Good day and welcome to the Bemis Company Hosted Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Erin Winters. Please go ahead, ma’am.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter 2015 conference call. Today is October 22, 2015. After today’s call, a replay will be available on our website, bemis.com, under the Investor Relations section. Joining me for this call today are Bemis Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Bill Austen, our Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Mike Clauer and our Vice President and Controller, Jerry Krempa. Following Bill and Mike’s comments on our business and outlook we will answer any questions you have. However, in order to allow everyone an opportunity to participate, we do ask that you limit yourself to one question at a time with a related follow-up and then fall back into the queue for any additional questions. On today’s call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures as we talk about our performance. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to GAAP measures that we consider most comparable can be found in the press release and supplemental schedules on our website. And finally, a reminder that statements regarding future performance of the company made during this call are forward-looking and are therefore subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from historical, expected or projected results due to a variety of factors. Please refer to Bemis Company’s regular SEC filings, including the most recently filed Form 10-K to review these risk factors. Now, I’ll turn the call over to Bill Austen.

Thank you, Erin, and good morning, everyone. Bemis performed well this quarter in a slow growth and volatile currency environment. Our operations are strong and we are executing our strategy with focus, alignment, accountability and rigor. We delivered adjusted earnings of $0.67 per share, a 9.8% increase over the prior year; this in light of a $0.06 translation headwind as currencies in Latin America devalued significantly compared to one year ago. We delivered highest gross margin in many years at 21.8% driven by our recapitalization efforts focused that improving productivity and efficiency, our innovation pipeline that continues to improve the mix of the products we sell and our strong operational performance across the entire company. We increased operating profit margins in our U.S. packaging segment to 14.5%, a 120 basis point increase over the prior third quarter, reflecting great progress toward our long-term goal of 15% to 18% in this segment. We increased adjusted operating profit margins in our global packaging segment to 9.7%, a 110 basis point increase over the prior third quarter, exceeding my expectations and above pace toward our goal of double-digit returns in this segment over the three to five-year horizon. We again increased ROIC to 10.3% versus 9.6% one year ago. We generated $194 million of operating cash flow, another quarter of vast improvement, and through the third quarter, we have already exceeded our original full year cash flow target stated in January, an excellent demonstration of the focus, discipline, accountability and urgency, we have instilled and continue to drive throughout our entire business. And finally, we continue to execute our capital expansions and improvements to plan. Again this quarter, we are selling at most items that we’ve targeted. Currency and unit volumes continue to be a challenge in the short-term, but I am pleased…

Thanks Bill and good morning. As Bill mentioned, we reported adjusted earnings of $0.67 per share, a 9.8% increase compare to the prior third quarter. This includes overcoming a currency translation headwind of approximately $0.06 versus the prior year third quarter, primarily driven by currencies in Latin America with continued value against the dollar. We delivered solid improvement in gross margins at 21.8% versus 20.1% the prior third quarter. This improvement was driven by continued effort in executing our strategy, specifically the favorable impact of productivity and efficiency projects we have executed as part of our capital plan and improved price mix, as we execute our strategy to sell a higher portion of value added sophisticated packages. I will provide comments on each reportable segment, followed by a discussion of total company expenses and performance. First U.S. Packaging; in the third quarter sales dollars in our U.S. segment declined 3.7%. Overall unit volumes were down approximately 3% compared to the prior third quarter. Approximately two-thirds of this unit volume decline was driven by our strategic pricing decision to exit some low margin bottle water overwrap business in the prior periods, and the remainder was driven by a select customer, who lost share with their beverage pouch at the retail level. Aside from volumes, the remaining decline in sales dollars was driven by contractual price reductions to pass through lower raw material cost, which do not have pack operating profits, partially offset by favorable mix in-line with our strategy. Some additional end market details for the quarter, unit volumes in our meat and cheese, dairy and liquid end markets were down slightly. Our analysis indicates there are no drivers out of the ordinary and we continue to be optimistic about volumes in the long term. Mix within these end markets were…

[Operator Instructions]. We ask that you ask one question and one follow-up question, we will release you after your follow-up at which point you can re-queue to get back into the question queue. Our first question comes from Ghansham Panjabi from Robert W. Baird & Company. Please go ahead.

It's actually Mehul Dalia sitting in for Ghansham. Can you quantify the benefit from lower raw material cost during 3Q on EBIT margin?

On EBIT margins it was very minimal. As you guys all know, we’ve done a really good job of taken the volatility out of passing through changing input cost.

Great and thanks for the commentary about the improvements you are making in the U.S. Do you know that when should we expect to see some sort of inflection in North America volume?

As I said in my remarks, we are still -- our view hasn’t changed. We viewed 10% EPS growth in 2016 and we see that volumes will increase in North America to the 2% range where we've targeted in our Investor Day 2016. That's why we made some of the changes in our commercial team.

And our next question comes from George Staphos from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

I want to hear you back a little bit on that last comment Bill in the question. So you did this review. It sounded like of your markets and products, could you provide a little bit more clarity in terms of what that review told you about the long term volume outlook and why you should be confident and if you're confident, whether you need to change management. And then second question I had, can you parse for us what the mix benefit was? Obviously price mix was down, because the resin passed through but what was mix up in the quarter, if you can share that? Thank you.

George this is Bill. I will take the volume side of that. Yes, we gone through, a good review of our innovation pipeline in the productivity projects that we have slated based on our capital spending and we feel very comfortable with what we’ve targeted for 2016, the 2% growth in North America. We filtered with that based on the innovation and the productivity improvements that we have slated.

And touching on your margin, when I think about the margin improvement for the company about half of it came from productivity and efficiency and that would have been heavier in U.S. Packaging, and about half of it was innovation mix which would have been heavier in Global Packaging?

And we’ll take our next question from Scott Gaffner from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Thanks. My question is really around Mike just mentioned the margin improvement and at least in the quarter of 50% productivity, 50% innovation. If I look at sort of our model here, you have got about 120 basis points of margin improvement 2015. What would keep you from getting another 120 basis points of margin improvement in 2016, or maybe it's achievable?

At this point, it's a steady build. I think we’re doing a little bit better in ‘15 than we would have anticipated in our five-year plan. But again I’m not going to -- I don't think I’m going to -- we’re going to sign up for 120% improvement right now. But we do still feel confident we’re going to be improving as we move towards our long term goal. So 15 to 18 in U.S. Packaging and plus 10% in Global.

Sure, but even just conceptually, as we move into 2016, has that productivity come down and innovation, it sounds like Bill you are saying innovation goes up. How should we think about the mix there?

Scott, this is Bill. We looked the next this year. It’s a 50-50 split between innovation and productivity and efficiency, because we’ve got the lower hanging fruit on the productivity side. You see that earlier. We’ll continue to get that productivity from projects we’ve installed this year, because they'll lap themselves somewhere in 2016. But we have good site to more productivity projects that as you recall from last quarter we pull capital forward to drive sooner productivity gains into 2016. So we’ll continue on that pace and then the innovation will start to kick in even greater than it has now. So it's still going to be that 50-50, 60-40 kind of a split in that range between innovation and productivity. So we’re comfortable and we have good line of sight.

And our next question comes from Chip Dillon from Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you very much. Just a couple of financial questions to near-term Mike. One is, when you look at the impressive cash flow, thanks for calling out the working capital benefit of the raw materials. Is there also a measurable working capital benefit because of the FX changes, I guess with the financing of receivables down in Brazil? And then secondly can you give us updated view of how you see CapEx in 2016 and 17 based on your current footprint and given that it’s been elevated this year?

First of all, I don’t see any big change or any impact on cash flow as a result of FX. We kind of pull that out and look at it without it. And then as far as capital’s concern, as we said on Investor Day and it still holds through, we’re still going to be that $200 million to $215 million in '16 and maybe '17 and then after that we should start seeing a decline other than any potential acquisitions and how that might change our capital requirements on adding more revenue and assets to our business.

And our next question comes from Anthony Pettinari from Citibank. Please go ahead.

I just had a question on the global business since specifically Brazil. You indicated you’re pretty happy with how those businesses are performing on a same currency basis. In Brazil, meat production is down pretty sharply year-over-year. I was just wondering if you could give a little color on how your business is performing in Brazil and maybe overcoming some of those headwinds?

Yes, thanks Anthony. This is Bill. As we said, we’re very happy with the performance of our business in Brazil. And if you look at what we do, as we make packaging for products that people use every day, two years ago, we made some investments in some technology in Brazil to bring down some proprietary meat films, protein films for that market to start to change the market away from what locally produced films are all about, to bring down Bemis innovation in terms of ISO. We’ve been gaining share with that technology from locally produced film. So whether meat film is now -- we were not big in that market prior. Now we’re big in that market because we’re gaining share from locally produce suppliers. So that’s a good thing for us and we see that continuing as we -- at capacity utilization on that line continues to increase.

And then just switching back to the U.S., the capitalization of kind of lower margin converting assets, when is that process completed?

Probably '17, and honestly it’ll never be completed. What we’re doing right now is probably catching up for underspending from 2010 through '13 as the Company was a lot more focused on integrating that large acquisition. So what you’re seeing right now is a catch-up, but we will -- it’s going to become part of -- it is become part of our DNA that we will always be capitalizing assets going into the future.

And we’ll take our next question from Philip Ng from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hey guys. With the share loss lapping next year in North America for some of your commodity business, comps obviously get a lot easier in 2016. To the 2% growth target you have for North America, how much of that is driven by new products and maybe some of the benefits from the recapitalization of assets? And are you assuming any recovery in packaged fruit demand for the bottom market overall? Thanks.

At this point, we are not anticipating any recovery. We’re going to work off the assumptions that consumption in the U.S. is flat to slightly down. We have no reasons to think otherwise. So I think more of the growth is going to really be coming from the innovation side of our packaging. Hope that answers your question.

And our next question comes from Chris Manuel from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

I wanted to kind of focus for a second on the global business if I could or the global packaging component. Again made great progress there, already kind of upper nine as far as margin percentage and close target. Is there anything that could happen that you'd foresee over the next few quarters that might kind of go backwards a little bit? Or seemingly you're pretty far down the path of exceeding some of those goals or how would you think about maybe raising the bar a bit further. How do you balance that Bill?

Look, Chris, I don't see anything that's going to change where we are over the next couple of quarters. And we’ve always said 10 plus. So we’re not going to back off on 10 and then stop. We’re going to continue to drive for 10 plus, and our business teams know that. We're continuing to put innovation into all of the regions of the world. We’ve got assets going into Europe right now that continue to drive their improvements, that have been significant for us over the last year or so. Same thing in Latin America. We're going to continue to invest there to continue to drive innovation and bring new packaging technologies to those regions to continue the change the mix and up-scale the mix that we’ve always been focused on. And same thing in medical. That medical facility in Wisconsin is now up and running. Its validated and qualified. So we can ship commercial product from there and we're still focused on that 200 basis points improvement in the medical business next year that we’ve stated right from the start. So we’re going to continue to push that beyond 10.

Okay. And then the second question kind of centers around capital allocation, and a particular -- some of the working capital and progress you are making what you might do with some of this, but on first element of this, Mike you had talked about $140 million of working capital opportunity from your reduction program. I don't think that was inclusive of the 25 you've got from raw material. So can we kind of think of that total bar as maybe 165? And then second part of this is what your intentions are to kind of the near term to do with it. It looks like share repurchase kind of slowed a bit. Are you seeing anything in the M&A markets that get you excited or how might you think about uses of cash over the balance of the year?

First of all, I answer your question, it's more important is it that when we made the statement about $140 million, it's really more about getting ourselves to that 14% primary working capital percentage in that sales. We kind of ended Q3 -- we were just south of 16%. So we’ve made some pretty nice progress, and we’ll continue to make progress as we drive to get to that level. So I think that answers your first question. As far as second question on the M&A side, we do have [indiscernible] right now. The positive side is there seems to be no road blocks at this point in time. It's now just a question of when we get approval on the process. So that would be potentially a use of cash in the fourth quarter, but of course I've said it before. We’re not going to delever. So we're going to use the stock, either do an acquisition or buyback stock, and the way I’m looking at it right now, we'll react to the timing of M-plow [ph] as we know a little bit better.

And our next question comes from Mark Wilde of Bank of Montreal. Please go ahead.

Bill I wondered if either you or Mike could just give us a little update on what you are seeing in terms of the M&A market right now? I know acquisitions are an important element in your overall growth targets?

Yes, Mark, we do have them M-plow [ph] there. We're pretty far down the road on developing our strategy, which included working with all the business units to identify the type of companies we want to own in the regions and geographies. As I said before, we like to think we can start moving the revenue ball from 70-30 to 50-50 global. So we’re going to be thinking and looking in Latin America and the western side of the continent that we really don't participate in per say. In Europe clearly looking at eastern and central Europe as a priority, healthcare anywhere, and we’ve got things percolating is a better term for it. Again like we’ve said, we really don't want to be in processes. The multiples are pretty high right now. What we’re trying to do is find organizations that we want to own and get to know the ownership family, if its private and see if we can strike up a conversation about helping them with their succession plan or exit strategy. So I would say it's going quite well, Mark.

Okay and then Mike, if I could just as a follow-on to that, just from what you’ve said, it doesn’t sound like the strength in the dollar, the weakness in some of these emerging market currencies, this is really going to change your pace or your strategy in terms of looking at acquisitions. Is that right?

That is correct. But the other side of it though as we -- in some of these emerging markets, it's also looking at countries that have higher growth rates. You look at eastern, central Europe, those growth rates in the food categories are 5% plus type growth into the foreseeable future. And we just feel that would be -- other drivers is that -- we’re targeting countries where geographies that are going to grow a lot faster than a U.S. economy is.

And we’ll take our next question from Adam Josephson from KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Mike, one more on capital allocation. How would you compare the attractiveness of buybacks and M&A at the moment, particularly given what you just said about multiples being rather high?

Our objective right now is we want to be able to get a 15% return on invested capital on an acquisition. And as you guys -- anybody knows, that's not an easy task, when you're paying 9, 10 times EBITDA for an acquisition. So we’re very balanced on the attractiveness of an acquisition. We have got to be very confident that we’ve got the synergies, be it cost take outs, consolidations, SG&A take outs or revenue synergies to make that investment versus a share repurchase.

Thanks Mike, and just one on the flat film line that you’ve been building. I know its early days, but can you give us any sense as to what volume and/or revenue contribution you might expect from those lines next year and as well as what kind of capital you’ve put into those lines and are planning to put into those lines?

Adam, we’ve got three lines in. Okay we line in Swansea wales. We have a line in Pauls Valley, and we have a line going in here into Wisconsin. That's what we’ve invested in thus far. We have two others on the back burner, that we have not yet pulled the trigger on. We are linked with a customer and their ramp-up in the use of that flat film, and at this point that's all I will say about that flat film market and where we see that headed.

[Operator Instructions] We’ll take a question from George Staphos from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Just want to follow-up on our earlier discussion on volumes and the outlook. So -- recognizing that you are confident of volume outlook bill for next year in U.S. Packaging, I was curious again, what your review kind of revealed in terms of why you should be confident in the outlook on volumes and some of the organizational changes that you made, how does that help you? So that's question number one. Question number two, just more of a housekeeping question. If I look at the P&L versus the segment reporting and the restructuring and other item, I think it's like $4.6 million in P&L it's something under $10 million in the segment. Just what caused that variance Mike? Thank you.

George, what gives us the confidence in the volume is the pipeline. We do an exhaustive review of the global pipeline, not just of the U.S. Packaging pipeline of where the projects stand in the stage gate process. Are they a P1 or are they a P4? Are risks retired, are risks not retired? And as we look at that, when those projects are going to be completed, and if you go back to our whole premise around our stage gate process, it starts and ends with a customer. So we don't develop unless as a customer tied to it all the way through. We feel very good about that and very good about what’s going to launched in the upcoming months and quarters. Not just in U.S. but also global.

And as to your question on restructuring, there is really three elements of the restructuring this quarter. $1.4 million associated with facility closure in the medical division and about a $0.5 million associated with acquisition related cost on M-Plow [ph]. Those are included in the segment. There is a $2.7 million charge that was not included in segment and reported as corporate and that's for identification, obligation related to a past acquisition. It's a one-time non-recurring charge.

And we’ll take our next question from Scott Gaffner of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Mike, just quick question on the CapEx spend for 2015. As you sort of move through the year, sounds like innovation spending maybe has moved more towards 2016 and some of the cost reduction on the existing business is taken over. Has there been any shift in the mix on CapEx innovation versus cost reduction on some of the existing business?

There is really been no shift. If you think about how to think about it, about $60 million of our spend is environmental health and maintenance and I would say it's 50-50 split above there between innovation and recapitalization. Recapitalization is heavier in U.S. Packaging. Just from the standpoint that's where the assets really need to be recapitalized. And as Bill kind of pointed out, a big part of our global strategy is the migration of capabilities and higher barrier products from the U.S. to those emerging markets as packaging sophistication increases.

Okay. And just on the working capital if I recall correct 4Q of last year, there was some noted confusion as to why working capital built the way it did. Obviously you made some change in the payment terms to get towards industry standards, but have you figured out -- it seems like you have the -- what the issue was with working capital within the last year? Just trying to figure out how of much this is just a recapture of that issue versus some of these better payment terms?

I think we figured out, we -- first of all Scott, I just don't think we’re -- we were really focused on cash flow and we’re now focused on cash flow. Last year in Q4 the number was $56 million. As we've given you the guidance, I would expect that to be $90 million plus next year. So we will continue to get improvements. And we’ll continue into ’16. I think we've made a lot of progress on terms with suppliers. We’ve done a good job with the big ones, and now as we go in the Q4 and Q1, we’re focused on kind of the next tier of vendors to kind of get those terms improved. From an inventory side, I think we’ve done a nice job of getting inventory back to what we want it to be, but clearly the big progress still going to be linked to our rollout of supply chain optimization management and demand forecasting, which those investments are being made right now and I would expect that to start realizing second half of ’16 into ’17 when we complete our ERP implementation in U.S. packaging.

And we’ll take our next question from Alex Ovshey from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Just one for you. The lower resin price environment, is that having any positive or negative impact on the competitive dynamics in the business?

No.

[Operator Instructions] We’ll take another question from Adam Josephson. Your line is open.

Thanks a lot and thanks for taking my follow-up. Mike one more on working capital. It’s been a $95 million source year-to-date. Assuming it ends up being a $150 million, which is exactly what the drag was last year, you’d be a 550 of operating cash flow this year, which is your 2019 target if I’m not mistaken. Is there any reason to think that the long-term target is particularly conservative?

No. First of all, I don’t think, I wouldn’t read anything into it -- it’s going to be 550. We’re just get back to normalized. When Bill makes that 550 comment, think about it, our EBITDA will have grown substantially as a contribution to that. So I would think in terms of -- we’re targeting get to primary working capital to be 14% of net sales and then the additional growth will come from our improvements in EBITDA as we continue to drive our performance.

And currently, there are no further questions in the queue.

Thank you, Destiny. Thank you all for joining us today. This concludes our conference call.