Good morning and welcome to the CCL Industries fourth-quarter investor update. Please note that there will be a question-and-answer session after the call. The moderator for today is Mr. Geoffrey Martin, President and Chief Executive Officer, and joining him is Mr. Sean Washchuk, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, gentlemen.
Thanks, Holly. Welcome everyone to our fourth-quarter call. I'll move everyone to slide two, our disclaimer regarding forward-looking information. I'll remind everyone that our business faces known and unknown risks and opportunities. For further details of these key risks, please take a look at our 2022 and 2023 annual reports, particularly the section Risks and Uncertainties. Our annual and quarterly reports can be found online on the company's website, cclind.com, or on the new sedarplus.ca website. Moving to slide 3, our summary of financial results. For the fourth quarter of 2023, sales increased 4.7% with 3% acquisition-related growth, 2.2% positive impact from currency translation, partially offset by 0.5% organic decline, resulting in sales of $ 1.66 billion compared to $ 1.59 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022. Operating income was $ 254.8 million, up 18% excluding foreign currency translation, compared to $ 211.2 million for the 2022 fourth quarter.
Geoffrey will expand on our segmented operating results of our CCL, Avery, Checkpoint, and Innovia segments momentarily. Corporate expenses were up for the fourth quarter due to an increase in associated expenses for long-term variable compensation. Consolidated EBITDA for the 2023 fourth quarter, excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, increased 14% compared to the same period in 2022. Net finance expense was $19.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to $17.6 million in the 2022 fourth quarter due to an increase in interest rates on our variable rate debt. In line with our December 23 press release, CCL recorded an impairment of goodwill associated with our Innovia segment of $95 million. This impairment was a result of our closure of our Belgian production facility and continued demand challenges in the label material industry post-pandemic.
We also recorded a restructuring charge of $ 37.2 million, largely for the closure of our Belgian operation. The overall effective tax rate was 57% for the 2023 fourth quarter compared to an effective tax rate of 21.2% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2022. This was due to the fact that the goodwill impairment charge and the associated restructuring costs for our Belgian operation were not tax deductible. The effective tax rate may change in future periods depending on the proportion of taxable income earned in different tax jurisdictions at different rates. Therefore, net earnings for the 2023 fourth quarter were $ 38.8 million compared to $ 145.2 million for the 2022 fourth quarter. For the year-ended 2023, sales and operating income excluding foreign currency translation were flat and increased 3% respectively.
Net earnings decreased 20% compared to 2022, principally driven by the goodwill impairment charges and restructuring events that were recorded in the fourth quarter for the Innovia segment. Moving to the next slide, earnings per share. Basic earnings per Class B share were $ 0.22 for the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to $ 0.82 for the fourth quarter of 2022. However, adjusted basic earnings per Class B share were $ 0.97 for the 2023 fourth quarter and an improvement of 16.9% compared to $ 0.83 for the fourth quarter of 2022. The change in adjusted basic earnings per share of $ 0.14 is principally attributable to an improvement in operating income accounting for $ 0.18, foreign currency translation adding $ 0.01, partly offset by an increase in corporate costs for $ 0.02, increased tax expense costing $ 0.01, increased net interest expense costing another 0.01, and reduced earnings from our joint ventures costing us another $ 0.01.
Moving to the next slide, slide five, free cash flow from operations. For the fourth quarter of 2023, free cash flow from operations was an inflow of $273.8 million, almost equal to the $271.6 million posted in the 2022 fourth quarter. For the 12 months ended December 31, 2023, free cash flow from operations was $559.6 million compared to $573.4 million at the end of December 2022. This change is primarily attributable to an increase in net capital expenditures offset by an increase in cash provided by operating activities generated by improved adjusted earnings. Moving to the next slide, the cash and debt summary. Net debt as at December 31, 2023, was $1.51 billion, a slight decrease compared to $1.52 billion of net debt at December 31, 2022. The decrease is principally a result of higher debt repayments in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Although the company's net debt decreased only slightly, the balance sheet closed the quarter in a strong position. Our balance sheet leverage ratio was approximately 1.13 x down from 1.24 x at December 31, 2022. Liquidity was robust with $ 774 million of cash on hand and $0.97 billion, almost a billion dollars US, of available undrawn credit capacity on the company's revolving bank credit facility. The company's overall finance rate at December 31 was 2.8% compared to 2.9% at December 31, 2022, reflecting a strong reduction in syndicated revolving variable interest rate during the fourth quarter of 2023. The company's balance sheet continues to be well positioned as we move through fiscal 2024. Geoffrey, over to you.
Thank you, Sean. Good morning, everybody. I'm on slide seven, highlights of capital spending for the year, $ 444 million just about, net of disposals, and we're planning about the same amount in the current year of 2024. On slide eight, a few highlights of a few of the projects that are in those numbers. We're completing, as we speak, a startup plant in Raleigh, North Carolina, which will make special folded literature labels for the GLP-1 blockbuster drugs you're reading about in the newspapers. That plant is due to come on in the middle of the current year. We're engaging in a major expansion of Guanajuato, Mexico, plant for CCL Container to handle the growth in aluminum bottles and aerosols. That plant can now house nine high-speed lines in a state-of-the-art campus.
In Italy, we're building near Turin a new pressure-sensitive label production site for some major global spirits brands, switching from wet glue bottle decoration to pressure-sensitive. That plant will start up also in the first half of 2024. Slide nine, highlights for the CCL segment. Return to organic growth, 1.8%, which is nice to see, all driven by high-teens growth in Latin America, very modest declines in North America and Europe and Asia-Pacific. Profit gains in all sectors, led by food and beverage and particularly CCL Container. A notable turn at CCL Design is electronics demand improved in the recent trough we've seen over the last 12 months or so. FX tailwinds reduced quite considerably in the quarter and will probably turn negative in the current quarter. Slide 10, highlights for our joint ventures. You see some numbers here that are on the negative side.
That's all due to the devaluation in Egypt, which caused me to take a big write-down on our balance sheet in the fourth quarter around that. So that's the reason for the change in the numbers for the two joint ventures. Slide 11, results for Avery. Solid quarter to end a record year. Outstanding free cash flow, all of that EBITDA and a little bit converted into free cash. So a very good year and a good improvement in the horticulture business, especially in the United States. Slide 12, another very good quarter for Checkpoint. The MAS business improved internationally on productivity gains and easing supply inflation. Business was stable in North America compared to a very strong prior year.
But the star was really the apparel label business delivered 20% organic sales growth in the quarter driven by robust RFID wins and a record year overall for Checkpoint too. Slide 13, to note, results for Innovia. Much better quarter than a poor quarter last year. And we saw late in the quarter the first demands of the demand trough that we'd seen really for five quarters in a row in the fourth quarter of 2022 all the way through last year. We saw the final turn in the pressure-sensitive label materials space with demand accelerating also quite rapidly in the first six weeks, nearly two months and a half, 2024. The Belgian plant closure has been agreed with the people over there quite smoothly, and we expect to complete that sometime between the end of Q1 and the end of Q2. All is going quite nicely.
We had a good Q4 and a very good 2023 in the Americas. Slide 14, some comments on the outlook. I have to say we feel better about the outlook than we felt for a number of years. Consumer product industry is certainly showing some signs of a return to volume growth with, of course, easier comps than they've had in the recent years. The only business we see a little bit of weakness in is in healthcare where the inventory building and supply crisis last year is also beginning to show some effect, but that's somewhat offset by the growth in the GLP-1 space. CCL Design recovery is continuing this quarter and continuing so far in the year to date. We have fairly easy comps for all of next year and especially in the electronics space. We're quite encouraged by that.
CCL Secure comps are a little more difficult, but the passport-related business is strong. Avery results are expected to be stable, and we move now into the horticulture busy production season where we make most of our money. Checkpoint growth will continue to be driven by RFID and the recovery in apparel volumes as we're also beginning to see. But most of all, the Innovia start of 2024 is much improved, very good order intake compared to a weak prior year. As I mentioned earlier, the FX tailwinds that we've enjoyed will probably flatten out or even turn into a modest headwind at the current exchange rates at some point in the first quarter. So with that, operator, we'd like to open up the call for questions.
Certainly. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Your first question for today is coming from Hamir Patel with CIBC Capital Markets.
Hi. Good morning.
Good morning.
Geoffrey, which of your business units would you call out as joining the recovery cycle this year?
CCL Design electronics and Innovia.
Thanks. Sean, CCL Design, your outlook pointing to the next cycle and tech being upwardly long as buyers look for AI-compatible devices. Do you think you have the right customer mix there to fully benefit from that, or is that an area where we could see more M&A to capture that demand growth?
I think we have a very good cross-section of all the players in that space. It's PC industry, the server industry, mobile cell phone industry. I mean, all the devices, we're present with all the major OEMs around the world, so we're in a good place. Probably the ones in the Far East, the Koreans and the Japanese OEMs are the ones where we're weaker. But the ones in North America and Europe, we're in very good positions with, and also some of the bigger OEMs in China.
Great. Thanks, Geoffrey. Just the last question I had was on Innovia. I think your release highlighted that industry demand in Europe there was off 35% last year. Are you able to quantify the demand rebound that you're seeing so far in 2024?
Well, it's up double digits.
Double digits. All right. Thanks. That's all I had. I'll turn over.
Thank you.
Your next question is coming from Ahmed Abdullah with National Bank of Canada.
Yes. Hi. Good morning. In the Avery segment, seasonality has definitely been reduced after the horticultural M&A that has been done there, and margins seem to be moving back towards previous levels. Do you see 2024 margins returning to the levels we had seen prior to horticultural business acquisitions, or is there more work to be done that you can elaborate on?
Yeah. There's some more work still to be done. So the two businesses, one in the U.S., one in Europe, I would say we've seen the business return to the pre-pandemic levels in North America. It had a big boom in the stay-at-home period. And then companies, all the resellers in that space, the Home Depot and Lowe's and all those people had seen their business begin to come back after a pretty difficult 2023. So I would say in Europe, that's still a little bit behind there, but it's coming along quite nicely.
Okay. Thanks. A record year for Checkpoint. Would you say RFID in that segment has reached critical mass that it could drive a bulk of the growth here?
I would say so. It's becoming a ubiquitous technology in most retail channels and expanding beyond its base in apparel. And we're involved in both spaces, so we're quite excited about the potential for growth in RFID.
Okay. And just the final one for me on Innovia's restructuring efforts. Do you expect to immediately see the benefits of the incremental operating income you referenced in H2 of this year, or is there a ramp-up period for that?
Yes. H2, we should see it. So we'll have a transition to go through. So the extrusion operations will stop in the first quarter. The finishing operations will stop a little bit later than that, and the business will all be moved by the spring or early summer this year. And then the benefits should kick in.
Okay. I'll get back in queue. Thank you very much.
No problem.
Your next question for today is coming from Stephen MacLeod with BMO Capital Markets.
Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, guys.
You too.
Good morning. Just wanted to ask a question about the new capacity you have coming online. You highlighted sort of three major projects: CCL Label USA, Container in Italy. I'm just curious if you can give a little bit of color around what kind of revenues those plants may be able to support.
Well, the one in Italy is not huge. So if all goes well down there, that could turn into a $ 20 million operation. The GLP-1 plant, that'll have to scale up. So it's sized so one day it could probably manage $ 40 million or $ 50 million in revenue, but how long it takes to build that up remains to be seen. The expansions in Mexico are a little bit more than that. They're up in the sort of not $ 100 million, but between $ 50 million and $ 100 million in terms of the additional capacity and revenues we're expecting there. And CCL Container as a business, we used to report that segment publicly. It's now well over $ 300 million and with EBITDA margins well above the corporate average.
Okay. That's great. Thank you. That sounds good color. And then maybe just secondly, in terms of the Innovia restructuring, would we expect to see any kind of sales impact from the closure of the Belgian plant, or is it really just flowing into the plant?
No. They're not really the customers for that. Operations are not really in Western Europe. They're all over the world. So it was an export-driven plant with hardly any local business. And most of the orders were actually placed in the Innovia operation in the U.K. So it was really a production plant for largely non-European-based business that we exported to. That's why we made the decision because it was an easy transition to do without any difficulties with the customers. And we make the same product already today in the U.K., so the transition's an easy one.
Right. Okay. And then maybe just along those lines with respect to Innovia, just on the back of the closure of the Belgian plant, I mean, are there any other major restructurings that you would consider for that business, or do you feel like once that?
No. The Belgian plant was always the one we've been thinking about ever since we bought the company because it's an older plant. It's only had two lines in it. It's always made money. It was always a successful operation, but older technology. We had to face a decision whether to invest in the operation or to close it and integrate it into the other ones we have. I would say now, plant footprint-wise, we're in good shape globally.
Okay. That's great. Appreciate it. Great. Thanks, guys.
No problem.
Your next question is from Michael Glen with Raymond James.
Hey. Good morning. Geoffrey, going back to the investor day, I recall you described kind of a mid-single-digit type earnings hurdle for the business. If you look at the past couple of years, you described a tougher environment, but you've still been able to grow earnings in that environment. And now you're saying, "Hey, things are looking better finally." So how do we think about what earnings growth should look like in 2024 versus 2023 with that type of backdrop?
Excellent.
Better than the five?
Excellent.
Okay. And then in the MD&A, you do publish these return on equity, return on total capital metrics. And how do you think about those? Are those troughing now? And what are going to be the big drivers to get those moving in the other direction from this point forward?
Well, return on equity is always a funny measure because it depends on your retained earnings balance. And so I think return on capital is by far the more important of the two measures. And earnings growth is really the driver of that. So if we see recovery in the businesses that have been laggards during the COVID era, if they all normalize and we see recovery and we get increased earnings, that'll be the driver of improvement of return on capital.
Okay. And could you give, in a corporate expense, what should be the right number for corporate expense in 2024?
Oh. I think if you take our Q1 2023 number and multiply it by four. So I think Q4 was a bit overweight, and Q1 2023 was the right number.
Okay. Thanks for taking my question.
No problem.
The next question for today is coming from Walter Spracklin with RBC.
Yeah. Thanks very much, Geoffrey. Good morning, everyone. The growth that you're seeing in apparel, that was a big number. You mentioned it was driven by RFID. Is that a number that we can now say, "Okay. There's an inflection here. We can start modeling that going forward," or was there anything in this quarter that was seasonally high or one-time in nature that we should consider when we start to model that type of growth within the Checkpoint division?
Well, I would say the only thing to bear in mind in the fourth quarter last year was the beginning of the apparel supply contraction. So it was a fairly easy comp. So that's only one thing to bear in mind. But we do think the RFID ramp-up is going to be good. And we do see some recovery now in the contraction that's been in the apparel supply chain. And that's a worldwide phenomenon. So that's a good thing to see.
That's great. That's fantastic. I guess just to clarify on Michael's question in terms of when you said better, did you mean a better growth rate or just better than last year in a dollar number? Just to clarify that.
A better growth rate.
Okay. Perfect. And then on the M&A side, just incrementally, do you see more opportunity, less opportunity, or fairly consistent with what we've seen over the last couple of quarters in terms of M&A opportunities that might be surfacing?
Consistent with what you've seen the last couple of years.
Yeah. So private equity is still alive and well in that?
We bought that company, Faubel, in the last half of last year. That would have been a very difficult business for us to buy if PE financing had been more easy. So we were able to do that at a multiple we were willing to pay because of that. So we have seen some examples, and that was a $150 million transaction. So we have seen some easing around situations like that. But larger transactions, valuation expectations are still pretty frothy. We've seen quite a few failed auctions in our space, so people taking businesses to auction, failing because they couldn't get the valuations they wanted. So that's a good initial sign. But memories are still long, and everyone's hoping with interest rates come down that valuations will get frothy again. And public markets also point to that.
Okay. Last question for me, Geoffrey, is that if that is and remains the case on the acquisition front, I know you've increased nicely the dividend. Just curious your shareholder return strategy in 2024, anything that would be different from how you've seen it in the past? Your stock is at trough multiples, hopefully off trough multiples today, which would be great. But still, is this an opportunity for you to buy back stock a little bit more significantly or just keep the powder dry with a balance sheet where it is and opportunistic for any deals that might come up?
We could probably do a bit of both, Walter. So I think buying back stock, certainly it's certainly on the agenda depending on the price of the stock. But so is M&A. M&A remains our top priority. But in the event it doesn't materialize, then buying our own stock back at multiples we consider it to be reasonable, then we'll definitely be doing that. And we were in the market doing that very late last year, in the last few days of the year. So that's an indication of what's likely to happen in the future.
Okay. That sounds good to me. Congrats on a great quarter. Appreciate the time.
Your next question is from Ben Jekic with PI Financial.
Good morning. I have two questions, sort of similar logic to Walter but on the CCL segment. Geoffrey, so 1.8% organic sales growth, high teens in Latin America, modest declines everywhere else. Is there any sort of macro explanation, and how do we extend that through 2024?
Well, I think what you see in our growth rates is very much a reflection of what you see in the consumer products industry, Ben. So volume growth in North America and Europe is nonexistent for most of our CPG customers and has been all of last year. But the comps now are much easier. And the ability of CPGs to pass on price increases is much harder. So I think we're going to see a lot more promotional activity because the only way they can now grow is through unit volume increases. And I expect we'll see some of that as the year unfolds. So that's why we're making commentary about we expect to see a return to growth this year. Latin America has been strong for all of our CPG customers. If you look at all of the big CPGs, we've got big operations in Latin America.
They're the strongest region in the world right now. Probably the only region of the world where there's some uncertainty is China. So a lot of the big CPGs are pretty sort of down still on China. But long-term, they're pretty bullish on it, and so are we.
Okay. Thank you. My second question is on Checkpoint. If I recall when you were acquiring and this is sort of big picture. If I recall when you were acquiring the business, I think you said down the road, in some time, operating margin of this business is going to basically, you saw no reason why it shouldn't look similar to CCL segment. We are approaching those levels. I think my question is basically, are you expecting positive growth through 2024, 2025?
Yeah. Well, the operating margin was 15.1 for last year at Checkpoint, and the operating margin for the CCL segment was 15.4.
Okay. So we are there, basically?
Correct.
Okay. Thank you.
Just so you have to remember, on the EBITDA line, because Checkpoint's not as capital-intensive as the CCL space, the EBITDA's always slightly less.
Gotcha. Okay. Thank you.
Your next question is a follow-up question from Ahmed Abdullah.
Yes. Hi. Just a question on some of the EU regulations that have been going on with regards to ban on misleading environmental claims or greenwashing. The regulation is passing outlawing certain terms that can be used on labels by companies. Do you see this providing you with any near-term catalysts for your European business?
Not really. I think it's well overdue. So I think greenwashing is an issue that has to be addressed. So I think to make claims reasonable and real and not marketing to the sentiment, the environmental sentiment, and misleading people, so I think it's entirely reasonable legislation. But I'm not sure it's going to change the direction of travel for most of our CPG customers.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
Your next question is from David McFadgen with Cormark.
Great. Yeah. A couple of questions. First of all, Geoffrey, when you talked about, you haven't seen a better outlook than what you're seeing right now. Were you referring specifically to CCL, or were you referring to most of the business overall?
I think the whole company. I think probably the best outlook year we've seen since 2017, 2018 because we've got so many things now that are sort of coming out of that sort of COVID volatility and settling down. Probably the one space that's still got a bit of runway to go is healthcare. In the healthcare space, we've got a couple of the large drug companies have demerged their consumer arms into new entities, and there's some noise around that. And I think there was a lot of inventory bought in the last year or two that's clogging up the supply chain a bit in the same way we saw it in the CPGs earlier. So I think healthcare's probably going to have a year like the CPGs had last year. But we've got GLP-1 to sit above that.
But no, the commentary is really about the whole company, not just any segment in particular.
Okay. So if we just look at the CCL segment for a second, it seems like when you look at the various components, everything looks like it's doing well or expected to do well, at least in Q1, with the exception of, say, CCL Secure in healthcare. Would that be an accurate characterization?
Correct.
Okay. And then just on Checkpoint, clearly, ALS delivered strong growth in the quarter. Is that primarily a function of greater sales through retail, or is that primarily a function of just greater RFID adoption?
Greater RFID adoption.
Okay. Are we still really in the early stages here? We are, right?
Well, it's somewhat penetrated. It's the biggest RFID market still by far. I mean, it trumps everything else by a long chalk. Some of the RFID adoption that was done in the early days was done with RFID hard tags. Now we're moving into some of these companies switching from hard tags to soft tags, and it was disposable tags. That's also a growth driver. It's partly increased adoption. It's partially transformations from a hard-tag environment to a soft-tag environment. We're just in a good place. We're one of the players in the game. The other players in it are also in the same spot we're in, forecasting strong growth. We're an industry player, and the industry's growing.
Okay. And then just on Avery, revenue was down 1% in the quarter. Can you sort of characterize what happened in the quarter? What was the primary driver for that revenue to be down?
Yeah. Hang on. I'll tell you. It was mainly driven by soft quarter in Canada and Australia.
I meant more on the product line, not geographically.
Yeah. But it's really driven by those two countries. North America was fine. Europe was fine. But we had the two countries I mentioned had notably soft quarters. And they're more dependent on one or two very large distributors. So an inventory move can switch a quarter off, and then it switches back on the next quarter. So we don't pay too much attention to those when they occur.
Okay. So it's more of a geographic issue versus a product issue?
Correct. Correct.
Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you.
Once again, if there are any questions, please press star one. We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session, and I will now turn the call over to Geoffrey for closing remarks.
Okay. Well, thank you very much, everybody, for joining the call. We look forward to talking to you again in May when the sun is shining. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.