Ardagh Metal Packaging Q3 2025 Earnings Call - EBITDA Growth at Upper Guidance, Supply Chain Challenges Cautiously Managed

Conference Operator: Welcome to the Ardagh Metal Packaging S. A. Quarterly Results Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I’d like to turn the conference over to Mr.

Stephen Lyons. Please go ahead.

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Thank you, operator, and welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining today for Ardagh Metal Packaging’s third quarter twenty twenty five earnings call, which follows the earlier publication of AMP’s earnings release for the third quarter. I’m joined today by Oliver Graham, AMP’s Chief Executive Officer and Stephane Schellinger, AMP’s Chief Financial Officer. Before moving to your questions, we will first provide some introductory remarks around AMP’s performance and outlook. AMP’s earnings release and related materials for the third quarter can be found on AMP’s website at ir.ardammetalpackaging.com.

Remarks today will include certain forward looking statements and include use of non IFRS financial measures. Actual results could vary materially from such statements. Please review the details of A and P’s forward looking statements disclaimer and reconciliation of non IFRS financial measures to IFRS financial measures in AMP’s earnings release. I will now turn the call over to Oliver Rain.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Thanks, Stephen. We delivered a strong performance in the third quarter with adjusted EBITDA growth of 6% versus the prior year quarter or 3% on a constant currency basis. Our adjusted EBITDA results of $2.00 $8,000,000 was towards the upper end of our guidance with both segments performing broadly in line with our expectations. Adjusted EBITDA growth in the quarter was supported by shipments growth in Europe and North America, lower operational and overhead costs as well as favorable category mix. Although global volumes were below our expectations in the quarter, on a year to date basis, they are up over 3% versus the prior year.

The beverage can continues to benefit from innovation and share gains in our customers’ packaging mix underpinning our growth expectations. We continue to progress our sustainability agenda, and our recently published sustainability report highlights strong progress towards our targets in 2024, including a 10% annual reduction in Scope one and two emissions and a 14% reduction in Scope three emissions, with Scope three emissions now 25% below the 2020 baseline. We anticipate further good progress in 2025 and beyond. Turning to A and P’s Q3 results by segment. In Europe, third quarter revenue increased by 9% to $625,000,000 or by 3% on a constant currency basis compared with the same period in 2024, principally due to volume growth.

Shipments grew by 2% for the quarter, driven by growth in energy drinks and faster growing categories such as ciders, ready to drink teas and coffees, wines and water. This growth offset continued weakness in the beer category, which represents over 40% of our European portfolio. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA in Europe increased by 4% to $82,000,000 in line with expectation. On a constant currency basis, adjusted EBITDA reduced by 4% due to input cost recovery headwinds, partly offset by the contribution from higher volumes and favorable category mix. Given the continued softness in the beer category, we now expect full year shipment growth for Europe of low single digit percentage for full year 2025.

As we look into 2026, we continue to expect the market to grow around 3% to 4% and for our volumes to broadly match that growth. In The Americas, revenue in the third quarter increased by 8% to eight zero three million dollars which mainly reflected the pass through of higher input cost to customers, including the impact of the higher Midwest premium in North America. Americas adjusted EBITDA for the quarter increased by 8% to $126,000,000 in line with expectations due to lower operational and overhead costs and favorable category mix, partly offset by the impact of lower volumes in Brazil. In North America, shipments increased by 1% for the quarter, broadly in line with the industry following stronger than expected growth during the first half of the year. Year to date, North America shipments are up by 5% ahead of the overall industry.

The slower rate of growth during the quarter reflects some moderation in industry growth rates as well as temporary operational challenges. These included a modest impact related to aluminum can sheet supply as well as some temporary plant and network issues. We continue to monitor the metal supply situation as we progress through Q4. If the supply chain performs as currently projected, we anticipate only a modest impact to our expected Q4 North America performance. Customer demand for non alcoholic beverages in cans in North America remains strong.

And as such, we maintain our guidance for full year North America shipments of a mid single digit percentage growth. Looking into 2026, we expect industry growth of a low single digit percentage. We expect a somewhat softer outlook for AMP following some volume resets, largely related to specific footprint situations. We anticipate 2026 being a transition year before good growth in 2027 on the back of some contracted additional filling locations and ongoing market growth. In Brazil, third quarter beverage can shipments decreased by 17% largely due to a weak industry backdrop across all categories with industry beer can volumes falling by around 14% due to adverse weather and weak household consumption.

Our weaker performance in Q3 follows a strong performance in the first half of the year. Year to date, Brazil shipments are down 1% versus a mid single digit percentage decline for the rest of the industry. We expect an improved volume trend to Q4 compared to to Q3 and hence full year shipments for Brazil to be broadly in line with the prior year. Looking into 2026, we expect the Brazilian industry to return to growth and for our volumes to broadly track the industry. I’ll hand over now to Stefan to talk you through our financial position for the quarter before finishing with some concluding remarks.

Stephane Schellinger, Chief Financial Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Thanks, Oli, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone. We ended the quarter with a robust liquidity position of over 600,000,000 The net leverage of 5.2 net debt over last twelve months adjusted EBITDA represents a decline of 0.4 times of leverage versus Q2 twenty twenty four, reflecting adjusted EBITDA growth. It remains our expectation that the leverage ratio at year end will be around five times. We reiterate our expectation for adjusted free cash flow for 2025 of at least 150,000,000 In terms of the various components of free cash flow, our expectations are mostly in line with what we said in July. We expect maintenance CapEx of around $135,000,000 lease principal repayments of just over 100,000,000 cash interest of just over $200,000,000 and a small outflow in working capital.

We now expect cash tax to be in the range of 35,000,000 to $40,000,000 gross CapEx to be around $65,000,000 and a small cash exceptional outflow of approximately $15,000,000 Today, we have announced our quarterly ordinary dividend of $0.10 per share. And with that, I’ll hand it back to Olli.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Thanks, Stefan. So before moving to take the questions, just to recap on A and P’s performance and key messages. Firstly, adjusted EBITDA growth in the third quarter of 6% was at the upper end of our guidance range with both segments performing in line with expectations. Adjusted EBITDA growth was supported by shipments growth in both Europe and North America by lower operational and overhead costs and a favorable category mix. And the beverage can continues to outperform other substrates in our customers packaging mix supporting our growth.

Reflecting our resilient performance, we are upgrading our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance. Full year adjusted EBITDA is now expected to be in a range of $720,000,000 to $735,000,000 based on current FX rates. We expect full year shipments growth for AMP to be approximately 3%. Having made these opening remarks, we’ll now proceed to take any questions that you may have.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We’ll take our first question from George Staphos with Bank of America.

George Staphos, Analyst, Bank of America: Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Thanks for the details. Congrats on the progress.

I guess the first question I had only have a couple. Can you talk Ale and Stephane about what if any effects you’re seeing from demand elasticity and higher realized or potentially realized alumina pricing from can sheet within cans both in North America and Brazil and then I guess broadly. And in that regard with Brazil, the down I think you said 17% on weak industry trends. Obviously, others have also put up some weaker industry volumes so far during reporting period in Brazil. Do you sense any of that is a pack shift mix back to other substrates because of in fact higher aluminum prices?

How would you have us think about that? And along with the elasticity question, just can you talk a bit more about what’s baked into your guidance for fourth quarter and realizing you’re not guiding on ’26, just the outlook for ’26 on can sheet. What operational challenges do you are you how are you going to we know what issues hit the supply chain. How are you managing against that? And what’s baked into the extent you can comment?

Thank you.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes. Hi, Josh. So yes, on the first question, I mean, I don’t think we’re seeing a huge amount on demand elasticity at this point. Obviously, everybody more or less everybody will have gone into 2025 pretty hedged. So a lot of the tariff impact won’t come through in North America at this point, probably similar story for Brazil in some respects.

So I don’t think we’re seeing it hugely impacting sales at this point. I think that there’s a bit more risk for 2026 for exactly the same reason that hedges will be rolling. And so you would expect to see some higher aluminum costs come into the supply chain. And then it will be down to whether our customers pass those through or retailers pass those through and then how the consumer reacts in the overall consumer environment. So I think we are probably guiding North America for next year at a market level sort of 1% to 2% and that’s partly reflecting some of that caution about potential inflation in the can.

I think in Brazil, I don’t think we’ve seen a big reversion back into 2A glass. I think it stayed pretty much steady, the shares of cans. It just seems to be a general weakness on the volume level, on the liquid level And we see that in the reporting of the big brewers. And obviously, it was a pretty poor winter, a very cold winter that’s been commented on. And obviously, is a weak consumer backdrop in the category, particularly in beer, but actually soft drinks wasn’t great either.

So I think Brazil is just having a tough year. Again, as we look into 2026, we’d assume that it reverts more back to its long term trends or maybe low to mid singles. And as we said in the remarks, we’d be in line with that. Terms of Q4, so I think the can sheet, we’re cautiously optimistic at this point. Obviously, there’s been a lot of disruption in the supply chain.

We were having it actually before the fire at that key facility. There was already some disruption in the supply chain, which we mentioned. And obviously, the fire didn’t help. At this point, we think we’re managing through. And obviously it gets easier as the quarter progresses because alternative sources of supply can come into the mix and we’re obviously supplied in from various domestic and international sources.

And we also have one of the two new mills in North America now coming online, which is obviously very helpful to the situation. So at the minute, we’re optimistic that we can get through that, as we said in the remarks, with relatively limited impact on North America performance. But we probably did lose one to two points of growth in Q3 across all of the operation issues that included a couple of plants that didn’t perform at the level we’d expected and also the network was under some stress with some seismic issues.

George Staphos, Analyst, Bank of America: Very good. I’ll turn it over. Thank you.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Thanks, George.

Conference Operator: We’ll take our next question from Matt Roberts with Raymond James.

Matt Roberts, Analyst, Raymond James: Hi, Ali, Jeff, Finn and Stephen. Good afternoon. First, on the 2026 growth in North America, it seems like there’s a lot of innovation, potential shelf space distribution opportunities within your energy portfolio. So what’s behind that transition here? And given your exposures, why in line with the market in North America?

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes. Great question. So look, I think we’ve talked about it on calls. It’s been on other calls. There’s a lot of contract reset activity in North America over the last couple of years.

We’re seeing that increasingly settle down now. And we’re broadly very comfortable with the outcomes. We see ourselves increasingly strongly contracted through 2028 and beyond. We do see some softness as we said in 2026 particularly on the 12 ms side of the portfolio due to some resets within those situations. And as I said on the remarks, it’s really about some specific footprint situations.

So by what I mean by that is, for example, we had a customer with a very long freight lane out of the COVID years. We were at one point thinking of building capacity. We decided not to with the overall volume situation. So now there is a plant much closer than our plant and so that naturally reverts. And then another situation example is that one of our competition built a plant during this period of expansion and that plant is now closer to a customer filling location than our plant.

And so we’re seeing some I think relatively natural resets in the market. As you know, I mean, obviously, cans are very susceptible to freight and footprint is critical. So yes, as I say, I think we’re very comfortable with where we’re coming out now. We do see 2026 as a softer year in North America where we will be behind the market. But if we take 2027, we see good growth.

We see we’re gaining a couple of extra filling locations and we see the market growing again. And as you say, I think if you look at the innovation that’s going into the can, look at the way energy has performed this year, that’s a big part of our portfolio. We actually don’t know where that’s going to be. It certainly surprises on the upside this year. I think it’s got good potential next year, probably not to the same level, but it’s a big part of our portfolio.

So yes, we can be optimistic about those kind of categories as well.

Matt Roberts, Analyst, Raymond James: Right, right. Thank you for all the additional color there, Ali. And then speaking of capacity and footprint, last quarter, you noted potential for adds in Europe. I believe it was Southern Europe. But recognizing these projects are long term in nature, has the volume outlook changed either the timing in regard to any potential projects?

Or are you still expecting Europe to be pretty tight, needing additional lines in the future? And any early indications that you’re thinking about CapEx in 2026? Thank you for taking the questions.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: No, pleasure. No, we don’t see any change to timing. So I mean, I think that the Europe market is pretty tight with particularly tight on certain sizes and we’ll address that. That definitely cost us some growth this year. Again, it’s sort of specialty sizes in the season.

We weren’t completely able to follow and that cost us a bit of growth Q2 and probably persisted into Q3. So we’ll do some projects around that in the off season. And then yes, we’re running pretty tight. We’ve got some room for growth with continued improvement in the existing footprint, but we don’t see any change to the timing of needing new capacity. Europe is a long term growth market.

It’s been talked about on other calls. We’re talking 3% to 4%. Some years, it’s been more. Some years, a bit less. But it’s been very consistent as per capita can penetration grows.

So yes, we don’t see anything. It’s obviously had a bit of a weak summer, particularly in the beer category, but we’re very optimistic about that market. And as we said in the remarks, we see ourselves growing in line with the market in 2026.

Matt Roberts, Analyst, Raymond James: Okay. Thank you, again, Ali.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Pleasure.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Stefan Diaz with Morgan Stanley.

Stefan Diaz, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Hi, Hi, Stefan. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just sticking with Europe. So obviously, the can continues to outperform underlying liquids volumes in the region. But in your opinion, how much more runway does the can have for outperformance?

Like for example, if overall liquid demand sort of remains kind of flat to down in Europe, can the can still grow in 2026, 2027 and beyond?

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes, definitely. So I think that if you look at the things that drive the growth, I mean, there’s still significant under penetration of cans relative to other geographies. Some of that is legacy with the German deposit scheme that took all cans out of the German market. So you still see German can growth at very high levels, obviously a big market. You have growth out of two way and plastic in different parts of the region, Eastern Europe.

We have the ongoing sustainability advances of the can relative to other substrates. And obviously, you have in Europe, particularly the energy cost situation that’s impacting glass. So we see a lot of runway for growth for the can in Europe. And I think that view is shared right across the industry and is backed up every quarter. If we look at our performance in the quarter, when we look at our markets that we were in, we were a touch behind, but only a touch behind.

So I think there are always geographic and category mix impacts in individual company growth rates. But overall, we’re happy with our performance, and we definitely see a lot of runway for Cambroach in Europe in the next few years, yes.

Arun Viswanathan, Analyst, RBC Capital: Great. That’s helpful. And then maybe just can you if you could just

Stefan Diaz, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: touch on quarter to date trends by geography and maybe particularly, if you go into detail on Brazil, just given how weak this past quarter was on an industry level and just now how we’re in

Arun Viswanathan, Analyst, RBC Capital: the busy season down there. And then if I

Stefan Diaz, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: could just slip in one more. I might have missed this in the release, but can you quantify the IFRS 15 contract timing benefit? And is this potentially a headwind in 4Q? Thank you.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Sure. So I think I mean, quarter to date, I think trends look good, very much in line with guidance across all geographies. I think Brazil clearly significantly better where we’re guiding. If we’re at the top end of the guidance, then we expect Brazil to be flat growth year on year, which obviously is therefore growth in Q4. And we already see in October significantly better performance than Q3.

So we do see improvement. I think it’s still a bit on the weak side and we’re still maintaining a cautious stance in our guide, but it’s definitely better than Q3. And I think that Europe and North America would just say absolutely in line with where we expect it. So it seems that there’s a reasonable degree of forecastability in our markets right now. I think the specific question on IFRS 15 is just a couple of million dollars, right?

And maybe Stefan, I don’t know that we anticipate anything particular in Q4, but I’ll hand that to you.

Stephane Schellinger, Chief Financial Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: No, I don’t think we expect a major headwind in Q4 from IFRS and sort of yes, it’s sort of around a couple of million dollars sort of in Americas and then also a few more in sort of the European segment. But net net, we don’t expect a major headwind from that.

Stefan Diaz, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Thank you so

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: much. Thanks Stefan.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Josh Spector with UBS.

Josh Spector, Analyst, UBS: Hey, good morning. I just had two questions. One on the cost side is within your comments you talked about less input cost recovery in Europe. I assume that’s non metals related, but can you talk about kind of what that is and if that is something that can be recovered? And then with North America with some of the temporary network issues you’ve called out, I don’t know if you can size that at all.

And is that something that’s resolved? Or is this kind of just an effect of a tighter market maybe leading to inefficiencies that persist? Thanks.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Sure. So taking the North America one first, I think those issues are resolved as we go into Q4. I think that they were a consequence of our strong growth in the first half, particularly on certain sizes. So we ended up with the network. We’re basically pushing the shortage around different sizes across the summer.

It landed on 12 ounce in Q3. And I think we mentioned in the remark or I mentioned in one of my earlier replies that we probably lost one to two points of growth in North America in Q3, which is everything including metal supply issues and some of our network and plant issues. So yes, we see those as fully resolved going into Q4. And the issue we’re really very focused on is the metal supply, but as I say cautiously optimistic at this point. And then the input cost, yes, we talked about it earlier in the year, nothing has changed here.

This is European aluminum prices. It’s really a legacy of the Ukraine war and the energy spike. We managed to hold that off for several years. But in the end, there is energy and aluminum and those prices came through. And I think that has been commentary certainly at least in one of our peers on similar lines.

So I think that not surprisingly eventually that energy shock translated through into some input cost price rises and that impact came particularly for us this year. It’s different for different players depending on their supply mix. So nothing new there, exactly what we talked about earlier in the year.

Josh Spector, Analyst, UBS: Okay. Thank you. I’ll leave it

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: there. Thanks.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital.

Arun Viswanathan, Analyst, RBC Capital: Great, thanks. I just wanted to get your thoughts on EBITDA and I guess growth as you look into 2026. So it looks like you’re kind of on a $725,000,000 or so run rate on an annualized basis. If you think about maybe low single digit growth as you discussed for 2026, it seems like you are executing relatively well. So does that translate to say maybe mid single digit growth on the EBITDA line?

And then maybe is there any further leverage as you delever? Or how should you think about that progressing forward as you look at it?

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes. Sure. Look, obviously, we don’t guide ’26 until our Q4s. And there’s good reason for that. We’re still rolling up the budget and all the detail and also there’s still at this time of year quite a bit of volume still under discussion or moving around.

So we won’t be guiding specifically. But if I just talk at the highest level, so I think I didn’t say we were growing low single digits next year. I think what I said was Europe, we see growing 3% to 4% and I was broadly in line. I said I think Brazil will grow low to mid I was broadly in line. I said I think North America will grow 1% to 2% and will be softer than the market.

So we don’t yet have a global number. I think we definitely see earnings growth in 26% over 25%. So some of those growth positions, particularly Europe, Brazil, we also see good operational cost savings. We’ve got a lot of opportunity in plants, in freight, in light weighting, the usual places where can makers make operational cost savings, input costs, we’re hopeful for 2026 as well at this point. And obviously, we’ll be keeping a tight eye as we always do on SG and A.

Mix, we’d hope to be a tailwind 2026. So we see a number of areas where we see earnings growth in 2026 and we definitely see earnings growth over 2025, but we won’t guide specifically on that until February.

Arun Viswanathan, Analyst, RBC Capital: Great. Thanks for that. And then maybe we can just discuss Europe just briefly. So in North America, we obviously saw a nice proliferation of new categories in non alcoholic beverages. Could you just discuss maybe where we are in that trajectory within Europe?

Is there maybe a tailwind that’s coming or are we obviously already seeing it? And would you expect that to drive your results a little bit higher or would you be still maybe below the market because of the beer exposure? Thanks.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes. Mean we saw a bit of that in Q3 as I mentioned. So I mean if you look where our Q3 growth came from, it came particularly out of the energy category, a bit like North America, came out of some of these faster growing categories like ready to drink teas, coffees, wines, waters were strong in all those categories. So we definitely saw that. But I think the other piece with Europe, I think we also see general soft drinks in growth with substitution of plastic and also some two way systems being substituted still.

So it’s definitely not reliant on those more innovative categories to get growth in Europe. You can get growth fully in the core, if you like. And then I think what we’re saying for 2026 is absolutely that this looks like a poor year for beer. There’s no particular reason to believe that continues. So assuming beer stabilizes more to normal growth rates, then we’d be in the 3% to 4% range, and that would be very good growth for all the can makers in Europe.

Arun Viswanathan, Analyst, RBC Capital: Thanks for that. If I can just squeeze in one last one. The recapitalization or the new structure, do you see that at all impacting maybe your operations? Or does it allow for maybe a different way of thinking about capital allocation? Or is it just not really that impactful?

Thanks.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes. I think too early to say anything on it. Obviously, the transaction hasn’t closed. It’s progressing well from what we understand, but too early to comment on anything I think with relation to that.

Arun Viswanathan, Analyst, RBC Capital: Thanks.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Mike Roxland with Truist Securities.

Mike Roxland, Analyst, Truist Securities: Thank you, Ollie, Stefan and Steve for taking my questions and congrats on all the progress. Ali, I just wanted to follow-up on a comment you made in one of the prior questions about the growth you lost in Europe. And you mentioned this also on the last quarterly call calling out one or two points of growth in Europe because you couldn’t pivot into smaller formats. You had good growth in soft drinks and energy, but given your existing beer position, which you noted is 40 plus percent in Europe, you couldn’t make that transition. So can you just tell us how you expect to make that transition, how

Stephane Schellinger, Chief Financial Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: you expect to become a

Mike Roxland, Analyst, Truist Securities: little bit more nimble to target those growth categories, maybe try to minimize beer? Obviously, it didn’t sound like you did that as you didn’t make much of a shift in 3Q, but can tell us how you’re going to ultimately do that, maybe 4Q or early twenty twenty six? How you’re pivoting your mix to capture stronger growth end markets relative to beer in Europe, please? Thank you. Yes,

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: sure. So look, we’re doing a couple of projects in the network, converting lines into those sizes, making lines flexible to allow us to be more agile in the season. So yes, we’ve got a couple of projects on the books for Q4, Q1 that will then have impact and be put us in a better position in Q2, Q3 next year. And then obviously, any capacity we’re building out in the next few years, we’ll make sure we’re covering the growth sizes in the market. So we think we’ll be in pretty good shape once we do these next few projects.

Mike Roxland, Analyst, Truist Securities: Got it. And when you think about some of the conversions that you’re doing or the flexibility that you’re adding, when you add new lines, I guess, you to build those new lines with this functionality, with this flexibility to be able to switch sizes more easily in case market dynamics change?

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes, definitely. I mean it costs a lot less if you do it at the beginning than when you try and retrofit, especially when you try and retrofit much older lines. So absolutely, think it makes a lot of sense at the minute. The market is quite dynamic with different products coming to market and we’ve seen in different summers different products doing better or worse. So yes, it definitely makes sense for us as we build out new capacity to put that flexibility into the lines for sure.

Mike Roxland, Analyst, Truist Securities: Got it. Okay. Then my last question is on North America. You mentioned the network issue has been resolved, and you remain optimistic on the metal supply issue resolving itself at some point. But especially, is there a risk to that 1% to 2% growth you’re targeting for North America next year should these metal supply issues persist into 2026?

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes. I guess, Mike, just to be clear, the 1% to 2% is the market growth rate. So we’re saying we expect to be a bit softer than that. I don’t see a risk to the industry or to ourselves in terms of metal supply next year. So obviously, have one of the two new mills ramping up as we speak.

That’s extremely helpful to the situation. We expect the operational issues that have been suffered by Novelis to be resolved. Obviously, they’re working very hard to address them. And then equally, we’ve all anybody that’s in the market is sourcing other sources of aluminum and successfully doing so. So I think with the flexibility we all have in our supply chain with multiple sources of supply with the fixes they’re doing and with the new mill ramping up, I don’t see a risk of industry volumes or A and P volumes from metal supply in 2026.

Mike Roxland, Analyst, Truist Securities: Got it. Thank you very much. Appreciate all the color.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Thanks, Mike.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Anthony Pettinari with Citi.

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging0: Good

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging1: morning. Ollie, I

Arun Viswanathan, Analyst, RBC Capital: think you talked about

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging1: kind of a bad year in beer in Europe, maybe not expected to repeat next year. And I’m just wondering if you can talk a little bit more about sort of the puts and takes there in terms of what you think really drove the weakness in Europe this year, whether it was consumer, weather. And then I mean in North America, there’s been a lot of discussion around secular pressure on beer given lifestyle changes, especially with younger consumers. Does that have a parallel in Europe? Or just wondering if you can kind of give us your big picture thoughts on beer into next year.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes. Look, I think it’s definitely too early to call a secular shift in Europe. I mean, don’t have the depth of other products that we see in the North American market, other alcohol products with similar drinking characteristics that you have in North America. I think we’ve had a poor year. I don’t think weather is really out there.

I think there’s definitely some consumer weakness, which is hitting the category. We only generally work out later what the players did, were they promoting, not promoting. So we don’t have all the data on that yet. So I think my view on this is that it’s a big category. It’s got some very strong players And I think they won’t be happy with this year at all and that they’ll be putting in place strategies to reverse that into 2026.

And as I said, I don’t I think it’s definitely too early to call any kind of secular shift in European drinking behavior.

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging1: Got it. Got it. That’s helpful. And then based on kind of an early view, do you expect that the aluminum conversion cost headwinds maybe continue in Europe next year? Or are there maybe some savings that we should kind of think about that could help you reach that sort of normalized operating leverage?

Or

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: just how should we think about that? I don’t think we think there’s necessarily savings, but there’s no question that the step up that we have this year moderates very significantly. So this was our step up. I think if you look back over twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, we really held it back despite the increase in energy costs that had flowed through. So this is where we took it.

I mean the European market is tight on aluminum. So I don’t see a huge savings opportunity there until there is more capacity put into the market, it needs that. But fortunately, there are significant import routes that are pretty competitive. And so I don’t also see a major headwind and we’ll be exploiting on those routes. But yes, no savings I think, but definitely moderating some of the headwinds that we have this year.

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging1: Okay. That’s helpful. I’ll turn it over.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Thanks, Anthony.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Gabe Hajde with Wells Fargo Securities.

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging0: Ali, Stephane, good morning.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: I

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging0: think earlier this week was the first time that we had heard that there might have been a little bit of movement in terms of contracts and maybe customers, maybe on the private label side. You mentioned next year that there’s going to be, again, for your system, some changes and maybe underperform the market a tad. I’m just curious, as you’re going through those negotiations with customers, what are their talking points as it relates to I mean you already called out proximity to customer filling sites, that makes sense to me. But just price or service levels, quality, etcetera, that’s informing some of those decisions?

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Sure. Yes. Look, as I said in the remarks, I think that by far the dominant factor that we’ve seen has been this footprint

Mike Roxland, Analyst, Truist Securities: issue.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: As I said, we had planned back in 2021, 2022 to put some capacity in the North and then we had people were very tight. So we had a contract that we served out of off a long freight lane. And when we chose not to put the capacity in, obviously, we still have the contract for a few years. But then when it runs out, it’s naturally going back to a closer chem plant. And then as I said, we have the opposite effect where some of the new capacity that’s come to North America obviously changes footprint dynamics for customers.

So they get a plant that’s actually nearer to them than they used to have and then our legacy plant placed. And then we also had one situation with customer that halfway through the process, they have their own footprint review, which resulted in a filling location that we serve closing down. So I think if we look at the overall reason for softness in 2026, it’s majority is down to footprint. I think the market is competitive, but I think it’s normally competitive maybe after a few years where it was so tight through COVID, but I think it’s in a normal competitive environment. And we don’t hear anything particular on service.

We generally get very high ratings on service and very good feedback for relationship management and customer support. So I think predominantly we’re talking about footprint related changes and the fact that there is some capacity in the market for people to make moves.

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging0: Okay. Two questions on aluminum. Again, earlier this week, I think it was mentioned that all in aluminum costs kind of crept up above, I think, all time highs that we even saw during the pandemic. I think we were talking about maybe $01 or so of inflation just from raw material costs. That’s maybe closer to $03 now if we were to mark to market.

And again, I appreciate your customers hedge and probably roll that in three years in advance. So it’s not going to all hit at once. But I’m just curious when we’ve seen this type of inflation through the system, is it typically do they typically address that in an annual basis with pricing on the shelf? And then maybe relatedly, we observed a decent amount of promotional activity especially on the carbonated soft drink and energy drink side in the first half of this year, maybe even the first eight, nine months. Should we be mindful or thinking about anything?

You mentioned volumes or sell into the channel decelerating a little bit in the second half here versus the first half. Is there any sort of dynamic in the 2026 that we can be mindful of maybe volumes actually industry volumes down in the first half and maybe growing in the second half just given the tough comps?

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes. I think it’s a good question. Look, think you can’t say there’s no impact from that level of increase of aluminum pricing. So I think you have to assume there’s some risk of inflation on the shelf and that, that has some impact on volumes because the categories are elastic. I think trying to predict exactly what our customers and retailers do with that is a fool’s game.

I think it depends a lot on where they are. They’ve taken a lot of price the last few years. And so they probably got some firepower, which I think they deployed this year. I think not because of any personnel, don’t think it’s because of any particular sort of tariff related insights. I think it’s more that they have got that firepower in their margin structures and they can use it to drive volumes.

And they are looking to balance cans versus plastic in their portfolios for all sorts of reasons. So I think predicting exactly what happens in 2026 is very difficult to do with maintaining a 1% to 2% stance on North America growth for next year with us softer. And that’s probably because we are being a little bit cautious around that issue. So yes, I think something is flowing through. You can’t say it has no impact.

But I think that hopefully we see what we’re expecting, which is that sort of growth rate.

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging0: Well, let’s be honest, glass and other substrates are not immune, right? Like everything has embedded energy costs. I’m curious No, look, think one

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: is really important. Sorry Gabe, I was just going to build on that, right, which is that every quarter we see that the can is outgrowing the other substrates. So then I think you take the sustainability piece, you take the energy cost piece, you take the fundamental cost structure of cans in North America, you look at the recapitalization that we’ve done as can makers and that our suppliers have done on the can sheet side, I think that the industry is very significantly more efficient than ten years ago and that is going to play through into overall cost structure. So yes, that’s why I’m very bullish about long term can growth rates in North America. I think there is a little bit of a headwind potentially from the tariff situation in the next twelve, eighteen months.

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging0: Understood. Last one, and it’s just sort of digging into the supply chain a little bit. Obviously, it’s been, I don’t know, maybe forty years that we’ve had new rolling capacity here in North America. Does that that does not address any sort of ingot cost, Midwest premium cost that’s embedded in. This is just more about localizing that can sheet supply.

And so there’s better efficiency I guess from a logistics standpoint. So then we got to kind of wait to see what happens politically if there’s any change for cost structure for aluminum. And then in Europe, we’re reading articles about they’re frustrated that they’re actually exporting scrap to The U. S. Because maybe apparently that’s a way to circumvent some of the tariffs.

Is that coming up in conversations in terms of cost of aluminum or can sheet over in Europe? Thank you.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Yes. So look, I think on North America, obviously those mills are massively helpful to the industry both in terms of supply but also long term cost structure very efficient. Obviously, they have to get investment grade returns to be built. So but I think those sorts of costs are built into the supply chain now. And so we don’t see major changes.

I think they’re extremely positive for the industry to have that much domestic supply coming on and stopping a lot of the imports that were needed in North America and generally improving the quality of the industry. So that they’re hugely positive I think. And then in Europe, yes, look, think the scrap situation isn’t helpful as a way to avoid tariffs. Obviously, we were already hearing that The U. S.

Was very short scrap with issues that have gone on in Mexico and related to China and that was impacting North American can sheet makers. So these flows will have impacts, but we don’t see them particularly changing what we’re seeing in Europe at the moment. So nothing particular to report from that I think.

Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations, Ardagh Metal Packaging0: Great. Thank you guys and good luck.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Thanks Gabe.

Conference Operator: At this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Oliver Graham for any additional or closing remarks.

Oliver Graham, Chief Executive Officer, Ardagh Metal Packaging: Thank you and thanks to everyone on the call. So just summarizing again, adjusted EBITDA in Q3 grew by six percent at the upper end of our guidance with both segments in line with expectations. And reflecting that resilient performance, we’re raising our expectations for full year adjusted EBITDA. So with that, thanks for joining the call and we look forward to talking to you again at our Q4 results.

Conference Operator: This does conclude today’s conference. We thank you for your participation.