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Text: Joining us on our call today are Mike Doss, the Company's President and CEO, and Steve Scherger, Executive Vice President and CFO.
These risks and uncertainties and include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in the beliefs and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Our performance in the quarter was strong.
We successfully navigated a complex supply chain and labor environment, we raised prices where necessary to offset accelerated commodity input cost inflation, we received the required regulatory approvals for our AR Packaging acquisition and made significant strides toward completion of our transformational CRB platform optimization process.
All of these accomplishments are aligned with the goals we established with Vision 2025, and have us on track to meet or exceed our long-term aspirations for the business.
Demand for more sustainable and circular packaging options continues to accelerate globally.
The ongoing evolution to practice and promote more environmentally responsible behaviors is evidenced by the increasing number of new pledges made by global corporations to eliminate waste and increase the focus on recyclability, all supportive of commitments to lowering carbon footprints.
Examples include proactive announcements by retailers around the world moving to minimize the impact that packaging has on our planet.
Consumers are making their preferences known and companies that are serving them are responding.
The fiber-based packaging solutions we are developing and the role we play in providing consumers with packaging choices to promote a more sustainable and circular economy provide our employees with an immense sense of pride.
This shows through our continued innovation and new product development initiatives along with service levels we provide our customers in today's very challenging supply and labor environment.
We established Vision 2025 in September of 2019 and have demonstrated a very real pivot to organic growth since that time.
While Q3 organic sales declined slightly, we still expect to deliver organic sales growth in 2021 at the high end of our 100 to 200 basis points annual target on top of the 4% organic growth we generated in 2020.
On Slide 3, let me cover additional highlights from the third quarter.
We have been successful in positioning the company to capture growth opportunities in this very strong demand environment.
We are growing with existing customers while ramping up with new ones in new markets.
Momentum for fiber-based consumer packaging solutions is materializing at a time when we are experiencing unprecedented inflation, supply chain bottlenecks, and labor market challenges.
We estimate that the constraints in supply and labor markets resulted in approximately $25 million in delayed sales in the third quarter.
We delivered strong adjusted EBITDA growth of $284 million, up 14% year-over-year.
EBITDA growth was driven by positive price realization of $53 million and favorable net performance of $79 million, which offset unprecedented commodity input cost inflation of $88 million experienced in the quarter.
The current environment with all its twist and turns is not deterring us from the focus on meeting or exceeding our Vision 2025 goals, and capturing global demand for sustainable packaging solutions.
Our dedicated teams are working tirelessly to keep customers in supply while backlogs remain elevated across all our paperboard substrates.
As a result of the continued inflation in commodity input costs, we have taken swift pricing actions to recover the price cost dislocation we are experiencing this year.
We committed the unit price would offset commodity input costs over time and that any dislocation would be short-lived, we are delivering on that promise.
As we have discussed with you over the past several quarters, we have implemented a number of initiatives to reduce pricing and recovery lags with customers and have been negotiating positive modifications of other business terms.
While the inflation we are experiencing this year is one for the history books, we are doing what we said we would do.
Approximately $650 million in pricing initiatives have been implemented and will be recognized over the 2021 and 2022 time horizon.
We recently published our latest comprehensive ESG report.
In it, we outlined the many initiatives underway to further drive sustainability across operations and innovation and product development with the end customer in mind.
We intend to continue to invest in innovation and promote progress and sustainability to support the migration to a more circular economy.
10 months earlier we have been pursuing the required regulatory approvals for the AR Packaging acquisition we announced in May of this year.
I'm pleased to report that we have received the final necessarily regulatory approvals this month and we are working toward a November 1st close.
In addition, our CRB platform optimization project remains on track for a start-up of coated recycled paperboard production on our K2 machine in the fourth quarter.
Turning now to Slide 4, you will see the innovation powerhouse that the combination of AR Packaging will create where the large distributed footprint of AR Packaging, it's 25 converting facilities across Eastern and Western Europe add significant scale and cost-efficiency benefits.
The completion of this transformational acquisition extends our global reach, expands our service offerings, and advances our commitment to sustainable packaging solutions for customers around the world.
We intend to share our growth plans and milestones for the integration of AR Packaging along with an update on Vision 2025 when we report our fourth quarter and full year 2021 results.
Turning to Slide 5.
In a second extremely impactful and well-time strategic initiative, you can see the picture of our new state-of-the-art K2 CRB machine.
Our team is executing a significant investment in our paperboard capabilities.
The build-out and start-up of the K2 machine in Kalamazoo, Michigan is the largest component of our CRB platform optimization project, and we are on track for paperboard production to begin in the fourth quarter.
We are well into the operational readiness space, we have our teams in place, and we are completing the most extensive training effort in our company's history.
We look forward to bringing this world-class, lower-cost, higher-quality CRB platform investment to light over the coming quarters, working with our customers to grow their commitment to the recycled fiber-based solutions while generating the returns we are committed to achieving.
Turning to Slide 6, I will provide a few additional remarks on the current environment for pricing and the positive momentum we have to offset historically high commodity input cost inflation.
We have executed $63 million, a positive price that is flowing through the business over the first nine months of 2021, and we expect to realize approximately $77 million of positive pricing during the fourth quarter.
We're currently targeting $510 million of pricing in 2022 based on implemented and recognized pricing initiatives.
The price actions are intended to fully offset the inflation we are experiencing across a wide array of commodity input costs.
In total, at this point, we expect to execute approximately $650 million in price actions over the 2021 and 2022 time horizon.
As I have shared today, global demand for fiber-based packaging solutions continues to grow.
On Slide 7, let me touch on the steady and consistent nature of the value paperboard substrates have earned over time.
Over the 15-year period captured here, you can see the steady but increasing pricing for our paperboard substrates.
This can be interpreted to a healthy underlying demand for paperboard solutions, supply levels required to meet customer demand, and the introduction of new packaging solutions driving growth in existing and new addressable markets.
We surpassed our net organic sales growth goal in 2020 delivering 4% growth, and we expect to deliver at the high end of our targeted 100 to 200 basis points goal this year.
Notably, this year's expected net organic growth of approximately 200 basis points reflects growth on top of the very strong growth we drove in 2020.
The year-to-date picture on the slide tells the same story.
Net organic sales have experienced growth of 2% compared to the same period in 2020, and the two-year compounded annual growth rate for organic sales since 2019 is 3%.
This trajectory is consistent with our organic growth expectations for the business as we continue to see conversions to fiber-based packaging solutions.
We have positioned the company to capture growth opportunities in the years ahead, and we've accomplished a great deal so far this year.
We look forward to closing the acquisition of AR Packaging in the next week, and we look forward to closing the acquisition of AR Packaging in the last week, and the start-up of our K2 machine in the fourth quarter.
Simply put, we're running a different race.
The strategic priorities we are focused on and executing are redefining our leadership in the industry.
Moving to Slide 9, focused on key financial highlights.
Net sales increased 5% or $84 million from the prior year period to $1.8 billion.
The year-over-year increase in sales was driven by higher pricing flowing through the business and acquisitions.
Adjusted EBITDA increased 14% to $284 million resulting in an improved adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.9%.
Adjusted earnings per share grew 31% to $0.34 a share.
Finally, our integration rate increased to 73% as we continue to internalize all paperboard into our converting operations.
On Slide 10 and 11, you'll see our revenue and EBITDA waterfalls.
The drivers of the 5% year-over-year increase in sales were $53 million in pricing, $20 million of higher volume mix and $11 million of favorable foreign exchange.
Adjusted EBITDA increased $34 million or 14% year-over-year to $284 million in the third quarter versus the prior year period.
The increase is low given accelerated commodity input cost inflation that materialized in the quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA growth was driven by $53 million in price, $3 million in volume mix, and $79 million in improved net productivity.
Adjusted EBITDA was unfavorably impacted by $88 million of commodity input cost inflation, and $13 million of labor, benefits, and other inflation.
On Slide 12, you will find additional financial and market detail.
Our foodservice business continue to recover from last year, growing 11% year-over-year.
Our food, beverage, and consumer sales improved 3% including acquisitions.
9 point to $25 million in delayed sales resulting from supply chain and labor market constraints during the quarter.
All the supply chain bottlenecks impacted all areas of our business.
Labor availability challenges are more specific to our foodservice business as we continue to ramp up production from the declines experienced in 2020.
Without these delayed sales, net organic sales growth would have been flat for the quarter, in line with our expectations.
AF&PA industry operating rates were strong again in the third quarter.
CRB was 95% while SBS improved sequentially and was 96% at the end of the quarter.
Our CUK operating rate continue to be well about 95%.
These operating rates reflect the strong demand environment for paperboard.
AF&PA third quarter data also showed continued declines in industry inventory levels with balances at multi-year levels.
Backlogs were elevated at eight-plus weeks across CUK and CRB and on the six-plus weeks in SBS.
We ended the quarter with net leverage of 3.97 times.
I will discuss our cash generation expectations with you shortly.
We have clear line of sight to bring leverage down to 3.5 times or lower at the end of 2022, after leverage peaks in the fourth quarter due to the financing for AR Packaging acquisition.
Global liquidity was $1.8 billion at the end of the third quarter.
Importantly, after we found and complete the AR Packaging acquisition, our global liquidity will remain substantial with approximately $1 billion available.
Turning now to full year 2021 guidance on Slide 13.
We've updated guidance to reflect additional price actions, higher commodity input cost inflation, higher net performance, and the assumption AR Packaging as part of our business effective November 1.
2021 adjusted EBITDA is projected to be in a range of $1.04 billion $1.06 billion.
The largest important of the EBITDA guidance change is the accelerated commodity input cost inflation occurring in the second half 2021.
As Mike mentioned, we are actively taking the price actions necessary to offset this increased level of inflation.
We anticipate cash flow will be in the range of $100 million to $150 million for the year.
Capital spending has increased modestly driven by inflation across raw materials and the labor required to complete critical strategic projects on time.
We continue to be very confident.
In the guard rails we provided last quarter for adjusted EBITDA in the $1.4 billion-plus range.
Importantly, on this slide, you can see the components and the walk through the substantial estimated EBITDA growth we will be driving next year.
AR Packaging and Americraft are expected to contribute $160 million and $30 million before synergies respectively.
For the base business, it is reasonable to assume at least $20 million from our traditional EBITDA drivers of volume mix and net performance, more than offsetting labor, benefits, other inflation, and FX.
The first $50 million of incremental EBITDA from our Kalamazoo project and a minimum recovery of $170 million of 2021 price cost dislocation provided a clear step-change higher to adjusted EBITDA of $1.4 billion-plus in 2022.
The significant expected growth in EBITDA coupled with our commitment to meaningfully lower capital expenditure next year following the large capital project to Kalamazoo, result in significant cash flow generation.
The material EBITDA growth and cash flow generation projections give us line of sight to year-end 2022 leverage at 3.5 times or lower.
We look forward to providing you with more detailed 2022 guidance when we meet with you in February.

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q3 adjusted earnings per share $0.34.
q3 sales rose 5 percent to $1.782 billion.
net organic sales declined 1% during quarter as supply chain and labor market constraints delayed sales.
remain on track to achieve approximately 200 basis points of full year organic sales growth.
executing approximately $650 million in pricing actions to address commodity input cost inflation.

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