Silgan Holdings Inc (SLGN) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Silgan Holdings Inc (NYSE: SLGN) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated Feb. 04, 2026

Corporate Participants:

Alexander Hutter — Vice President, Investor Relations

Adam Greenlee — President & CEO

Shawn Fabry — Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Analysts:

George Staphos — Analyst

Matthew Roberts — Analyst

Ghansham Panjabi — Analyst

Gabe Hajde — Analyst

Michael Roxland — Analyst

Anthony Pettinari — Analyst

Daniel Rizzo — Analyst

Anojja Shah — Analyst

Arun Viswanathan — Analyst

Presentation:

operator

Good day and welcome to the Silgan holdings fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. Today’s conference is being recorded at this time. I’d like to turn the conference over to Alex Hutter, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Alexander Hutter — Vice President, Investor Relations

Thank you and good morning. Joining me on the call today are. Adam Greenlee, President and CEO Philippe Chevrier, EVP and COO Sean Fabry, EVP and CFO and Bob Lewis, EVP Corporate Development and Administration. Before we begin the call today, we. Would like to make it clear that certain statements made on this conference call are may be forward looking statements. These forward looking statements are made based upon management’s expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company and therefore involve a number of uncertainties and risks, including but not limited to those described in the Company’s annual report on Form 10K for 2024 and other filings with the securities and Exchange Commission. Therefore, the actual results of operations or financial condition of the Company could differ materially from from those expressed or implied in the forward looking statements. In addition, commentary on today’s call may contain references to certain non GAAP financial metrics, including Adjusted ebit, adjusted EBITDA Free. Cash Flow and Adjusted Net Income per. Diluted Share or Adjusted eps. A reconciliation of these metrics, which should. Not be considered substitutes for similar GAAP. Metrics, can be found in today’s press release and under the non GAAP Financial Information portion of the Investor Relations section of our website@silganholdings.com with that, let me turn it over to Adam.

Adam Greenlee — President & CEO

Thank you Alex and we’d like to welcome everyone to Silgan’s fourth quarter earnings call. Before we begin our discussion on our fourth quarter and full year results and our outlook for 2026, I want to welcome Sean Fabry, who was promoted to CFO in November to the call. Sean joined the Company through the IPEC closures acquisition in 2010 and has served in senior finance roles in each of our operating segments and most recently on our corporate development team. Sean brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his new role that I know will make him and our company successful well into the future.

Shawn’s looking forward to meeting our analysts and investors in the coming quarters. So please join me in welcoming Shawn to the call. I also would like to take a moment to thank Bob Lewis, who informed the company of his decision to retire at the end of March for his over 21 years of steadfast commitment to our company. Since Bob joined the company in 2004. Our sales have nearly tripled and our stock price has appreciated over seven times, representing a 10% compound annual growth rate. And Bob’s leadership in our finance and corporate development efforts have contributed meaningfully to our growth and value creation.

He’s been a trusted and valued partner to me, our executive team and to our advisors and we wish Bob all the same success as he enters his retirement. Moving now to our results, our team continued to show exceptional focus and determination in 2025 as our business navigated evolving consumer spending trends throughout the year that created a more challenging operating environment for our customers and our company. We delivered our second highest adjusted earnings and free cash flow in the history of the Company, returned approximately $160 million in capital to our shareholders and and returned to within our target leverage range.

Just over a year after closing the Vayner acquisition, we made significant progress towards our strategic goals in 2025 as we successfully integrated the Vayner acquisition, continued to outpace the market and our peers in target organic growth products and end markets and completed our multi year cost savings program. As expected, we continue to validate the success of our unique operating model in our customer partnerships and are being rewarded in the market with new business opportunities and awards as a result of our unmatched focus, operational excellence, market leading innovation and relentless efforts to provide the best total value solutions to our customers.

Our dispensing and specialty closures segment, which now represents over half of our adjusted ebitda, delivered another year of record sales, adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBITDA with continued EBITDA margin expansion and significant free cash flow generation. With the Vayner acquisition now fully integrated and our run rate synergies fully achieved, the business is positioned to continue to achieve organic growth well in excess of our peers as we continue to win an outsized proportion of new product launches in the market. The combined innovation engine of these two market leading businesses has already yielded additional contractual business wins and the business pipeline in dispensing products continues to accelerate.

While 2025 included some unforeseen challenges, our team adapted during the year to the changing landscape and more importantly have used the learnings from 2025 to further strengthen our processes that will help the businesses operate and serve their markets in an even more agile and adaptive way in the future. Our metal containers business delivered another year of positive earnings and volume trends with 4% growth in volumes led by 7% growth in PET food products. While our business was faced with a very challenging circumstance as one of our long term customers. During the year, our teams were focused on protecting our business ahead of this outcome and worked diligently to nearly fully offset the secondary impact of this customer exiting certain markets.

More importantly, with the recently announced developments with this customer, we believe we are uniquely positioned to continue to supply this business in the future and at this time do not anticipate any further impact from this situation. In custom containers, our teams continue to build on our commercial success and despite significant destocking in personal and home care products in the fourth quarter delivered a record year of profitability driven by our cost reduction programs and continued commercial successes. Our adjusted EBIT and EBITDA margins expanded by 150 basis points to a level well above the target we laid out about a decade ago and the business is now in a strong position to transition into an accelerated growth phase over the next several years.

Our team continues to demonstrate and validate our unique position in this market and despite being of smaller scale than some of our competitors, the levels of service we provide, new product innovation and the value of our long term customer partnerships create significant opportunity to deliver organic growth in this business. As we turn our focus to 2026, we continue to see significant opportunities to grow our company both organically and inorganically. Our teams remain focused, our strategic initiatives continue to bear fruit, our balance sheet is within our target leverage range and we believe the opportunities for significant value creation for shareholders in 2026 and beyond remain as compelling as at any time in our history.

At the segment level, we are expecting dispensing and specialty closures organic volumes to grow by a low to mid single digit rate in 2026 driven by another year of growth in our dispensing products and improved mix. We expect metal containers volumes to grow by a low single digit percentage driven primarily by another year of mid single digit growth in pet food in custom containers. After a record year of profitability, volumes are expected to be flat as the first quarter is expected to see some continued but limited impact from customer destocking. Importantly, we anticipate this impact to be offset in the remaining three quarters as the business repositions to longer term growth with key franchise customers.

As we enter 2026, we remain excited about the opportunities that lay ahead for the company and are confident that the structural changes and evolution in our portfolio have positioned us to drive growth in our business in the near and long term. Our teams remain focused on meeting the unique needs of our customers as we continue to compete and win in the markets we serve and our strategic growth initiatives continue to shape the company’s future, the power of our portfolio, the strength of our teams and the discipline of our capital deployment model continue to drive significant opportunity to create value for shareholders in 2026 and beyond.

With that, Sean will take you through the financials for the quarter and our estimates for the first quarter and full year of 2026.

Shawn Fabry — Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you Adam. As Adam highlighted, we reported another year. Of strong financial results for 2025 driven by the continued success of our long term strategic initiatives, the discipline of our capital deployment model and the resilience and growth of our products and end markets. During the year, we successfully integrated the Vayner transaction and achieved full run rate synergies, returned our balance sheet leverage to within our target range in just over a year following the closing of the transaction and completed our multiyear cost reduction program. Turning to the fourth quarter 2025 results, net sales of approximately 1.5 billion increased 4% from the prior year period driven primarily by the contractual pass through of higher raw materials, mostly in our metal containers business and favorable foreign currency translation.

Total adjusted EBIT for the quarter of $150.6 million was relatively flat from the prior year with higher adjusted EBIT in our metal containers segment offset primarily by higher corporate expense. Adjusted EPS of $0.67 decreased by $0.18 from the prior year period due to higher interest expense and a higher tax rate in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter tax rate was negatively impacted by certain non recurring non cash tax items which impacted the tax rate in the quarter by approximately 3% and the year by approximately a half percent. Turning to our segments fourth quarter sales in our dispensing and specialty closures segment increased 1% versus the prior year primarily as a result of foreign currency translation of 4%.

Higher volumes for high value fragrance and beauty products were offset by the anticipated destocking impact for products in the personal and home care markets. Fourth quarter 2025 dispensing and specialty closures Adjusted EBIT was comparable to the record level in the prior year. As expected, the contribution of double digit growth in high value fragrance and beauty products and favorable foreign currency translation were largely offset by the anticipated impact of lower volumes of products for personal care and home care markets and the related under absorbed costs for production and inventory reductions in the quarter relative to our expectations.

Entering the quarter, both sales and adjusted EBIT and dispensing especially closures were largely in line. In our metal containers segment, sales increased 11% versus the prior year quarter as a result of the contractual pass through of higher raw material cost principally for steel and aluminum and higher volumes of 4%. Our volume growth in the quarter was largely a result of higher volumes for pet food markets of 7% as we continue to experience strong volume growth in this category. Additionally, we did see a limited amount of pre buy volume in the fourth quarter as certain customers pulled forward volume ahead of the anticipated raw material inflation in 2026.

Metal containers adjusted EBIT increased approximately 5% versus the prior year quarter as the segment benefited from both strong operational cost management which was responsible for the majority of the outperformance in the segment versus our expectation entering the quarter and a limited impact from pre buy volumes ahead of additional raw material inflation in 2026. We estimate the impact of pre buy volumes to 2025 adjusted EBIT was approximately 2 million in custom containers. Our results were largely consistent with our expectations as sales decreased 8% compared to the prior year quarter due to lower margin. Business exited as a result of a planned footprint optimization.

Excluding these volumes, our volume increased 1% versus the prior year quarter. Custom containers adjusted EBIT was comparable to the prior year levels. Looking ahead to 2026, we are estimating EPS in the range of $3.70 to $3.90 as compared to $3.72 in 2025 with higher operating income partially offset by higher interest and tax expense during the year. This estimate includes interest expense of approximately $205 million, a tax rate of approximately 25 to 26%, corporate expense of approximately $45 million, and a weighted average share count of approximately 106 million shares. Interest expense is expected to be above 2025 levels due primarily to the maturity of our 1.4% senior secured notes that come due in April at the midpoint of our 2025 adjusted EPS range.

The we will exceed the prior year levels of adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBITDA achieved in 2025 from a segment perspective. Low to mid single digit percentage Total adjusted ebit growth in 2026 is expected to be driven primarily by a low to mid single digit percent increase in dispensing and specialty closures. Adjusted EBIT and a low single digit percent increase in metal containers Adjusted EBIT Custom Container segment Adjusted EBIT is expected to be comparable to 2025 levels as the business completes its multi year cost reduction initiative and transitions to organic growth during 2026. Volumes in 2026 are expected to grow by a low to mid single digit percentage in dispensing and specialty closures driven by a mid single digit increase in dispensing products.

Metal containers volumes are expected to grow by a low single digit rate as a result of a mid single digit growth in products for pet food markets which now represent more than half of the segment volume. Custom containers volumes are expected to be comparable to prior year levels as first quarter volume will be lower than the prior year due to a limited carryover of destocking activity which is expected to be offset by growth in the subsequent quarters. Based on our current earnings outlook for 2026, we are providing an estimate of free cash flow of approximately 450 million as operating earnings growth will be partly offset by higher cash interest and tax and slightly higher CAPEX of approximately 310 million to support investments in future growth in dispensing and pet food products.

Turning to our outlook for the first quarter of 2026, we are providing an estimate of adjusted earnings in the range of $0.70 to $0.80 per diluted share as compared to adjusted EPS of $0.82 in the prior year period. First Quarter Interest Expense is anticipated to be in the range of 45 million with a tax rate of approximately 25 to 26%. From a segment standpoint, first quarter dispensing and specialty closures Adjusted EBIT is expected to be below the prior year period principally as a result of the year over year impact of the benefit of selling through prior year inventory in an inflationary environment in 2025 as compared to the headwind of selling through prior year inventory in 2026 for steel, food and beverage products in Europe.

Metal containers Adjusted EBIT is expected to be comparable to slightly below the prior year level in the first quarter as a result of the impact of limited pre buy volume in the fourth quarter of 2025 that pooled volume forward from the first quarter of 2026. Custom containers adjusted EBIT is expected to be modestly below prior year levels in the first quarter due to the carryover of destocking activity into January. With that, we’ll open the call for questions. Melinda, would you kindly provide the directions for the question and answer session?

Questions and Answers:

operator

Thank you. If you’d like to ask a question, please Signal by pressing STAR1 on your telephone keypad. If you’re using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment once again. That is Star one to signal for a question and we’ll pause briefly to assemble our cue. And we’ll take our first question from George Staffos with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

George Staphos

Thanks very much. Hi everyone, Good morning. Thanks for the details. Bob, congratulations, well earned retirement. And Shawn, nice To chat with you again and welcome to the call. I guess my first question, Shawn, could you give us a bit more detail in terms of the first quarter outlook for dsc? Just kind of the puts and takes that you see. I think you mentioned there was also some impact from pre buy more broadly with DSC having grown now to being the largest business. I would imagine maybe you disagree that the order patterns, the operations, the way that business runs might be different than what you normally would have seen in a traditional silicon business say five and ten years ago. Philippe and Sean and Adam, how do you manage the business? How do you manage forecasts? Do you keep your customers in a narrower band relative to say what traditionally you would have seen in metal? And then I might have one follow on after that. Thank you.

Shawn Fabry

Sure. So I’ll take the first part of that question. Adam will take the second part for the DSC segment. In the first quarter we’re seeing low to mid single digit volumes and one of the challenges that we’re facing there is that we do have some low cost inventory that we put through the system in the first quarter of 2025. So a little bit of a headwind going into the quarter to overcome that. Ebit benefit from that position. Gotcha.

Adam Greenlee

And then George, on the dispensing, especially closures business, the portfolio evolution that we’ve been talking about for the last decade, you’re right, so has moved that business to our largest business in the portfolio now. And you’re also correct that you know that it’s a bit of a business different business than kind of the historic food can business for Silgan or maybe even some of the rigid plastic packaging businesses that the company started with when we were founded back in the 80s. You think about co located facilities that you’re integrated very deeply into your customers. In many cases you’re buying customer assets so you’re part of their production model already right out of the gate.

And I think as you think about the growth that we’ve had in fragrance and beauty and some of the personal care and home care products and dispensing, especially closures, it is a bit of a different supply relationship or more of a supply partner with an outside in perspective versus being kind of on site and deep in the weeds of with how they’re running their business. So I think, you know, it has, we had some learnings from 25. We’ll be very clear about that. And I think, you know, part of those learnings are taking a broader view, broader perspective on the macro environment and Other influences that may affect our customer businesses more so than maybe just what’s within our own 24 walls as we are on site, near site in those kind of food can operations. So. So part of that, George, is as we’ve talked, we’ve taken a broader view of risk as we’ve come out with our guidance now for Q1 and also for 2026 to try to take into account some of the unknown risks that maybe we hadn’t included in guidance before. Again taking those learnings from 2025.

George Staphos

Adam, thanks for that. My follow on I’ll turn it over to everyone else. If for you to be and recognizing there are no guarantees in life. Right. Forecasts can be significantly above or below. That’s the world that we’re all in. At the low end of your guidance, what would be some of the key volume and margin considerations across the business? So again, not saying that’s where you’re necessarily going, nothing’s guaranteed. But at your low end of guidance, what’s embedded in that? Thank you.

Adam Greenlee

Yes, I think George, I mean Shawn walked through kind of our volume expectations for each of the segments. I think we’ve got a pretty good feel for demand profiles and patterns with our customers and with the business that we have. I think maybe to try to answer your question, I would say broader market conditions that might influence our customers demand for their products probably is one of the items I would point you to that could move us closer to the low end of the range. But again we’ve taken a very broad approach to taking those risks into consideration to develop the range that we have and that’s included in our guidance to the midpoint as well.

George Staphos

Okay, thank you.

operator

If you find that your question’s been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing Star two. We go next to Matt Roberts with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Matthew Roberts

Hey Adam. Sean, Alex, good morning. Congratulations to both Sean and Alex on your new roles. First, on the BSC volume for 2026. Wonder if you can help me parse that out. Bear with me. I’m going to put about three in one here. But first on hot fill beverage, how did volumes perform in 4Q and the outlook there for 26 or contribution from new contracts there in home and personal care de stocking, was there any lingering impact in 1Q in DSE I might have missed that. And lastly in fragrance, I mean that continues to grow, double digit growth. And by math or comps alone you would think that I would have to slow at some point. But based on customer orders or innovation Pipeline. What are you expecting there and is it a function of high end consumer doing well or continued new product launches or partners expand their distribution channels? What’s going to sustain momentum there?

Adam Greenlee

Sure. So maybe just jumping back to kind of fourth quarter volume. So you know, for dsc, Matt, really volumes were very close to what we expected. Right. So you know, Sean pointed out double digit growth in our fragrance and beauty volumes. You know, personal care and home care. We had anticipated the destocking. It did happen in Q4, essentially right in line with our expectation. I think there is a slightly different answer here than custom containers. So to be really clear, we think the D stocking activity is complete in our dispensing, especially closures segment. And so you know, volumes were right in line with expectations, including food and beverage as well.

So fourth quarter played out pretty close to what we thought. As we turn to the full year of 2026, you know, again as Shawn just outlined, you know, significant growth again expected in fragrance and beauty. You think about food and beverage and maybe some of my comments I just made to George, our assumption for volume right now is going to to be comparable. So you mentioned new contractual wins. Yes, there are some. We’ve taken an approach that we’re going to include some conservative guidance for the market for our food and beverage, hot fill products and sports drinks, et cetera, as we’re looking at 2026 and we’ll see how that plays out.

Fragrance and beauty, it’s really, it’s more of the same story. And I think Matt, as we’ve talked before, the development pipeline for these products, it is multi year. It’s probably not quite as long as some of our healthcare products, but you’re talking two to three years. So all of this volume that we’re going to deliver in 2026 has really been in the innovation pipeline for us for several years. So there’s really no surprise to us. I think the really important point here is that we keep getting rewarded with our performance from our customers. With new business wins, we get a disproportionate amount of the new product launches they have and that’s what’s continuing to drive, you know, I’ll say the double digit growth that we had in the last two quarters of 2025 and our estimate for 2026 as well.

So I maybe to go back to your question, Matt, I’d say it’s for fragrance and beauty. It’s all of the above. All of the things that you outlined are the reasons why we continue to grow faster than the market. And again, we take a lot of pride in that. We take it very seriously. We’re working right now on 27 and 28 product launches and have a pretty good feel for what that’s going to look like at this point given that development pipeline. So hopefully that covered all your items.

Matthew Roberts

Certainly did appreciate all the detail there. And as a follow on Etek asked about metals, so 4Q came in better than I think your prior expectations and margin even improved with the higher pet volume mix. So as you continue to invest and see pet food growth there, are there any contractual changes in metals that are going on as you continue margin expansion excluding any raw materials impact of course, or was it cost outs that are driving strong results there? Any any additional color you could have on margin expectations absent raws in 26?

Adam Greenlee

Sure. There are probably three things to really think about. I think the single largest is the cost reduction initiatives that we put forward in actually all three of our segments. Certainly metal containers had a good portion of that cost savings program over the last two years. So they’ve executed really well against that cost savings initiative and have lowered the overall cost cost structure as you can imagine. You know, volume leverage in this business is incredibly important. So as you continue to deliver growth in pet food and 4% growth in the entirety of the business, that leverage is pretty strong as well.

So that it is helpful for the operating margin. And then finally, you know, you’re right, we continue to invest to grow with our largest customers. I think it was and guys, correct me if I’ve got it wrong, I think it was 2024 that we announced a significant long term extension with our single largest customer. And we said at that time that there’s nothing structurally changing about the contract mat but we thought that contract would be margin accretive over the life of the agreement and it is playing out the way we anticipated. So it’s that’s a little bit more on the margin versus our cost reduction initiatives. But our anticipation is our largest contracts are going to be slightly margin accretive over the life of those agreements as well.

Shawn Fabry

Matt, the only other thing to add. Is as you think about 2026, remember we have again raw material inflation in this segment. So that will have a mathematical impact on margins. So probably stable margins for 2026 given the incremental leverage on pet food offset. Partly by the higher sales from pass. Through of raw materials.

Matthew Roberts

Adam, that looks super helpful. Thank you again.

operator

We’ll go next to Ghoncham Panjabi with Baird, please go ahead. Yeah, thanks Alfredo, Good morning everybody.

Ghansham Panjabi

And my congrats to Sean, Bob and Alex as well for all the news and the promotions. Best wishes into the future, I guess. You know Adam, if we go back. To the dispensing closure segment and thinking back from a high level standpoint on 2025. Right. So if you, I think you started to see the destocking impact on beverage pretty early on relative to the initial guidance and then it brought into other categories as the year unfolded. Have you seen normalization in demand for the categories that were initially into the downturn? And just more broadly, where are we on destocking? Do you still see some lingering impacts into early part of the year just given the sequence of what unfolded last year?

Adam Greenlee

Sure. Yeah, I think you pretty much got that right, Govantum. So the food and beverage destocking activity really took place for us. We saw that in Q2 and to your point, the rest of the year in food and beverage roughly played out as we expected. We think those volumes are now normalized. We think that year end inventory levels in the system are at the level that our customers had targeted for year end. And as we turn the page, going to 2026, we’re calling out comparable volumes for food and beverage. So we had a little bit of destocking in Q4 for our personal care and home care products in the segment we believe that is completed in Q4 and won’t have an impact on Q1 volumes for the dispensing of specialty closures segment.

Shifting gears slightly, there is a little bit of a carryover of destocking for custom containers and really that just is the simple, probably unique position that that business has in our portfolio. As you know Ghonshum, most of our customer relationships are direct. We’ve got a 10 to 15% distribution business in our custom containers or our plastic bottle business. And typically destocking just takes a slightly different timeline in that distribution segment. Again thinking just the simple fact that there’s another layer of inventory in the supply chain. So typically destocking starts a little bit later, ends a little bit later. And so we’re seeing that carryover a little bit into Q1. Saw that activity a little bit in January as well. So that’s included in our guidance. But to be really clear about dsc, that destocking activity is now completed as of the end of 2025.

Ghansham Panjabi

Gotcha. Perfect. Thanks for that. And then on Wainer packaging, I think originally when you outlined the logic behind the transaction, it was going to be additive as it relates to Growth, it was very complimentary, et cetera. It sounds like the integration is well underway. What about the commercial synergies specific to the asset, the underlying growth that you’re seeing there? Any specific wins you can cite as it relates to step functioning, your, your position in pharmaceuticals and healthcare and so on?

Adam Greenlee

Sure, you’re right. It’s been a great addition to our portfolio. I would say the acquisition integration is now complete. We achieved our synergy targets. You know, we’re now 15 months, let’s call it post acquisition. We’ve achieved our run rate synergy targets and I think, you know, you’re touching on an item that the commercial synergies got. So that’s really not something we typically include in our synergies. But they’re absolutely there in this business and you’re taking two market leading, dispensing businesses and combining them. Particularly when you think about Vayner’s position in North America. Great products, very limited reach and very limited scope in North America.

We’ve been able to take some of their products, their technology to our large food customers that Silvan has such a great history and relationship with. And we have been awarded new business not only on the food side, but some of our other consumer products as well. So, you know, I think it’s, we’re getting the best of both worlds between the two businesses leveraging those relationships wherever they may exist, whether it’s legacy Silvan dispensing or at the Vayner customer relationship level. And we’re seeing growth opportunities on both sides of that equation.

Ghansham Panjabi

Okay, thanks for that.

operator

We go next to the line of Gabe Haiti with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Gabe Hade, your line is open.

Gabe Hajde

Yep, sorry about that. Adam. Alex, Sean, good morning. Wanted to ask, we’re hearing a lot of mixed messaging from some of your peers as well as, you know, customers trying to navigate the current environment. Don’t want to go down the laundry list, but population trends, affordability, GLP1, etc. We’re seeing some restaging, some strategy changes at big CPGs. I’m just curious, in this type of an environment, obviously nothing has been sort of normal, let’s say in the past five, six years. But just as you look across your portfolio, think about your go to market strategy, your long term relationships and contracts, etc. Do you see the current environment where it seems like customers are looking to reduce cost, complexity, things like that in the supply chain as an opportunity for Silgan? And you know, how would you say that’s incorporated into your thinking and or the guidance for 26.

Adam Greenlee

Sure. I mean, I think, you know, 25 was a very volatile year for all the same reasons that you outlined, Gabe. And you know, I think, you know, we all had to deal with that one way or another. And I think, you know, for us, you know, the vast majority, I mean, almost all of our products are in the consumer staples category. So, you know, we get away from the discretionary spend quite a bit of our portfolio. So I think we feel confident that our products continue to have good underlying demand even with population trends and affordability conversations.

The food can, we’ll continue to say, even with some inflation that we pass through is the lowest cost means of getting nutrition to consumers that need it. So we feel like our portfolio of products is advantaged in this kind of environment and would agree with you that we think there’s quite a bit of opportunity with our customer relationships, our portfolio of products and some of the sustainability initiatives that we’ve got underway not only just at Silga, but with our customers as well. Whether it’s lightweighting or other cost out initiatives, those are always top of mind activities between us and our customers.

So to answer your question, Gabe, yes, we think those are opportunities. How that fits into our guidance for 2026, what I tell you is we’ve actually broadened the kind of view of the unknown risk as it relates to things like population trends, GLP1s affordability discussions, and you know, we’ve taken probably a more conservative approach to how those opportunities might play out. But you know, it gives us confidence that our products are well positioned for the marketplace and the volatility that we’re all dealing with.

Gabe Hajde

All right, thank you for that one. I guess digging into maybe Gonchon’s question a little bit with Vayner as well as I want to say in 2021, you guys acquired UNICEP. But just anything that you can talk about maybe higher margin products beyond fragrance in the dispensing business where you’re seeing growth opportunities. I think you guys were working on a couple of maybe Unidose products and things like that.

Adam Greenlee

Sure. Look, I think healthcare and pharma is probably the next logical step of the conversation as we’ve talked about before and clearly the margin profile, the growth rates of that part of our portfolio really are similar, if not even stronger than what we’ve seen in our fragrance and beauty business business. The size and scale of our pharma healthcare business, you know, it’s growing rapidly, but it started from a much smaller starting point at Silgan. Obviously with the Vayner acquisition, what we brought in from their healthcare assets and business portfolio has been very complementary, very beneficial.

We are continuing to grow. It’s a longer development cycle than what I mentioned on fragrance and beauty as I think you’ll all appreciate. So yes, we’ve been working for many years on some of these products and have some that are reaching market now, some that are in final stage development. But the pipeline is as strong and active as we’ve seen really since you go all the way back to the acquisition of Westrock and I think we were talking at one point that it would be disappointing if we didn’t double the size of our healthcare business and and call it the next three to five years.

Gabe Hajde

Great. Thank you.

operator

We turn next to Mike Rocksland with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Michael Roxland

Thanks guys for taking my questions. Sean, congrats on the role. Bob, congrats on your upcoming retirement. It’s been great working with you. First question, Adam, just want to follow up on what Gabe mentioned in terms of Vayner, can you provide some more color just around the wins that you achieved? You mentioned that in some of your remarks. So can you comment on the type of products that we’re or maybe speak broadly about the type of products that you’ve gained wins in and what type of growth you’re expecting this year from Vayner with those wins?

Adam Greenlee

Yeah, I think again we’ll try to say, Mike, that Vayner’s been fully integrated into our dispensing business. So when we talk about dispensing products growing at a mid single digit, that’s including Vayner. And again, we fully lapped the comparative. We acquired the business I think in the middle of October of 2024. So those results for the most part were already fully comparable in our fourth quarter results. So I think combined we feel confident with that mid single digit growth, I mean the product portfolio and where we’re able to get new business awards with the combination.

I’ll give you a great example again and in the North American market we talked a lot about during the acquisition that they have a terrific valve technology for their business and for their portfolio of products. And that’s really something that we were very small in at Silgan and we’ve been able to take that technology and apply it with other customers that really advance kind of Silgan technology with existing customers. So I don’t know how we want to give credit there. It’s an existing customer for Silgan and we’re using Vayner’s technology. So I think we all win in that scenario, including our customers.

But it’s really the power of the combination is I think the bigger part of the discussion. We have some other products, again, just deodorant products that are winning. I think they were a little stronger in some of their personal care kind of shower multi use products with dispensing closures. And we’ve just been able to continue to leverage that strength on the Vayner side and grow out that part of our portfolio, particularly in North America with our existing customer base.

Michael Roxland

Got it. Very helpful. Appreciate the color there, Adam. And just one quick follow up. In the past, I believe one of your peers around metal containers may have picked up some of the tomato business which cost you some share. With this bankruptcy settlement, it appears that one of the asset buyers is getting some of that business back. And so could you potentially regain some of the tomato share that you previously lost? And then relatedly you mentioned in your script that you’d expect no further issues from this customer that was in bankruptcy. If there are no other changes and the assets continue to run as is. Can you remind us as to the total EBITDA loss in metal containers, if any? I’m not saying there is any, but if there is any ebitda, if there’s a reset lower, could you remind us if that what that is and the civilians still intend to pursue any asset rationalization and consolidation in metal containers? Thank you.

Adam Greenlee

Sure. And maybe I think the first thing I would say, Mike, is that the situation with that customer is not fully resolved. It’s a process and they’re making progress in the process. So you’re right, there was an auction and there were three winners of the auction. I mean the business that we’re talking about really falls into three categories. There’s a broth business, a fruit business and a core vegetable business. So good news for us is that from an outcome, again, there’s still procedural steps that have to be taken before the winners of the auction actually take over the assets and the brands.

But the broth and the fruit are going to our customers that we supply today. And so we feel pretty good about the ongoing we relationship there. The veg business is a new player into canned vegetables, but a prominent player in the fresh category. So you know, I look at that and I say, you know, on the veg side we are co located. It’s we are incredibly well positioned to continue to supply all of the can requirements that that new customer would need to continue to operate the facility where we are co located. So I think that, you know, again, we’ll see what happens as final resolution plays out.

You know, we’re taking again, a cautious approach to our thoughts here. We don’t think there’s significant upside. We don’t think there’s significant risk from where we are either because of those ongoing relationships and the supply situation of where we are regarding our facilities. Again, we’re going to wait and make sure we understand exactly what the go forward position is once the proceedings have reached a resolution. But you know, as part of our $50 million cost reduction program, we had closed a facility in 2024 that was supplying fruit products to that customer and we consolidated that into other operations to get the benefit of the consolidation. So really nothing to do from that perspective. And you know, I think it’s a great question for the next earnings call. Hopefully the entire process will be resolved. But you know, for us, Mike, I don’t view 2026 as having any further risk than what we experienced in 2025.

Michael Roxland

Got it. Great to hear, Adam. Good luck in the quarter and the year. Thank you.

operator

Our next question comes from Anthony Pettinari with Citi. Your line’s open.

Anthony Pettinari

Good morning. With regards to the steel and aluminum tariffs, is it your view that customers and consumers have sort of fully absorbed the impact of the tariffs and it’s reflected in their behavior and the price of the package? Or is it possible that you could see some kind of lagged customer change or consumer change over the course of the year? You know, either changing product positioning or consumer change in behavior? Just wondering how you kind of think about that in 2026.

Adam Greenlee

Yeah, well, maybe let’s start with 25. It was a very volatile year on raw material costs because of those tariffs and kind of the limited notice that we had to deal with that prior to the implementation of those tariffs. And Anthony, as you very well know, you know, our contracts are sort of designed to make sure we are insulated from those kinds of activities. So, you know, we contractually pass through those costs and those tariffs onto our customers and they then onto the consumer. So, you know, I think, you know, those tariffs were kind of, let’s just round about call it mid year, you know, April, May, June of 25.

So there is some full year annualization of those costs in 2026 as we get a full year impact of those. I do think the market has absorbed those costs. In many cases. Our customers had passed those costs on through to consumers and they’re now really challenging themselves on Kind of promotional activity trying to understand what the price elasticity is across the board for those products. But to be really clear, the food can we still think is competitively advantage from a cost standpoint on the store shelf. Again, for those consumers that are looking for nutrition, we think it’s the lowest cost means of getting nutrition to those consumers.

So, you know, we’re still talking to our customers about their pricing activities for 2026. And it’s a blend. It’s different by customers. You can imagine there’s a blend of promotional activity trying to drive some volume. There’s also still some conversation about cost recovery. So I think we’ll see it play out more as we get through the year. But I think it’s a balanced approach that all of that means I think it’s fairly well absorbed in the market. I think our volumes, again, nice growth for food cans in 2025. We’ll see continued growth in 2026 as well. So we think that particular package is positioned very well even with the tariffs that they’ve already incurred.

Anthony Pettinari

Got it, got it. That’s very helpful. And then just switching gears and following up on health care and the opportunity there. I think you disclosed that healthcare was 3% of sales in 2024, maybe at better than company margins. You talked about doubling, I think over the next few years. So I guess just to make sure I got it right, should we think about healthcare maybe going from low single digit percentage sales maybe to high single digit percent of sales in the next three years or so or something like that? And I guess related, are there acquisitions that could really accelerate that exposure or is it really more kind of the organic growth with clean rooms and all the stuff that you’re doing internally?

Adam Greenlee

Sure. Again, it’s a great market. We’re excited that we’re continuing to grow and what the future looks like for our healthcare business. So I think you’re right. I think you mentioned a 2024 number. So it’s grown a little bit beyond kind of that number. I would say we’re still in that 200ish million just as a proxy of total revenue. So could that easily get to 400 million over the course of the next couple years? Yes, we absolutely think so. How do we get there? That’s with our own pipeline and that’s with our own kind of contractual obligations that we’ve already secured over the next three to five years with the drugs and pharma and healthcare products that are in development with our largest customers.

I think you raised a really good point. Anthony, that I think as we have continued to expand our dispensing and specialty closures segment with each acquisition, we say it opens a broader horizon for future acquisition opportunities. Vayner is a great example. It brought a lot of different products, but it brought a very strong healthcare business with it. And we think that opens up even more opportunities from a corporate development perspective and where we can inorganically continue to grow out the business as we’ve done in the past. So I think we even said it in maybe some of the prepared remarks. The opportunities for organic and inorganic growth for Silgan are probably as great as at any time in my 21 years that I’ve been with the company. And we’re extremely positive and excited about what the future, particularly in healthcare products, looks like for the company.

Anthony Pettinari

Great, great. That’s very helpful. I’ll turn it over. And congrats to Bob and Sean. Thank you.

operator

Once again, that is Star one to signal for a question. We’ll move next to Daniel Rizzo with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Daniel Rizzo

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. So not to belabor the point, but on the last call, I thought consumer caution within dispensing and also in custom containers was kind of something that bear watching because of, because of, again, affordability issues and things like that. But it seems to have faded. So I was wondering if that was just kind of a temporary blip amongst your customers or it’s something that kind of bears monitoring over the rest of the year.

Adam Greenlee

I definitely think it bears monitoring over the course of the year. I think what I was trying to convey, Dan, is that in that affordability discussion, we think our products are incredibly well positioned to be a very positive value driver for customers that are seeking affordability across a whole bunch of different, different products. And that’s really where a good swath of our portfolio sits. So we actually encourage that conversation and we’ll be watching it closely. But we think our products are very well positioned for that discussion.

Daniel Rizzo

All right, and then with everything that’s happened with bankruptcy with the customer, does that change how you kind of, I don’t know, design contracts or do business with the customer like that, or just in metal containers in general? I mean, is this just kind of a one off thing that you just move past?

Adam Greenlee

Well, again, I think since our founding, this would be the first large customer bankruptcy that we dealt with in our metal containers business. And I go back to the contractual nature of this part of our portfolio that it’s just the contracts have been so well written, so well written over a long period of time that the company did not face any detriment during the course of one of our large customers going bankruptcy during the year. So, you know, our teams did a great job of protecting the company, but in fairness, the contracts allows us to do that as well. So, you know, I think it’s just. Dan, it’s more of the same as far as the contractual nature and the protections that we build in to those contracts to make sure we protect our company and our shareholders from any adverse outcomes.

Daniel Rizzo

Thank you very much.

operator

We’ll go next to Anaj Shah with ubs. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning everyone.

Anojja Shah

Thanks for taking my questions. We have some new FDA food guidelines that came out recently promoting protein and it seems to me like that would be pretty positive for your metal cans business. Do you see that as a significant opportunity for you or are there offsets elsewhere in the portfolio from these guidelines?

Adam Greenlee

Sure, I think we’re working very closely with our customers to make sure that we help them position products into the marketplace to really accommodate or maybe incorporate the new FDA guidelines. So we look at protein as part of our portfolio and our high protein products. Again, the can is a great vehicle to get that nutritional value to consumers. And sure, I mean we think it’s an opportunity, but there are several opportunities that we continue to work on. You know, so I do think we’re working with our customers. There’s nothing specific that we’re outlining in our guidance or anything at all. It’s just one of the puts and takes that we would typically consider as we give forward guidance.

Shawn Fabry

And then noted just for context, protein. Is about 10% of the metal containers volume.

Anojja Shah

Great, thank you. Okay, thank you for that. And then also just your Capex this year is stepping up modestly, I think about 10 million year over year. And you mentioned dispensing and pet food growth sort of driving that. Any details you can give there on where you expect Capex to step up? No, I’ll turn it over.

Shawn Fabry

Yeah, I think our. This is Sean. I think our guidance was 310 million for 2026. And really that’s driven by increased growth in pet food, as you mentioned, and dispensing products. We’re really happy with our pet food customers and we are continuing to invest money in that space where we see the growth prospects. And honestly we’re under a long term agreement to do so. So we’re happy to do it and continue to invest in that space where we see the growth.

Adam Greenlee

And I think just maybe to add to that if you look back over the last 30 years of our CapEx portfolio, investments in wet pet food have been very consistent in our CapEx profile. It might not be every year, but we are investing to support that customer growth again driving significant volume growth for the company over a very long period of time.

Anojja Shah

Great, thank you.

operator

We go next to Arun Vishwanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Arun Viswanathan

Thanks for taking my question, I guess. Yeah. First off, congrats to Bob. Great working with you over the last several years and Sean, look forward to. Working with you as well. And then just on the results. So the guides I guess first on volume. So I think you said low to. Mid single digits in DSC and low single digits in metal driven by pet food. Just curious on the pet food item because you do face a pretty tough. Comp there and you’ve seen some volatility. So maybe you can just kind of. Parse out what drives that. And I guess where are you in kind of penetration in wet pet and then on dsc? I think you had a relatively kind of choppy year last year. Just given some of those consumer trends. Would you say that you’ve kind of settled down and were there any execution issues that you had last year that. You’Ve maybe addressed or was it just mainly market impacts? Thanks.

Adam Greenlee

Sure. Maybe to address the DSC item, I think really the big items that we talked about during the year were much more market related. Right. So you had the food and beverage items in sports drinks in Q2 that we talked about earlier on the call, yet a little destocking in Q4 for personal care and home care products. Those are definitely market related activities. That were the two items I think in DSC that went a long way to challenge the performance and fragrance and beauty that was fantastic through the course of the year. So moving over to metal containers again, I think if you think about wet pet food, this has been an annual grower for us for decades and we’ve been a requirement supplier to our largest customer since we bought assets associated with their business and they’ve continued to invest in capacity.

Aruna, I know we’ve talked about this before, but the primary animals that we’re talking about here are cats. And it’s primarily cats and a little bit of small dog as well. So those populations have grown over time. They continue to grow going forward. I think wet pet food in these categories is considered to be a premium product. So we haven’t talked a lot about the K shaped economy on this call. But as you get back to Some of those larger macro trends, the high end consumer is still seemingly doing pretty darn well and we see that in our wet pet food segment and then the last piece of it and we’ve seen this for decades. Again, once pet owners feed their animals wet pet food it is very rare that they move out of the category in a cat or a small dog, large dog moves in and out and we’ve always talked about that. It’s a very small part of our portfolio. But for cats we’ve seen the stickiness of that product with pet owners and with consuming animals for a very, very long time.

Arun Viswanathan

Thanks for that. And just as a quick follow up just on the cash flow. So the 450 guide, was there any inventory impact or and is there you. Know, potential for upside if you know. That’S not as bad or how would. You kind of characterize that 450, is there any kind of variability in that? Thanks.

Shawn Fabry

Yeah, this is Sean. We normally have working capital improvement initiatives every year in our free cash flow and 2026 is no different in that regard. I’d call it a modest amount of working capital improvement. But generally speaking we’re expecting our operating earnings to go up. Call it 2025 million and that’s offset mostly by cash, higher cash interest and taxes in the year and that gets us to the 4 5th for 26. Bridging that versus our 25 number.

Arun Viswanathan

Thanks a lot.

operator

And we’ll return back to the line of George Staffos with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

George Staphos

Hi guys. I’ll try to make it quick. So you’ve talked a lot about on this call here and there kind of the impact of healthier living and the like. As you’ve analyzed across your categories, is it a net positive, neutral, negative, all that commentary relative the end market growth and demand you’d see across food can, DSC and custom containers as you’ve analyzed it. Second question related we’ve seen over the last year or so new products, zero calorie products on the beverage side. Anything that we should be aware of that could perhaps help growth in the dispensing segment for this year or in the next couple of years that you know last question from me just on availability and supply chain in metal, steel and aluminum. I assume you’re doing fine. Just wanted to check the box on that. And has there been any commentary at all from your suppliers about maybe bringing back some tin plate capacity to the US So thanks for that guys. Again congratulations to everybody. To Sean, Alex and Bon voyage Bob. Talk to you Guys, soon.

Adam Greenlee

Thanks George. As far as, you know, the healthier conversation that we were having and its impact to our volume growth, I mean I think it’s relatively neutral to our volume growth. I mean I think we’re well positioned already for a variety of outcomes across the portfolio that we have. It’s a bit of the intentional nature of how we built out the portfolio that we can do well in different economic circumstances, we can do well with different consumer preference patterns evolving and feel pretty good that we’ve got that captured and we’ll support our customers in whatever way we need to.

You’re right. I think 26 on the food and the beverage side is going to be a year of innovation. You know, one of our largest customers has clearly stated that and you know, whether it’s zero calorie or better for you products, you know, we’re watching very carefully to see what is new volume brought into the category versus cannibalizing some of the existing products. So you know, again I’d say roughly we’re neutral in that scenario because the cannibalization is just, it’s a similar volume, comparable volume to what we already had. And I think they’re looking at it from a value perspective as well with potentially healthier for you products requiring a premium in the marketplace.

And then as we think about, you know, aluminum and steel supply, you know, our two largest expenditures that we have and critically important to our customer success as well. You know, we talked a lot about 10 fleet in particular in the US market and the US market being a net importer now with significant tariffs. So it’s a challenging environment. You know, we’re one of the largest buyers for both steel and aluminum can sheet anywhere in the world. So you’re right, you can check the box for us. We get the products that we need. Our contracts allow us to pass through those costs, whatever they may be to our customers.

We take that very seriously and we fight like crazy to get the lowest cost for ourselves and for our customers. George. But you know, I think the market dynamics are continuing to evolve. I’d love to tell you there might be more 10 plate capacity coming on in the U.S. it has to be high quality, wide 10 plate capacity for it to really work well in the manufacturing systems that not just Silvan, but can manufacturers have assembled now over time. So there will be some hurdles to that. So I think our perspective is it’s going to be more of the same as we go forward. We’ll continue to get the products that we need and regardless of where that supply comes in from. We’d love to buy product, raw materials in the market where we’re making products and selling products. Unfortunately, the way the template market in the US has evolved over time, we’re no longer able to do that.

George Staphos

Okay. Thank you, Adam.

operator

We have no further questions. I’ll turn the floor back over to Adam Greenlee, President and CEO, for any additional or closing remarks.

Adam Greenlee

Great. Thanks very much, Melinda. We appreciate everyone’s interest in the company, and we look forward to discussing our first quarter results. Results near the end of April. Thank you.

operator

This concludes today’s conference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.