Ardagh Metal Packaging SA (AMBP) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. fourth-quarter 2024 results call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Stephen Lyons, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining today for Ardagh Metal Packaging's fourth-quarter 2024 earnings call, which follows the earlier publication of AMP's earnings release for the fourth quarter and the full year.

I'm joined today by Oliver Graham, AMP's Chief Executive Officer; and Stefan Schellinger, AMP's Chief Financial Officer. Before moving to your questions, we will first provide some introductory remarks around AMP's performance and outlook.

AMP's earnings release and related materials for the fourth quarter can be found on AMP's website at ir.ardaghmetalpackaging.com. Remarks today will include certain forward-looking statements and include use of non-IFRS financial measures.

Actual results could vary materially in such statements. Please review the details of AMP's forward-looking statements disclaimer and reconciliation of non-IFRS financial measures to IFRS financial measures in AMP's earnings release.

I will now turn the call over to Oliver Graham.

Thanks, Stephen. So 2024 represented a successful year for our business as we delivered a double-digit adjusted EBITDA increase, underpinned by a 3% growth in global volumes. Our growth drove improved capacity utilization and fixed cost recovery, while the business achieved stronger input cost recovery than anticipated and delivered further operational cost improvements.

Europe's adjusted EBITDA performance was consistently strong, AMP demonstrating good volume growth as the industry recovered from customer destocking in the prior year. Our performance in the Americas was resilient with a higher adjusted EBITDA despite temporary customer filling location issues in Brazil and softness in the energy category in North America.

Our actions on liquidity and strong adjusted EBITDA generation resulted in AMP ending the year with nearly $1 billion of liquidity and a reduced net leverage ratio of 4.9 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA. In the fourth quarter, adjusted EBITDA grew by 11% versus the prior year to $164 million.

Our performance was positively impacted by higher-than-forecast sales volumes and production in Europe, with a particularly strong end to the quarter. Americas performance was broadly in line with our expectations, supported by an encouraging improvement in monthly volumes through the quarter in Brazil and strong operating [cost performance] in North America.

Across our global footprint, the beverage can continues to gain share in our customers' packaging mix. While we're still in a challenging consumer environment, the key advantages support our expectation for industry shipments growth into 2025. And we're encouraged by our start to the year.

We're confident that we can drive further growth in adjusted EBITDA in 2025 through increased shipments and further improvements to capacity utilization, as well as operational improvements, all of which more than offset some inflationary pressures and currency headwinds in Europe.

We also made strong progress towards our sustainability agenda in the year, including the publication of our first road map report highlighting how our scope 3 emissions, which represent the majority of AMP's overall greenhouse gas emissions, well below the 2030 target level in 2023, reflecting the successful implementation of our strategy and the overall industry's strong progress on decarbonization.

We signed agreements for a solar project in Germany and a virtual power purchase agreement in Portugal, both of which significantly advanced our progress towards our renewable electricity targets. And finally, we were delighted to report a reduction in both our overall total recordable incident rate and accident severity rates in 2024, something that is critical for us.

I'll turn now to AMP's fourth-quarter results by segment. In Europe, revenue increased by 27% to $542 million or 22% on a constant currency basis compared with the same period in 2023, principally due to favorable volume/mix effects and the pass-through of higher input cost to customers.

Shipments grew by a strong 8% for the quarter ahead of expectations, with a particularly strong end to the quarter. For the year as a whole, shipments grew by over 4%, which represents an encouraging return to growth following customer destocking in the second half of 2023.

Growth in the year was broad-based both by category and by geography. Customers continue to prioritize beverage can in their packaging mix, reflecting both the can's competitiveness and its sustainability advantages. We expect this to continue as evidenced by customers' own investments in Europe's various sustainability regulations.

Fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA in Europe increased by 81% to $56 million or by 70% on a constant currency basis, due to positive volume growth and stronger input cost recovery. Our strong performance in 2024 and a positive early start to the year gives us confidence to project shipments growth of 3% to 4% for 2025. Capacity remains tight in the region, with the continued ramp-up of our more recently installed capacity to support this growth.

Turning to the Americas, revenue in the fourth quarter decreased by 7% to $653 million, which reflected unfavorable volume/mix effects, partly offset by the pass-through of higher input cost to customers. Americas adjusted EBITDA for the quarter decreased by 8% to $108 million due to lower volumes, principally due to the prior-mentioned customer mix issue in Brazil and the softness in the North America energy category, partly offset by lower operating costs.

In North America, shipments declined by 2% for the quarter and grew by over [5%] for the year. The fourth-quarter decline in shipments was in line with our expectations and reflected temporary softness in the energy category, as well as a strong prior-year comparable.

In both the fourth quarter and across the year, we saw good growth in both carbonated soft drinks and sparkling waters, which, combined, represent circa 60% of our portfolio, as well as growth arising from share gains in mass beer, which represents only a small percentage of our North America portfolio.

Our diverse portfolio in North America is heavily skewed towards faster-growing non-alcoholic categories. Customer innovation continues to favor the beverage can, and the can continues to take share of the overall packaging mix. We've also seen some signs of stability in the energy category, which gives us confidence that our shipments can grow at least by low single digits in 2025.

In Brazil, fourth-quarter beverage can shipments decreased by 15%, which primarily reflected a specific customer mix filling location issue. We were encouraged by the improvement in monthly volumes towards the end of the quarter, and we would note that shipments, excluding this customer, grew by 7%. Full-year shipments were similarly affected by the specific customer issue decreasing by 5%.

The Brazilian beverage can industry also experienced lower growth in Q4, but with some improvements in December. As a result, the full-year growth percentage dropped into the mid- to high single-digit range after the double-digit growth in the first part of the year.

Balancing our overall positive outlook for the market and the broad strength of our customer portfolio with some appropriate caution after the events of the second half of 2024, we're confident in at least a low single-digit-percentage growth for our Brazilian business in 2025. And therefore, between North America and Brazil, we also expect shipments growth in the Americas of at least a low single-digit percentage in 2025.

I'll hand over to Stefan to talk you through some remarks on our financial position before finishing with some concluding remarks.

Thanks, Ollie, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone. We end the year with a robust liquidity position of close to EUR1 billion, in line with our expectation, that includes a seasonal working capital inflow in the fourth quarter.

Net leverage at the year-end stood at 4.9 net debt over adjusted EBITDA, which represents a meaningful reduction compared to the prior year of 5.5 times. Our liquidity position benefited from the signing of an undrawn Brazilian credit facility in Q4 for around $80 million. We note that in addition to our strong liquidity position, we have no near-term bond maturities.

As we have previously indicated, AMP's capital structure is structurally separate from Ardagh Group. AMP generated an adjusted free cash flow of $204 million in 2024 compared to $216 million in the prior year. The modest decrease was mainly driven by a lower working capital inflow, which was partly offset by a significant reduction in our gross investment CapEx.

We expect a small outflow in working capital for the financial year 2025. Our growth investments in 2024 reduced to $68 million. And on the basis of current investment plans, we expect this to reduce slightly in 2025 to approximately $40 million.

In terms of other cash flow items, we broadly expect the following for 2025: cash interest to increase to just over $200 million; lease principal repayments of approximately $105 million; CapEx to increase to close to $50 million given that previously available tax losses have been utilized, and we expect fewer tax [returns] being in 2025; maintenance CapEx of around $135 million; and small exceptional cash outflows in the order of high single-digit million.

We have today announced our quarterly ordinary dividend of $0.10 per share to be paid later in March, in line with guidance and supported by our robust closing liquidity position. There's no change to our capital allocation policy.

With that, I'll hand it back to Ollie.

Thanks, Stefan. So just recapping on our performance and key messages before the Q&A, adjusted EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter of 11% was ahead of expectations. This was driven by a strong performance in Europe, and that was a consistent feature through the year.

Full-year adjusted EBITDA of $672 million was strongly ahead of our initially projected $630 million to $660 million range. And this was despite softness in the North American energy category and our customer mix filling location issue in Brazil, both of which have shown recent improvement. And our actions on liquidity and strong cash flow performance resulted in a robust year-end liquidity position of nearly $1 billion.

Our current view of the market leads us to project global shipment growth for AMP in 2025 in a range of 2% to 3% and full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA in the range of $675 million to $695 million. Our EBITDA guidance is supported by higher shipments and improved fixed cost absorption, partly offset by some inflationary pressures in Europe and currency headwinds.

Based on prevailing rates, FX represents a circa $9 million headwind versus the prior year. In terms of guidance for the first quarter, adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of between $140 million and $145 million ahead of the prior year of $132 million on a constant currency basis.

So having made these opening remarks, we'll now proceed with any questions.

(Operator Instructions) Stefan Diaz, Morgan Stanley.

So maybe my first one is on tariffs. So obviously, LME and the associated premium is a pass-through for you all. But can you provide additional details on how you're thinking about the potential implications on demand?

Sure. Yeah, hi, Stefan. So we're very consistent with the other commentary that you've seen in the market in the last week or two. So the first thing to say, I think, is that we see a relatively small impact on the total retail price of the can, certainly less than $0.01. And therefore, that's if it's all passed on to the consumer, which given the amount of inflation we've seen in can pricing in the US in the last few years, is a relatively small number.

We do see that in 2025, although this should have been hedged, and therefore, there should be less impact in 2025. And as you say, from our perspective, it's pretty much a pass-through in any case. So in terms of our numbers, it's not touching them.

So I've seen commentary saying maybe there's some indirect impact on demand. I guess, that could be true. But I have to admit, from our perspective, we regard that as a pretty marginal impact.

Perfect. Thanks for the color. And then maybe if you could dig into your Americas results a little bit. Obviously, you called out the customer-specific headwind in Brazil and some energy weakness in North America. And maybe how are those headwinds sort of shaping out in the quarter so far in 2025? And do you expect those headwinds to resolve quickly here in 2025 as well. Thank you.

No, yeah. Good question. So look, I think on the mill side, we mentioned it in the remarks that we already saw improvement in Q4. So in December, we're already good at -- saw a good recovery in those volumes, and that recovery has persisted into January and February. So I think we're very encouraged by the way that situation has resolved at the moment. And we would hope that would continue through this year.

And then similarly, on the energy category in North America, there was clearly improvement towards the end of the year. I think we suffered a bit more than the total market in our mix from what we can see because we could see some improvement on the retail data on the energy category already in Q4. And we do see that in our numbers as we go into Q1 that there is recovery in the energy category. So I think we're hopeful for 2025 that both those issues have worked their way through.

Great. Thank you so much. I'll turn it over.

Thanks, Stefan.

Josh Spector, UBS.

Yeah, hi. Good morning, guys. I wanted to ask on your forecast around growth. I think when you're talking about the US specifically, you said low single-digit percent. But you said you could potentially -- I think you said a minimum of low single-digit percent, sorry. So curious if there's areas where you had more optimism or visibility now or if that was -- maybe I'm reading into that too much.

No, I don't think you're reading too much. I mean, I think that this energy category piece is a key part. So obviously, we're feeling positive about that with what we're seeing at the beginning of the year. I think we're seeing strength in other parts of the portfolio, carbonated soft drinks, alcoholic cocktails. So we still remain positive about the North American beverage can market.

And I think if you go back five years and you look at average growth, it's in that 2% range on average. Obviously, it went up a lot, then bumped along a bit as we'd sort of overgrown in the first part of that period. But we didn't lose that growth.

And the drivers of that growth that we saw from 2018, 2019 onwards, which is the sustainability piece with some reduction in the focus on plastics and the innovation, they're still in place. And although there's a little bit of commentary around now with tariffs and other market remarks about plastics, we think that there's still a drive towards not over-investing and overprioritizing plastics relative to cans.

And that's all we need because when the American -- North American can market was flat, it was because PET was growing at the expense of cans by 3% a year; we were down. That's no longer true. And we see that actually again, CSD is in positive growth at the beginning of this year.

So I think the low single digits for the market is a very realistic number. We think we've got aspects of our portfolio that mean we could be a tick ahead of that. But we're not calling that by a huge amount, but we're certainly positive about North America for this year.

Thanks. And somewhat related, I guess, on the energy category, specifically, there's been some recent M&A in the space. And I don't know if you could just characterize, are some of those changes good or bad for you? Does that increase your share with some existing customers and pull volumes in? Or is there a risk of some diversification from that?

Yeah, we don't see any risk. They're both good market players. We obviously have relationships with many people in the energy space. It's a strong space for us.

So we don't see any risk to us from that, nor do we see any particular upside from it at this point. We don't know. But so we -- yeah, it looks like a good deal, both strong brands, and I'm sure they'll do very well.

Okay. Thank you.

Anthony Pettinari, Citi.

Hi, good morning. Looking at your '25 outlook, assuming you achieve your volume growth targets, is it possible to say kind of where that would leave your utilization rates in North America and Europe? And then maybe more broadly, if you could comment on sort of how industry supply/demand sort of feels in those two regions if it is tight, lose, balanced, how you'd sort of characterize it?

Sure, Anthony. So yeah, North America, I think we still have some fairly permanently can tail capacity in North America. So I think we'll be running in the mid-90s. It feels pretty tight at the moment, to be honest. And I think the market overall is relatively balanced with the sorts of actions that we're taking also being taken by other market participants.

So I think the industry probably is in the low 90s relatively naturally, and then into the mid and even high 90s with those types of curtailment. And as I said, at the minute, for us, the market feels quite tight. I think if we look at commercial activity, there's clearly capacity around. But we're not seeing anything that concerned us too much. So I think North America in a reasonable place.

And Europe feels pretty tight as well and did all through last year. Particularly Continental, I think there's more capacity in the UK. But on the continent, through the whole year, we have regional shortages. We had shortages on term sizes, particularly specialty.

And we don't see that changing much into this year because we've seen other players -- we're all ramping some of the legacy capacity that we've already put in. But we're not seeing particularly new capacity coming to market. So -- apart from those ramp-ups. So with the growth that we're seeing -- and again, the first two months have been strong in Europe -- we think that that market is going to feel pretty tight through the year.

And Brazil, yeah, I think there's capacity around. Again, it's being curtailed pretty strongly in certain places, including by us in the Northeast. And with that, I think the market is relatively balanced, sort of probably in the 90% area. And again, we actually had shortages last year in certain locations and sizes. Because Brazil is such a big country, you can get that kind of effect. So overall, if we look across our business, it feels like all three markets are in a decent place.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then just on Europe, I'm curious on glass-to-metal substitution, given the strength that you and others have had in Europe, is that something that is accelerating? Are there specific product categories or geographies where you're really seeing a shift into cans?

And is it, I don't know, cost of living crisis or maybe change in consumer taste? I'm just wondering if that's really changed or accelerated, or there's any anything you kind of pinpoint on glass-to-metal substitution in Europe specifically?

Sure. I think there's a long-term glass-to-metal substitution in Europe, as we've seen two-way bottle systems declining and one-way packaging increasing and the can taking shares. So if you look at the growth in Germany after the can was reduced to very low share in the early '90s and 2000s, that recovery is significantly about glass substitution as well as plastic substitution.

And then I think the piece that's given that some extra impetus in the last couple of years is the price of energy obviously much more significant in glass than in metal. And so that has meant some competitive differential between the two substrates. And that was mitigating, I think, in the second half of last year, but now energy prices are strengthening slightly. Not a huge amount, but they've not continued to come down in the last few months.

And so I think the can does continue to maintain some competitiveness advantage off the back of that. And actually, if you look at our -- the way our PPI rates are running in Europe, which are negative. So past-through on the can is really low at the moment in terms of price pass-through to customers. But can is remaining very competitive in the mix.

I think to that, with the sustainability advantages, there's a very clear road map for the cans to decarbonize, which again, much harder on other substrates. I think that's driving the (inaudible) share -- the gains that we're seeing. And that was very consistent through the year, and we would anticipate that continuing through '25 and beyond.

Okay. That's very helpful. I'll turn it over.

Thanks, Anthony.

Arun Viswanathan, RBC Capital Markets.

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I guess -- so maybe I'll ask about North American demand. Maybe you can just run through some of the categories. We've obviously seen some weakness in beer. Do you expect that to persist and maybe potentially even get worse in the threat of Mexican tariffs? And then what about energy and non-alcoholic as you see it evolving over the next year? Thanks.

Sure. So I think I mentioned that I think carbonated soft drinks have started the year strong. We do anticipate growth like we saw last year. And if you look at the Nielsen data into the back end of the year, you certainly saw some strengthening in carbonated soft drink growth in cans, and that seems to be the way the year has started out. So we feel positive about that.

Energy, I touched on, I think there will be a recovery this year relative to last year, which was, in a way, the category took a bit of a breath last year. There's been a lot of innovation, '21 to '23 alcohol innovation, other products, coffee-based replacement.

So I think that '24 was sort of the year when some of that growth came off after some strong years. But '25, I think the market participants have got that back in order. And we'll be driving growth and some of that destocking we saw also as they moved into different distribution systems is also finished.

So we'd be feeling good about the energy category for this year. I talked about alcoholic cocktails. I think that's a good space. There's definitely growth in there, and we're seeing that in our portfolio. And then yeah, mass beer, I think, continues to be somewhat challenged. But actually Mexican tariffs, depending if they're on field goods, could be a positive for domestic production and domestic supply.

But we're -- it's a relatively small part of our portfolio. It's clearly the weaker part. If you look at the market data for last year, that clearly is the weaker part of the portfolio. And then another one I'd call out is sparkling water has had a very strong year last year. We were strong with them. And again, that looks like that's persisting into 2025.

Okay. Thanks for that. And then just maybe I can ask about free cash flow and just maybe you can give me a walk from $685 million EBITDA and some of the offsets to that, whether it be CapEx and working capital, cash tax, and so on; and then so how much you expect for free cash flow in '25 and then how you expect to use that. Thanks.

Yeah. Okay. So basically, we printed adjusted free cash flow of $204 million sort of starting sort of with the EBITDA of $672 million. We had a small inflow in terms of working capital of around $40 million. We spent around $111 million on maintenance CapEx and then lease repayment of $97 million.

And then we had exceptional restructuring costs of $23 million. And then we get further down into the capital structure. We -- I'm talking '24 now -- we're at $189 million of interest paid and $28 million cash taxes. So how does this compare now to our 2025 number? So basically, I gave a little bit of guidance on what to expect. I mean, you've seen our guidance range in terms of EBITDA, $675 million to $695 million.

So the key changes probably in terms of the cash flow items are on the working capital. We expect a small outflow in 2025. In terms of maintenance CapEx, we expect to invest more. Some of it is clearly driving productivity. Some of that is investments in quality and on sustainability. So we expect around $100 million to $130 million-ish.

And then in terms of growth CapEx, we spent $68 million in 2024. This will be reduced to around the $50 million level. Tax will go up a little bit to $50 million as a result of NOL having been used. And then also the cash interest will go up to $205 million as a result of new facilities sort of we entered into last year. And then also the lease repayments will go up a little bit to $205 million, given that the new leases are sort of reaching the full run rate.

We expect very little exceptional, as we've been through our restructuring, sort of shut downs of the steel lines and facilities. So net-net, sort of if you do the math, it will be a slight reduction of free cash flow in the new year. And in terms of spending, I mean, the capital allocation policy and the dividend policy of the company has not changed. So that will be consistent with what you've seen in 2024 as per our expectation.

Thanks.

Gabe Hajde, Wells Fargo Securities.

Ollie, Stefan, good morning.

Morning, Gabe.

I wanted to ask -- there's been some question around -- you talked about tariffs, but potential for the new administration to look at reformulation, specifically in carbonated soft drinks. And we've done a reasonable amount of work on this.

I'm just curious if there's been an early dialogue with customers. I suspect I know what their view is on this, but just how that could play out in terms of cost to the customer or anything that you've come across so far?

Yeah, really, not actually. As I said, I think most of the dialogue is about making sure they're getting supply because we're seeing growth in -- certainly, we're seeing growth in Europe and North America on the (inaudible) side, particularly in the beginning of the year, actually.

They were strong all year to North America, had some strengths and weaknesses in the portfolio in Europe. But in general, the category seems in very good health in cans, and that still seem to be continuing. Actually, the same is true for Brazil, even though we're not participating.

So yeah, look, it's a hard one, isn't it, to call what's going to happen at the minute. But I'd just say our customers have been very agile and effective in the past at managing different trends and regulations, and health concerns. And they're very big and highly professional companies that you would expect to work through these sorts of issues. But yeah, no real dialogue with us, to be honest.

Okay. And then I wanted to -- I think it's on slide 17 in the guidance kind of bullets. You talked about PPI headwinds and then higher metal conversion costs, which I don't think we've heard much on that maybe in 2021 in terms of conversion costs.

I'm assuming the PPI commentary was mostly isolated to North America. If you can confirm that maybe quantify it for us, if you're willing? And then the conversion cost in Europe, is that something that's -- what's driving that, I guess, number one? And then number two, could that persist in the '26, '27, or is that isolated to '25?

Yeah. No, actually, for us, the PPI headwind is more located in Europe. I saw in our peers talking about North America, but actually, we have negative PPI in Europe at the moment. And I think, again, our peers have talked about this, but some of our costs never go negative, particularly labor. So we have -- when we get into negative PPIs, though we have contract structure to try and avoid this, we do get some drag on our pass-throughs.

And then actually, the aluminum conversion cost is also specifically European issue, where the market for coils is shorter in Europe, particularly domestic supply is shorter and people have been prioritizing that a bit with everything going on in the world. So we're definitely seeing those headwinds more in Europe than in North America, where we have actually transferred our pass-through mechanisms to include much more of a labor mechanism and tend to get better past-through.

We have some headwinds in North America, which is just we have talked about. I think the inevitable reduction in some of the specialty regions that have grown up during COVID times. So -- but it's not on the cost side, and it's not on the PPI side. So yeah, I think that's the shape of it.

And I think this aluminum conversion piece, so this is certainly the peak of the issue. It is also slightly related to the energy costs in Europe that energy costs increasing, is coming through a little bit and the metal having been shielded a little bit by hedges on their side in the last couple of years. So it's also a lag effect on some of those costs coming through.

But this is specifically European issue. We've got good capacity coming through in North America on rolling mills, which will be very positive for the industry. We're not really seeing these issues in Brazil. And we think the European issue mitigates over the next few years.

Understood. Okay. And last one real quick, just to piggyback on the cash flow and Arun's question. I guess, to put some numbers to it, it looks like free cash flow, something in the $130 million to $140 million range. And then we've got to take off there the dividend that you're paying out.

So leverage for 2025 at the midpoint of $685 million of EBITDA as maybe it tickles down to $4.8 million, give or take, is that what you guys are thinking about internally?

Yeah. I think that broadly, I think it's in the ballpark. I think we would expect leverage to be pretty steady relative to what we printed in for this year and end of 2024.

Great. Thank you, guys.

Thanks, Gabe.

(Operator Instructions) Michael Leithead, Barclays.

Great, thanks. Good morning, guys. First question, I just want to talk about the earnings outlook. As you kind of talked through with Gabe, 2% to 3% volume growth and the EBITDA growth of $10 million to $15 million at the midpoint. I would have thought there's a bit higher of incremental margin you would have gotten on that volume.

It seems like you have some headwinds you talked about. Can you just help us better understand the moving pieces? Like, how we should think about the actual benefit from the volume growth, and how that's being offset in your guidance?

Yeah. Look, I think without giving exact numbers, the piece we talked about are the headwinds. So the volume growth of 2% to 3% would translate through reasonably normally. And then we have the -- particularly the aluminum conversion cost and the PPI headwinds in Europe, the FX headwind that we talked about on a reported basis, and some specialty pricing pressures in North America, which, again, I don't think they're broad-based. They are just some specific situations as we come out of the COVID period.

So those are the headwinds, which mean that as you say, we're not getting a full translation of the 2% to 3%. On the other hand, we do have some significant operational cost savings as well. We're always working to improve efficiency at the plant level. We're always working on input cost savings. We are also working on SG&A efficiency. So they are also offsetting some of those headwinds.

Got it. Thank you, Ollie. And then for a follow-up, just a question on the cash flow. EBITDA is up this year, but as you mentioned, free cash flow is down a bit. It seems like part of it is higher financing-related costs. Part of it is higher maintenance.

I appreciate it's early to think beyond '25. But just will 2025 be the peak in cash use items? I guess, what I'm trying to get at is, when can we start generating cash above the dividend here?

Yeah. I think, as you say, it's probably a little bit early to talk about that, I mean, given that we are focusing here on 2025. I think some of the, I'd say, of the bigger needle movers for instance, we talked about the growth CapEx, I think we are probably behind the big phase of expansion there and sort of the $50 million for this year, sort of $50 million to $60 million.

Going forward, that's probably not a bad number. But I think sort of overall, I think a lot of it is really depending on the EBITDA growth, I think, beyond sort of 2025. I think that will drive a lot of the cash flow profile.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Mike.

Gabe Hajde, Wells Fargo Securities.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the follow-up. And I apologize, my phone kind of cut out for a second when you're talking about Europe. That segment was decently ahead of our model. I think you talked about shipping incremental ends maybe closer to the end of the year or something like that, but, just, A to confirm.

And then I guess, maybe looking at prior Q4s, you're relatively consistent with what you were in 2021. I'm just trying to understand like the improved overhead absorption in the fourth quarter, how much that played into the quarter.

And then maybe is there any -- it sounds like the strength kind of persisted into Q1. So it sounds like the answer is no. But maybe order ahead of anticipated price increases on the aluminum side or the can conversion issue that your customers had sniffed out.

Yeah. So look, I think on Europe, there was no overstanding events, if anything, the opposite. We were quite sure due to some operational issues on that end. So that was a straight typical can number, the 8% growth. Obviously, it's true that Q4 '23 was pretty soft because of a big destocking.

But that all just played through then into higher production, better utilization, as you say, better fixed cost recovery. So I think everything just came together very nicely in Q4. And particularly into the year-end, we were strong right through to the end of the year.

And then I wasn't sure the question about the fixed cost recovery, obviously, generally across the company, we grew 3% last year. We did improve our fixed cost recovery with the capacity that we've put in place. So that was definitely true.

And then in terms of the start to the year, it's not that customers are particularly talking to us about any particular issue. But we're just finding that demand is looking pretty good, particularly Europe, North America, probably less so Brazil. I think Brazil, the summer doesn't look like it will be amazing. Q4 actually went into negative growth, as I mentioned in the remarks, in the market after a super strong first part of the year.

And it still looks a bit bumpy. I think the consumer environment is weak. Obviously, strong dollar is never good for Brazil. So look, we still are positive with our Brazil growth. We think 3% to 5% is not impossible for the year at all, but it's going to come more second half weighted by the look of it.

So no, I think it's more that Europe, North America customers still seem to be leaning into the can for all the reasons we've talked about sustainability, competitiveness. And as I say, we can sort of point out that the PPI headwind is a slight drag on our results.

But from a market point of view, it obviously makes the can very competitive for our customers. So it does help drive volume. So yeah, as we look at it, sitting here today, we'd be hopeful of a good year on the volume front.

Yup, no, understood. Thank you.

Thanks, Gabe.

And ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's question-and-answer session. I'll turn the call back to Oliver Graham for any additional or closing remarks.

Thanks, Lisa, and thanks, everyone, for joining. So I think just summarizing, obviously, we had a good Q4. It was ahead of expectations, particularly led by Europe. We grew across the year by 3%. And we do see the beverage can taking share across our markets, and that gives us confidence in further growth into 2025 and further growth in adjusted EBITDA.

So we look forward to talking to you, all, again at our Q1 results. Thanks very much.

And that concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.