Ball Reports Third Quarter 2023 Results

Ball Corporation reported, on a U.S. GAAP basis, third quarter 2023 net earnings attributable to the corporation of $203 million (including net after-tax charges of $60 million, or 19 cents per diluted share for business consolidation and other non-comparable items) or diluted earnings per share of 64 cents, on sales of $3.57 billion, compared to net earnings attributable to the corporation of $392 million (including a net after-tax gain of $154 million, or 49 cents per diluted share for business consolidation and other non-comparable items, including the gain on disposal for the Russian beverage packaging operations) or diluted earnings per share of $1.24, on sales of $3.95 billion in 2022.

Results for the first nine months of 2023 were net earnings attributable to the corporation of $553 million, or $1.74 per diluted share, on sales of $10.63 billion compared to $664 million, or $2.07 per diluted share, on sales of $11.80 billion for the first nine months of 2022.

“We delivered strong third quarter results,” said Daniel W. Fisher, chairman and CEO. “Improved operational efficiencies across our global aluminum packaging operations, inflationary cost recovery and benefits of cost-out actions offset higher interest costs and challenging year-over-year volume comparisons.

“During the third quarter, the initial phase of sequential improvement in our quarter-over-quarter global beverage can shipments emerged and was driven by double-digit volume growth in our Brazilian beverage can business,” added Fisher. “In North America, we further optimized our plant network to ensure proper supply/demand balance while continuing to enable access to high-quality, innovative aluminum beverage cans and bottles at a growth cadence appropriate for current market conditions and our customer mix. These actions and improved plant performance, in addition to deploying the aerospace sale proceeds to significantly reduce our leverage and increase share repurchases, serve as catalysts for higher shareholder returns.”

On Aug. 17, 2023, the company announced that it reached an agreement to sell its aerospace business to BAE Systems for gross proceeds of $5.6 billion in cash. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and certain closing conditions and adjustments.

“Our teams are doing an excellent job of managing costs, working capital and short-term customer demand and supply chain issues,” said Howard Yu, EVP and CFO. “We remain well-positioned to deliver free cash flow of approximately $750 million in 2023 and, utilizing existing cash on hand, we are prepared to address our near-term debt maturities in advance of receiving proceeds from the announced aerospace sale.

“Looking ahead, increased free cash flow generation and approximately $4.5 billion of after-tax proceeds from the aerospace sale are intended to be used to immediately reduce debt by approximately $2 billion driving leverage to in the range of 3.0x net debt to comparable EBITDA and, approximately $2 billion of proceeds are intended to be used to increase return of value to shareholders via share buybacks and dividends moving forward,” added Yu.