Omar Asali
Analyst · Craig-Hallum. Your lines is now open
Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone. As always, I hope everybody listening in and their families are staying healthy. 2021 is off to a very good start for Ranpak. The first quarter was a record quarter driven by the continued robust demand for our products in Europe and Asia. Our team coordinated globally to serve our customers in these regions and I’m incredibly impressed by the way our organization has come together. Once again, I must make a point to recognize in particular the hard work and contributions made by the Ranpak employees who have continued to show up every day to our manufacturing and converting facilities across the globe. Without them, we would not be able to place our equipment at a double-digit clip or achieve the outstanding topline growth we saw in the first quarter. Our end users and customers rely on Ranpak to keep their businesses running seamlessly and protect their goods. While at the same time signaling to the world that they are focused on the impact their supply chain has on the environment. Ranpak’s team members take great pride in fulfilling these obligations and continue to go above and beyond to meet our customer’s needs. I could not be more proud of our team. Throughout pandemic, our utmost priority has been the health and safety of our employees and customers. We remain committed to following the advice of the CDC and other medical professionals around the globe to protect our team and customers. As we enter the vaccination say, we are committed to helping our team members who choose to get vaccinated to do so with day time off as needed. Just as COVID had its initial impact on the world at different times, so does the vaccine rollout, as certain regions are further along in getting their populations vaccinated. We are monitoring this closely and taking a local and regional approach to expanding the abilities of our employees to ramp up business activity and return to a slightly more normal rhythm, because we put our employees health and safety first, we’re being cautious and we’ll take a measured approach to bringing back groups of employees to the office first in North America and then elsewhere as vaccination rates improve. As a company we continue to be laser focused on execution and growing our business. We’re implementing our growth strategies by adding technology, hiring talent and improving our capabilities in key expansion areas. Our new products are gaining a lot of traction in all regions and our retail rollout which we pause in the spring of 2020 is off to a great start of this year with solid data in a number of key retailers both online and in-store. Our investment in Ranpak automation continues with building out our team in North America with a particular focus on artificial intelligence and robotics. We are on offense in all areas of our business. I have previously said on numerous occasions that I believe we are still at the beginning of a sustainability and automation supercycle and that Ranpak is making the investments needed to position ourselves for long-term success. From an operational and supply chain perspective, we’re pleased to continue to report that operations at each of our global facilities continues uninterrupted, like many other global businesses we are navigating through longer lead times as ports remain backlogged and shipping goods via boat, truck or air has become more expensive. We’re taking the necessary steps in our business to ensure we are meeting the needs of our customers and getting products to them when they need them. Commodity prices within protective packaging whether resin or paper have increased the start of the year. So we are working with our suppliers, as well as customers to ensure we are all being good partners in light of the current macro environment. Fortunately, the cost of competitive substrates like resin-based plastics has increased significantly. So, overall, we are pleased with our competitive positioning and feel this is an environment where paper solutions are very attractive. While the near-term environment may be more volatile, I remain very constructive on our outlook and ability to grow our business. I am happy with the strong results of the first quarter as the team continues to execute and advanced key Ranpak initiatives. For the quarter, consolidated net revenue on a constant currency basis increased 31.2% to $85 million, driven by robust demand for all protective packaging products, as e-commerce has remained elevated and we have seen improvements in industrial activity globally. North America returned to growth as net revenue increased 3.7% year-over-year, with Wrapping leading the way. We continue to see strong adoption and trial activity of our newer products, as well as increased focus by end users on sustainability and automation offerings. Our enhanced commercial capabilities are getting traction in North America and with the level of trial activity we have seen to start the year and the increased focus on environmentally friendly solutions. We feel that North America is very well-positioned. I believe just like we did in Europe, North America will follow suit and we expect it to deliver a meaningful growth for the rest of this year. Performance in Europe continues to be extremely strong with all applications up meaningfully year-over-year. Continuous e-commerce growth across almost all territories drove Void-Fill performance with specific strength seen in the northern regions of Europe, and in particular the U.K. We saw a continued rebound of industrial activity with the automotive and general manufacturing sectors in Germany, France and Eastern Europe picking up momentum in the quarter. Wrapping continues to penetrate further in the region as our Geami products get solid traction in retail and ship-from-store. In Europe, sustainability is often highlighted by our end users as the reason for the switch from plastic-based in the box packaging to paper applications. While we are extremely pleased with the sustainability tailwinds, we at Ranpak are always focused on delivering the top solution in the marketplace. We like to demonstrate to our customers how well we compete on speed, reliability, and cost and reliable the sustainability of our products as the icing on the cake. In Asia-Pacific, we had a very strong performance across the Board, indicating a recovery in industrial and electronic market segments, along with the continued strength in e-commerce. Within the region, higher labor cost areas such as Australia, Japan and South Korea took the lead in driving growth. In particular, Australia is experiencing significant growth driven by the switch to sustainable solutions and further development of e-commerce. Overall, we’re very pleased with the level of activity in the region. We feel great about our ability to further penetrate the region as trial activity is robust and we have signed new distribution partners in Australia, Indonesia and South Korea to help us expand our presence. In constant currency terms adjusted EBITDA of $28 million was up 55% year-over-year due to higher sales volumes, relatively steady input costs and greater operating leverage compared to last year. Those are the high level points on our excellent start to the year. In summary, we continued our focus on safety of our employees, responded to strong demand and continue to invest in future growth opportunities. With that, let me turn the call over to Bill who will give you further details related to the quarter.