Welcome to the TC Transcontinental fourth quarter and fiscal 2021 results conference call. During the presentation, all participants are in listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will be provided at that time. As a reminder, this conference is recorded today, December ninth, 2021. I'd like to turn the call over to Yan Lapointe, Director, Investor Relations. Yan Lapointe, go ahead.
Thank you, Gina. Good afternoon, everyone on the line, and thank you for joining us on the call. Welcome to TC Transcontinental's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2021 results conference call. You can find the press release, the presentation and general MD&A, the complete financial statements and related notes on our website at tc.tc under our Investor Relations section. A replay of this conference call will also be available on our website after the call.
We have with us today our President and Chief Executive Officer, François Olivier, and our Chief Financial Officer, Donald LeCavalier. We also have with us Peter Brues, who succeeds François Olivier and will officially assume the position of President and Chief Executive Officer tomorrow. Peter Brues will also say a few words after François Olivier's remarks. Before I turn the call over to management, I would like to specify that this conference call is intended for the financial community.
Media are in listen-only mode and should contact Nathalie Fanger, Senior Advisor, Communications, for more information or interview requests. Please be reminded that some of the financial measures discussed over the course of this conference call are non-IFRS. You can refer to the MD&A for a complete definition and reconciliation of such measures by IFRS. In addition, the conference call will also contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the current expectations of management and information available to us today and involve numerous risks and uncertainties, known and unknown. These risks, uncertainties and other factors that could influence actual results are described in the fiscal 2021 annual MD&A and in the latest annual information form. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, François Olivier.
Thank you, Liana, and good afternoon, everyone. This is a special day for me as this is my fifty-sixth and last quarterly earnings call as President and CEO of TC Transcontinental. Working with Peter and the management team on the transition over the last couple of months has made me reflect on the strong and resilient company we have built, our agility and the success of our transformation. We have stood the test of time overcoming challenges and adapting to major changes in our environment and in our business. When I became CEO in 2008, almost 80% of our revenues came from our Canadian operations, with the balance coming from our printing operations in the U.S. and in Mexico.
Our media sector represented close to CAD 700 million in revenue, and a significant portion of this came from publishing magazines and newspaper which were dependent on advertising revenue. A lot has changed since then. Today, we are a very different and diversified company. With most of our sectors were facing headwinds 10 years ago, today the large majority of our revenue comes from businesses with favorable prospects. While we continue to have a North American focus, we now have operations in 8 countries, with half of our revenue generated outside of Canada. TC Transcontinental has transformed from being a Canadian company to an international organization that is more resilient than ever, whether it be through economic shock or technological change. The results we release today reflect this resilience. Our 2021 performance shows that our business is solid.
When excluding external factors like the Canadian wage subsidy, the price of resin, and the exchange rate, we delivered a much higher consolidated EBITDA than last year. In packaging, we saw an unprecedented rise in resin prices. Almost every single month saw a new increase. In addition, the Canadian dollar declined versus the U.S. dollar, making the comparison with 2020 much harder. We stayed focused on what we could control and worked diligently to pass through the higher resin prices as per our contractual agreements to minimize the negative impact. Looking at fiscal year 2021 as a whole, when excluding the impact of higher resin prices and the additional week, we delivered an organic revenue growth close to 2% and an EBITDA margin of over 16%, which is in line with what Tiff said at the beginning of the year.
In printing, we suddenly lost close to half of our revenues in March 2020 when governments put in place measures to limit the spread of COVID-19. Despite the continued impact of restrictions on our customers, our revenues gradually began to recover. In fiscal year 2021, our revenues grew despite the fact that we faced a tough three-quarter comparable for the first 5 months. We continued to improve our efficiency and benefited from a higher volume and delivered an EBITDA specific margin of 21.3%, excluding the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy. That's an improvement of 120 basis points over fiscal year 2020 and 130 points over fiscal 2019. How did we achieve this resilience? Our decision to move into flexible packaging over 7 years ago proved to be the right one.
We started slowly, taking the time necessary to build our industry knowledge, build our team while delivering great value to our customers. Then in 2018, we took a big leap with our acquisition of Coveris Americas, a pivotal moment for our company. Again, we took the time necessary to stabilize the business, increase margins by delivering on our synergies, and now we are seeing the results. As we continue to make acquisitions and grow organically through innovation, like developing sustainable solutions for our customer, the percentage of revenue coming from a stable sector like flexible packaging will continue to rise, and this will serve to protect us in times of economic challenges. By continuing to generate strong free cash flow in the long term, our printing sector will participate in our growth and play a key role in our future. Here's why.
We have seen another transformation in our printing sector portfolio. 13 years ago, newspapers, magazines, and catalog printing represented a significant part of our revenue. Today, following the secular decline in those industries and our strategic portfolio management, only 15% of our printing revenue comes from these markets. Over the years, we successfully adapted our printing platform to the market and improved our cost base. We also offset some of the lost revenue by expanding into new verticals like in-store marketing. We grew the in-store marketing business from about CAD 12 million in revenue 10 years ago to our run rate of around CAD 200 million today. This is only the beginning of our ISM journey, plus we have a long way to go and to grow.
When we include other growing activities like books, free media, and also factoring our growing media revenue, these growth activities represent today around 35% of the combined revenue of our printing and media sectors. That percentage had increased significantly over the last 5 years, and we expect that it will continue to do so organically and through acquisitions. As they grow, these activities help stabilize print's overall revenues by offsetting the decline of other activities. Print is actually undergoing a similar successful transformation that TC Transcontinental went through with its move into flexible packaging. Finally, another important strategic shift has been in our media sector. Over the last several years, we sold almost all of the publishing assets to retain only those related to education and to the construction industry, markets that are not dependent on advertising revenue.
These have proven to be not only resilient, but growing as well. I am proud that we have successfully transformed TC Transcontinental in each of our key sectors, and I'm equally proud that we did so while maintaining a strong balance sheet. While we always use leverage prudently, we're not afraid to take calculated risks when opportunities showed up. For example, we invested over CAD 800 million 13 years ago to build a state-of-the-art national print platform. A key strategic move that led to our successful consolidation of the Canadian print market. The success we have to date in our print sector is in part the direct result of these investments. We were not afraid to do it again in 2018 when we acquired Coveris Americas for $1.7 billion. Another key strategic move to cement our move into flexible packaging.
We then successfully integrated the acquisition and delivered on the planned synergies in our margin improvement objectives. Each time, we use our strong and stable cash flow from operations to bring the debt level back below 2x in order to be ready for the next opportunity. This sound financial management is another one of our strengths. We can do this again, given the opportunity. I am leaving today very proud of what we have accomplished as a team. Simply, we did what we said we would do. We transformed the company by divesting assets in declining markets and entered the flexible packaging space. We also built a strong printing sector with solid profitability and growth potential in a significant portion of its portfolio. I am confident that TC Transcontinental has a bright future for three simple reasons.
First, our strategies are sound and have put us in leading position in the three sectors we operate in. Second, our solid financial position give us the means to achieve our ambitions. It allows us to continue to invest and transform our print and media portfolio and to grow our flexible packaging platform while delivering on our sustainability objectives. Third, we have an experienced and talented team with Peter, a great successor lined up, the right person for the job. Unified by a strong corporate culture, the team is working together with a common long-term vision. Finally, I'd like to thank our employees for the many years of hard work and dedication, the customers for their confidence, the board of director, and the Marcoux family for their guidance, trust, and support over the years. Finally, you, our analysts and investors, for a productive relationship over the years.
As a credit to you, many of your probing questions have helped us to further thinking. Your feedback and advice over the years has been much appreciated. With that, I'll turn it over to Peter.
Thank you, François. Since joining the board in 2018, I've had the opportunity to watch TC develop from Canada's print leader, complemented by a solid specialty media group into a business that is balanced by a strong packaging operation. Spending time with Monsieur Marcoux, Isabelle, and François, I appreciate the effort and passion that has created a successful business driven by a strong culture and entrepreneurial spirit. Over my first six weeks, I worked closely with Isabelle and François to ensure a smooth transition. I appreciate that François and the team positioned us to successfully transition the business' leadership by focusing on finishing the year strongly. This gave me the opportunity to spend my first weeks meeting and listening to coworkers and customers. Having had one-on-one meetings with over 70 coworkers, I can confirm the quality of the team.
Our coworkers are smart, hardworking, good people who exemplify TC's values and who are determined to win. Having had the opportunity to meet many customers, I'm convinced that the team has established strong relationships. The customers appreciate that TC is an organization that is committed to supporting their success. François should be extremely proud of the team he has led and the business they have built. The investments in people, innovation, and capital have positioned us to be the leader in all our sectors. To conclude, I appreciate the trust that the Marcoux family and the board have placed in me. I've loved my first six weeks, and as I take on the role of CEO, I'm excited by the opportunity to work with the team and build an even stronger business. Now I'll hand it over to Donald.
Thank you, Peter, and welcome. On behalf of the management team and I, let me take a moment to thank you, François, for your many years of leadership and dedication to our customers, employees, and investors. I know I speak for all of us when I say that we will miss you and wish you all the best. Now turning to our results. In terms of numbers for the fourth quarter on slide six, we reported an increase in revenue of CAD 120 million or 18.3% versus last year. This was driven by higher pricing in packaging following our diligent pass-through of higher resin costs to our customers, by organic growth in packaging and print, and by the acquisition of BGI Retail in our Print sector. This year, the fourth quarter also included an additional week.
Excluding the extra week, both the Print and Packaging sectors recorded solid volume growth. As expected, the revenue growth was partially offset by a negative currency impact of CAD 16 million, mainly in packaging, due to the rise in value of the Canadian dollar versus the US dollar. On the profitability front, EBITDA was negatively impacted by the three same factors as last quarter, but to a lesser extent. First, we received a much lower Canadian wage subsidy this year. We received CAD 3.7 million this quarter versus CAD 14.5 million for the same quarter last year. Second, short-term contractual lags in passing through higher resin prices to our customer. Third, the stronger Canadian dollar. In total, these three factors impacted EBITDA by more than CAD 20 million in Q4.
We were able to offset most of these headwinds with strong operational performance, higher volume, and with the extra week to deliver an adjusted EBITDA of CAD 140.5 million for the quarter. Considering the business context in which we operated, inflation, labor shortage, and supply chain issues, this was a strong performance. Financial expenses increased slightly following a currency gain recorded last year and also due to the extra week this year. The tax rate was at 23.7% in the fourth quarter, in line with our mid-twenties guidance, leading to adjusted net earnings of CAD 0.31 per share for the quarter. Now, moving to slide seven for the sector review. In our Packaging sector, in the fourth quarter, we recorded organic revenue growth of CAD 80.1 million.
This was mainly due to the pass-through of higher resin prices, but also included the positive impact of having an extra week in volume growth of more than 2%. I highlight the strong performance of our advanced coatings group during the quarter. Going forward, this group should also benefit from the recent acquisition of H.S. Crocker as one of its new clients is specialized in labels for the pharmaceutical industry. In addition to the launch of the total medical product portfolio. We also continue to see solid performance from the rest of our packaging groups. Exchange rates, mainly the strong Canadian dollar, had a negative impact of CAD 14.9 million, leading to packaging revenues of CAD 417.4 million in the fourth quarter. Moving to profitability.
As resin prices were still increasing in the spring and summer, we still had a negative impact in the quarter from the lag in passing through price increases, although lower than what we saw in the last two quarters. Despite this impact, we were able to deliver an EBITDA of CAD 67.9 million. The latter was in line with last year due to good operational performance, volume growth, and the additional week. Considering that it included over 300 basis points of negative resin price impact caused by the lag in pass-through and dilution caused by a related increase in revenues, we were also pleased with the EBITDA margin of 13.9% for the quarter. Excluding the impact of resin prices, packaging margins would have been higher than last year's.
On slide 8, you can see that our Printing sector had another very strong quarter, with 14.4% organic growth versus Q4 last year. The extra week was a contributor, but excluding its impact, we also saw strong business recovery with organic growth in the mid-single digits. It was especially high in our growth activities like in-store marketing and book printing, where we saw double-digit growth. This growth was driven by existing customers spending more and by new customers. Revenues in the quarter were also positively impacted by the acquisition of BGI Retail in the in-store marketing space. As François mentioned earlier, our print portfolio is changing and a larger part of its revenues is coming from growth activities, both organically and through acquisitions. Printing adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was CAD 81.1 million compared to CAD 79.5 million in Q4 2020.
This is a solid performance when we consider that the wage subsidy was CAD 9 million lower than last year. Demonstration of our efficient operational performance. Excluding the wage subsidy, adjusted EBITDA margin in Print for the quarter was at 23.3%, in line with last year. On a full year basis, it was 21.3% compared to 20.1% last year, a 120 basis point improvement. In our Media business, you may recall that seasonality, it was more pronounced in Q4 last year. This year was back to a more normal level with approximately 38% of its annual revenues in the fourth quarter. On a full year basis, the Media sector had another excellent year with close to 10% revenue and EBITDA growth when excluding the subsidy received in 2020.
Corporate expenses were higher than last year, mainly due to stock-based compensation and non-recurring costs that included the extra week and our vaccination clinic. Turning to cash flow from operating activities, we generated CAD 92.7 million in the quarter. The variation with last year is mostly due to higher inventory, which continues to be impacted by resin prices. As we indicated last quarter, we continue to increase our investment in CapEx with a total spend of close to CAD 34 million in the quarter, bringing us to CAD 138 million for the year. These investments will position us well to capture growth opportunities and will help us meet our 2045 sustainability objectives. Finally, we distributed CAD 19.6 million in dividends.
Despite the investments we made during the quarter, we continue to maintain a very strong financial position with over CAD 660 million of available liquidity at the end of the quarter. In conclusion, overall, we delivered an excellent quarter and ended the fiscal year strong. As for the outlook, in Packaging, following the investments we've made in new equipment, the signing of new customer contracts, and the introduction of new products to market, we expect to generate organic growth for 2022, excluding the impact of resin prices and the 53rd week of 2021. As for profitability, we expect to grow Packaging EBITDA in fiscal year 2022. Assuming no major resin price increases, the negative impacts from the lag in resin pass-through we experienced this year are not expected to reoccur.
Resin will, however, still have an effect on margin percentage due to the higher revenues. This being said, the strong efficiency gains we made during the year across all our sectors will stay with us and should be reflected in our profitability. In print, we expect volumes to continue to recover. We also expect to see growth in our in-store marketing, book printing, and other growth activities. This gave us confidence that we should see higher revenues in fiscal 2022 while excluding the extra week of 2021. In terms of profitability, we don't expect to receive any wage subsidies in fiscal 2022, but we expect volume growth in printing to act as a partial offset to that. Therefore, excluding the impact of the subsidy and the additional week in 2021, we expect growth in adjusted EBITDA for fiscal year 2022.
Corporate costs at the EBITDA level should be around CAD 40 million for the year. In terms of the use of cash for the year, we will continue to pursue potential acquisitions and invest in our future through our CapEx program. To that end, depending on the timing of potential key investments, CapEx in fiscal year 2022 is likely to be similar to 2021. Our tax rate should continue to be in the mid-20s, and as far as for cash taxes, we estimate around CAD 60 million for the year. On that note, we will now proceed with the question period.
Thank you. One moment, please. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star followed by the number one on your touchtone phone. One moment for your first question. Your first question comes from Mark Neville from Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon. First off, François, congratulations and best of luck, and Peter, congratulations as well. Maybe my first question just on François, on pricing within packaging. At this point, have you sort of fully totally caught up on your pricing adjustments? If not, how far are you behind, and so when can we sort of expect to be fully caught up?
Yeah. We're all almost there. You know, just a couple more months. As you know, most of them is about a 2-3-month lag. We had a few at 6 that are longer to catch up, but they're not meaningful. I would say 1 or 2 more months. We have seen a certain grade of resin price decrease, so it should and you know, in some area, stabilize and maybe even for certain resin, like I say, turn the other way. A month or 2, but each month is a lot less, Mark, because we are at the end of the lag.
Sure. In terms of the outlook for 2022, just trying to just estimate some baseline. Again, you're sort of, you know, excluding SUZE and a few other things, you're expecting growth. I guess my question with print is sort of the 21.3% margin, the number that people are growing off of on whatever the sales might be. Just pricing within packaging. I guess, again, just trying to find a baseline for EBITDA, EBIT, sort of exing out all these one-time items.
Mark, on the margin, obviously, we're very proud of the 21.3% that we delivered in fiscal 2021. I think it's our best margin in going back to 2017, if I'm not wrong. We said it for many years, the intention with print is to protect the 20% margin and to produce a lot of free cash flow. This is the direction we're going. Obviously, we're growing in businesses like in-store marketing that are not the same margin that we have in the other business. Those margins are going up. Twenty percent is really what we're aiming for to protect in the future.
Okay. In terms of the absolute dollar figures, when you're talking about growing next year in segments that are excluding the wage subsidy, excluding the extra week, is there sort of round numbers you can help us with?
For what?
Our pricing model, you know, you may talk with Yan, but what we're currently facing is that the first 5 months of fiscal 2022 will have an easier comparable if we compare to last year. If you look at the growth that we had this year, first quarter were very negative compared to 2020 and almost flat second quarter and I think close to 15% in the third quarter and a very good growth in this quarter. From what we see and obviously I won't comment on what's gonna happen with COVID in 2022, but the trend is good, at least for the first half of the year. We have good momentum with the part of the business that's growing right now.
This is our overall. We're confident to deliver growth in 2022.
Okay. Maybe one last question. Maybe I missed it, but have you disclosed the purchase price for the Colour-Press?
No.
Okay. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.
Your next question comes from Drew McReynolds from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks very much. Good afternoon and congratulations, François and Peter and François, just wanna say it's been an absolute pleasure working with you at Cascades all around. Just all the best in your future.
A couple of just follow-ups for me. I guess one just big picture for you, Peter. I know obviously it doesn't sound like there's really any change here in the strategy or the priorities of the company. Can you maybe talk to that at a high level? Secondly, on the CapEx, it's a little higher in FY 2022 than certainly what is in our model. As we look kind of through the medium term, is this now a new run rate for the total business, or do you still expect some ebb and flow from these levels?
Thanks, Drew. You know, what I'd say is first, you know, while I'm new to the day-to-day, and there's certainly a difference between day-to-day and being a member of the board, I've been part of the board for quite a while now. From a strategic point of view, I've been across, and been part of the board team that's approved the company strategy. For me, I'm more than excited to take on the role, understanding that we have a print and media business that are very strongly positioned to create value for our customers. We have a print business that now has legs that have growth elements to them that I think are important and to continue on. For me, there's a strong future for print.
From a packaging perspective, you know, I come from that part of the industry and I'm excited by the opportunity to grow the business significantly. I don't see a change in the strategy.
In terms of your number, Drew, for the model, as we said, you know, in 2021 we're higher than last year. We say that this year we might be close to 2021, but those are specific years where we see opportunity for us to invest in capacity growth, innovation and sustainability. I won't say that this amount is a new benchmark. It's specific to some investment we will make over a two-year period, this is not the benchmark of the long term with the current supply and the way it is right now.
Okay. Super. Maybe, maybe one follow-up, and it's a little bit related to the last question. You know, you've quantified the impact of the extra week at CAD 57 million in revenue. Can you just kind of simplistically roll that down to EBITDA to get, you know, an EBITDA impact of that extra week in the quarter? Is that kind of a fair way to do it?
Yeah. You can make some, you know, regarding the sectors, but don't forget that corporate doesn't deliver any EBITDA. It's an extra plus. It's not a question of dividing, you know, by the number of weeks, but we'll give you the benchmark by doing so, but consider that we have expenses at corporate level that comes in the fiscal third week also. It's not equivalent.
Got it. Yeah. Thanks for that. Okay. Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from Stephen MacLeod from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good evening. Well, good afternoon. Evening. First of all, congratulations on your long tenure. Peter, I look forward to working with you. Couple of questions here. Specifically, when you think about the packaging segment in the quarter and sort of what you've seen on a year to date basis, can you talk a little bit about where you're seeing the volume growth in terms of the end markets and the segments, and if there's any differentiation across that spectrum?
Well, Lionel mentioned advanced coating in the medical space. We had a good quarter, but for the most part, all the sectors we operate in, whether it's the dairy, the consumer space or the agriculture and Latin America, the level of economic activity is pretty good. Everybody participated to the organic growth, positive organic growth in Q4. We expect everybody to participate in 2022. We highlighted for Q4 the coating business around the medical space that, you know, had the best year-over-year growth. But you know, there's not a specific sector that is overperforming or one that is underperforming.
We have good loading in most of our factory, and frankly, we have more supply chain issue in terms of delivering our customer than we have right now problem with the loading.
Great. Thank you. For Peter, you know, and I know you sort of addressed this in previous questions, but, can you just talk a little bit about sort of where your priorities are? You know, obviously understanding that don't necessarily change the strategy considering you've had a board oversight on that. Can you just talk a little bit about where your priorities are over the next sort of 6-12 months?
I'd say, Stephen, is my priorities in the short term primarily has been around customers and coworkers. For me, I'm gonna want to present that after six weeks, I'm gonna intend telling you what my focus will be over the next year. I think the starting point is to get a strong understanding of the business and speaking to people and customers gives me the strong understanding, and I still have a bit of work to do there. I think when we catch up next quarter, I'll be in a better position to answer your question more fully.
That's great. Thank you. Just finally, I was wondering if you could sort of just summarize if you have it in front of you, just the CEWS dollar impact in both the printing segment and the packaging segment.
Well, in the packaging segment this year, you know, didn't have any impact. We received millions of dollars. Overall, at the customer base level, you know, we received this year 50% of what we received in 2020. Obviously, as I said in my opening remarks, we don't expect to receive any dollars, so you can look in our MD&A, but it's close to CAD 30 million of, if you want negative, I mean, for flat in fiscal 2022, and it's mainly at print level.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. That's it for me.
Ladies and gentlemen, if there are any additional questions, please press star followed by the pound sign. Your next question comes from Adam Shine from National Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks a lot. Good afternoon. First of all, goodbye, at least as it relates to Transcontinental, and of course, I wish you well. Meanwhile, hello to you, Peter Brues. Just a few questions left, I guess. You know, one thing that looked interesting was, like, the Canadian revenues for printing. Is there anything specific to that? You know, whether it's, again, because coatings or just general performance, but that one sort of stood out as interesting. Maybe I'll pause there and move on to the other topic.
I think we'll need to take that offline. I'm kind of surprised by your comment. You just mentioned that the Canadian revenue of packaging doubled.
Yeah.
Well, we'll take it offline.
Okay.
Because I'm surprising.
Okay. Fair enough. When we think about some of the disclosure around printing as it relates to outlook, is it fair to say that, you know, given the moving pieces and acknowledging, you know, exiting out the 53rd week, that, you know, the level in fiscal 2022 should be ultimately slightly above that of fiscal 2020? Is that a reasonable way maybe for you to now look at printing revenues?
It will be above. I mean, it's what's happening is the things that are decreasing now in printing the most are not a significant part of the portfolio anymore. What is growing double digits like ISM and book is coming to be a more significant part of the portfolio. Then retail has been, you know, growing this year compared to the COVID year. We expect, especially with what's going on with, you know, the price of food and going up in Canada that the retail buyer are gonna be more relevant than ever before going forward. That's why we, Donald mentioned that, excluding the 53rd week, we see growth in printing.
The transformation of the portfolio is that 35% of the portfolio, combined portfolio, what I call the traditional Transcontinental, which is in print and media, is actually growing. A lot of those sector are growing double digits. We have a view to make that to continue to grow that. The outlook on revenue, you know, it is gonna improve from what it was a couple years ago. The only thing that we are not sure about is the impact of the COVID-19 in 2022, and nobody could predict that. Obviously, when restriction happen, you know, in general, retail is affected. When retail is affected, well, a big part of the print portfolio is related to retail, especially the new sector of ISM is in retail.
Yeah, that's the color I can give you.
Okay. I appreciate that. Maybe just one last one for now. Just in regards to the CAD 40 million or so of outlook in corporate cost line for fiscal 2022, sort of similar to that of the past year. Obviously some puts and takes of benefits perhaps earlier in the year on the Q's. At the same time, you know, you did have some additional costs as you alluded to on the vaccination front. Anything else in terms of incremental buckets, items for headcount or anything else that we should be thinking about in terms of, you know, moving forward into next year?
No, no. I think if you compare to this year, obviously this year we had some one-timers, but the share, as you know, the share units have increased and you're aware that we hedge most of the custom back. But volume-wise, we were hit this year, and I guess it's the new trend because now since the acquisition of Coveris, we have more people that are part of the program. Therefore, this is the first year where we have the full run rate of the new cost of this program. So this is why it's higher this year. It was higher for some. Another few one-timers, but this is why we're comfortable with CAD 40 million for next year.
Yeah. Super. Thanks a lot.
Yeah.
Our last question comes from David McFadgen from Cormark Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Oh, thank you. I just wanna also echo my congratulations to François and Peter. A couple of questions. Just on the corporate cost line, you indicated that fiscal 2022, you expect it to be about CAD 40 million. Was it CAD 40 million in fiscal 2021? Maybe I didn't hear that.
It was higher than that, but I'll give you the exact numbers. 21.
Oh, 21. Okay. You know, in your outlook, you talked about packaging organic volume growth in fiscal 2022. You thought it would grow despite the additional week, but do you think you could grow even, you know, with an additional week in fiscal 2022? Or do you think that's
For volume?
Yeah.
Well, I know, I think, what we, you know, should be similar in terms of percentage to what we have in 2021. That's what we're aiming.
Okay. I was just looking at the cash flow statement. I noticed there's a large working capital drain or investment in fiscal 2021, and I'm just wondering, do you think you could recover some of that in fiscal 2022 or what? Kinda, what's the outlook for fiscal 2022 on the working capital front?
Yeah. Well, we definitely want to, you know, have a better working capital. What really hit us this year is the impact of the resin price. It hit us not only in terms of inventory, which the impact was very large, but also on the AR side because obviously your sales, you're selling to your customer, therefore the AR comes with inflation of the resin price also. On the supplier side, we use, you know, all the discounts we can use, so therefore we're less impacted by that. Overall, we're very satisfied with, you know, the way we manage the receivables, the AR in Canada, you know, has recovered. Most of the impact, as I said, is related to resin price.
If you compare to next year, I won't make any prediction over where will be the resin price. If it is stable or lower, we should be in a better position and we will, you know, make sure that we get better on the working cap overall.
Do you think it sort of sounds like you would need resin price to decline?
Oh, no.
to reverse that?
What I'm saying is that by far the biggest impact this year to explain the negative over the working cap is linked with the price of resin. A large part of inventory, you know, the largest increase we had was on the inventory side and was due to the pricing. A little bit of the quantity. You know, in this time where we have issues with the supply chain, we were more, we wanted to have a little bit more in our stocks, you know, to make sure that if anything happen, we have enough to cover the need for our clients. But price had a huge impact. I'm not saying that we bet on the resin price to decrease to have a better working cap.
What I'm saying regarding your question is say, next year, where we will be, we will make everything to be in a better position, but that's excluding the fact that resin price may have an impact again, next year.
Okay. All right. Thank you so much.
There are no further questions at this time.
Thank you all for joining us on the call today, and I look forward to speaking to you soon.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.