Highlights – First Quarter 2023
*Operating income of $210 million; Operating EBITDA of $443 million, up 3% on a comparable basis
*Earnings per share of $0.85; Adjusted earnings per share of $1.30, up 11% on a comparable basis
*Fiscal 2023 outlook: Reaffirmed adjusted EPS and free cash flow ranges
*Returned $211 million to shareholders in the quarter ($178 million via share repurchases and $33 million in dividends)
*Reduced long-term leverage target to 2.5x – 3.5x (net debt to adjusted EBITDA)
Berry’s Chairman and CEO Tom Salmon said, “Our businesses delivered solid first quarter results, including 3% EBITDA growth and 11% adjusted earnings per share growth. We have made significant progress recovering inflation along with contributions from our cost reduction initiatives, and delivered strong price cost spread in the quarter. These internal actions helped to offset a 6% volume decline primarily driven by softer market demand, in line with many of our large global customers. We continued our focus on driving long-term value for our shareholders and repurchased $178 million of shares, or another 2.4% of shares outstanding, in the quarter, while also paying our first-ever quarterly dividend. We believe our shares remain undervalued and our repurchases reflect our confidence in the outlook of our business, our long-term strategy, and the strength of our operating model and cash flows.
“Our business model has proven resilient, including one of the broadest portfolios of packaging solutions with strong, dependable, and stable cash flows to allow us the flexibility to drive strong returns for our shareholders. We will continue our focus on cost reduction efforts while also driving strong cost benefits through efficiencies and asset optimization throughout our global footprint to offset any demand challenges from the current dynamic global economies.”
details at: https://ir.berryglobal.com/news-releases/news-release-details/berry-reports-first-quarter-results