Silgan Holdings Inc. Stock

Good day, and welcome to the Silgan Holdings Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded.

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Alex Hutter, Senior Vice President, Strategy, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Joining me on the call today are Adam Greenlee, President and CEO; Philippe Chevrier, EVP and COO; and Shawn Fabry, EVP and CFO.

Before we begin the call today, we would like to make it clear that certain statements made on this conference call may be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made based on management's expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company and therefore, involve a number of uncertainties and risks, including, but not limited to, those described in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for 2025 and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Therefore, the actual results of operations or financial condition of the company could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements.

In addition, commentary on today's call may contain references to certain non-GAAP financial metrics, including adjusted EBIT, adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow and adjusted net income per diluted share or adjusted EPS. A reconciliation of these metrics, which should not be considered substitutes for similar GAAP metrics, can be found in today's press release under the non-GAAP financial information portion of the Investor Relations section of our website at silganholdings.com.

With that, let me turn it over to Adam.

Thank you, Alex, and we'd like to welcome everyone to Silgan's second quarter earnings call. We're pleased to have delivered another quarter of solid financial results in the second quarter as our teams continue to execute our plan for the year and position our company for continued success well into the future. Our businesses performed well in the second quarter and successfully overcame some significant challenges, including a dynamic geopolitical and operating backdrop. And our team successfully managed significant cost inflation, normalizing order patterns and developing market conditions to deliver results that were above the midpoint of our expected range.

Our results in Dispensing and Specialty Closures were consistent with our expectations, and we delivered another quarter of strong growth in products for the fine fragrance market. Our teams continue to compete and win in this high-value market as our customer partnership model, differentiated technology and market-leading innovation continue to set us apart from our competition. While overall market conditions remain mixed and were softer than expected in Brazil in the second quarter, our business continues to outperform the trends in our end markets. Additionally, the value we provide through these critical dispensing products was once again validated in the market as we successfully implemented commercial actions during the quarter to recover cost increases we have seen during the year as a result of raw material and other inflation.

Our Metal Containers segment reported another quarter of strong organic volume growth in products for wet pet food, which grew 7% year-over-year despite facing more challenging comps from the prior year. Our team successfully executed a new long-term supply agreement in the vegetable market, and we are eager to have a conclusion to the multiyear disruption created by this unique customer situation and looking forward to continuing our long-term partnership with the new owners of this business. Overall, volumes in the Metal Containers segment were flat year-over-year as the growth in pet food products was offset by the anticipated normalization in order pattern timing in the vegetable and soup markets.

In Custom Containers, our team delivered another quarter of solid results despite significant raw material volatility associated with higher crude oil prices, with volumes comparable to prior year levels after accounting for business exited as part of our cost reduction program. Our second quarter results continue to display our team's focus on executing our plan in 2026, and we are pleased to have delivered another strong quarter of financial results.

As we move into the second half of 2026 and past some of the challenges that we planned for in our first half results, we are confident in our ability to deliver organic growth in the third and fourth quarters despite the incremental challenges that have developed since we last reported. As always, our unique portfolio of consumer staple products and end markets, our long-term partnerships with our customers, our market-leading innovation, our unique capital deployment model and our low-cost global manufacturing footprint continue to differentiate Silgan in the market and position us to outperform through various macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrops.

Turning now to our outlook. We are confirming our estimates for 2026 earnings and free cash flow and our volume expectations for the remainder of the year remain largely unchanged. We continue to expect Dispensing and Specialty Closures organic volume mix to grow by a low to mid-single-digit rate in 2026, driven by low to mid-single-digit growth in our dispensing products. Our Metal Containers volumes are on track to grow by a low single-digit percentage, driven by mid-single-digit growth in pet food and stable volumes for human food.

We continue to expect our Custom Containers volumes to be comparable to prior year levels after accounting for volumes exited related to our restructuring plan, with second half volumes higher than the prior year on a comparable basis as we commercialize new business. We remain laser-focused on executing our plans for the year and delivering on our longer-term strategic growth initiatives and are confident in our ability to deliver on both.

With that, Shawn will take you through the financials for the quarter and our estimates for the third quarter and full year of 2026.

Thank you, Adam. As Adam highlighted, we reported another quarter of strong results in the second quarter of 2026, with adjusted EPS coming in above the midpoint of our expected range due to strong operational EBIT performance and favorable interest expense, which was partially offset by higher corporate expense.

Net sales of approximately $1.6 billion increased 7% from the prior year period as a result of the pass-through of higher raw material and other costs, mostly in our Metal Containers business. Total adjusted EBIT for the quarter of $185 million was 4% below the prior year, with higher adjusted EBIT in our Custom Containers segment, offset mostly by higher corporate expense and lower EBIT in the Metal Containers segment. Adjusted EPS of $0.98 decreased $0.03 from the prior year period due to lower adjusted EBIT, which was partially offset by lower interest expense.

Turning to our segments. Second quarter sales in our Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment increased 2% versus the prior year, primarily as a result of the pass-through of higher raw material and other costs and foreign currency translation, which was partially offset by lower volume and less favorable mix. Volumes in the quarter were impacted by softer market conditions in Brazil, which contributed to a 1% decline in segment unit volumes and also caused an adverse impact on the mix of products sold.

As expected, second quarter Dispensing and Specialty Closures adjusted EBIT was comparable to the prior year levels with favorable price over cost offset by lower volumes and less favorable mix. The combination of lower volumes in Brazil and less favorable mix impacted the second quarter by approximately $5 million.

In our Metal Containers segment, sales increased 13% versus the prior year quarter as a result of the contractual pass-through of higher raw material and other manufacturing costs, principally related to steel and aluminum, and volumes were comparable to prior year levels. As Adam mentioned, higher volumes for wet pet food products were offset by the anticipated normalization of order patterns for products in the fruit and vegetable market, a result of the change of ownership in one of our previous customers in this market.

Metal Containers adjusted EBIT was below prior year levels, as higher volumes of smaller containers for pet food markets and lower volumes of larger containers for fruit and vegetable markets resulted in a less favorable mix of products sold.

In Custom Containers, our results were largely consistent with our expectations as sales increased 3% compared to the prior year quarter due to favorable price mix, which was partially offset by a 4% decline in volumes. As expected, volumes were below prior year levels due to the continued impact of the exit of lower-margin business associated with the planned footprint optimization.

Custom Containers adjusted EBIT was above prior year levels as a result of favorable price over cost, including mix, which includes the cost savings associated with the footprint optimization that drove lower volumes.

Turning to our outlook for the third quarter of 2026. We are providing an estimate of adjusted earnings in the range of $1.21 to $1.31 per diluted share as compared to the adjusted EPS of $1.22 in the prior year period. At the midpoint, this estimate assumes higher year-over-year adjusted EBIT of approximately $10 million, interest expense of $50 million to $55 million and a tax rate of approximately 25% to 26%. Volumes are expected to be above prior year levels in all segments on a comparable basis.

For the full year of 2026, as Adam discussed, we are confirming our estimate of adjusted EPS in the range of $3.73 to $3.93 as compared to $3.72 in 2025. This estimate continues to include low to mid-single-digit percentage total adjusted EBIT growth, corporate expense of approximately $50 million, interest expense of approximately $200 million and an expected tax rate of 25% to 26%.

We continue to expect low to mid-single-digit volume growth in Dispensing and Specialty Closures, low single-digit volume growth in Metal Containers and low single-digit comparable volume growth in Custom Containers. Based on our current earnings outlook for 2026, we are confirming our estimate of free cash flow of approximately $450 million, which includes CapEx of approximately $310 million.

With that said, we'll open the call for questions. Katie, would you kindly provide directions for the question-and-answer session?

[Operator Instructions] We'll go first to Matt Roberts with Raymond James.

Maybe first on Brazil, maybe you could speak to how big this is within DSC, where exactly that weakness was? Shawn, I believe you said it was a 1-point headwind to volume mix in 2Q. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe if that is correct, ex Brazil, what were the drivers of the volume mix declines in that segment? And how does that influence your thinking for second half? Or what gives confidence that there can be an acceleration in second half given some volatility in Brazil? It seems like the volumes are low single digit to mid-single digit now for 2026. Is that all Brazil or anything else to be mindful of?

Matt, it's Adam. Maybe we'll both jump in on this one. I think you've got that right. Brazil, maybe to put some context to it, in Brazil, in the region, we had about a 15% volume decline year-over-year and a significant change for us. I'd remind you that we had planned for quite a few unknown activities this year in our overall guidance. So we're pleased to continue to be able to absorb that and deliver the results that we had guided to.

So you're right that overall, it's about a 1% decline for us. We talked about volume mix in the segment being down 3%. Really, that's 1% volume, 2% mix, just for some additional clarity there. And so outside of that, the balance of the business essentially was flat, and we feel really good about the performance, and it was right in line with the expectations that we had for the full year. So nothing's changed from that perspective.

I think as we look at Q3, what's included in our guidance is a similar impact from Brazil with a recovery starting in Q4 and to be fully recovered as we head into 2027. And maybe just to provide a little context, as we go around the world, Europe was very strong for Dispensing and Specialty Closures. We talked about our performance in fine fragrance. It is largely a European market for us, although we do those products also in Brazil and North America as well. Americas, the North American region, continues to be a little bit of a mixed bag. It's a tougher market for us.

I think with the K-shaped economy, we're seeing a variety of performance by segment. Our higher-end segments continue to do very well. I think the low end, we're seeing a good pull-through. It's the middle part of the market that I think with all of the volatility that occurred in Q2, that was a little choppy for us in the second quarter.

Super helpful. Appreciate all that color. Maybe one on metal. I believe in the prepared remarks, you noted a more seasonal order patterns for fruit and veggie pack. How did human food perform in 2Q? And given that you did reach that long-term supply agreement, what type of visibility does that give you into 3Q and second half volumes in metal? And any comments on how the pack season is shaping up at present?

Yes, sure. As we look at Q2, again, I think as Shawn had said and I had mentioned too, pet food was up 7%. So another just terrific quarter for pet food. The human food side, veg was down kind of double digits and soup was down double digits as well. But I'd say that's pretty much in line with our expectation.

As we talked previously, the large customer that we've been discussing for so long in the veg market, those assets came to us in a self-manufactured takeout. And as part of that, the prior owner of those assets, once upon a time, had made cans all year long and essentially sold cans to themselves, I would say, all throughout the year. And as we acquired that business, we maintained that business model. As we now move to a new agreement with the new owners, those cans are going to be sold much closer to the time that they're filled. And therefore, Q3 will be a higher volume quarter for us for that particular customer going forward.

From a visibility standpoint, as we look at the fruit and veg pack, particularly in North America, growing conditions have been good thus far. The high heat actually has been beneficial to the crop. I think our expectations are up just a little bit for the veg pack in particular, which will bring into a little more volume later into the pack season, which will drop into Q4 for us. But good visibility, feel confident in our customer forecast for the pack season and our ability to deliver as well.

We'll take our next question from Mike Roxland with Truist Securities.

Just the first one I had, last quarter, Adam, you mentioned commercializing 2027 product launches and developing '28 and '29 product launches at that point in time. How much of your fragrance and beauty business is already locked in for 2027?

And relatedly, at that point in time, you mentioned already working with some of the largest perfume houses and the like. Are there any incremental opportunities to work with potential customers that you're not currently aligned with?

Sure. As we look at fragrance, again, it's got that longer developmental cycle. We also have long-term contracts that cover a lot of the franchises that we support. So to your point, Mike, I mean, '27 is -- we've got a pretty good view on it as of right now, and most of that business is contractualized because to meet those launch dates, those products are already in not only past development, but in the commercialization stage now. So I feel really good about that.

We are a big player in the fine fragrance or the premium segment, and there's always more opportunity to work with existing customers and others in the space. And I think what has really set us apart now for several years is the differentiated technology that we bring to bear, this customer partnership model that we continue to talk about that we think is very valuable to our customers and particularly this market where the utility of the product that we provide is so critical to the overall package for the fragrance houses. So it continues to be a really good story.

We think we've got pretty good clear sight to continued growth in kind of the high single-digit rate for fragrance products around the world and feel really good about our position in that market.

Got it. And then just one quick one on healthcare. I believe you mentioned it's a $250 million business targeting nasal and ophthalmic applications. Your goal is to double that business organically over the next 3 to 5 years. That implies a CAGR of about 15% to 20% plus per year.

So can you help us frame how you intend to drive that type of internal growth? Obviously, you've had some help recently from Weener and tapping into existing commercial relationships domestically. But just wondering how you intend to drive that growth organically over the next 3 to 4 years?

Yes. I think when we first started talking about that, the healthcare business for us was about $200 million. It's now already grown to $250 million. So I think we're well on our way. With those long developmental cycles, again, most of that volume is commercial -- or is contractualized, I should say, over the course of the next couple of years. And we continue to have additional opportunities that come to us in our specific areas of nasal and ophthalmic. And I think we've got a competitively advantaged product, and we've got some design and innovation capabilities that we're bringing to bear that are of terrific interest.

And I think as we think about potential growth beyond where we are in nasal and ophthalmic, it's taking our technology and applying that to different applications for drug delivery. So feel really good at that. And that is part of the low to mid-single digit this year as well as we've got some healthcare that is ramping up. It was planned to ramp up for the second half of the year all along. And I would say it's probably a little heavier in the fourth quarter as we think now about the second half of the year.

We'll take our next question from Ketan Mamtora with BMO Capital Markets.

Perhaps to start with on that, the resin lag that you talked about, the impact of $10 million, is that still sort of consistent with how you all are thinking right now?

Yes. As we -- well, number one, welcome to the space. It's great to have another analyst in the coverage group. So welcome to the coverage. As far as that $10 million, that was a Q2 item that we talked about, and that's kind of the net unrecovered inflation, primarily resin in all fairness, but the net unrecovered inflation that we experienced and it played out essentially exactly as we thought.

There's a tremendous amount of volatility, as everybody knows, still in those markets. And that will be unrecovered until such time as resin declines in the future, and we just don't have clear visibility as to when that's going to happen. So it played out pretty much as we expected. It's behind us now. And as resin falls in the future, that will be a benefit back to Silgan at that point.

Got it. No, that's helpful. And then just switching to capital allocation. Curious how you guys are thinking about sort of M&A opportunities? How is the pipeline looking at the moment? And sort of what is the bias between share repurchase and M&A at current sort of valuation levels?

Ketan, this is Shawn. I'll jump in and then turn it over to Alex to answer the M&A side of the question. Really, nothing has changed with respect to how we view capital deployment. We have a returns-based decision model that we've been using for many, many years. Everything is benchmarked against share buyback as a hurdle under that model that we consider, and we make the decisions that we feel are best for our shareholders and create the most shareholder value.

I think we look at kind of where we're going to land at the end of the year, and we believe we'll be below the midpoint of our target range, so somewhere below that 3x leverage. So we're right where we would like to be with respect to having all options available to us, inclusive of M&A.

And Ketan, on the pipeline, look, it remains an active environment on the M&A side, a fairly full pipeline, but it's been that way for some time. I think as you know, what you'll see from us, as Shawn mentioned, is the continued discipline on capital deployment. So that hurdle rate moves around on alternative uses for capital. And ultimately, what we do is we take a long-term view on capital deployment and what will create the most value for our shareholders, and that's what we execute on.

We'll take our next question from Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets.

Just going to get your thoughts on maybe some of your customer behavior. Do you still see continued promotional activity across some of the major verticals? I guess what could you share on that side? And to the effect that, that could translate into what your outlook on volumes would be, I guess we'd be interested in that as well.

Sure. Obviously, a fairly volatile environment today with -- between tariffs and resin pricing and cost being what they have been through the second quarter. So our customers and most CPGs are continuing to pass that inflation on to the consumer. And I think what we've seen the change in 2026 versus maybe prior year is, I think in the prior year coming out of the post-COVID era, our CPG customers for the most part were willing to trade price and margin versus volume.

And I think there's a much greater focus on volume right now throughout CPG than with many of our customers. So they are using and they're viewing promotional activity as a just a tool in the toolkit to move volume. And I think with that focus on volume, what we continue to see is where the target promotional activity is being used in the marketplace, it is actually working, and it is driving volume in certain segments.

We've continued to point out in our wet pet food segment, particularly in cat, there's been targeted promotional activity for some time. We do think that is driving volume. So it is successful when it's applied in a targeted manner right now for the consumer who continues to seek out value. And we think our customers are aligned to focus more on volume in 2026 than what had been done in the prior years.

Okay. And then also maybe if you can just describe some of the bolt-on M&A opportunities. Do you see that more so in the closures area at this point?

Yes, Arun, it's Alex. So we obviously don't comment on any specific assets in the market. I think what you've seen from us over time is that we typically look at anything that's rigid packaging for consumer goods, largely in the developed markets. What that has meant and where we found the highest returns over the past several years has been in the Dispensing and Specialty Closures market, where we've found higher margin, higher growth assets that can generate really strong returns over time. But we look at a broad range of opportunities and that's kind of the opportunity set.

And the only thing I would add to that is that I think as we look at our 3 business franchises, they're all performing at a pretty high level right now. And I think they're all capable of dealing with acquisitions if that is in the framework for any of the 3 business segments. I look at the margin profile and the operating leverage that we have. So we feel really good about all 3 of our business segments at this point.

We'll take our next question from Anojja Shah with UBS.

I wanted to go back to Brazil a little bit. Can you give a little more detail on was it market or end consumer driven? Or was there a share shift or something like that? And I think you mentioned recovery in Q4. What's driving that?

Sure. So Brazil, look, it's an inflationary market, and it's taken significant inflation in Brazil for many years now. And so we've done a really good job of passing that through to our customers who obviously pass that through on to the market. So this is all about the market. We've not lost any share. We've got a terrific position in the Brazilian market for our high-value dispensers.

I think the thing that maybe we haven't said yet is those high-value dispensers, the volume reduction in Brazil also generated quite a bit of the mix impact that we had in the quarter, too. So really for us, it's a temporary action, I think, with our customers in the market in Brazil. They're expecting some recovery starting late in Q3. We think that will lead into Q4 from a seasonality standpoint.

And really, it's the same holiday season kind of discussion that we've had about Brazilian activity as well with our 2 largest customers in Brazil, a good portion of their revenue comes through the holiday events in the Brazilian region. So we feel pretty comfortable that we'll begin that recovery in Q4 and be fully recovered as we head into 2027.

Great. And I just was wondering if we could put a finer point on your volume expectations for metals in the third quarter. I think you said low single digit for the full year, but I know in the third quarter, you have that customer timing issue, which should be a help. But then how do you balance that against a pretty tough comp?

Sure. I mean we've got a couple of things working. Obviously, we've got continued growth in pet food that we feel really good about. Veg is going to be up year-over-year with the timing issue coming out of Q2 that we talked about. So I think we're looking kind of low to mid-single-digit volume growth for Metal Containers in Q3.

Yes. Anojja, the only other thing I'd point out is, remember, we have the timing. So volumes came out of the second quarter into the third quarter. So that will help the third quarter this year.

We'll take our next question from Daniel Rizzo with Jefferies.

You mentioned your contracts in healthcare and the new contract in metal coatings. I was wondering if these contracts have like clauses, like minimum purchase requirements or how they're kind of structured in that regard?

Yes. We don't really talk about any individual contracts, and maybe I'll just take it up one level and talk about Silgan. Particularly in the Metal Containers side of the business, that business has long focused on requirements-based contracts. So you can think of our long-term contracts that we're 100% supply for their requirements. And typically, those never had a minimum purchase requirement. Silgan takes the risk essentially on the volume side, but also gets the full upside of any volume gain.

I think in other parts of our business, we've got a variety of contractual language. I think healthcare, to your point, probably has a little more provision around kind of the risk of volume and some minimum requirements because of the capital that's required that goes into those types of investments.

That's very helpful. And then just my second question is, I think you mentioned that corporate expenses were a little elevated in the quarter. And I was wondering if this is kind of how we should think about it going forward or if there's something now with just a lot of the moving pieces that is going to kind of fade away as we move through the end of the year and into 2027 and beyond.

Sure. I'll take that one. As we mentioned, we're constantly looking at everything, rigid packaging. So this particular category versus spend category can be lumpy over the years in terms of any single quarter. And overall, we feel pretty confident with the $50 million guidance that we're giving for the full year, and that includes the increase that we experienced in H2 -- for H1, excuse me.

[Operator Instructions] And with no additional questions in queue, that will conclude our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Adam Greenlee for any additional or closing remarks.

Great. Thank you very much, Katie. Thank you all for your interest in Silgan. We're pleased that we've delivered a first half that's slightly ahead of our original expectations as we came into the year and confident in our delivery of our second half performance. Thank you.

Thank you. That will conclude today's call. We appreciate your participation.

Good day, and welcome to the Silgan Holdings First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Alex Hutter, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Investment Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Joining me on the call today are Adam Greenlee, President and CEO; Philippe Chevrier, EVP and COO; and Shawn Fabry, EVP and CFO.

Before we begin the call today, we would like to make it clear that certain statements made on this call may be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made based upon management's expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company and therefore, involve a number of uncertainties and risks, including, but not limited to, those described in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for 2025 and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Therefore, the actual results of operations or financial condition of the company could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. In addition, commentary on today's call may contain references to certain non-GAAP financial metrics, including adjusted EBIT, adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow and adjusted net income per diluted share or adjusted EPS.

A reconciliation of these metrics, which should not be considered substitutes for similar GAAP metrics can be found in today's press release and under the non-GAAP Financial Information portion of the Investor Relations section of our website at silganholdings.com.

With that, let me turn it over to Adam.

Thank you, Alex, and we'd like to welcome everyone to Silgan's first quarter earnings call. Our first quarter results displayed the resilience of our business and the power of our diverse portfolio and continue to demonstrate the unique value of our critical packaging products and the strength of our long-term customer partnerships in the market. .

Our teams executed well during the quarter and adapted to dynamic operating and market conditions. We're pleased to have delivered first quarter results that were at the high end of our estimated range and we remain confident in our outlook for the balance of the year despite the evolving macroeconomic and geopolitical environment.

Our results in defensing and specialty closures were consistent with our expectations entering the quarter despite significant weather events in North America that impacted both our and our customers' production and volumes during the quarter. We delivered another quarter of double-digit organic volume growth in our fragrance and beauty products as a result of our market-leading innovation and customer partnership model.

We continue to outperform the market in these high-value strategic growth products. And with the Weener portfolio now fully integrated, and the power of the combined innovation engines of our legacy business in Weener, we see ample runway to continue to deliver organic growth well in excess of the market for many years to come in this business. Our metal containers business started the year strong with volume 2% higher than the prior year as pet food products increased by 11% over the prior year by facing a more difficult year-over-year comp with the prior year quarter up 6% year-over-year.

Consumer demand for our customers' market-leading pet food products continues to grow at a mid-single-digit rate as our mainstream wet pet food products serve the fastest-growing segments of the pet food market for cats and small dogs. The strength we experienced in pet food in the first quarter was partially offset by the expected impact of pre-buy related volumes for fruit and vegetable markets.

In Custom Containers, our team continued to prove the value we provide as an innovative partner of choice in the unique small and medium run length portion of the market we serve. And our results were consistent with our expectations entering the quarter. As expected, our Custom Containers volumes were below prior year levels as customer destocking from the prior year carried into and concluded in the first quarter of 2026.

In addition, we continue to lap the volume impact of our cost reduction activities in 2025, which should become less impactful as we move through the quarters in 2026. We are pleased to have started 2026 on a positive note, and our business remains on solid footing as we move into the second quarter and look ahead at the second half of 2026.

While much has changed in geopolitics since our last earnings call and the economic landscape is less certain to deliberate construct of our portfolio of products and end markets, our long-term partnerships with our customers and our low-cost global manufacturing footprint continue to uniquely position Silgan to outperform through all stages of the economic cycle.

Turning now to our outlook. We are raising our 2026 earnings estimate to reflect the operational outperformance in the first quarter and our volume expectations for the remainder of the year remain largely unchanged. We continue to expect Dispensing and specialty closures organic volume mix to grow by a low to mid-single-digit rate in 2026 driven by mid-single-digit growth in our dispensing products.

Our Metal Containers volumes are on track to grow by a low single-digit percentage, driven by mid-single-digit growth in pet food and stable volumes in human food. We continue to expect our custom containers volumes to be comparable to prior year levels as destocking in first quarter and the exit of business to achieve cost reduction goals in the prior year weigh on first half volumes, while second half volumes are expected to grow as new business ramps up.

Our teams remain laser-focused on executing our plans for the year and the opportunities that lay ahead for the company in both the near and longer term, and we are confident in our ability to execute on our plan.

With that, Shawn will take you through the financials for the quarter and our estimates for the second quarter and full year 2026.

Thank you, Adam. As Adam highlighted, we reported another quarter of strong financial performance in the first quarter of 2026. With results coming in towards the high end of the expected range due to strong operational EBIT performance and favorable interest expense, which was partially offset by higher corporate expense. .

Net sales of $1.6 billion increased 6% from the prior year period, driven primarily by the contractual pass-through of higher raw material costs, mostly in our Metal Containers business and favorable foreign currency translation. Total adjusted EBIT for the quarter of $152 million was 4% below the prior year with higher adjusted EBITDA in our Metal Container segment offset by lower adjusted EBIT in the dispensing and specialty closures and Custom Container segments and higher corporate expense.

Adjusted EPS of $0.78 decreased $0.04 from the prior year period due to lower adjusted EBIT and a higher tax rate, which was partially offset by lower interest expense. Turning to our segments. First quarter sales in our Dispensing and Specialty closures segment increased 2% versus the prior year, primarily as a result of the pass-through of higher raw material costs and foreign currency translation of 6%. The which was partially offset by lower volume and less favorable mix.

Volumes in the quarter were adversely impacted by severe weather events that curtail production are in our customers' production facilities, which also caused an adverse impact on the mix of products sold. As expected, first quarter dispensing and Specialty Closures adjusted EBIT was below the prior year levels, in part due to the year-over-year impact of the benefit of selling through prior year inventory in an inflationary environment in 2025 and as compared to the headwind of selling through higher cost inventory in 2026 for steel, food and beverage products in Europe.

The strong growth in dispensing products for fragrance and beauty markets were offset by the adverse volume mix and cost impact of severe weather during the quarter in North America. In our Metal Container segment, sales increased 15% versus the prior year quarter as a result of the contractual pass-through of higher raw material costs, principally related to steel and aluminum and higher volumes of 2%.

Our volume growth in the quarter was largely the result of higher volumes for pet food markets of 11% as we continue to experience strong growth in this category. As expected, volumes for fruit and vegetable markets were below the prior year levels as a result of prebuy activity in the fourth quarter of 2025 as certain customers purchased ahead of anticipated raw material inflation in 2026.

Metal Containers adjusted EBIT was comparable to the prior year quarter as higher volumes for the pet food market were partially offset by the adverse mix impact of lower volumes for the fruit and vegetable markets due to the prebuy.

In custom containers, our results were largely consistent with our expectations as sales decreased 10% compared to the prior year quarter as a result of lower margin business exited due to a planned footprint optimization to achieve the previously announced cost reduction goals and the continuation of destocking activities that concluded during the first quarter of 2026.

Custom Containers adjusted EBIT was below prior year levels as a result of the lower volumes. Turning to our outlook for the second quarter of 2026. We are providing an estimate of adjusted earnings in the range of $0.92 to $1.02 per diluted share as compared to adjusted earnings of $1.01 in the prior year period.

Second quarter interest expense is anticipated to be in the range of $50 million with a tax rate of 25% to 26%. From a segment standpoint, second quarter dispensing and specialty closures adjusted EBIT is expected to be comparable to the prior year period, with higher year-over-year volumes largely offset by significant inflation in the quarter.

Based on the current resin market, we are expecting approximately $50 million of incremental cost in this segment during the quarter related to the inflationary pressure from the Middle East conflict, which is anticipated to impact adjusted EBIT by approximately $10 million in the second quarter.

Metal Containers volume and adjusted EBIT is expected to be below prior year levels as mid-single-digit growth in pet food products is expected to be offset by a normalization in the seasonal or in patterns for the fruit and vegetable markets. as the segment reverts to a more typical volume pattern following several years of volatility related to one of our customers. This normalization is expected to be predominantly impact the timing of orders between the second and third quarters. and does not impact our expectations for volumes for the year.

Custom Containers adjusted EBIT and like-for-like volumes are expected to be modestly above prior year levels in the second quarter. For the full year 2026, we are increasing our estimate of adjusted EPS by $0.03 to the range of $3.73 to $3.93 as compared to $3.72 in 2025 to reflect the strong operational EBIT performance in the first quarter. This estimate includes corporate expense of approximately $50 million as increase -- an increase of approximately $5 million from our prior estimate, which is offset by lower anticipated interest expense of approximately $200 million.

Our 2026 estimate of adjusted EPS continues to factor in an expected tax rate of approximately 25% to 26% and a weighted average share count of approximately 106 million shares. Our updated 2026 adjusted EPS range now exceeds the prior record level of adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBITDA achieved in 2025 at the low end of the range.

From a segment perspective, low to mid-single-digit percentage total adjusted EBIT growth in 2026 is expected to be driven primarily by a mid-single-digit percent increase in dispensing and specialty closures, adjusted EBIT and a low single-digit percent increase in adjusted EBIT in the Metal Containers and Custom Containers segments.

The volumes in 2026 are expected to grow by a low to mid-single-digit percentage in dispensing and specialty closures driven by a mid-single-digit increase in dispensing products. Metal Container volumes are expected to grow by a low single-digit rate as a result of mid-single-digit growth in products for pet food markets, which represent more than half of the segment volume.

Custom Containers volumes are expected to be comparable to the prior year on a reported basis and above prior year levels on a like-for-like basis, excluding restructuring impacts. As lower first quarter volumes, primarily due to destocking activities are expected to be offset by growth in the subsequent quarters. Based on our current earnings outlook for 2026, we are confirming our estimate of free cash flow of approximately $450 million, which includes CapEx of approximately $310 million.

With that, we'll open the call for questions. Margo, would you kindly provide the directions for the question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from George Staphos with Bank of America.

This is Brad Barton on for George this morning. I was just wondering if you could -- looking at your M&A pipeline, just discuss how you're reviewing the pipeline. And relatedly, when you view candidates, can you discuss how you assess their capital and cash intensity relative to Silgan?

Yes. Thanks, Brad. Appreciate the question. So I think as you think about silicon, one of the real strengths of the company over time has been capital deployment. Really nothing has changed regarding our approach to capital deployment or how we evaluate M&A.

So one of the key hurdles that every acquisition that we the value it has to clear is the other opportunity of buying back stock or paying down debt. We continue to look at our opportunities on a cash-on-cash return basis over a long period of time that factors in all the opportunities for the business, the capital that the business will require any advantageous tax situations and the like.

So nothing has changed about our return hurdles as well. I think as you think about the M&A pipeline, we've said now for a number of quarters that the M&A pipeline remains active. We see a number of opportunities or assets that could be coming to market that would fit nicely in our strategy where we have been building out a portfolio of higher-margin, higher growth businesses in the dispensing and specialty closures laying money now.

We look at everything that's rigid packaging for consumer goods. But I think that's kind of how you should think about our M&A pipeline and the way we look at M&A.

We'll take our next question from Matt Roberts with Raymond James.

I have a couple of questions on the volume outlook. Sounds like not many changes there, but just a couple of puts and takes by segment. Maybe I'll knock them off here all in a row. Maybe on Metal Containers. I believe you called out timing any impact from weather [indiscernible] or fertilizer availability that could impact the pack season or what you're hearing from customers heading into 3Q on that or if it's still too early.

And then on dispensing and specialty closures. First, Fragrance and beauty continues to see good gains. Are you seeing any impact from export out of Europe or shipping constraints or or ask given limited exposure, but anything from the lower duty free travel or no impact there?

And then lastly, on beverage, how did that perform in on a same-store basis without new contracts and anything you're seeing there in April into the summer season.

Sure, Matt. Thanks for the questions. Maybe just kind of taking them up in the order that you went through them. So for Metal Containers, really the timing issue that we talked about is the simple fact that one of our large fruit and vegetable customers now is in new ownership hands and the profile of that credit essentially is different than it has been.

So you should probably think about those products being shipped and consumed and products being filled closer to the time that the product is packed in the field. So I think as we've talked a long time, our manufacturing philosophy of Silgan is we basically make hands all year long, particularly for the pack products. And we sell them kind of 2Q, 3Q and Q4, and this is just moving the timing more to Q3 where products are picked and filled from the crop perspective.

So no change whatsoever to the full year with that customer and how that has played out in 2026. As we then move over to our Dispensing and Specialty closures segment, the organic growth in Fragrance and Beauty has been terrific and it's been strong and has been strong for quite a while now. The pipeline is very very full and the opportunities are in front of us. I think we're winning simply because of our innovation in our customer partnership model.

And as we've talked before, that's a much longer developmental cycle than maybe some of our other products, call it, in food and beverage or personal care. So here it is 2026, and we're talking about product launches for certainly known product launches for '27 and developmental ideas in '28 and beyond. So pretty good line of sight into how that business is going to continue to perform for us.

Obviously, with the conflict in the Middle East, there is potentially an impact on some luxury business. But we don't think it applies in our customer. I don't think it applies to to the products that we sell in fragrance and beauty. We're a little bit on the lower end of the luxury scale.

And I think one of the great ideas here is that our customers through the pandemic were able to identified find new ways to reach their consumers. So particularly those duty-free and travel consumers, tourism consumers that you referenced. What we found is those consumers are continuing to buy the product, whether they're traveling or not. They've found avenues to continue to consume those products.

And then finally, on the side, Q1 performance right in line with expectations. You're right, we did have a new contractual win this year that has already been commercialized. That is part of our volume outlook for 2026. But I would say, again, on the beverage side, I think we talked about this a little bit last time, a fairly muted outlook from our perspective on market performance.

We're taking a conservative view on the market, adding in our contractual volumes and that's what's embedded in our guidance for '26. We're not really at all subject to needing the market to grow in order to hit the guidance that we put forward.

And we'll take our next question from Michael Roxland with Truist. .

This is Nico Piccini on for Mike Roxland. Just to start out, I think last quarter, you mentioned that Vainer is positioned to grow ahead of peers and then take kind of outsized portion of new product launches. Just wondering how that performed in 1Q, highway to perform versus peers?

And what does the backlog look like for 2Q? And then how can you measure that as performance against peers and kind of tell with certainty that you're actually gaining shares? .

Sure. It's an interesting question. I think, Nico, what I would say is it's the combination of Vainer with our dispensing especially closures business that that drives kind of the commentary that you referenced. So really, it's the combined portfolio now including Weener.

And I think I -- the area I'd probably point you to directly is is fragrance and beauty. And we've had tremendous success in fragrance and beauty. We've delivered another quarter in Q1 of double-digit growth. I feel confident that we're winning a higher percentage of the new product launches that are in the market and have been now for a couple of years in a row. So I think that's how we really determined that we are continuing to garner a larger percentage, larger share of that market.

To be clear, we are not at all competing on price. This is about innovation. This is about partnership and helping our customers get new creative and innovative products into the market well into the future. again, my comments from the last question were we're already working on commercializing '27 product launches and developing '28, '29 product launches right now. And that's that is a core component to how we're going to continue to grow out the business with our, I'd say, market-leading innovation pipeline in those products.

Got it. If I could just do one follow on here. You called out some incremental opportunities for long-term growth in customer tenders, I think, both with new and existing customers. Can you provide a little more detail on that, maybe if you can quantify how that could impact the P&L or just some additional details on those wins.

Sure. And I think maybe just going back, we did exit a facility in 2025 as we were exiting some lower-margin business. And I think as we've talked historically, the exit of volume doesn't always line up perfectly with the new volume coming on to replace it.

So I think what you see in '26 is we've had really good success in the marketplace. Those volumes will be commercialized over the back half of the year. And that's when you sort of see the inflection point on a like-for-like basis where volumes turned positive in the back half of the year.

And we'll take our next question from Gabe Hajde with Wells Fargo Securities.

I wanted to ask about some of the health care applications that you guys have in the market. I think you kind of talked about over a medium term 3- to 5-year basis trying to 2x that business. Anything that you can talk about that's been commercialized this year, maybe where capacity utilization sits or growing into some capacity that you've added in the past couple of years?

Yes. Look, it's a core focus of where we're going, a big part of the growth profile of our dispensing and Specialty closures segment going forward. we've had tremendous success in our nasal and acholic applications, and we see really good growth in both of those specific target areas.

We've invested, as we've talked in the past, Gabe, to support that volume growth. And we're seeing the growth that we expected right now. So I think we had talked, call it, a $200 million health care business at one point and it's closer to $250 million now as as we look into the rest of 2026. So we're getting the growth that we had targeted. And again, it's really focused on nasal and ophthalmic applications.

And I would say, Gabe, the application opportunities continues to expand within kind of that nasal and ophthalmic frame.

Got it. I guess, dimensioning what '26 could look like. Going back to the M&A question, there was obviously some reports out there pretty public about a competitor over in Europe. .

My question is less about that specifically and more about by scale. That would have been a fairly large transaction. I know you can't dictate timing when the when these things come available, but pushing the balance sheet a little bit. Can you just talk around appetite for that?

And maybe as you fill through some of the other opportunities, is there anything out there that strikes you as a similar size and scale or that was probably on the high end of what you'd be looking at?

Well, sure. Obviously, we're not going to comment on any rumors. And I think what we'll say has been consistent with kind of where we've always been. I mean I look at the scale of the company today versus maybe 10 years ago, Gabe, and it's in a much different position just simply because of the profitable growth that we've added to the business.

And I look at the Weener acquisition, roughly just round numbers, $1 billion acquisition where we actually did lever up and went outside of our target leverage range with a very clear plan to get back to that target leverage range within 15 months. and we executed very well and delivered that target.

So $1 billion acquisition on top of Silgan and being able to get back within our leverage guidance within 15 months is a pretty impressive feat as far as I'm concerned as far as how the company has evolved over time. So we like acquisitions of all sizes and scale. I think with WestRock, with Albéa with Weener, we did go outside of our targeted range, but we've always had the ability to utilize the free cash flow of the business to delever quickly. And that's really more of the important point.

I think what our businesses have shown is a tremendous ability to integrate and bring on board the acquisitions that we've executed upon. And I think what our team here at our corporate group has done has shown a real core competency in navigating the M&A landscape. And I think we -- I'll say it again, I think we are advantaged in many ways as we look at assets and properties in the space. and we're excited about the opportunities that still sit out there in front of us.

Perfect. No, look, execution has been really solid the past 10 years.

Our next question comes from Hillary Cacanando with Deutsche Bank.

So based on the double-digit volume growth in the fragrance and beauty segment, it seems like consumer remains bifurcated. Is that what you're continuing to see? Just talk about how other patents in the DSD segment like personal care and home care products have performed.

Great. First of all, Hillary, welcome to the call. So it's nice to hear from you on the first call, so welcome to the space. .

Sure. Look, fragrance and beauty, we do think there continues to be evidence of a cashed economy. And I think Silgan is a great example of where that plays out because of the diverse nature of our product portfolio. So fragrance and Beauty, you're right. I mean that's a luxury item.

And I think the high-end consumer continues to do fairly well. And those purchase patterns with double-digit volume growth in those segments continue to to show tremendous strength. Maybe on the other end of that K-shaped economy that we've talked about, you have the consumer that is more focused on value and is making decisions at the point of purchase. And I think you can look right at our food can business.

And again, when you think about the consumer, the food can typically is targeting. It's it's for folks that are looking for the greatest value to deliver the highest nutritional content for the low cost. And that's what our food can products allow our customers to do for consumers.

So I think the low-end consumer is more focused on value and stretching those dollars and the food can, I think, plays a really important part in that dynamic. So we see the K-shaped economy continuing to play out.

Okay. So how about in your like home care, spray, aerosol, the cleaning spray, any impact there since it's kind of, I would say, less -- not as elastic, I guess?

Yes. I think it's a really good point. And I think you look at our portfolio of products, and it's the vast majority of our products are consumer staples. We consider them to be nondiscretionary. I do think, in fairness, there are pockets of strength and pockets of some slight weakness, but you would expect that across a diverse portfolio like ours.

So I think it's more about the consumer staples that we support our customers with that really are more protected than the discretionary spend items that consumers are dealing with.

Okay. Got it. And then just on -- in the pet food category, doing so well. We've heard all your peers pounding their pet food performance. So are you seeing any competitive pressures there with everyone trying to increase their pet food business?

Well, I think for me, as I look at our metal container business, and obviously, that was a large part of that. So much of this business is under significant long-term contracts that historically, we stayed out of the fray of the market. As it relates to wet pet food specifically, we are heavily overweighted to that segment. So I think with our largest customers, continuing to grow and drive the growth in that category.

Obviously, we continue to win and increase our volume in that market I think on maybe some of the private label side, there's other opportunity for smaller growth for some other folks. But we're really focused on our largest customers driving that volume again, and we are focused on caps and small dogs and the portfolio of products that we take to market.

We'll take our next question from Ghansham Panjabi with Baird.

Actually Josh Westley on for Ghansham. Maybe just piggybacking off of Hillary's question there, just maybe focusing more so on your CPG end markets. And just on a high-level basis, do you guys get any sense that they're shifting philosophy at all from kind of the volume emphasis that they were talking about at the beginning of the year, right? Just given the context of pricing for them across the board has been very high for year basis.

Again, they started switching towards more constructive volume commentary at the beginning of the year. Do you think they're going to kind of revert back to maybe pushing pricing just in context of the inflationary backdrop we're in? Or will they kind of stick to this volume dynamic just because of the pricing that's been in the past?

Yes. Very good question. I think that certainly, as we came into the year, volume was the focus, and I think there was more promotional and price activity supporting volume growth. I think with the conflict in the Middle East and the impact on inflation, I think we're still in now in deep conversations with our customers, trying to understand exactly how they're thinking about the rest of the year.

But I would say, even up through early part of April, promotional activity was still pretty good for most of the products that we were looking for. And then I think how that ultimately relates to Silgan, it's back to the comment I made earlier. I mean, really we looked at market growth in a fairly muted lens for 2026.

So we're not expecting significant growth in markets to support the guidance that we've given. We've added kind of our contractual wins to our volume outlook. But outside of that, we're expecting pretty muted volume trends across the markets that we serve.

Okay. Great. That's super helpful. And then maybe just if I can sneak in one more, just on the input cost inflation component. Obviously, a lot of that is resin and you have contractual pass-through mechanisms there. But how are you thinking about the inflation specific to maybe some other derivatives such as energy, freight, coatings for cans, et cetera.

Can you quantify that impact? And can you also remind us, too, is that pass-through contractually as well? And if not, how do you plan on offsetting that?

Sure. Well, maybe I'll just start with kind of reminding everyone I'm still in sourcing strategy. I mean what we like to do is as we like to buy raw materials. We like to manufacture and we like to sell all within one geography. So you take some of the global influence out of of the relationship with our customers.

So I think that's an important point to start with. You're right. I think resin costs are probably the biggest item here to address. And we talked a little bit about it in Shawn's comments earlier. And I think just for the inflation we're anticipating is something around $50 million in our Dispensing especially closure segment. I think the net impact of that inflation with our lag pass-through is going to be something like $10 million. So I think it's embedded in our guidance.

As we talked about earlier in the year, we planned for more unknown risk in 2026. So it really doesn't change our guidance. We're able to absorb that and still maintain our guidance. And then I'll maybe pass to Shawn to talk a little bit about how we manage through the other inflation that we're experiencing as well.

Yes, sure. So you specifically asked about freight and energy. I'll start with freight. Freight is a relatively small spend for us, it's under 3% of our cost of sales. Most of the freight in this business is FOB. So from that perspective, it doesn't really apply on the inflation side. And what's left is predominantly pass-through-based different formulas, fuel surcharges, things like that. So we don't see a lot of exposure on the inflation side for freight.

Similar comment on energy. It's again, a relative -- you think it might be larger than what it is, but it's still around 3% of our cost of sales. We have an active hedging program in place, and we're well hedged for the balance of the year. So we don't see much risk there for 2026. And if inflation does kind of linger here towards the back half of the year, we'll address that inflation with our customer base in the 2027 renewals. So no real impact on either of those categories, I'd say modest headwinds, if anything.

And we'll take our next question from Anthony Pettinari with Citi.

This is actually Bryan Burgmeier on for Anthony. I appreciate the detail on dispensing and resin costs that you provided there, is that $10 million drag in 2Q something that you would expect to recover in kind of 3Q or 4Q. Can you maybe just kind of remind us the timing of these pass-throughs.

Just trying to frame, I guess, like rising resin costs versus raising the 2026 outlook seemingly with most of your assumptions unchanged .

Yes. I mean, look, I think the rapid kind of unprecedented inflation that we've seen in resin is specifically what we're talking about. I think as you look at the indices for the remainder of the year, there's expected to be some stability kind of mid to late here and then potentially depending on the resolution to the conflict in the Middle East, some recovery to lower cost of resin. But that's relatively unknown at this point. So we're not anticipating that anticipating that happening. .

I think as we think about the net impact of that $10 million, I mean, I think it's not ideally recoverable in Q2 or Q3. I think as we're thinking about it today, is resin markets decline in the future, that's when that recovery would ultimately happen.

So it's going to be spread over a longer period of time, and I would not anticipate that probably starting but more potentially Q4 and well into '27 as we think about the resolution of the conflict in the Middle East.

Okay. Got it. Got it. Yes, just following up, maybe curious if there's anything that's maybe been better than expected, that allows you to offset that $10 million drag. Maybe it's the 1Q result.

And then just in the press release, I think you mentioned you're now expecting custom containers EBIT to be up year-on-year when I think last quarter was kind of flattish year-on-year. So just curious what kind of drove that change in view?

Yes. I mean, look, I think our businesses continue to perform at a very high level. We had a very strong start to the year. And for the most part, as we look at the balance of the year, nothing has really changed from our expectations.

You mentioned Custom Containers. It is we continue to win in that market, and we continue to commercialize new volume. And that's really what's driving the growth in the back half of the year for Custom Containers. But I think as we came into the year, again, sort of muted market assumptions. So a lot of stuff can happen, and we think we've factored that into our guidance for the year.

So with really nothing changing as far as our portfolio of consumer staple products, we're very confident in the remainder of the year and importantly, the performance of each of our businesses as we go forward.

We'll next go to Daniel Rizzo with Jefferies.

So with Weener fully integrated. I mean, is it -- can you provide color or just kind of some sort of numbers around what kind of revenue synergies you might see over the next 2 to 3 years? Or I mean, what the runway is and how we should think about it?

Well, I mean, Dan, yes, so it is fully integrated. You've got that innovation engine that we continue to talk about. And it's really difficult to say does that come from Weener or from our dispensing group. I think I would say, look at the growth rate that we have from a longer-term perspective on this segment. And that's what supports that growth rate. Is this very powerful innovation engine combining our business with Weener.

Okay. And you mentioned a couple of times about the muted beverage environment, which I understand, but what could trigger just some acceleration, I guess, improved consumer confidence? Or what would -- I guess you have to wait for your customers. So how should we think about that as something that can provide some upside maybe in the back half of the year and into 2027.

Well, I think for us, first quarter was essentially flat in the beverage business and right in line with our expectations. So again, we are not expecting a tremendous amount of growth. I think if the market grows that'd be a great thing, and that would be upside for our company, but that's not what's embedded in our current guidance to the midpoint. .

Our next question comes from Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets.

Congrats on the strong results. I guess I'm just curious on the volume side, would you attribute a portion of some of the growth to customers kind of trading down from towards maybe food can and some other of your products. Maybe you can just kind of comment on the bifurcated customer trends that you've seen in the past.

I mean are you seeing growth kind of continuing at the high end and the low end and maybe the middle kind of weakening? Or how would you describe kind of the consumer environment out there?

Yes. I think maybe to summarize it, I would say, yes, we continue to see that bifurcated consumer I think you have some strength at the high end of the consumer portfolio. And I think you also have strength for us in the lower end consumer as well.

I think the middle range consumer, what I would say is it's been relatively stable. And I think that's because of the portfolio of consumer staple products that we supply. And again, our feeling of a lot of our products being nondiscretionary for that middle part of the consumer.

But going back to that high-end consumer, I mean that's right where our fragrance and beauty product set and delivering another quarter of double-digit organic growth in that -- in those market it is really important to us, and I think reflects the high-end consumer doing it really well and the high-end consumer continuing to put those dollars to work. I think when you look over at our Metal Containers business and think about food cans for a minute, you get that consumer, again, it's looking to a value play for nutrition.

And we think we've got a wonderful vehicle to get nutrition to the folks that are stretching dollars that need it most. And we think that's a bit of what's driving our strength in our Metal Container segment as well. So we see it. And I think that middle consumer is struggling a bit. But with our consumer staples portfolio of products, we're protected to some degree.

And then just on the pricing side. So obviously, there is some inflation going through. I guess maybe you can just describe potential for demand destruction. I know that the question was asked about CPG companies wanting to not necessarily just yet pushing price.

But do you see that -- foresee that happening, especially with potential increases in tariffs including on the tinplate side, but then also on resin as it relates to your closures business and custom containers. How do you see kind of demand destruction playing out here?

Yes. I think it's very early to try to make a final decision on that inflation, the level of inflation and how it's getting passed through to consumers. I think maybe a couple of things I would give you is just with the construct of our portfolio, we can look back and talk about what happened during maybe CCOVID as an example, where there was significant inflation, particularly in metals that was passed through to consumers, and we did not see much of an impact to demand.

I think in some of those more discretionary items. That's where you do see some general impact from pricing activities that do impact volume, but I continue to firmly believe that our metal containers business is incredibly well positioned for that scenario if it plays out that way. I think the high-end consumer has shown for the entirety of our time and owning the Dispensing Systems business, shown an ability to continue to acquire and purchase the products at the high end of our product portfolio.

So again, I think it's early, but I would say we've got a pretty good degree of confidence that history is not a bad example of what may happen if that situation plays out that you described.

And we'll next go to Anojja Shah with UBS.

My question is about the guidance this year. And just walk through the quarter on a year-over-year basis. it seems like you'll be down 4% on the EPS guide in the first half, which is, of course, understandable with the Middle East situation. But on a year-over-year basis, the guide implies a 10% increase in the second half, so quite a big swing from the first half.

And I know we talked a lot about it already on this call like new wins, pass-throughs other positive factors. But maybe just to put it all in one place, can you frame out the top couple of drivers of strength that you expect to see in the second half that would let you hit the midpoint of your guidance?

Sure. Maybe just kind of going to the segments and trying to look at a high level, I would say, something of specialty closures, we're continuing to win and another quarter of double-digit growth in Fragrance and Beauty in Q1.

We're expecting full year growth in the mid-single digit kind of range for dispensing and specialty closures product. So it is new wins and its commercialization of new wins. And we're not expecting tremendous growth on the food and beverage side. So it's really driven by the high end of our portfolio that continues to show tremendous strength.

On the Metal Container side, I think it's mostly related to the timing impact that we talked about with one part of our portfolio in fruits and vegetables that that those customers are going to be buying the products more when they are harvested and filled. So we've got a shift from Q2 to Q3. that is impacting our metal containers business. Again, to be clear, no change on the full year outlook for metal containers.

And then finally, in Custom Containers, again, we continue to win in that market. So contractual wins that are being commercialized in the second half of the year, versus a prior year that had some destocking activity associated with it, particularly in custom containers, I'd say, a little bit in DSC last year as well. But I think those are maybe the top drivers to to why we're comfortable because we've got pretty good line of sight into all of those items as we look at the back half of the year.

Anojja, the only other thing I'd add is if you look at the cadence of earnings through last year, the first half was incredibly strong. I think both live up 17%. And then a lot of the headwinds that we faced materialized in the second half of the year. Some of those were self-inflicted like destocking impact in the fourth quarter. So that -- I think just as you look at a year-over-year comp, when you're talking about 10% growth year-over-year, that impact as well is [indiscernible].

Yes, that's very helpful. And then in the release, you called out a severe weather volumes in the first quarter, but you were confident you would get it back later in the year. Was the point -- I'm just surprised that those orders weren't permanently displaced. Was the point that those orders are coming back? Or is that new wins in that segment were sort of offset later in the year?

Well, I think the general consensus is those orders will ultimately get refilled because it's not only impacted our business, it impacted our customers' production as well. I think the challenging part for some of those high-value dispensing items that we're talking about specifically is that order books are full.

And lead times are -- I don't want to say stretched, but lead times are longer than for some of our other products. So really, the next time that we and our customers have open filling capacity probably get to into Q3. So yes, I think it will eventually be recovered in the course of the year, but it will not be recovered in Q2.

And we'll next go to George Staphos with Bank of America.

Congratus on the progress so far. So you may have already covered this. If you have, apologies. Any sense, Adam, in terms of whether there's any prebuying affecting any of the volumes in your business as much as you're passing along the inflation that you're feeling? And might that be an issue in terms of why lead times are stretched.

Second question, I'm not really sure necessarily whether the products themselves would lend themselves to this because it's more high end. And that seems to be doing well for you in relation to answering some of the other questions earlier in the call. But the inflation in resin, is that causing any of your customers on at Beauty in fragrance to be considering other structures, other compositions that you'll need to deal with in terms of your business. It sounds like if I want to check on that.

And then the last question again, maybe this came up already. You raised the guidance a little bit, that's terrific. But given the uncertainty, why even do that at this juncture, what do you want us to take away from your outlook for the business that even with the headwind you feel comfortable taking the numbers up a few percentage points.

Thanks, George. For prebuy activities and impact, it's something we're watching very closely right now is given how much inflation that we're talking about. And so we're deep in conversations with all of our resin-based customers and think we have a pretty good understanding of what those activities are. We have not seen any yet.

And we're working with customers to try to figure out the best path forward through these inflationary times. And so I think all of that is captured within the guidance that we've given for Q2.

The lead time question. I think what I'd say there, George, is that's just more of a product mix perspective, right? I mean we're talking about 9, 10, 11 parts sprayers that are a much more complex manufacturing system and assembly profile than maybe kind of our flat cap beverage closures as an example.

So our lead times are typically longer anyway. And so I don't want to say our lead times have gone out. It's just lead times are a bit longer in the order book is essentially full for Q2. So that's when we'll see the recovery of those weather-related impacts. Maybe on the high-end product, the luxury end of our fragrance and beauty products as well with inflation.

I'd just remind you that our product is a very small percentage of the cost of those products that consumers are purchasing at the luxury and premium level. So obviously, we're making our customers aware of the inflation. They understand that. But I think in the grand scheme of thing, that inflation is relatively small compared to the overall cost of that product.

So no, we are not seeing any look to diversify or change the product or anything at all. It's with the strength that they're seeing. It's just -- it's continuing on the path that we've already laid out.

And George, I'll just answer the question on the change in the full year forecast.

Yes, we did increase our guidance about $0.03 for the full year at the midpoint. That's really about the operational beat on the unit line for the first quarter that we see holding for the balance of the year. Also some on the corporate expense side, it's a little bit higher in the quarter, primarily due to corporate development activities that we incurred. So we are calling that up about $5 million for the year.

And we're also seeing favorable movement on the interest line. We had some -- versus our expectations. We were a little better in the quarter. So we're moving that down from $205 million to $200 million. primarily driven by some global treasury management initiatives we did. And also we did do an amendment to our credit agreement that improved our pricing for the go-forward period.

[Operator Instructions] We have no further questions over the phone. I'd like to turn the call back over to our speakers for any closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, Margo, and thank you, everyone, for your interest in the company, and we look forward to reviewing our Q2 results in late July.

Thank you. And this does conclude today's call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Good day and welcome to the Silgan Holdings' fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. Today's conference is being recording. At this time c would like to turn the conference over to Alex Hutter, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Joining me on the call today are Adam Greenlee, President and CEO; Philippe Chevrier, EVP and COO; Sean Fabry, EVP and CFO; and Bob Lewis, EVP, Corporate Development and Administration. Before we begin the call today, we would like to make it clear that certain statements made on this conference call may be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made based upon management's expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company and therefore, involve a number of uncertainties and risks, including, but not limited to, those described in the annual --in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for 2024 and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Therefore, the actual results of operations or financial condition of the company could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. In addition, commentary on today's call may contain references to certain non-GAAP financial metrics, including adjusted EBIT, adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow and adjusted net income per diluted share or adjusted EPS.

A reconciliation of these metrics, which should not be considered substitutes for similar GAAP metrics can be found in today's press release and under the non-GAAP financial information portion of the Investor Relations section of our website at silganholdings.com. With that, let me turn it over to Adam.

Thank you, Alex, and we'd like to welcome everyone to Silgan's fourth quarter earnings call. Before we begin our discussion on our fourth quarter and full year results and our outlook for 2026, I want to welcome Shawn Fabry, who was promoted to CFO in November to the call.

Shawn joined the company through the IPEC closures acquisition in 2010 and has served in senior finance roles in each of our operating segments and most recently on our corporate development team. Shawn brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his new role, that I know will make him and our company successful well into the future. Shawn is looking forward to meeting our analysts and investors in the coming quarters. So please join me in welcoming Shawn to the call.

I also would like to take a moment to thank Bob Lewis, who informed the company of his decision to retire at the end of March for his over 21 years of steadfast commitment to our company. Since Bob joined the company in 2004, our sales have nearly tripled and our stock price has appreciated over 7x, representing a 10% compound annual growth rate. And Bob's leadership in our finance and corporate development efforts have contributed meaningfully to our growth and value creation. He's been a trusted and valued partner to me, our executive team and to our advisers, and we wish Bob all the same success as he enters his retirement.

Moving now to our results. Our team continued to show exceptional focus and determination in 2025 as our business navigated evolving consumer spending trends throughout the year that created a more challenging operating environment for our customers and our company. We delivered our second highest adjusted earnings and free cash flow in the history of the company, returned approximately $160 million in capital to our shareholders and returned within our target leverage range just over a year after closing the Weener acquisition. We made significant progress towards our strategic goals in 2025 as we successfully integrated the Weener acquisition, continued to outpace the market and our peers in target organic growth products and end markets and completed our multiyear cost savings program as expected.

We continue to validate the success of our unique operating model in our customer partnerships and are being rewarded in the market with new business opportunities and awards as a result of our unmatched focus, operational excellence, market-leading innovation and relentless efforts to provide the best total value solutions to our customers.

Our Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment, which now represents over half of our adjusted EBITDA, delivered another year of record sales, adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBITDA with continued EBITDA margin expansion and significant free cash flow generation. With the Weener acquisition now fully integrated and our run rate synergies fully achieved, the business is positioned to continue to achieve organic growth well in excess of our peers as we continue to win an outsized proportion of new product launches in the market.

The combined innovation engine of these 2 market-leading businesses has already yielded additional contractual business wins and the business pipeline in dispensing products continues to accelerate. While 2025 included some unforeseen challenges, our team adapted during the year to the changing landscape and more importantly, have used the learnings from 2025 to further strengthen our processes that will help the businesses operate and serve their markets in an even more agile and adaptive way in the future.

Our Metal Containers business delivered another year of positive earnings and volume trends with 4% growth in volumes, led by 7% growth in pet food products. While our business was faced with a very challenging circumstance as one of our long-term customers during the year, our teams focus -- our teams were focused on protecting our business ahead of this outcome and worked diligently to nearly fully offset the secondary impact of this customer exiting certain markets.

More importantly, with the recently announced developments with this customer, we believe we are uniquely positioned to continue to supply this business in the future and at this time, do not anticipate any further impact from this situation.

In Custom Containers, our teams continue to build on our commercial success and despite significant destocking in personal and home care products in the fourth quarter, delivered a record year of profitability, driven by our cost reduction programs and continued commercial successes. Our adjusted EBIT and EBITDA margins expanded by 150 basis points to a level well above the target we laid out about a decade ago, and the business is now in a strong position to transition into an accelerated growth phase over the next several years.

Our team continues to demonstrate and validate our unique position in this market. And despite being a smaller scale than some of our competitors, the levels of service we provide, new product innovation and the value of our long-term customer partnerships create significant opportunity to deliver organic growth in this business. As we turn our focus to 2026, we continue to see significant opportunities to grow our company both organically and inorganically. Our teams remain focused. Our strategic initiatives continue to bear fruit. Our balance sheet is within our target leverage range, and we believe the opportunities for significant value creation for shareholders in 2026 and beyond remain as compelling as at any time in our history.

At the segment level, we are expecting Dispensing and Specialty Closures organic volumes to grow by a low to mid-single-digit rate in 2026, driven by another year of growth in our dispensing products and improved mix. We expect Metal Containers volumes to grow by a low single-digit percentage, driven primarily by another year of mid-single-digit growth in pet food. In Custom Containers, after a record year of profitability, volumes are expected to be flat as the first quarter is expected to see some continued but limited impact from customer destocking.

Importantly, we anticipate this impact to be offset in the remaining 3 quarters as the business repositions to longer-term growth with key franchise customers. As we enter 2026, we remain excited about the opportunities that lay ahead for the company and are confident that the structural changes and evolution in our portfolio have positioned us to drive growth in our business in the near and long term. Our teams remain focused on meeting the unique needs of our customers as we continue to compete and win in the markets we serve, and our strategic growth initiatives continue to shape the company's future.

The power of our portfolio, the strength of our teams and the discipline of our capital deployment model continue to drive significant opportunity to create value for shareholders in 2026 and beyond. With that, Shawn will take you through the financials for the quarter and our estimates for the first quarter and full year of 2026.

Thank you, Adam. As Adam highlighted, we reported another year of strong financial results for 2025, driven by the continued success of our long-term strategic initiatives, the discipline of our capital deployment model and the resilience and growth of our products and end markets. During the year, we successfully integrated the Weener transaction and achieved full run rate synergies, returned our balance sheet leverage to within our target range in just over a year following the closing of the transaction and completed our multiyear cost reduction program.

Turning to the fourth quarter 2025 results. Net sales of approximately $1.5 billion increased 4% from the prior year period, driven primarily by the contractual pass-through of higher raw materials, mostly in our Metal Containers business and favorable foreign currency translation. Total adjusted EBIT for the quarter of $150.6 million was relatively flat from the prior year, with higher adjusted EBIT in our Metal Container segment offset primarily by higher corporate expense.

Adjusted EPS of $0.67 decreased by $0.18 from the prior year period due to higher interest expense and a higher tax rate in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter tax rate was negatively impacted by certain nonrecurring noncash tax items, which impacted the tax rate in the quarter by approximately 3% and the year by approximately 0.5%.

Turning to our segments. Fourth quarter sales in our Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment increased 1% versus the prior year, primarily as a result of foreign currency translation of 4%. Higher volumes for high-value fragrance and beauty products were offset by the anticipated destocking impact for products in the personal and home care markets.

Fourth quarter 2025 Dispensing and Specialty Closures adjusted EBIT was comparable to the record level in the prior year. As expected, the contribution of double-digit growth in high-value fragrance and beauty products and favorable foreign currency translation were largely offset by the anticipated impact of lower volumes of products for personal care and home care markets and related under-absorbed costs for production and inventory reductions in the quarter. Relative to our expectations entering the quarter, both sales and adjusted EBIT in Dispensing and Specialty Closures were largely in line.

In our Metal Containers segment, sales increased 11% versus the prior year quarter as a result of the contractual pass-through of higher raw material costs, principally for steel and aluminum and higher volumes of 4%. Our volume growth mid-quarter was largely a result of higher volumes for pet food markets of 7% as we continue to experience strong volume growth in this category. Additionally, we did see a limited amount of prebuy volume in the fourth quarter as certain customers pulled forward volume ahead of the anticipated raw material inflation in 2026.

Metal Containers' adjusted EBIT increased approximately 5% versus the prior year quarter as the segment benefited from both strong operational cost management, which was responsible for the majority of the outperformance in the segment versus our expectation entering the quarter and a limited impact from prebuy volumes ahead of additional raw material inflation in 2026.

We estimate the impact of prebuy volumes to 2025 adjusted EBIT was approximately $2 million. In Custom Containers, our results were largely consistent with our expectations as sales decreased 8% compared to the prior year quarter due to lower margin business exited as a result of a planned footprint optimization. Excluding these volumes, our volume increased 1% versus the prior year quarter. Custom Containers' adjusted EBIT was comparable to the prior year levels.

Looking ahead to 2026, we are estimating EPS in the range of $3.70 to $3.90 as compared to $3.72 in 2025, with higher operating income, partially offset by higher interest and tax expense during the year. This estimate includes interest expense of approximately $205 million, a tax rate of approximately 25% to 26%, corporate expense of approximately $45 million and a weighted average share count of approximately 106 million shares.

Interest expense is expected to be above 2025 levels due primarily to the maturity of our 1.4% senior secured notes become due in April. At the midpoint of our 2025 adjusted EPS range, we will exceed the prior year levels of adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBITDA achieved in 2025. From a segment perspective, low to mid-single-digit percentage total adjusted EBIT growth in 2026 is expected to be driven primarily by a low to mid-single-digit percent increase in Dispensing and Specialty Closures adjusted EBIT and a low single-digit percent increase in Metal Containers adjusted EBIT.

Custom Containers segment adjusted EBIT is expected to be comparable to 2025 levels as the business completes its multiyear cost reduction initiative and transitions to organic growth during 2026. Volumes in 2026 are expected to grow by a low to mid-single-digit percentage in Dispensing and Specialty Closures, driven by a mid-single-digit increase in dispensing products. Metal Containers volumes are expected to grow by a low single-digit rate as a result of the mid-single-digit growth in products for pet food markets, which now represent more than half of the segment volume.

Custom Containers volumes are expected to be comparable to prior year levels as first quarter volume will be lower than the prior year due to a limited carryover of destocking activity, which is expected to be offset by growth in the subsequent quarters. Based on our current earnings outlook for 2026, we are providing an estimate of free cash flow of approximately $450 million as operating earnings growth will be partly offset by higher cash interest and tax and slightly higher CapEx of approximately $310 million to support investments in future growth in dispensing and pet food products.

Turning to our outlook for the first quarter of 2026. We are providing an estimate of adjusted earnings in the range of $0.70 to $0.80 per diluted share as compared to adjusted EPS of $0.82 in the prior year period. First quarter interest expense is anticipated to be in the range of $45 million with a tax rate of approximately 25% to 26%. From a segment standpoint, first quarter Dispensing and Specialty Closures adjusted EBIT is expected to be below the prior year period, principally as a result of the year-over-year impact of the benefit of selling through prior year inventory in an inflationary environment in 2025 as compared to the headwind of selling through prior year inventory in 2026 for steel, food and beverage products in Europe.

Metal Containers adjusted EBIT is expected to be comparable to slightly below the prior year level in the first quarter as a result of the impact of limited prebuy volume in the fourth quarter of 2025 that pulled volume forward from the first quarter of 2026. Custom Containers adjusted EBIT is expected to be modestly below prior year levels in the first quarter due to the carryover of destocking activity into January.

With that, we'll open the call for questions. Melinda, would you kindly provide the directions for the question-and-answer session?

[Operator Instructions] And we'll take our first question from George Staphos with Bank of America.

Bob, congratulations, well-earned retirement. And Shawn, nice to chat with you again, and welcome to the call. I guess my first question, Shawn, could you give us a bit more detail in terms of the first quarter outlook for DSC, just kind of the puts and takes that you see. I think you mentioned there was also some impact from prebuy.

More broadly, with DSC having grown now to being the largest business, I would imagine maybe you disagree that the order patterns, the operations, the way that business runs might be different than what you normally would have seen in a traditional Silgan business, say, 5 and 10 years ago. Philippe and Shawn, what -- and Adam, how do you manage the business? How do you manage forecast? Do you keep your customers in a narrower band relative to, say, what traditionally you would have seen in metal? And then I might have one follow-on after that.

Sure. So I'll take the first part of that question, and Adam will take the second part. For the DSC segment in the first quarter, we're seeing low to mid-single-digit volumes. And one of the challenges that we're facing there is that we do have some low-cost inventory that we put through the system in the first quarter of 2025. So a little bit of a headwind going into the quarter to overcome that EBIT benefit from that position.

Got you.

And then, George, on the Dispensing and Specialty Closures business, the portfolio evolution that we've been talking about for the last decade, you're right, has moved that business to our largest business in the portfolio now. And -- you're also correct that, that -- it's a bit of a business -- it is different business than kind of the historic food can business for Silgan or maybe even some of the rigid plastic packaging businesses that the company started with when we were founded back in the '80s.

You think about co-located facilities that you're integrated very deeply into your customers. In many cases, you're buying customer assets, so you're part of their production model already right out of the gate. And I think as you think about the growth that we've had in Fragrance and Beauty and some of the Personal Care and Home Care products and dispensing and specialty closures, it is a bit of a different supply relationship. We're more of a supply partner with an outside-in perspective versus being kind of on-site and deep in the weeds with how they're running their business.

So I think it has -- we have some learnings from '25. We'll be very clear about that. And I think part of those learnings are taking a broader view, broader perspective on the macro environment and other influences that may affect our customer businesses more so than maybe just what's within our own 2, 4 walls as we are on site, near site in those kind of food can operations. So part of that, George, is as we've talked, we've taken a broader view of risk as we've come out with our guidance now for Q1 and also for 2026 to try to take into account some of the unknown risks that maybe we hadn't included in guidance before, again, taking those learnings from 2025.

Adam, my follow-on, I'll turn it over to everyone else. For you to be -- and recognizing there are no guarantees in life, right, forecast can be significantly above or below, that's the world that we're all in. At the low end of your guidance, what would be some of the key volume and margin considerations across the business? So again, not saying that's where you're necessarily going, nothing is guaranteed. But at your low end of guidance, what's embedded in that?

Yes. I think, George, I mean, Shawn walked through kind of our volume expectations for each of the segments. I think we've got a pretty good feel for demand profiles and patterns with our customers and with the business that we have. I think maybe to try to answer your question, I would say, broader market conditions that might influence our customers' demand for their products, probably is one of the items I would point you to that could move us closer to the low end of the range.

But again, we've taken a very broad approach to taking those risks into consideration to develop the range that we have, and that's included in our guidance to the midpoint as well.

[Operator Instructions] We go next to Matt Roberts with Raymond James.

Congratulations to Shawn and Alex on your new roles. First, on the DSC volume for 2026, I am wondering if you could help me parse that out and bear with me, I'm going to play about 3-in-1 here. But first on hot-fill beverage, how do volumes perform in 4Q and the outlook there for '26 or contribution from new contracts there?

In Home and Personal Care destocking, was there any lingering impact in 1Q in DSC? I might have missed that. And lastly, in Fragrance, I mean that continues to grow at double-digit growth. And by math, comps alone, you would think that, that would have to slow at some point. But based on customer orders or innovation pipeline, what are you expecting there? And is it a function of high-end consumer doing well or continued new product launches or partners expanding distribution channels? What's going to sustain momentum there?

Sure. So maybe just jumping back to kind of fourth quarter volumes. So for DSC, Matt, really, volumes were very close to what we expected, right? So as Shawn pointed out, double-digit growth in our Fragrance and Beauty volumes. Personal Care and Home Care, we had anticipated the destocking. It did happen in Q4, essentially right in line with our expectation.

I think there is a slightly different answer here than Custom Containers. So to be really clear, we think the destocking activity is complete in our Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment. And so volumes were right in line with expectations, including food and beverage as well. So fourth quarter played out pretty close to what we thought. As we turn to the full year of 2026, again, as Shawn just outlined, significant growth, again, expected in Fragrance and Beauty. You think about Food and Beverage and maybe some of my comments I just made to George, our assumption for volume right now is going to be comparable.

So you mentioned new contractual wins. Yes, there are some. We've taken an approach that we're going to include some conservative guidance for the market for our food and beverage, hot fill products and sports drinks, et cetera, as we're looking at 2026, and we'll see how that plays out.

Fragrance and Beauty, it's really -- it's more of the same story. And I think, Matt, as we've talked before, the development pipeline for these products, it is multiyear. It's probably not quite as long as some of our health care products, but you're talking 2 to 3 years. So all of this volume that we're going to deliver in 2026 has really been in the innovation pipeline for us for several years.

So there's really no surprise to us. I think the really important point here is that we keep getting rewarded with our performance from our customers with new business wins. We get a disproportionate amount of the new product launches they have, and that's what's continuing to drive, I'll say, the double-digit growth that we had in the last 2 quarters of 2025 in our estimate for 2026 as well.

So maybe to go back to your question, Matt, I'd say it's for fragrance and Beauty, it's all of the above. All of the things that you outlined are the reasons why we continue to grow faster than the market. And again, we take a lot of pride in that. We take it very seriously. We're working right now on '27 and '28 product launches and have a pretty good feel for what that's going to look like at this point given that development pipeline. So hopefully, that covered all your items.

Certainly did. I appreciate all the detail there. And as a follow-on, if I could ask about metal. So 4Q EBIT came in better than I think your prior expectations and margin even improved with the higher pet volume mix. So as you continue to invest and see pet food growth there, are there any contractual changes in metals that are going on, should continued margin expansion, excluding any raw materials impact, of course? Or was it cost outs that are driving strong results there? Any additional color you could have on margin expectations absent raws in '26?

Sure. There are probably 3 things to really think about. I think the single largest is the cost reduction initiatives that we put forward in actually all 3 of our segments. Certainly, Metal Containers had a good portion of that cost savings program over the last 2 years. So they've executed really well against that cost savings initiative and have lowered the overall cost structure.

As you can imagine, volume leverage in this business is incredibly important. So as you continue to deliver growth in pet food and 4% growth in the entirety of the business, that leverage is pretty strong as well. So that -- it is helpful for the operating margin. And then finally, you're right, we continue to invest to grow with our largest customers. I think it was -- and guys, correct me if I've got it wrong, it was 2024 that we announced a significant long-term extension with our single largest customer. And we said at that time that there's nothing structurally changing about the contract, Matt, but we thought that, that contract would be margin accretive over the life of the agreement. And it is playing out the way we anticipated.

So it's -- that's a little bit more on the margin versus our cost reduction initiatives. But our anticipation is our largest contracts are going to be slightly margin accretive over the life of those agreements as well.

Matt, the only other thing to add is, as you think about 2026, remember, we have, again, raw material inflation in this segment. So that will have a mathematical impact on margins, so probably stable on margins for 2026, given the incremental leverage on pet food, offset partly by the higher sales from pass-through of raw materials.

We'll go next to Ghansham Panjabi with Baird.

My congrats to Shawn, Bob and Alex as well for all the news and the promotions, best wishes into the future. I guess, Adam, if we go back to the Dispensing Closures segment and thinking back from a high-level standpoint on 2025, right? So if you -- I think you started to see the destocking impact on beverage pretty early on relative to your initial guidance and then it broadened to other categories as the year unfolded.

Have you seen normalization in demand for the categories that were initially into the downturn? And just more broadly, where are we on destocking? Do you still see some lingering impacts into early part of the year, just given the sequence of what unfolded last year?

Sure. Yes. I think you pretty much got that right, Ghansham. So the food and beverage destocking activity really took place for us. We saw that in Q2. And to your point, the rest of the year in Food and Beverage roughly played out as we expected. We think those volumes are now normalized. We think that year-end inventory levels in the system are at the level that our customers had targeted for year-end.

And as we turn the page going to 2026, we're calling out comparable volumes for Food and Beverage. So we had a little bit of destocking in Q4 for our Personal Care and Home Care products in the segment. We believe that is completed in Q4 and won't have an impact on Q1 volumes for the Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment.

Shifting gears slightly, there is a little bit of a carryover of destocking for custom containers. And really, that just is the simple probably unique position that, that business has in our portfolio. As you know, Ghansham, most of our customer relationships are direct. We've got a 10% to 15% distribution business in our custom containers or our plastic bottle business. And typically, destocking just takes a slightly different time line in that distribution segment.

Again, thinking just a simple fact that there's another layer of inventory in the supply chain. So typically, destocking starts a little bit later, ends a little bit later. And so we're seeing that carry over a little bit into Q1, saw that activity a little bit in January as well. So that's included in our guidance. But to be really clear about DSC, that destocking activity is now completed as of the end of 2025.

Got you. Perfect. And then on Weener Packaging, I think originally, when you outlined the logic behind the transaction, it was going to be additive as it relates to growth. It was very complementary, et cetera. It sounds like the integration is well underway. What about the commercial synergies specific to the asset, the underlying growth that you're seeing there? Any specific wins you can cite as it relates to step functioning your position in pharmaceuticals and health care and so on?

Sure. You're right. It's been a great addition to our portfolio. I would say the acquisition integration is now complete. We achieved our synergy targets. We're now 15 months, let's call it, post acquisition. We've achieved our run rate synergy targets. And I think you're touching on an item, the commercial synergies, Ghansham, that's really not something we typically include in our synergies, but they're absolutely there in this business. And you're taking 2 market-leading dispensing businesses and combining them, particularly when you think about Bayer's position in North America, great products, very limited reach and very limited scope in North America.

We've been able to take some of their products, their technology to our large food customers that Silgan has such a great history and relationship with. And we have been awarded new business, not only on the food side, but some of our other consumer products as well.

So I think it's -- we're getting the best of both worlds between the 2 businesses, leveraging those relationships wherever they may exist, whether it's legacy Silgan dispensing or at the Weener customer relationship level, and we're seeing growth opportunities on both sides of that equation.

We go next to the line of Gabe Hajde with Wells Fargo.

I wanted to ask, we're hearing a lot of mixed messaging from some of your peers as well as customers trying to navigate the current environment. I don't want to go down the laundry list, but population trends, affordability, GLP-1, et cetera. We're seeing some restagings, some strategy changes at big CPGs. I'm just curious, in this type of an environment, obviously, nothing has been sort of normal, let's say, in the past 5, 6 years.

But just as you look across your portfolio, think about your go-to-market strategy, your long-term relationships and contracts, et cetera, do you see the current environment where it seems like customers are looking to reduce cost, complexity, things like that in the supply chain as an opportunity for Silgan? And how would you say that's incorporated into your thinking and/or the guidance for '26?

Sure. I mean I think '25 was a very volatile year for all the same reasons that you outlined, Gabe. And I think we all had to deal with that one way or another. And I think for us, the vast majority -- I mean, almost all of our products are in the consumer staples category. So we get away from the discretionary spend quite a bit of our portfolio. So I think we feel confident that our products continue to have good underlying demand even with population trends and affordability conversations, the food can will continue to, say even with some inflation that we pass through is the lowest cost means of getting nutrition to consumers that need it.

So we feel like our portfolio of products is advantaged in this kind of environment and I would agree with you that we think there's quite a bit of opportunity with our customer relationships, our portfolio of products and some of the sustainability initiatives that we've got underway, not only just at Silgan, but with our customers as well. Whether it's lightweighting or other cost-out initiatives, those are always top-of-mind activities between us and our customers.

So to answer your question, Gabe, yes, we think those are opportunities. How that fits into our guidance for 2026? What I'd tell you is we've actually broadened the kind of view of the unknown risk as it relates to things like population trends, GLP-1s, affordability discussions. And we've taken probably a more conservative approach to how those opportunities might play out, but it gives us confidence that our products are well positioned for the marketplace and the volatility that we're all dealing with.

All right. One, I guess, digging into maybe Ghansham's question a little bit with Weener as well as I want to say in 2021, you guys had acquired Unicep. But just anything that you can talk about maybe higher-margin products beyond Fragrance in the dispensing business where you're seeing growth opportunities. I think you guys were working on a couple of maybe unit dose products and things like that.

Sure. Look, I think healthcare and pharma is probably the next logical step of the conversation, as we've talked about before. And clearly, the margin profile, the growth rates of that part of our portfolio really are similar, if not even stronger than what we've seen in our Fragrance and Beauty business. The size and scale of our pharma healthcare business, it's growing rapidly, but it started from a much smaller starting point at Silgan. Obviously, with the Weener acquisition, what we brought in from their healthcare assets and business portfolio has been very complementary, very beneficial.

We are continuing to grow. It's a longer development cycle than what I mentioned on fragrance and beauty, as I think you'll all appreciate. So yes, we've been working for many years on some of these products and have some that are reaching market now, some that are in final stage development, but the pipeline is as strong and active as we've seen really since you go all the way back to the acquisition of WestRock. And I think we were talking at one point that it would be disappointing if we didn't double the size of our healthcare business and, call it, the next 3 to 5 years.

We turn next to Mike Roxland with Truist Securities.

Shawn, congrats on the role. Bob, congrats on your upcoming retirement. It's been great working with you. First question, Adam, I just want to follow up on what Gabe mentioned in terms of Weener. Can you provide some more color just around the wins that you achieved? You mentioned that in your -- in some of your remarks. So can you comment on the type of products that we're -- or maybe speak broadly about the type of products that you've gained wins in and what type of growth you're expecting this year from Weener with those wins?

Yes. I think, again, we'll try to say, Mike, that Weener has been fully integrated into our dispensing business. So when we talk about dispensing products growing at a mid-single digit, that's including Weener. And again, we fully lapped the comparative. We acquired the business, I think, in the middle of October of 2024. So those results for the most part, were already fully comparable in our fourth quarter results.

So I think combined, we feel confident with that mid-single-digit growth. I mean the product portfolio and where we're able to get new business awards with the combination. I'll give you a great example. Again, in the North American market, we talked a lot about during the acquisition that they have a terrific valve technology for their business and for their portfolio of products. And that's really something that we were very small in at Silgan. And we've been able to take that technology and apply it with other customers that really advance kind of Silgan technology with existing customers.

So I don't know how we want to give credit there. It's an existing customer for Silgan, and we're using Weener's technology. So I think we all win in that scenario, including our customers. But it's really the power of the combination is, I think, the bigger part of the discussion. We have some other products, again, just deodorant products that are winning. I think they were a little stronger in some of their personal care kind of shower, multi-use products with dispensing closures. And we've just been able to continue to leverage that strength on the Weener side and grow out that part of our portfolio, particularly in North America with our existing customer base.

Got it. Very helpful. Appreciate the color there, Adam. And just one quick follow-up. In the past, I believe one of your peers around Metal Containers may have picked up some of the tomato business which cost you some share. With this bankruptcy settlement, it appears that one of the asset buyers is getting some of that business back. And so could you potentially regain some of the tomato share that you previously lost?

And then relatedly, you mentioned in your script that you expect no further issues from this customer that was in bankruptcy. If there are no other changes and the assets continue to run as is, can you remind us as to the total EBITDA loss in Metal Containers, if any? I'm not saying there is any, but if there is any EBITDA, there's a reset lower, could you remind us if that -- what that is? And does Silgan still intend to pursue any asset rationalization and consolidation in Metal Containers?

Sure. And maybe I think the first thing I would say, Mike, is that the situation with that customer is not fully resolved. It's a process, and they're making progress in the process. So you're right, there was an auction, and there were 3 winners of the auction. I mean the business that we're talking about really falls into 3 categories. There's a broth business, a fruit business and a core vegetable business.

So good news for us is that from an outcome, again, there's still procedural steps that have to be taken before the winners of the auction actually take over the assets and the brands. But the broth and the fruit are going to our customers that we supply today. And so we feel pretty good about the ongoing relationship there.

The veg business is as a new player into canned vegetables, but a prominent player in the fresh category. So I look at that and I say on the veg side, we are co-located. It's -- we are incredibly well positioned to continue to supply all of the can requirements that, that new customer would need to continue to operate the facility where we are co-located. So I think that, again, we'll see what happens as final resolution plays out.

We're taking, again, a cautious approach to our thoughts here. We don't think there's significant upside. We don't think there's significant risk from where we are either because of those ongoing relationships and the supply situation of where we are. Regarding our facilities, again, we're going to wait and make sure we understand exactly what the go-forward position is once the proceedings have reached a resolution.

But as part of our $50 million cost reduction program, we had closed a facility in 2024 that was supplying fruit products to that customer, and we consolidated that into other operations to get the benefit of the consolidation. So really nothing to do from that perspective. And I think it's a great question for the next earnings call. Hopefully, the entire process will be resolved. But for us, Mike, I don't view 2026 as having any further risk than what we experienced in 2025.

Our next question comes from Anthony Pettinari with Citi.

With regards to the steel and aluminum tariffs, is it your view that customers and consumers have sort of fully absorbed the impact of the tariffs and it's reflected in their behavior and the price of the package? Or is it possible that you could see some kind of lagged customer change or consumer change over the course of the year, either changing product positioning or consumer change in behavior? Just wondering how you kind of think about that in 2026.

Yes. Well, maybe let's start with '25. It was a very volatile year on raw material costs because of those tariffs and kind of the limited notice that we had to deal with that prior to the implementation of those tariffs. And Anthony, as you very well know, our contracts are sort of designed to make sure we are insulated from those kinds of activities. So we contractually pass through those costs and those tariffs on to our customers and they then on to the consumer.

So I think those tariffs were kind of, let's just round about, call it, midyear, April, May, June of '25. So there is some full year annualization of those costs in 2026 as we get a full year impact of those. I do think the market has absorbed those costs. In many cases, our customers have passed those costs on through to consumers, and they're now really challenging themselves on kind of promotional activity, trying to understand what the price elasticity is across the board for those products.

But to be really clear, the food can, we still think is competitively advantaged from a cost standpoint on the store shelf. Again, for those consumers that are looking for nutrition, we think it's the lowest cost means of getting nutrition to those consumers. So there -- we're still talking to our customers about their pricing activities for 2026. And it's a blend. It's different by customers, as you can imagine. There's a blend of promotional activity trying to drive some volume. There's also still some conversation about cost recovery. So I think we'll see it play out more as we get through the year, but I think it's a balanced approach that all of that means, I think it's fairly well absorbed in the market.

I think our volumes, again, nice growth for food cans in 2025. We'll see continued growth in 2026 as well. So we think that particular package is positioned very well even with the tariffs that they've already incurred.

Got it. Got it. That's very helpful. And then just switching gears and following up on health care and the opportunity there. I think you disclosed that health care was 3% of sales in 2024, maybe at better than company margins. You talked about doubling, I think, over the next few years. So I guess just to make sure I got it right, should we think about health care maybe going from low single-digit percentage sales maybe to high single-digit percent of sales in the next 3 years or so or something like that?

And I guess related, are there acquisitions that could really accelerate that exposure? Or is it really more kind of the organic growth with clean rooms and all the stuff that you're doing internally?

Sure. Again, it's a great market. We're excited that we're continuing to grow and what the future looks like for our health care business. So I think you're right. I think you mentioned a 2024 number. So it's grown a little bit beyond kind of that number. I would say we're still in that $200-ish million just as a proxy of total revenue. So could that easily get to $400 million over the course of the next couple of years? Yes, we absolutely think so.

How we get there? That's with our own pipeline, and that's with our own kind of contractual obligations that we've already secured over the next 3 to 5 years with the drugs and pharma and health care products that are in development with our largest customers. I think you raised a really good point, Anthony, that I think as we have continued to expand our Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment, with each acquisition, we say it opens a broader horizon for future acquisition opportunities. Weener is a great example. It brought a lot of different products, but it brought a very strong health care business with it. And we think that opens up even more opportunities from a corporate development perspective and where we can inorganically continue to grow out the business as we've done in the past.

So I think we even said it in maybe some of the prepared remarks, the opportunities for organic and inorganic growth for Silgan are probably as great as at any time in my 21 years that I've been with the company. And we're extremely positive and excited about what the future, particularly in health care products, looks like for the company.

We'll move next to Daniel Rizzo with Jefferies.

So not to belabor the point, but on the last call, I thought consumer caution within Dispensing and also in Custom Containers was kind of something that bears watching because of, again, affordability issues and things like that. But it seems to be have faded. So I was wondering if that was just kind of a temporary blip amongst your customers or it's something that kind of bears monitoring over the rest of the year?

I definitely think it bears monitoring over the course of the year. I think what I was trying to convey, Dan, is that in that affordability discussion, we think our products are incredibly well positioned to be a very positive value driver for customers that are seeking affordability across a whole bunch of different products. And that's really where a good swath of our portfolio sits. So we actually encourage that conversation, and we'll be watching it closely. But we think our products are very well positioned for that discussion.

All right. And then with everything that's happened with the bankruptcy with the customer, does that change how you kind of, I don't know, design contracts or do business with a customer like that or just in metal containers in general? I mean, is this just kind of a one-off thing that you just moved past?

Well, again, I think since our founding, this would be the first large customer bankruptcy that we dealt with in our Metal Containers business. And I go back to the contractual nature of this part of our portfolio that it's just the contracts have been so well written, so well written over a long period of time that the company did not face any detriment during the course of one of our large customers going bankruptcy during the year.

So our teams did a great job of protecting the company. But in fairness, the contracts allows us to do that as well. So I think it's just -- Dan, it's more of the same as far as the contractual nature and the protections that we build in those contracts to make sure we protect our company and our shareholders from any adverse outcome.

We'll go next to Ano Shah with UBS.

We have some new FDA food guidelines that came out recently promoting protein. And it seems to me like that would be pretty positive for your metal cans business. Do you see that as a significant opportunity for you? Or are there offsets elsewhere in the portfolio from these guidelines?

Sure. I think we're working very closely with our customers to make sure that we help them position products into the marketplace to really accommodate or maybe incorporate the new FDA guidelines. So we look at protein as part of our portfolio and our high-protein products, again, the can is a great vehicle to get that nutritional value to consumers. And sure, I mean, we think it's an opportunity, but there are several opportunities that we continue to work on. So I do think we're working with our customers. There's nothing specific that we're outlining in our guidance or anything at all. It's just one of the puts and takes that we would typically consider as we give forward guidance.

And then just for context, protein is about 10% of the Metal Containers volume.

Okay. And then also just your CapEx this year is stepping up modestly, I think, about $10 million year-over-year. And you mentioned dispensing and pet food growth sort of driving that. Any details you can give there on what -- where you expect CapEx to step up? And I'll turn it over.

Yes. I think our -- this is Shawn. I think our guidance was $310 million for 2026. And really, that's driven by increased growth in pet food, as you mentioned, in dispensing products. We're really happy with our pet food customers, and we are continuing to invest money in that space where we see the growth prospects. And honestly, we're under a long-term agreement to do so. So we're happy to do it and continue to invest in that space where we see the growth.

And I think just maybe to add to that, if you look back over the last 30 years of our CapEx portfolio, investments in wet pet food have been very consistent in our CapEx profile. It might not be every year, but we are investing to support that customer growth, again, driving significant volume growth for the company over a very long period of time.

We go next to Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets.

I guess, first off, congrats to Bob. Great working with you over the last several years. And Shawn, I look forward to working with you as well. And then just on the results. So the guide, I guess, first on volume. So I think you said low to mid-single digits in DSC and low single digits in metal driven by pet food. Just curious on the pet food item because you do face a pretty tough comp there, and you've seen some volatility. So maybe you can just kind of parse out what drives that? And I guess, where are you in kind of penetration in wet pet?

And then on DSC, I think you had a relatively kind of choppy year last year, just given some of those consumer trends. Would you say that you've kind of settled down? And were there any execution issues that you had last year that you've maybe addressed? Or was it just mainly market impacts?

Sure. Maybe to address the DSC item, I think really, the big items that we talked about during the year were much more market related, right? So you had the food and beverage item in sports drinks in Q2 that we talked about earlier on the call. You had a little destocking in Q4 for Personal Care and Home Care products. Those are definitely market-related activities that were the 2 items, I think, in DSC that went a long way to challenge kind of the performance in Fragrance and Beauty that was fantastic through the course of the year.

So moving over to Metal Containers. Again, I think if you think about wet pet food, this has been an annual grower for us for decades, and we've been a requirement supplier to our largest customer since we bought assets associated with their business. And they've continued to invest in capacity.

Arun, I know we've talked about this before, but the primary animals that we're talking about here are cats and it's primarily cats and a little bit of small dog as well. So those populations have grown over time. They continue to grow going forward. I think wet pet food in these categories is considered to be a premium product. So we haven't talked a lot about the K-shaped economy on this call. But as you get back to some of those larger macro trends, the high-end consumer is still seemingly doing pretty darn well. And we see that in our wet pet food segment.

And then the last piece of it, and we've seen this for decades again, once pet owners feed their animals wet pet food, it is very rare that they move out of the category in a cat or a small dog. Large dog moves in and out, and we've always talked about that. It's a very small part of our portfolio. But for cats, we've seen the stickiness of that product with pet owners and with the consuming animals for a very, very long time.

Okay. And just as a quick follow-up, just on the cash flow. So the $450 million guide, was there any inventory impact? Or -- and is there potential for upside if that's not as bad? Or how would you kind of characterize that $450 million? Is it -- is there any kind of variability in that?

Yes. This is Shawn. We normally have working capital improvement initiatives every year in our free cash flow, and 2026 is no different in that regard. I'd call it a modest amount of working capital improvement. But generally speaking, we're expecting our operating earnings to go up, call it, $20 million, $25 million, and that's offset mostly by cash -- higher cash interest and taxes in the year, and that gets us to the $450 million for '26, bridging that versus our '25 number.

And we'll return back to the line of George Staphos with Bank of America.

I'll try to make it quick. So you've talked a lot about on this call here and there kind of the impact of healthier living and the like. As you've analyzed across your categories, is it a net positive, neutral, negative, all that commentary relative to the end market growth and demand you'd see across food can, DSC and Custom Containers as you've analyzed it?

The second question related, we've seen over the last year or so new products, zero-calorie products on the beverage side, anything that we should be aware of that could perhaps help growth in the dispensing segment for this year or in the next couple of years that you know.

Last question for me, just on availability and supply chain in metal, steel and aluminum. I assume you're doing fine. I just wanted to check the box on that. And has there been any commentary at all from your suppliers about maybe bringing back some tinplate capacity to the U.S. Again, congratulations to everybody, to Shawn, Alex and bon voyage Bob, talk to you guys soon.

Thanks, George. As far as the healthier conversation that we were having and its impact to our volume growth, I mean, I think it's relatively neutral to our volume growth. I mean I think we're well positioned already for a variety of outcomes across the portfolio that we have. It's a bit of the intentional nature of how we've built out the portfolio that we can do well in different economic circumstances, we can do well with different consumer preference patterns evolving and feel pretty good that we've got that captured and we'll support our customers in whatever way we need to.

You're right. I think '26 on the food and -- on the beverage side is going to be a year of innovation. One of our largest customers has clearly stated that. And whether it's 0 calorie or better-for-you products, we're watching very carefully to see what is new volume brought into the category versus cannibalizing some of the existing products.

So again, I'd say roughly we're neutral in that scenario because the cannibalization is just -- it's a similar volume, comparable volume to what we already had. And I think they're looking at it from a value perspective as well with potentially healthier for you products requiring a premium in the marketplace.

And then as we think about aluminum and steel supply, our 2 largest expenditures that we have and critically important to our customers' success as well, we've talked a lot about tinplate in particular, in the U.S. market and the U.S. market being a net importer now with significant tariffs. So it's a challenging environment. We're one of the largest buyers for both steel and aluminum can sheet anywhere in the world.

So you're right, you can't check the box for us. We get the products that we need. Our contracts allow us to pass through those costs whatever they may be to our customers. We take that very seriously, and we fight like crazy to get the lowest cost for ourselves and for our customers, George. But I think the market dynamics are continuing to evolve. I'd love to tell you there might be more tinplate capacity coming on in the U.S. It has to be high-quality wide tinplate capacity for it to really work well in the manufacturing systems and not just Silgan, but can manufacturers have assembled now over time. So there will be some hurdles to that.

So I think our perspective is it's going to be more of the same as we go forward. We'll continue to get the products that we need and regardless of where that supply comes in from. We'd love to buy product raw materials in the market where we're making products and selling products. Unfortunately, the way the tinplate market in the U.S. has evolved over time, we're no longer able to do that.

We have no further questions. I'll turn the floor back over to Adam Greenlee, President and CEO, for any additional or closing remarks.

Great. Thanks very much, Belinda. We appreciate everyone's interest in the company, and we look forward to discussing our first quarter results near the end of April. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.

Good day, and welcome to the Silgan Holdings Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Alex Hutter, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Anna, and good morning. Joining me on the call today are Adam Greenlee, President and CEO; Philippe Chevrier, EVP and COO; Bob Lewis, EVP, Corporate Development and Administration; and Kim Ulmer, SVP and CFO.

Before we begin the call today, we would like to make it clear that certain statements made on this conference call may be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made based upon management's expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company and therefore, involve a number of uncertainties and risks, including, but not limited to, those described in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for 2024 and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Therefore, the actual results of operation or financial condition of the company could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. In addition, commentary on today's call may contain references to certain non-GAAP financial metrics, including adjusted EBIT, adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow and adjusted net income per diluted share or adjusted EPS. A reconciliation of these metrics, which should not be considered substitutes for similar GAAP metrics can be found in today's press release under the non-GAAP financial information portion of our Investor Relations section of our website at silganholdings.com.

With that, I'll turn it over to Adam.

Thank you, Alex, and we'd like to welcome everyone to Silgan's third quarter earnings call. Our third quarter results continue to show the resilience of our business model, the success of our strategic initiatives and the power of our unique portfolio of products as we delivered another quarter of strong financial performance. Our teams executed well during the quarter and adapted our operating plans to the changing market conditions we identified midyear, delivering on our strategic growth initiatives, including meaningful organic growth in high-value dispensing products and Metal Containers for pet food, achieving our cost reduction goals and working closely with our customers to meet their unique needs as we head into the end of the year and begin to plan for 2026.

We delivered 10% adjusted EPS growth to the first 3 quarters of the year, returned over $120 million in cash to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, successfully integrated the Weener acquisition and are on track to reduce leverage near the midpoint of our range, just over 12 months after closing the acquisition.

Our Dispensing and Specialty closures segment delivered another quarter of significant year-over-year growth and record adjusted EBIT in the third quarter with nearly 40% growth in dispensing product sales and continued success in the markets we serve. Our team successfully responded to the anticipated decline in sports drinks volumes following more subdued first half volumes for these products.

We've completed the integration of Weener and have one additional contractual volume based on the combined power of our innovation teams, complementary portfolios of products and the new product technology this acquisition brings to our platform. Our long-term customer relationships continue to expand as the execution and focus of our teams remains a key competitive advantage in our markets to drive organic growth that outpaces our peers and the end markets we serve.

Our core high-end fragrance and beauty business continues to win in the market, with 15% organic growth in fragrance volumes in the third quarter, and we are seeing incremental opportunities in health care and pharma end markets that should contribute more meaningfully in 2026. Our Metal Containers business delivered strong volume growth of 4% as expected, with a 10% increase in product for pet food market and a partial recovery in the fruit and vegetable markets as our team successfully navigated the impact of the bankruptcy of one of our large fruit and vegetable customers during the quarter and executed on our cost reduction plan.

In custom containers, our teams continue to build on our commercial success as comparable volumes grew 4% after adjusting for the impact of lower margin business exited to achieve our cost savings initiatives, and continue to deliver exceptional operating performance as they execute on our cost reduction plans. As expected, our adjusted EBIT margin expanded 180 basis points, largely as a result of these cost reductions, and we're on track to have a record year of adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBITDA for custom containers.

Turning to our expectations for the balance of 2025. We are adjusting our outlook to reflect higher interest expense and a higher tax rate and lower volumes in our Dispensing and Specialty closures and Custom Container segments for certain personal care and home care products in the fourth quarter. As 2025 has progressed, it has become clear that North American consumer trends have become more bifurcated with certain high-end products continuing to perform very well, while other products appear to have been impacted by a subset of the North American consumer that is stretched by both inflation and muted wage growth.

As a result, some consumers are being more selective with their purchases and focusing their buy around essential, low-cost goods like shelf-stable food cans and delaying purchase decisions for products that may be more sensitive to promotional activity like hard surface cleaners or hand lotions. On the other hand, the high-end consumer continues to drive growth, for instance, in the fragrance and beauty markets where we are expecting another quarter of double-digit fragrance volume growth in the fourth quarter.

As a result of these trends, demand for some of the products for which consumers are being more selective with their purchases, predominantly for the personal care and home care markets in our Dispensing and Specialty closures and Custom Container segments, while they are growing, they appear to have been below the levels our customers were anticipating throughout 2025.

Our customers remain committed to growing volumes in these products and end markets over time, and we remain very well positioned to capture that growth. But given the growth trend in 2025 fell below expectations, our customers have shifted priorities in the fourth quarter to more closely align their inventories, exiting the year with the levels of demand they have experienced throughout 2025. As a result, we are now expecting Dispensing and Specialty closures and Custom Containers volumes to decline by a mid-single-digit percentage in the fourth quarter, and have proactively taken the step of reducing our own inventories in the fourth quarter as well.

Outside of these specific products, we have seen signs of stabilization in the North American sports drink closures market as we enter the fourth quarter. It appears the challenges we saw in the market earlier this year have been contained in the second and third quarters as we expected. Our expectations for Metal Containers volume and profit are unchanged, and we're on track to grow volume by a mid-single-digit percentage in the fourth quarter and full year, driven primarily by mid- to high single-digit growth in pet food and higher fruit and vegetable pack volumes.

Before I turn it over to Ken to discuss our financial results and outlook, I want to take a few minutes to provide some high-level commentary on our businesses. Our Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment has provided tremendous organic and inorganic growth for our company over the past decade. And while the growth rate of some of the products in our portfolio this year have fallen short of our and our customers' expectations, nothing has changed about the way we think about the growth in this segment. The dispensing products in this segment, which represent approximately 65% of sales and 75% of adjusted EBITDA, post the Weener acquisition are expected to grow by at least a mid-single-digit rate.

And with above-average portfolio margin for these products should provide mix enhancement to this segment. Our growth in this segment is underpinned by a long pipeline of product innovation and customer portfolio additions, which we believe will drive above-market growth rates as our teams continue to compete and win in the marketplace. The food and beverage products in this segment have historically shown modest growth driven by new customer acquisitions or product innovations from our existing and new customers.

While the beverage innovation in the hot fill category over the past few years has been somewhat below historical levels, that we would typically see in the segment, we still believe the category is a stable one for Silgan as we continue to be well positioned with the major players in this category as a key strategic partner. From an inorganic perspective, we continue to see significant opportunities to expand our Dispensing and Specialty Closures business in new and existing end markets through acquisitions with similar growth and financial profiles to the businesses we have acquired over the past 8 years with mid-20s percentage EBITDA margins and mid-single-digit organic growth. Our Metal Container segment has been the benchmark of the Silgan portfolio since our inception.

And within our portfolio generates amongst the highest returns of any of our businesses as a result of the relatively stable nature of overall demand over time. The resilience of the profit profile through all economic circumstances due to our contractual cost pass-throughs and relatively low cash requirements to operate this customer partnership model that results in strong free cash flow generation. Over time, we have significantly improved the profitability of this business through cost reductions and organic growth and currently see opportunity for both continued growth opportunities in our pet food markets and further cost reductions in this business.

While 2024 and 2025 have presented some unique challenges with regard to one customer's specific financial situation, we believe it is likely that our customers' business will emerge stronger than it has been over the past several years once this process is complete. However, should our volumes remain at the current levels for this customer, we see a potential cost reduction opportunity of at least $10 million over the next couple of years as we align capacity with demand.

Our customer partnerships remain a key differentiator for Silgan in the marketplace as these long-term arrangements provide tremendous stability to the business as well as a significant growth opportunity as clearly demonstrated in the pet food market. As a reminder, approximately 90% of our Metal Containers business is under long-term contracts, which typically range from 5 to 10 years in length. And excluding the volumes from the customer that is currently undergoing a reorganization, approximately 90% of our contractual volume is with large blue-chip customers, nearly all of whom are investment-grade rated, publicly-traded companies under contracts that extend through the next several years.

We continue to believe this unique business creates exceptional value for our shareholders, driven by its stable earnings, low capital requirements and strong free cash flow generation, superior returns and growth. In fact, after continuing to see strong growth in our differentiated aluminum products for the pet food segment in 2024 and 2025, we anticipate investing in additional capacity in 2026 to support continued contractual volume growth with our long-term partners.

Our Custom Containers business has demonstrated the value we provide in the small and medium run length market, delivering consistently strong operating performance and a best-in-class service model and is on track to deliver another year of record profit. As we look to the future for this business, we see significant opportunities to expand as our service model continues to resonate in the markets we serve. We have long said that this market, which is the most fragmented market we participate in, would benefit from consolidation.

And with some of that consolidation having taken place already, we believe we are well positioned as a differentiated value-added player in this market. While the growth in this business can be somewhat episodic and lumpy from year-to-year, the long-term trajectory and the growth of this business is clear. We remain focused on the opportunities that lay ahead for the company and are confident in our ability to execute on our plan as the structural changes and evolution in our portfolio have positioned us to drive growth in our business in the near term and long term. While some of the market developments in 2025 have not been as predictable as in the past, we remain excited with the incremental opportunities that we have -- that have materialized during the year, and we are focused on delivering strong free cash flow and achieving our deleveraging objectives into the year-end. As we begin to look into next year, we continue to see tailwinds in our business and anticipate higher earnings and free cash flow in 2026.

With that, Kim will take you through the financials for the quarter and our estimates for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025.

Thank you, Adam. As Adam highlighted, we reported another quarter of strong financial results in the third quarter that were consistent with our expectations with continued success in our Dispensing business and the execution of our cost reduction plan more than offsetting headwinds in sports drinks volumes and Metal Containers price cost in the quarter. Net sales of $2 billion increased 15% from the prior year period, driven primarily by growth in dispensing products, including the addition of the Weener business and the contractual pass-through of higher raw material and other manufacturing costs. Total adjusted EBIT for the quarter of $221 million increased by 8% on a year-over-year basis, driven by strong growth in dispensing products, including from the acquisition of Weener, improved price/cost in Custom Containers, higher volumes in Metal Containers and the benefits of our cost reduction efforts, which were partially offset by expected lower volumes for sports drinks in North America and unfavorable price/cost, including mix in Metal Containers.

Adjusted EPS of $1.22 was slightly above the prior year quarter as the improvement in adjusted EBIT was mostly offset by higher interest expense and a higher tax rates. Turning to our segments. Third quarter sales in our Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment increased 23% versus the prior year period, primarily as a result of the increase in sales from Weener and higher volume for the high-value dispensing products.

As anticipated, volumes for Food and Beverage closures declined 5% during the quarter, driven by a double-digit decline in North American hot fill products, predominantly for sports drinks. Record third quarter 2025 Dispensing and Specialty Closures adjusted EBIT increased $18 million or 19% versus the prior year period as a result of the contribution from Weener and higher organic volumes of high-value dispensing products.

In our Metal Container segment, sales increased 13% versus the prior year period as a result of favorable price/mix due to the contractual pass-through of higher raw material and other costs, higher unit volumes of 4% and a 1% benefit from foreign currency translation. Volume growth during the quarter was a result of 10% growth in products for pet food markets, which represents approximately half of our unit volumes in Metal Containers, and higher volumes of fruit and vegetable markets, which was partially offset by lower volumes for soup markets due to the timing of orders in 2025. Metal Container adjusted EBIT decreased slightly as a result of less favorable price cost, including mix in the current year quarter due to less favorable production efficiencies associated with inventory management in the quarter.

In custom containers, sales increased 1% compared to the prior year quarter, driven by improved price mix in the current year quarter. Unit volumes were comparable to the prior year, including the impact of lower margin business exited as a result of a planned footprint optimization to achieve the previously announced cost reduction volumes. Excluding the lower margin business exited to achieve cost reduction plans, volumes increased 4%. Custom Containers adjusted EBIT increased 15% as compared to the third quarter of 2024 due to favorable price/cost, including mix, primarily as a result of cost savings initiatives.

Turning to our outlook for the fourth quarter of 2025. We are providing an estimate of adjusted earnings in the range of $0.62 to $0.72 per diluted share. Fourth quarter earnings are expected to be negatively impacted by the reduction in volumes for the North American personal care and home care markets, as Adam discussed, and the related impact of under-absorbed costs as we take extended downtime and reduce our inventory. The total impact of lower volumes, extended downtime and associated inventory reductions in the fourth quarter is expected to be a $25 million headwind in the quarter versus our prior estimates.

In addition, fourth quarter earnings are expected to be negatively impacted by higher interest expense related to the recent Eurobond issuance as well as a higher-than-expected tax rate due to the geographical mix of profits. Dispensing and Specialty closures and Custom Containers fourth quarter volumes are expected to decline by a mid-single-digit percentage, while Metal Container volumes are expected to grow by a mid-single-digit percentage, driven by continued strong growth in pet food and higher fruit and vegetable volumes.

From a segment perspective, we now expect a high single-digit percentage increase in total adjusted EBIT in 2025, driven primarily by an approximately 15% increase in Dispensing and Specialty closures adjusted EBIT with Custom Containers adjusted EBIT of approximately $10 million year-over-year. Our expectations for Metal Containers remain unchanged, and we continue to expect approximately $10 million of year-over-year improvement in adjusted EBIT in the segment for the year.

Based on our current earnings outlook for 2025, we are maintaining our estimate of free cash flow of approximately $430 million, a 10% increase from the prior year as a result of earnings growth and working capital improvement. We continue to expect capital expenditures of approximately $300 million. That concludes our prepared comments, and we'll open the call for questions. Anna, would you kindly provide the directions for our question-and-answer session?

[Operator Instructions]

We'll take our first question from Ghansham Panjabi with Baird.

Adam, just zooming a little bit and kind of looking back over the last 3 years when you had a previous sort of inventory destocking cycle, et cetera. This seems like the second iteration almost a double dip, if you will, in terms of volume improvement and then some level of decline, et cetera. What do you sort of attribute this towards this go run and how does this go run compared to the first iteration back in 2022 and 2023?

I think it's a really good question because I think there are some very stark differences between what is occurring in the fourth quarter now versus kind of what we're dealing with in the very broad destocking post pandemic cycle that we dealt with in 2023. Maybe I'll start with 2023 and just talk about it that was a broad-based the cycle post-pandemic that really affected all of our products and pretty well described, I think, throughout the portfolio. And then I think about what's going on in 2025, and I'll just start with last quarter and say, we did have a large customer bankruptcy. Unfortunately, that had a negative impact to our '25 earnings.

We had very poor weather that affected the sports drink category. We've already talked about those, but those are very unique one-off instances that we think affected 2 of our key markets and fruit and veg, fresh fac and then our sports drinks category. And really, I think the difference now is the kind of the bifurcation of consumer activity, right? So we've got our high-value, high-end products continue to do well that are targeted at kind of a higher-income consumer. I think the lower to mid tier of income consumer is really struggling. I mentioned earlier that between inflation and maybe some muted wage growth they're trying to stretch dollars at point of purchase. And we're seeing it.

Gansham, I think we've talked for many, many years that the food can business is a bit of an indicator of the broader economy. We are seeing strength in food cans as those consumers that are making that purchase point and -- decision and trying to stretch the dollars moving into categories like shelf-stable cans for nutrition. So it's pretty consistent with what we've seen in the past. And then likewise, we see in some products, we've specifically called out kind of hard surface cleaners and hand soaps and lotions and some of the other products that move into our personal care categories, those are nondiscretionary, but in fairness, those can be stretched, right?

You can move that purchase from one month to another, whereas when you're feeding your family and you're stretching those dollars, that purchase point decision becomes pretty clear. And again, we're seeing it. We've also, I think, collectively, the market, in general, we've taught consumers to buy on promotion. And if there's not promotional activity that is moving volume or is very focused on moving volume. We have seen consumers be reticent to make that purchase and purchase decision. And we're seeing effective promotional activities drive volume, much like we've seen to some degree in our wet pet food category.

Okay. That's helpful. And then just related question. So within the last 3 months, last -- 3 months ago, you called out weakness in food and beverage closures in North America, now it's Personal Care and Home Care. Do you see that broadening to perhaps even pet food? I mean, is that a risk as you kind of think about how the sequencing will work through the early part of -- into 2026?

Yes. So to answer your question directly, no, we don't. And we just delivered 10% growth in Q3 in our Pet Foods segment we're expecting high single-digit growth in the fourth quarter, which we communicated on the last call as well. So Pet Foods is playing out exactly as we thought it would. For the year, we're looking at mid-single-digit growth in the Containers business, the Metal Containers business. So really, everything is playing out exactly as we expected. I'll go back to your point on food and beverage.

Again, we were very specific that, that conversation, while we talked about food and beverage, it was very specific to sports drinks, and related to the really bad weather and wet weather that really limited the drink occasions for those products in the early part of the summer, and our customers responded to that with further inventory reductions because they were not getting the sell-through because the drink occasions were limited. They also hold back their promotional dollars and allocated them to other categories. So I just think it's different and I think it's much different than it was in '23 back to your earlier question, and we think it's isolated to these specific instances.

So it's back to -- it's the bifurcation of the consumer and the consumer that's stretching the dollar is making those purchase point decisions and focus on low-cost nutrition at this point.

We'll now take our next question from George Staphos with Bank of America.

I guess the first question I had, even though it's not surprising given the ultimate release today, Adam, why did DSC miss on what was -- I think at one point in time, you said mid- to high 20s revenue growth for the quarter. I didn't hear kind of a specific comment there. I don't think I did, and I had a couple of follow-ons in terms of what's going on in the business and your vantage point?

Sure. Yes, you're right, George. So as we guided kind of mid- to high 20s and delivered something like 22%, 23%, it was really the late September change that we were seeing some pressure in the Personal Care and Home Care market. So really, the change started to really show in our numbers kind of late in the month of September. And as we really pressed hard for additional forecast clarity and visibility with our customers, that's what led to the ultimate reduction here for Q4 as well.

Okay. So look, just on that point, it's kind of a minor point. But since you already were seeing signs of this in late September, did you ever think about -- what were your considerations in terms of maybe just doing a guidance reduction or pre-announcement? Recognizing the third quarter was coming in, in line, the fourth quarter was going to look a lot different versus what was implied for the fourth quarter in your prior guidance.

Yes. So I mean, certainly some conversation around that, George, but maybe just to reiterate what you said, our third quarter came in exactly with our expectations. And in fairness, we were trending ahead of the third quarter prior to this conversation regarding personal care and home care products. It takes a little bit of time to work with our customers to work all the way through their forecast. Obviously, as I would relay the information here, George, we're really good a week out. We're great a week out. We're really good a month out. And as we get kind of further and further out with our customers, it takes more time for them to aggregate their forecast information and for us to then react to it. So while we did see volumes starting to soften in late September, we didn't have forecast until the kind of first -- probably late first week, second week of October from our customers, and then we're putting our plans together and did not feel it was within the timeline to talk about it prior to this call.

Okay. That's fair. It's just given the volatility that we've seen in equities over the last number of quarters with variation from performance and guidance. That's kind of what drives the question. We understand. So if we look at the pretax amount of $25 million, and that's what we were getting and very, very simplistically apply the mid-single digit to the revenue in DSC and Custom Containers, I wind up with a relatively high incremental margin.

Now I know you're saying there's decrementals from overhead absorption and so on. But can you give us a bit more color in terms of how much is the absorption versus the impact from earnings? And how does that split across the segments? And is it pretty even on the mid-single-digit decline, I think you said for both segments?

Yes. So I think maybe to carve into that, George. So the $25 million, I think you can think about $20 million in DSC and $5 million in Custom Containers. And then -- this will apply to both businesses because we did take proactive actions to mitigate kind of the impact here and make sure we secured our free cash flow to obtain our deleveraging goals for the year.

So of the $25 million, I'd say it's probably half of that is going to be related to volume and half of it is going to be related to kind of us taking cost out and reducing our own inventories in response to the customer forecast change. So it's kind of a 50-50. And I think that the volume is not a permanent reduction by any stretch, and we'll expect to recover that in future periods. The lost inventory -- or the impact of the inventory is kind of a onetime gain that we likely aren't going to recover.

Okay. My last one, I'll turn it over. So if we take the midpoint of your guidance for this year to $3.71, and so that means you're trading right now roughly at less than 10x trailing 12 months. And while I know you're not guiding on '26, we'll take it if you have it, but we assume we'll have to wait until February for that. We assume any growth at all, you're at 9x, and that's the lowest valuation Silgan's been at, I think, in 20 years, even with your Dispensing acquisitions.

So clearly, it's a very skeptical market out there relative to Silgan, recognize the market has been volatile period. So what mile markers are you going to tell investors here and now and then analysts that we should hold you to in terms of fourth quarter and 1Q to mark your progress and to gain -- it's kind of to Ghansham's question as well, gain more faith in the outlook for the next year.

Sure. Thanks, George. Look, performance matters, and we'll take full ownership and accountability of the performance of the business. So you're right, we're not providing '26 outlook yet or Q1 guidance. So if you're looking for a marker, I think it's very clear that we need to deliver the fourth quarter as we've discussed here already on the call and you saw in the press release. So I think holding us accountable and we're holding ourselves accountable for delivering the free cash flow, deleveraging, as we've talked about. And again, unfortunately, it's not the growth that we anticipated for 2025, but delivering a year of growth in 2025, while setting ourselves up for growth, not only in EPS for '26, but also in free cash flow.

So 1Q, should we be looking at low to mid-single-digit growth across the platform? That's what I was kind of getting at. Thanks guys, sorry about that, because I know fourth quarter is what it is, but...

Yes. Thanks, George. We're just not going to comment on outlook for Q1 at this point.

We'll take our next question from Matt Roberts with Raymond James.

Adam, I was wondering in Dispense, if you could help parse that down a bit more. First, could you isolate the revenue mix exposure to just those personal and home care products and how much those markets are expected to be down? Fragrance that continues to shine. Is that just general demand resilience? Or how much of that 15% growth was really innovation ahead of holiday releases? And then lastly, within that segment, you did say health care and pharma could contribute more meaningfully in '26. How much growth do you think that could bring in 2026?

Got it. So I'll do the last one quickly for you, Matt. The health care and pharma for '26, we'll be talking about that on our next call when we're providing guidance for '26. So we've got contractual wins that will impact '26 favorably, and we'll get into that in a little more detail in the future period. Back to your beginning of the question, for personal care and home care products, again, how about this from a volume perspective, we were guiding to kind of mid-single-digit growth for Q4 and now expect a mid-single-digit decline in volumes for Q4 versus prior year. So that's kind of the magnitude. It's sort of an average margin for the portfolio.

And then you rightly highlighted the fragrance business. Again, as we said on the last call, we were expecting double-digit growth in Q3. We delivered that. We're expecting double-digit growth in Q4 as well and are positioned for nice growth in '26. And the reasons why I think you touched on a couple of them. One, we continue to win a disproportionate amount of the new product launches in the space where we compete and win every single day, and that's in the premium end of the fragrance and beauty market.

So a lot of product innovation from our teams, and that's winning and being rewarded in the marketplace. And then as our customers continue to innovate, we are being chosen as the partner of choice to help them get their products to market. And that's been a successful story really since we've been probably all the way back to the Albéa acquisition in 2020, no 2021, excuse me. And that is set up for continued growth going forward. And I think as we've talked, Matt, once you're kind of -- it's not pharma, it's not health care, but it's pretty darn close. Once you're spec-ed in, you have a long runway with those product launches that occur. And so we benefit in the long term, but again, continue to win a disproportionate amount of the new product launches being made by customers as well.

Matt, just one point of clarification. The margins on these products in Personal Care Home Care. Their average for dispensing, which is obviously higher for the overall portfolio of DSC. So there's mix involved as well.

That makes sense. And then as a follow-up on Weener. So you've talked about for 12 months now. Could you break out what the 10 or 12-month revenue and EBITDA contribution was from that business? Any update on the $20 million in synergies achieved to date? And it sounded like Personal and Home Care was isolated to North America. Is that really in legacy products or any impact on the Weener portfolio given it has, I think, about 1/3 U.S. exposure.

Yes, great question. And really, the Personal Care and Home Care impact within the legacy business. So that's the traditional Silgan side of Dispensing Closures business. So Weener, Matt, honestly, it's fully integrated. It's nearly impossible now. Yes, we had a standalone P&L, but we've made investments into their facilities. So it would gone into legacy Silgan facilities. So it really is difficult to try to break anything out there. What I'll say is that the product portfolio that came over with the acquisition continues to perform well. And right in line, if not slightly ahead of expectations in many of the cases.

And the synergies, yes, so very detailed synergy estimates that we come up, we do bottoms up synergies. The phasing is very specific. So there are no surprises. So we delivered exactly what we expected from a synergy standpoint and really have another 6-ish months to deliver the remaining synergies. So right on track. I think it's $20 million of the $25 million have been delivered and we're in good shape to deliver the balance.

Our next question will come from Gabe Hajde with Wells Fargo Securities.

Adam, I'm trying to reconcile, I think in your comments, you said you expect 2026 free cash flow to be up from 2025. Appreciating that you guys. It sounds like you're obviously whittling down, I think you said some of your own inventory this year. And historically speaking, we've kind of seen an inverse relationship with production EBITDA and cash flow, right? So if you're ramping up earnings, typically cash flow is going to go the opposite direction and vice versa. So -- and unless the business is in wind down or something like that, I'm curious how you're thinking about or what the levers are to grow cash flow in '26 to be in '25.

Yes. And I don't disagree with what you said, Gabe . I think for us, if we're looking at '26 it's continued improvement in working capital and incremental programs that will execute next year, frankly, just as we have been doing for the last several years. So a, there's always room to improve, but we've got specific working capital initiatives that we'll be executing in '26.

Okay. And then I guess maybe to George's point on communications as it relates to expectations and things like that. Outside of giving us a view about earnings for next year or guidance on volumes. Is there anything that you can think of to do that would instill some confidence and conviction in sort of the strategy? Because I do believe that DSC should be a faster growing, higher-margin segment. You guys have spent a lot of time and effort over the past 3 to 5 years to reposition the business. So I'm just curious from your perspective as there are other considerations to infill some confidence.

Sure, Gabe. Look, it's -- I think performance matters, delivery upon expectations matters. I think if we take a half a step back and and talk about our businesses. dispensing of specialty closures is still growing and is delivering tremendous organic growth and inorganic opportunities for the business. I think it's some of the legacy applications have been a bit of a challenge in 2025 specifically. Metal Containers has done exactly what we expected it to for the year, and we're going to have another record year of performance in our Custom Container segment. So I think just how we communicate that to the market. And we talked, I think, even on the last call about as we think about giving guidance for 2026, it's likely that we're going to be a little more conservative as far as our outlook of what we'll be delivering for the business to try to take into account more of the unknown things like the customer bankruptcy and whether that impacted a specific product.

Okay. Maybe anything on the capital redeployment side? I know leverage is a consideration, but...

Yes. Look, capital allocation is a focus for us, certainly here in our corporate office all the time. And so we did buy back about $60 million worth of of shares in the third quarter. Clearly, we thought there was a dislocation in the market, and we were opportunistic with that. We continue to evaluate our capital allocation all the time. And again, I'll just say we thought there was a dislocation in Q3, and we were opportunistic with that.

Yes, Gabe, I think what's not said in that is that our leverage point is kind of stripping back towards the midpoint of the range after we fully integrated the Weener acquisition. So what that means is that we're well positioned to continue looking for M&A opportunities to deploy capital and continue to grow the business.

We'll take our next question from Mike Roxland with Truist Securities.

Adam, can you tell us why you're seeing North America hot fill beverage is a good market to be in. Obviously, stating some issues this year. It seems like it only started to recover from a volume perspective, last year from destocking. And at the same time, one of your peers is looking to exit. So I would love to get just any color you have about why you think this is a business that it makes sense to be in.

Yes. It's always been a really good business for Silgan, very stable I think if you go back a decade, growth rates were a little bit more accelerated than we've gotten to today, but it is still a growing market. And we think that we're very well positioned with the largest players in that market. When we think about sports drinks specifically, it's really not a commodity beverage. It's a higher volume beverage in some of the specialty applications that we deal with. But nothing close to kind of the CSD water market from a volume standpoint.

So those packages are differentiated. The beverages themselves are differentiated and there's a lot of technology that goes into the packaging around those products. So the closures that we provide to the North American beverage market, particularly for these hostile beverages, is a technologically advanced solution versus some of the other more commoditized products.

And we believe we get value for providing the silicon service model along with really technologically advanced closure systems for the beverage market. So we've always thought it's a good market, Mike, and it's provided a really stable growth overtime and none of us had anticipated the weather challenge that the sports drinks category was going faced earlier in the year. We think it's isolated to the year.

For the most part, I would tell you, volume played out in the second and third quarter, ultimately, as we expected, fourth quarter volumes have stabilized and we think that the inventory corrections took place in Q2 and Q2 and Q3 as we had discussed previously.

Got it. So if I heard you correctly or came correctly, there was a double-digit decline in volumes of hostile for sports drinks in 3Q. So that was line with...

Yes. Right at 10% food and beverage and DSC was down, call it, 5%, and the hot fill beverage of course and sports drinks was down 10%, but that was right in line with where we expected it to be.

Got you. Okay. And then just one quick follow-up. In terms of Metal Containers, that -- any update on the cost of growing through bankruptcy volumes came in better than we were expecting earlier in the quarter. See you guys for your significant increase in pet food. But just wondering where that Metals Container bankruptcy stands and whether the $10 million EBIT impact, you mentioned last quarter is still relevant for 2H. And do you have any sense of what that impact could be for 2026?

Yes. So metal containers had a really good third quarter, right? Volume came in right as expected, not only for the pet food market, as you mentioned, Mike, but also before the customers going to the bankruptcy. So really, we don't have an update. We can tell you timing would indicate at this point that there should be some indication of resolution to the bankruptcy proceeding, call it, around year-end. So we think as we go into '26, we'll have much greater clarity, but just want to make it really clear, that customer did exactly what they said they were going to do in Q3 and volumes were right in line with our expectations. There's a little bit of rollover into Q4 as some of the pack was a little bit later than the September date for Q3 that we typically talk about.

So I think everything is going essentially as planned. I think the thing that we want to make really clear is, we think we're probably at a low point with volume for that customer, given what happened in '24 and in '25. There could be a potential where a new owner wants to grow the business and put put support behind that brand, that would be a great thing because we'll be able to utilize the capacity that essentially we put on hold for this customer in a requirement-based contract.

If that doesn't happen, if we just maintain the volume that we have right now. Again, I think as I said earlier today, we're going to look to take out costs. And I think that's kind of at least in the $10 million range as I sit here now. It will all be in 2026, but that's kind of the magnitude that we see at the current volume level.

Our next question will come from Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan.

You have a lower outlook for the fourth quarter, but your free cash flow for the year is unchanged. Why is that or what are the compensatory mechanisms to generate the same amount of free cash flow this year?

Yes. So Jeff, we -- obviously, with the reduction from our customers, we look to drive cost out of our system in Q4. And as we take additional downtime, obviously, that's going to allow for us to reduce our inventory as well. So really, a couple of components of working capital improvements, but it's really driven by the inventory reductions that we're taking, I'll just say proactively as a response to our customers, reducing demand in Q4.

Propylene values have really come down. And I would think that this might be an opportunity in your Dispensing to build inventories. Do the polypropylene and propylene changes make a difference to that business?

It does, and I think you got it exactly right. It is a business that has the most impact, and I'll come back to that in a second. Our Custom Containers business is very tight on the pass-through mechanisms. And there isn't much benefit or detriment to moves in resin. I'd say the same thing about our food and beverage closures. When you get to the Dispensing Systems business, while we've made improvements in reducing the lag, they still exist. So we are a little more subject to kind of a quarterly lag, maybe a little bit longer in some cases. And so we kind of have a benefit or detriment depending upon how resin is moving.

This most recent change is a pretty significant one. And we have included a couple of hundred thousand of upside in our forecast for the most recent change that just happened at maybe late last week in the resin market. So I think you've got it right. That's the business that gets impacted and polypropylene is their largest component of buy in that business.

Our next question will come from Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets.

Apologies if this was asked earlier, but I guess I just wanted to ask about the last few quarters we've had a few discrete items show up and they were -- I guess, did you contemplate potentially preannouncing those items at all? And maybe that would help kind of frame that they are kind of onetime in nature. Did you contemplate that this time around as well or no?

I don't -- we talked about it a little bit earlier, Arun. And I think the message I was trying to convey was really, while we did see some softening in a couple of the markets, Personal Care and Home Care products, in Dispensing and Specialty closures and Custom Containers, very late in September. It wasn't until we got all the way through the October, early October forecast cycle. So this was a second -- late first week, early second week of October, that we were running through those numbers and then had to do our kind of reaction and what we were going to proactively do it Silicon to respond to the reduced demand requirements from our customers in Q4.

So I just -- I would say Q3, we delivered exactly what we said we were going to do. And that was a very well known to us as we exited September and nothing to talk about there. And the Q4 forecasting process was pretty dynamic given the magnitude of the change and working with our customers and internally to Silicon to make sure we got that right.

Okay. And then I guess on a related -- or not necessarily related, but along the lines of clarifying what's in each business, is there a way to kind of segment out maybe within DSC how much of that business you would consider as highly cyclical or prone to some more of this volatility versus the portion that is maybe higher growth and less cyclical I think that the sports drinks side, while you highlighted a number of positives also does exhibit some of that cyclicality, whereas fragrance and some other markets, maybe more structural growers.

So could you help kind of frame that maybe in the buckets for DSC and maybe even Metal Container, I imagine is not so much included there because it's a little bit more mature. But yes, maybe for DSC, that would be helpful.

Yes. I mean, Arun, here's how we think about our Dispensing and Specialty closure segment. It's basically all of it are consumer staple products. So we really don't view any of that business as being cyclical in nature. Yes, we've had a couple of onetime instances here like really bad weather that affected the sports drinks category. And I think the reality is it hasn't been clear yet, I'll just try to say it one more time. This inventory correction is our customers' growth, they are growing. They did not grow in 2025 as much as they had anticipated.

So this Q4 correction is kind of moving from a mid- to high single-digit growth expectation for those categories, back to a mid-single-digit growth or maybe a low single-digit growth in certain products. So it's kind of -- it's fixing, running through the year with higher expectations for growth. They're still growing.

So that's what we've been working through with our customers. So I really don't think that our products are cyclical in nature. I agree with your point. I think how I would probably try to bucket that, I'm looking around the table to my team and say, we think we have a bifurcated consumer right now, and that's what's driving this activity. The higher-end consumer is doing exceptionally well and is buying products and driving growth for our company.

The mid- to lower-end consumer is really thinking hard about where they're spending their dollars and how they're stretching those dollars. We get the benefit to your very point in our Metal Containers business because nutrition and low-cost nutrition is a really important item for all consumers, particularly for that portion of the consumer portfolio.

So I mean we have products in Personal Care. We do Home Care products like hard surface cleaners. We think those products continue to get it purchased. It's just maybe they're put to purchased a month later. We'll see what happens with 2026 and tax initiatives from the U.S. administration. But I do think no caps on tips. I do think no caps on over time is a very clear response trying to provide some support to that lower and mid-tier consumer that is trying to stretch dollars today.

Okay. And then just lastly, on the free cash flow. So the $430 million sounds very respectable in light of what's going on. And I know that you're taking an inventory hit right now in Q4. Just 2 things. So would you say that the inventory reduction that you're proactively pursuing will address all of that and maybe it lingers a little bit into Q1, but does get you a substantial part of the way there.

And then given that you will be generating that level of free cash flow, could you potentially more aggressively pursue share buyback, just given what's going on with the stock here today and more recently?

Yes. So we do think the inventory reduction, both for our customers and for us is going to be limited to Q4. And to your point of Arun, that part of us being able to deliver the $430 million of free cash flow. I think as we sit here today, again, we talked a little bit about capital deployment and capital allocation. I'll just repeat what I said earlier that we repurchased $60 million of shares in the third quarter because we thought the market was dislocated.

And I think we have the ability to consider capital allocation in any of the tools that we have in our toolkit. And I think as Bob said, very clearly, we're getting back to the midpoint of our leverage ratio by the end of the year. So we've got flexibility, whether it be it for M&A activity, whether it be for share recurs activity, we aren't announcing anything by any stretch today, but I think all things are on the table as we move forward. And focusing on delivering value to our shareholders.

We'll now take our next question from Anthony Pettinari with Citi.

Following up on Arun's question, is it possible to talk a little bit more about what your Dispensing and Specialty closures customers are saying about the weakness in Personal Care and Home Care. I mean are they expecting volume growth in '26? Or are they changing product mix or promotions or strategies to grow volumes. Just wondering how they're -- kind of what they're sharing about maybe volume outlook? And do they see this as sort of a speed bump or an adjustment or something that could be kind of longer duration.

Yes. So I think just to cut right to the chase, Anthony. It is an adjustment to where we have been, right? So those markets are -- and those customers are delivering growth in 2025. Just want to try to be really clear about that. it just is going from a mid- to high single-digit expectation to a low to mid-single-digit expectation. And that adjustment for the year is occurring all in Q4.

So these aren't growing markets. They are growing categories, they are growing products. And the expectation is very clearly that they will grow in 2026 as well. And I think what I would say is from a conservative standpoint, I would say you would think about them growing in the low to mid-single digits in 2026 versus the original expectation for '25 of mid to high. So that's probably adjustment that we're thinking about as we turn to '26 even though we're not giving guidance yet. That's how we're thinking about these specific markets.

Okay. Okay. That's very helpful. And then just switching gears to Metal Containers. Is there any dialogue with Metal Containers customers on rising metal costs? Or are you seeing any kind of like push out of buying into '26 potentially? Is anyone waiting for tariffs maybe to get pulled back or some kind of move in metal. I'm just curious if you've seen any kind of push from 3Q to 4Q or maybe 4Q into '26 on Metal Containers.

Yes. So as I think you know, Anthony, the metal component is the largest cost component of a metal food can. So it is literally a daily conversation with our customers and a really important one. So maybe to get to the end of the question, so no pushout from Q3 to Q4 for us and our franchise customer model, they pay the same value for the can in January that they're going to pay in November. So really, we don't see that within a year kind of product moving between quarters. I think maybe there's 2 things to talk about as we think about turning the calendar to '26, yes, I think we're going to have maybe -- hopefully, we'll see more clarity on what happens from the tariff perspective and kind of the rulings that are expected between now and the end of the year from the court system.

That is probably -- it would drive some activity, I would think if the courts overturn the tariffs. I think the other component is, right now, we're looking at sizable increases and the raw materials on the steel side of the Metal Containers business for '26. So in fairness, we're actually having prebuying conversations with some customers ahead of inflation that we're all expecting for 2026 outside of whatever court ruling happened between now and then. So that's more of the conversation versus trying to push orders out into '26 at this point.

We'll now take a question from Daniel Rizzo with Jefferies.

So back in -- you mentioned that these are legacy issues with the destocking. I was wondering if back in 2008, 2009, the Great Recession, we saw something similar and how long it lasted during that kind of downturn?

2008, 2009, what I do remember about that and your testing with them, so that was quite a few years ago. Metal Containers volume was accelerating into the great recession, right? So that's sort of what I was mentioning earlier that for a very long time at Silgan, Metal Containers was an indicator of economic activity because you would see as times got tougher, metal food cans were the beneficiary of that. And we're seeing that to some degree now. So I'm trying to think of how the other categories performed then. I just would say, as consumer stretch dollars without knowing, specifically, Dan, I would assume that it was a very similar kind of phenomenon that impacted our Custom Container segment at that time and probably our beverage segment of our closures business prior to dispensing joining Silgan in 2017.

And then conversely, if credit is eased and the consumer is seeing some relief, how long that lets kind of flows through to your customers than to you guys? Is it relatively quick? Or does it take a couple of quarters? Or how should we think about that if things were to improve for the consumer because of that?

Well I missed the first part of your question. So..

If credit eases and consumers...

Yes. I do think that, that -- again, you're talking about the consumer that's making a purchase point decision of feeding their family or buying that hard surface cleaner in a given month. So I think you take a little bit of that pressure off. And ultimately, that consumer because these are not cyclical products, they're consumer staples. I think they buy both products, and that's what we've seen for a very long time. So if you provide that relief to those consumers. I do think purchase patterns return more to normal as we've seen for many years in this business.

And I'm just curious about is there time frame that we should about, how fast it flows through to you specifically?

I think that will flow through pretty quickly. If the consumer is -- has relief and is less worried about stretching that dollar. I think those decisions get made at the purchase point right then it's pretty quick.

We will now take a follow-up from George Staphos with Bank of America.

I'll just keep it to one since it's late. So as you look out to next year, I know you're not guiding per se, but you did say you do expect low to mid-single-digit growth in Dispensing and Specialty. Metal should do at least as well as this year, assuming you have a new owner of the affected customer, which would mean that volumes are at least flat.

I forget exactly what you said as custom, but what would be the reasons why you wouldn't have growth in 2026, in volumes and in earnings versus '25, recognizing you're not giving formal guidance here. What is the biggest at this juncture concern you have? Would it be uncertainty in tariffs, although in some ways, that could actually help you? What would it be? And should we at least expect some growth next year?

I think as we're putting the building blocks together for '26 and as you alluded to, and we said early, we're not done yet. But you're right. I think you've got some of the positives there. I think some of the headwinds that we're going to face is, it's increased interest expense. Obviously, we've got the new bonds, we'll have a full year of the new 4.25% volumes that we just issued in Europe. Our investment grade bonds, the 1.4% that come due in April. So we'll probably be very opportunistic just as we were in 2025 as we think about refinancing those bonds, but 1.4% even if we're utilizing our revolver. We're going to have negative arbitrage on that rate as well. So interest expense will be a headwind, and we're going through the development of exactly what that headwind looks like.

I mean tax will continue to be a slightly different profile for us going forward. With the Weener acquisition, we've got quite a bit more income outside of the United States. And the U.S. is our lowest cost tax jurisdiction for many, many years. That was -- will continue to be our largest tax jurisdiction. But we have more growth outside of the U.S. at higher tax rates. So I think it's going to probably be north of 25% without giving any guidance yet, and we'll see where we wind up as we get through the business planning process.

And I think you had the rest of the components, right? I'll go back to what I said at the beginning of the call. Nothing's changed as far as how we as a company think about the growth profile of our dispensing, especially closure to business, nothing has changed about how we think about the growth profile of our Metal Containers business. And nothing has changed about how we think about the growth profile of our Custom Containers business. We have very unique instruments or attributes this year that are impacting our performance. And unfortunately, we're dealing with that as we speak. But we don't anticipate those repeating in 2026.

And that does conclude our question-and-answer session for today. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Adam Greenlee for any additional or closing comments.

Thank you, Anna. We appreciate everyone's interest in the company, and we look forward to sharing our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results in January.

And once again, that does conclude today's conference. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.