Earnings Labs

Ball Corporation (BALL)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 4, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ball Corporation Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, Thursday, August 4, 2016. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Hayes, CEO. Please go ahead, sir. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Great. Thank you, Dmitra and good morning, everyone. This is Ball Corporation's conference call regarding the company's second quarter 2016 results. The information provided during this call will contain forward-looking statements. Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those that may be expressed or implied. Some factors that could cause results or outcomes to differ are in the company's latest 10-K, and in other company SEC filings, as well as the company news releases. If you don't already have our second quarter earnings release, it's available on our website at ball.com. Information regarding the pro forma's reference in today's presentation and the use of non-GAAP financial measures may also be found on our website and in today's webcast slides. Now joining me on the call today is Scott Morrison, our Senior Vice President and CFO. I'll provide a brief overview of our company's performance. Scott will discuss financial and global packaging metrics, and then I'll finish up with comments on our aerospace business. In addition, while we normally do not give short-term guidance, given the complexity related to the simultaneous acquisition of Rexam and divestment of those assets required by the various regulatory agencies, as well as the purchase accounting and transaction-related activities related to such, we will be providing more assistance than typical on the outlook over the next couple years from an…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. Our first question comes from the line of Ghansham Panjabi with Baird. Please go ahead. Ghansham Panjabi - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hey, guys. Good morning. Appreciate all the detail in the slide deck, so thanks for that. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You're welcome. Ghansham Panjabi - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): On the LTM EBITDA at the end of 2Q of $1.53 billion and a $1.8 billion midpoint for 2017, obviously synergies alone should be $150 million, based on your parameters. Can you, John, give us some of the other assumptions? Volume growth by region, and also the benefit from the growth initiatives, Monterrey and Myanmar, and also some of the growth that Rexam was also executing upon. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, well, you're absolutely right. When you look at what we have just said, there's year-over-year on a relative to the LTM, we expect $200 million to $300 million more of comparable operating earnings. $150 million of that is from the synergies we expect to realize and the balance of it comes from a variety of things. But let's not forget, over the last 18 months to two years, we have spent a fair amount of growth capital, whether it's building a new facility in Monterrey, the contour bottles, Myanmar, Lublin ends, India impact extruded, our new G3 technology devices, or other things, we expect to get the returns on that capital employed. And I think that makes up the back half of that. Ghansham Panjabi - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): So just to quantify on the volume side, what do you think the various regions would look like? John A. Hayes - Chairman,…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Tyler Langton with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Tyler J. Langton - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just on the 2019 free cash flow guidance, I know, Scott, you said it's a little early to know the exact timing of working capital gains. But should we assume there's working capital gains in that number, or should it largely be achieved in 2017 and 2018? Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: No, I think if you look at what we've been able to do on our balance sheet, we've been able to get working capital out for a number of years in a row. And while it's way too early to talk about 2019, being an EVA company we focus on our balance sheet every day. And so that tends to lead itself to all kinds of opportunities, a lot of which we probably don't see at this point. But I think we have good alignment with the new folks that have joined our company, and it will be an ongoing process to get after that on a year-on-year basis for the next few years.

Tyler J. Langton - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Got it; okay, thanks. And then the EPS guidance from 2017 to 2019, for EPS to double your long-term goal of the 10% to 15%, does that include any share repurchases in those numbers? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, as I said in my comments, once we get to 3 times to 3.5 times range, we will be dedicating our cash flow to a share repurchase program. So by definition in 2017, will we? It's unclear. It really depends on when we get to those targets. But the sooner we can get to that 3 time to 3.5 times range, the sooner we'll be buying back our stock.

Tyler J. Langton - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Got it. The final question, just with the special incentive plan and then the deposit program you laid out in the 8-K earlier in the week, could you just provide some detail, I guess, on number of people who are eligible? How deep it will extend into the organization; any details around that would be great. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, good questions. Two programs there. When I talked about we all have skin in the game, that's what I was referring to. There's a special incentive program that actually does go pretty deep in the organization, gets into the plant level. It's broad-based, distributed. The measurements are very similar to what we've done in the past; so that is tried and true. It's based on EVA dollar generation and on free cash flow generation, relative to our expectations and what our board signed up on the acquisition. And so it's a 3.5-year program and it's paid out in stock, which is another important component of that. The second one is a deposit share program. It's a bit more limited for – we have done a number of these programs, a number – three or four of these over the past 15 years or so. The concept is up to a certain amount by individual, that individual has to buy their own stock and then would get a restricted stock that lapses over a period of time. In this case, I believe it's four years so long as they hold on to the existing stock. So you have to put your own money in, and then you'll be matched up to a certain point. And we think both of those have served us very well over the past 15 years, 20 years and it's just a reaffirmation that we're making sure that we, as people within Ball Corporation, are completely aligned with all of our shareholders.

Tyler J. Langton - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

All right, great. Thanks again for all the details. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Pettinari with Citi. Please go ahead.

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Regarding the $150 million synergies by the end of 2017, do you have any thoughts on which buckets might be driving those synergies in the next 12 months, 18 months in terms of procurement, G&A, best practices, versus which buckets may be a little bit more back-end weighted? And then in terms of big moving pieces with the synergies, you obviously identified the London headquarters closure. Are there other big projects we should think about or big components of the synergies? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, let me just preface it by – as Scott said, we're 35 days into our 90-day review. But what you're really getting at, kind of a timing issue. And I do think the G&A is more front-end loaded. You mentioned Millbank, which is a good example, which is not immaterial at all. From a sourcing perspective, there are certain things we can get after right away, there's some things that we have to wait for contracts to renew and so that's in process. But whether it's those, whether it's about being more disciplined from a commercial perspective, that's probably a longer-term, multiyear game plan. Managing our networks more efficiently, effective from a – where you make/where you ship perspective, that we can probably do that more short-term or around our overall fixed-cost leverage and some of that can be short term, some of it can be longer term. I really do think that we are going to be looking at a multiyear plan, as you all know. But I do think there is some low-hanging fruit upfront. What we aren't going to do is hire an army of accountants to manage what bucket is generating to the million dollars happening where. We're confident that we can reach in excess of $300 million by the end of 2019. And as we said, we're pretty confident that we can get at least $300 million during 2000s – or excuse me, $150 million during 2017.

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then, John, just following up on one of your earlier comments. Rexam had invested in some regions like Middle East, Russia, India, where Ball had chosen not to. And now that you've been able to get a closer look at Rexam's assets, I guess you'd call them frontier markets, how would you characterize the return levels there? And are there areas or regions where further capacity adds makes sense, or alternately where maybe the returns met the Rexam threshold but not the Ball threshold and you might consider pruning capacity, as you have in China? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. We're still getting our hands around that as part of a 90-day program. In some of the things you have to look at the growth of the market, and then some of the things you have to look at is around risk, and whether it's political risk or economic risk or currency risk. And some of the areas that we've acquired that we hadn't been into are actually better than perhaps we thought. Some of them are not as good as we thought. So it is a mixed bag. As we get to October and into our January conference call, we'll have much more visibility and conviction around our point of view on those things. So, please just give us a little bit of time.

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead.

Got it. Thank you. I'll turn it over.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of George Staphos with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. George Leon Staphos - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: Hi, everyone. Good morning. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. George Leon Staphos - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: Congratulations – good morning. Congratulations on the results and closing the deal in the first quarter out. First question I had for you, John, is there anything that you can relay to us at this juncture about what you might have done differently in your plants that's an opportunity as you bring in the Rexam facilities and vice versa that in turn gives you comfort in the synergy target that you provided? The related question I had is on the corporate expense figure that you gave us for on a pro forma basis. Does that figure, do you think, once you bring on the U.K. headquarters folks and the services related to that, do you think that figure has opportunity to be lessened over time, to be reduced over time? And my last question and I'll turn it over, on capital spending of $500 million, is there some implied or are there some implied growth projects in that figure that you're not in a position to talk about? Or do you think that's a good number and growth would be additive to that? Thank you. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Let me jump on the first one, and then I'll let – have Scott weigh in. In terms of what we're seeing and how we might do things similar or different from the old Rexam, one of the things I'll point out is we are very excited about the engagement of the people…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Adam Josephson with KeyBanc. Please go ahead with your question.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc. Please go ahead with your question.

Thanks, John, Scott, and good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. John or Scott, just one on the EBITDA target for 2017. And it sounds like you're expecting about $150 million of synergies from now to then, and there's underlying EBIT growth of about $200 million, it sounds like primarily coming from the recent growth projects. Can you just remind us how much you spent on those projects? So what kind of return on those projects this EBIT or EBITDA target implies. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, Adam, one thing I'll point out. When we said there's a $200 million to $300 million of operating earnings growth year-over-year on a comparable basis, not – I think you said $350 million or something, so I just wanted to level-set you on that, of which $150 million will be coming from it. But if you go back and look at our CapEx over the last couple of years, we've probably spent around $300 million, $350 million plus or minus on some of these growth projects. And if you say that we're EVA-based company and you've got earn 9% after-tax, you can quickly do the math on that and see it's approaching $75 million or so. And then we also have continued efficiency gains and other things, the daily life that we do at Ball in terms of improving our business day-on-day.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc. Please go ahead with your question.

Thanks, John. Just a couple of others. The 2019 free cash flow target, what EBITDA growth is implied from 2017 to 2019 in that target roughly? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, we gave in – on that slide we gave what we believe to be comparable EBITDA 2000 – or actually I said in 2019, I said – you might have missed me – we're approximately $2 billion of comparable EBITDA.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc. Please go ahead with your question.

In 2019? Okay. And just one on Brazil. Can you just talk about what you're seeing there? And to your knowledge is there additional capacity being added there at the moment? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Well, probably like you, it sounds like we've heard that there has been discussions about potential capacity additions in that area. Let's not forget this year the can market has been slightly down actually, but not appreciably; down a couple of percent maximum over it. But the can penetration still continues to go real strong. There has been a bit of a pause here. We'll have to wait and see what happens if there is new capacity put on. I don't want to speculate at all. But we're very much focused on maximizing the value of what we do down there. We've got a great team; we're very excited about the people there, their knowledge of the business, their knowledge of the industry, their knowledge of the customers, and their knowledge of the asset base.

Adam Jesse Josephson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc. Please go ahead with your question.

Thanks a lot, John. Best of luck. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Wilde with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Mark William Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning, John; good morning, Scott. Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Good morning.

Mark William Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

I wondered, Scott, first of all, that free cash flow guidance for next year, just to be clear. You said that didn't assume any big shifts in working capital? Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: No, there's still – there is some working capital. I would bucket it with a bunch of things working capital, what happens in deferred taxes, what happens in pension. To get to that number, there is other category beyond just operating earnings growth that you need to get, to get to that number.

Mark William Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Yeah, okay. I guess one of the questions people have had is just you guys have done a very effective job of factoring out a lot of your receivables; Rexam hadn't done that. So I'm just curious about how you are thinking about that and what the timeline on that might be. Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Well, we're going to look at all the things that we've done over the last number of years, whether it's factoring supply chain finance, managing our inventories better, payable terms. Every lever that we have to pull from a working capital standpoint, we're going to re-look at all of those with the newly acquired business and apply those things. Some of them do take time to put in place and that's why I think there will be incremental benefits over a period of time, over a couple-year period. But everything's on the table. That review – that 90-day review that we talked about is getting into more detail on all of those things and figuring out okay, what are the opportunities? What are the timing of those opportunities? And then how do they sequence over the next few years?

Mark William Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Okay. And then, John, I'm just curious. With the closing of the deal, has this led to any new, fresh conversations with customers and maybe even talking about different tenures in terms of relationships with some of the customers? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, absolutely. I mean as you know, we pride ourselves on being customer focused. I do think that the engagement with the customer base right now because there's a lot of change going on is quite active. And it varies by region, it varies by customer and it varies by segment. But rest assured, we are very much focused on being the best in terms of making the can the most sustainable package from an economic perspective, while at the same time being very disciplined from a commercial perspective, ensuring we get paid for our innovation, we get paid for our quality, we get paid for our service and so more to come on this, but rest assured, we're always actively engaged with our customers.

Mark William Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Okay. And then just a final question. Any thoughts on further pipeline in the aerospace business in terms of bids that are out there? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. As we still have a number of won but not booked type of things out there. But what I was saying indirectly in my comments is we're entering the election season, and we are not anticipating many new wins to be booked just because of the ambiguity of the election cycle right now. I think the continuing resolution risk is still out there. And so realistically, it's difficult to assume any meaningful new wins during this election cycle. But we feel really good about the long-term prospects of that business.

Mark William Wilde - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks a lot. Good luck. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Manuel with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Good morning, gentlemen, and thank you for all the color and the commentary in the slide deck; it's very helpful. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good. Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Good.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

I wanted to – kind of two points I wanted to hit on. One, Scott – and again I appreciate you're still working through the review and don't have everything exactly ticked and tacked yet. But when we think about the timing of the $280 million spend, clearly if you want to get after a good slug of those synergies flowing through next year, there's probably a good component of that coming this year. Would you maybe want to hazard a guess or help us a little bit with the timing of that? I'm guessing probably close to half goes out over the balance of this year. And would the bulk of the rest probably go out in 2017? How would we think about that? Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Well, I mean big chunks that I know will go out, so there's a big chunk of severance for folks that are leaving the organization. There was a chunk for compensation for people that were divested to Ardagh. I mentioned some of that pension funding. There's lots of fees and things that have to get paid. But the biggest chunk would be taxes that have to get paid on the gain, which we think is around $250 million. So those are the big chunks that will happen probably by the end of this year. Each quarter, we'll highlight the unusual or one-time, if you will, impacts of those.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Okay. That's helpful. And then, John, if I could drill into a couple areas within the can business, maybe if we could talk about Mexico for a second and then also talk about China. Within Mexico, it sounds like you have the second line up and running. I know you built that for three. Do you feel that – how are things going? As you sit today, do you feel that you'll be able to get a third line in there at some point over the next couple years? And then with respect to China, I know that's been a hotspot where you've had some problems. I think you spent a good bit of time talking about that last quarter. But I think you were going in, putting the full diagnostic suite to work of opportunities to take cost out. What perhaps can be the – you think can be the outcome in China? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Well, first with respect to Mexico, everything in Mexico is going quite well. The volume growth in Mexico that we're seeing, not only for the Mexican market but for the export out of Mexico, is going very, very well. Our customer is doing quite well and so we're excited about that. I'd rather not put specific timing on new capacity in Mexico, but rest assured the market continues to grow, and we think we've aligned ourselves with the right folks down there; so more to come on that. But nothing has changed from what we've talked about in prior conference calls around our long-term prospects about Mexico. With respect to China, probably the same holds true. We are executing very well on our cost-out program. As you recall, on the last call, I talked about in excess of $30 million of cost-out, and we are right on track with that. And I give our folks a tremendous amount of credit because without that, it would be a very, very challenging situation in China. The bigger question is, as you look forward, what does that mean, because you can't save your way to prosperity. We think the industry needs a level of consolidation in the China market. There's too many independent players out there. The strategic question is how that occurs and when it occurs. And I can't go into detail, but we are taking it very seriously because as you look through from a supply-demand perspective, there's too many suppliers chasing too few customers. And every time in the history of our company and the beverage can business when we see that, it speaks to consolidation. How that looks, when it looks, what it looks like, too early to tell.

Chris D. Manuel - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you, gentlemen. Good luck. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Chip Dillon with Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Chip Dillon - Vertical Research Partners

Analyst · Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi. Good morning, John and Scott. Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Good morning. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Chip Dillon - Vertical Research Partners

Analyst · Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

First question is just on the timing of the synergy capture. I just want to make sure I get this right. You're saying for the year 2017 you expect $150 million. And so I guess at the end of 2019, it would be in excess of $300 million. So I just want to clarify that. I guess that would suppose you would be somewhere – hoping to be in the higher $100 millions by the end of 2017 on a run rate basis? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: No. We said we would generate $150 million in 2017 – in excess of $150 million in 2017.

Chip Dillon - Vertical Research Partners

Analyst · Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Got you. So that means you would end the year at a higher level, obviously. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I understand where you're going and I'd rather not go there because we're not going to be – as I said before, we're not going to be tracking all this. All I know is we have our own goals and aspirations and we're going to generate in excess of $150 million in 2017. And our goal is to generate in excess of $300 million by the end of 2019.

Chip Dillon - Vertical Research Partners

Analyst · Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Okay. And then just looking at the corporate expense, Scott, you mentioned that day one the incremental impact would be around $60 million, which I guess in rough numbers takes you to $130 million to $140 million. How much of that do you think can go away over the next year? And let's say, if you were to make a guess or bracket what 2018 corporate expense would look like, could it be down closer to $100 million by then? Would that be reasonable? Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: I'm not giving a 2017 number yet. As I said, we have to go through the 90-day review. And you're right, that's a $60 million run rate. I think a lot of that will come out between now and the end of the year, and so the run rate will be lower than that. How much lower, it's too early to tell yet.

Chip Dillon - Vertical Research Partners

Analyst · Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Okay. And then the last question. John, you mentioned the start – or think, Scott, sorry – the start-up costs are largely behind you. And I guess my question is, I believe you guys have a project in the Czech Republic that starts up late this year. And I didn't know – maybe that's just too small to matter, if I have that right. And then you look at the CapEx for next year being about double that new maintenance level, I would suppose that – certainly not to the extent you saw this year in the first half, but should we expect some startup experience next year, given that CapEx number? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You raise a fair point. First and foremost, we are expanding our Czech Republic impact extruded business and it is expected to come on either later this year or early next year. It is – from the totality of Ball Corporation, I think the startup expense related to that would probably not be material. Within the Food and Aerosol segment, it could be. But I wouldn't get too concerned about that. And then as we go forward on it, the only reason that over the last 18 months we've talked about the startup expense is because we had such a compression and preponderance of these growth capital projects. I mentioned Monterrey, contour bottle, G3, Lublin ends, India, devices, it all was happening at once and so we felt we needed to point that out. As we go forward, if that were to happen again, which I'm not saying it will but if that were to happen again, we would be as transparent as we can. But I wouldn't get too worried about startup expenses as you look forward.

Chip Dillon - Vertical Research Partners

Analyst · Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Okay. Real quickly, 28%, is that your best guess of a long-term tax rate? Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yes, for right now that's a good thing to use.

Chip Dillon - Vertical Research Partners

Analyst · Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Thank you. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: All right, thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Philip Ng with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Philip Ng - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. The free cash flow guidance for 2017, does that figure include any of the cash cost to realize the synergies and the line conversions as it relates to Ardagh? Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yeah, what we're going to do as we get into next year, we'll highlight any cash costs related to getting after synergies. We'll break things out so that you can decipher exactly what our run rate free cash flow would be versus our one-time cost to get after some of those synergies.

Philip Ng - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead.

But just to be clear, it does not – yes, I'm sorry. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Just to give you a sense of it, if we're talking about severance, for example, cash flow severance, we'll point that out, because that's more one-time in nature. If we're looking at converting a standard line to a specialty line, that's more operating from our perspective. And so, as Scott said, as we go forward, we will lay that out with as much transparency as we're able.

Philip Ng - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Okay. Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Phil, in your question, you said something related to Ardagh. I didn't quite – how does that...

Philip Ng - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Yes, I thought there was some part of the divestiture process, you had to agree on converting some lines; I think steel aluminum in Germany. Is that in the CapEx guidance for 2017? And I just want to make sure. So the free cash flow guide for 2017 does strip out potentially some of these more one-off in nature, like cash items such as severance, right? Is that how we should be thinking about it? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. And with respect to the other things, let's just assume it's behind us, not in front of us.

Philip Ng - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Okay, okay. And then are there any big slugs of contracts up for renewal over the next few years and change-of-control dynamics that we should be mindful of? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: As we go by region by region, certainly not over the next 12 months or so. We always have contracts coming up for renewal, but there are some in different regions that over the next few years will be coming up. But from an overall perspective I think the vast majority of our business is under long-term contract. Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Any change-of-control issues were dealt with prior to closing. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Right.

Philip Ng - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Okay, that's great. And just one last one for me. North America on the bev can side, growth has been pretty stable. Are you seeing any mix shift on the CSD side from PET into cans? Just because it's leveled off quite a bit Thanks. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes, it has leveled off a little bit. I do think that when you really look at CSD, we have to think about fountain versus PET versus cans. Fountain has been actually the one most hit by the declines more recently. PET has been doing a little bit better than cans. But cans has been holding their own, to your point. The thing that still continues to go very well is on the craft beer side. In our business alone, it's up year-to-date 30%. And as – you, as a consumer, you go out there and you can see cans continuing to take a greater share of the package mix in the craft industry. And then, last but not least, the overall beer category is up. The overall category itself is up almost 2%, just under 2%; and can volume is up over 4%. So we continue to take share from glass even in some of the more mainstream brands as well. Scott C. Morrison - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: And soft drink specialties, specialty sizes is doing reasonably well too. So... John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah.

Philip Ng - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Okay. Very helpful. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Debbie Jones with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Debbie A. Jones - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Debbie A. Jones - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

So, obviously, this deal makes you a much bigger beverage company. But I know that I think a lot of people are expecting your Food and Aerosol business to improve looking into 2017. But can you talk about how you feel about the Food and Aerosol business and how it fits into your portfolio right now, and the capital you think you are going to need to spend in that business going forward? And then lastly, just a volume trajectory here. As we think about there being – the idea that there is excess capacity in North America right now, specifically on the food can side. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Well, as I mentioned I think on the last conference call, it's a food and an aerosol business. And those are different end markets. The aerosol business in that is actually bigger than the food business, and that's important to note. And we continue to see good growth, whether it's on the tinplate side here in North America or down in South America where it exists, or on the impact extruded side where we're here in North America and also over in Europe. We continue to see very good supply dynamics – supply-demand dynamics; we continue to see good growth; we continue to see good economic opportunities for investment on that side. On the food side, that's where the challenge has been and it's no secret that there has been overcapacity in there. We've taken our lumps over the last couple years in that business. Some of it was market-related from a pricing perspective and some of it was self-inflicted related to the cost side. We are 70%, 80% of the way through completing a project that is going to have significant cost reduction in that business to make us more competitive. And that's where I think, Debbie, because of the growth in the aerosol and because of the cost-out we have in food, that's why we, as well as many other people, do expect a better 2017 relative to 2016. I think longer term, I've just laid out really what the strategies of those two different segments is. It's continued to grow with the aerosol and continued to be the supplier of choice for our big, multinational customers on the aerosol side. And then on the food can side, service our existing customers as well as possible and recognize that's a cash business.

Debbie A. Jones - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Okay, thanks. That's helpful. If I could just move to the Americas segment, I think you saw 10% growth in specialty in the quarter. Could you talk about specifically what's driving that, how sustainable it is, and how you think about that when you put the two businesses together with Ball and Rexam? John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Oh, gosh. It comes from a variety of things. Our bottle strategy and bottle technology continues to go well. Scott mentioned on the CSD side some of the smaller sizes continue to go well. Some of the larger sizes on the beer category continue to go well. Energy drinks, sleek cans. It really – there's not just one area; I think it's across the board. And I do think part of our strategy has been as the 12-ounce declines, either through absolute declines or through cannibalization, we want to grab that cannibalization by having specialty cans. And that's – there's a good chunk of the loss of 12-ounce being captured by specialty cans and that's why we've been focused on it.

Debbie A. Jones - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Okay, thank you. I'll pass it over.

Operator

Operator

We have a follow-up question from the line of George Staphos with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. George Leon Staphos - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: Thanks, operator. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my follow-ups. On the subject of the market dynamics post the Rexam deal, have you seen any change, perceptible change, in the level of competitive activity post-deal? Has it been fairly status quo within your various regions? I know that's a very broad question, but figured I would throw that out there nonetheless. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, it is a very broad question. And remember, we're 30 days, 35 days into this, George, and this is a time of year where you're really not having discussions around price with our customers. And so, quite candidly, we've been very much focused on getting our folks aligned over what our strategic objectives are. George Leon Staphos - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: Okay, fair enough. Now, next question I had, more in terms of the portfolio and strategy. You talked earlier about China and the parallels with other case studies in your time at the company and in Ball's development. If an appropriate consolidation opportunity arose in the next couple of years, do you think you could manage that while also integrating Rexam? Do you have enough depth to manage that? And the related – well, let me stop there and then I had one more question. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. Well, let me remind you that our folks in Asia have been doing a wonderful job in terms of the cost-out programs and managing a challenging situation. But they haven't really been affected at all by the Rexam transaction. They have not been…

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions registered at this time. John A. Hayes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay, great. Well, thank you, Dmitra, for your help and we look forward to talking to everyone on our third quarter conference call, which is at the end of October – excuse me. Thank you, everyone.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.