks, Matt, and good morning everyone and let me also apologize for the technical difficulties we had this morning. Looking back on fiscal year 2023, the second fiscal year on our Build to Last strategy, I'm humbled and in awe of the progress of our global Greif team has made despite extraordinary macroeconomic headwinds. This year challenged us to execute with continued precision and excellence in a complex operating environment. I'm proud to say that in the face of ongoing demand challenges, the hard work from our teams resulted in the second best year in Greif's history on an adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow basis, surpassed only by our exceptional performance in 2022.