Ranpak Holdings Corp (PACK) 2022 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is [Audra], and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Ranpak Holdings First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)

After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions)

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Sara Horvath.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that we discuss forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those discussed in our press release and the risk factors identified in our Form 10-K and our other filings filed with the SEC. Some of the statements and responses to your questions in this conference call may include forward-looking statements that are subject to future events and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. Ranpak assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, all of which speak to the company only as of today.

The earnings release we issued this morning and the presentation for today's call are posted on the Investor Relations section of our website. A copy of the release has been included in the Form 8-K that we submitted to the SEC before this call. We will also make a replay of this conference call available via webcast on the company website.

For financial information that is presented on a non-GAAP basis, we have included reconciliations to the comparable GAAP information. Please refer to the table and slide presentation accompanying today's earnings release. Lastly, we'll be filing our 10-Q with the SEC for the period ending March 31, 2022. The 10-Q will be available through the SEC or on the Investor Relations section of our website.

With me today, I have Omar Asali, our Chairman and CEO; and Bill Drew, our CFO. Omar will summarize our first quarter results and provide commentary on the operating landscape and Bill will provide additional detail on the financial results before we open up the call for questions.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Omar.

Thank you, Sara, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you all joining us this morning. Our first quarter financial results were disappointing. However, despite the slow start to the year, we remain confident in the outlook for our business and believe our financial performance will meaningfully improve as the year progresses. Our confidence is built on the fact that our key detractors this quarter were derived from a combination of 2 distinct events, namely our go-live with a new ERP system in January, which I consider to be a onetime impact; coupled with abrupt start to war in Europe, which commenced in late February and quickly reshaped the operating landscape, which we are adapting to.

In our fourth quarter call, we shared that we recently made one of the most important investments in Ranpak history when we implemented SAP. So far, the system is functioning as advertised with layers and dimensionality far beyond what we previously had access to, and providing us with data that we believe will lead to greater efficiencies and streamline processes for Ranpak. It is also a system that we knew going in is highly complex and takes users time and dedication to truly understand and properly utilize.

Over the past 3 months, the team has done a good job getting up the learning curve of the system and has embraced the new way of operating at Ranpak. We have dedicated a tremendous amount of internal and external resources to the project and sought to address any major areas of risk with the project and set ourselves up for success.

When you make such a dramatic shift in the way you operate, even with substantial planning, training and resources, it takes some time for a workforce to really operate the system and become an efficient user. It was a slow start, but the strides have been great during the hypercare period. At the pace of improvement we are experiencing, I believe we will begin to see more efficiencies flow through in the second quarter of the year, and we will be able to identify opportunities for cost savings and improvements as the year progresses.

While the first quarter figures are not where we want them to be, we exited March leaps and bounds better with the new system than where we began. Many of the issues that impacted our top line performance in Q1 that were related to our SAP transition were resolved by the end of Q1. Because of the dislocation to begin 2022, I want to make it clear, I do not believe the first quarter results are indicative of where we are as a company, and I'm confident about our outlook over the medium and longer term, as I believe Ranpak is extremely well positioned for the structural shifts in how the world does business.

The near-term macro outlook has changed since the start of the year, but our key drivers of our long-term growth initiatives of automation and sustainability remain very much intact. To make a finer point on the impacts of the SAP transition, I want to highlight out a few details. Point one, we have scheduled downtime to start the year due to carrying over to our new system. Our operations were down for the first 10 days of the year due to [carry] over where we were not producing or shipping product nor entering orders in the system. This resulted in the modest buy-in I mentioned on the fourth quarter, which we estimated to be around $3 million as well as substantial unabsorbed overhead estimated to be more than $1 million as our plants were inactive during this specific period.

Point two, inefficiencies due to working in the new system related to processing orders, planning production in the new inventory management system and getting products shipped. Whether it was taking customer orders, receiving and inbounding goods, making paper, loading trucks, inventory planning, all processes were different and took a bit longer in the new system initially leading to production inefficiencies. Point three, margin dislocation due to delayed price increases driven by the SAP implementation. Due to the complexity of the go-live, we discussed on the fourth quarter call, our pricing actions to offset continued input cost pressures were delayed from when we normally would have taken additional price. We needed to get the system up and running and make sure we had good data in place before putting through our latest price increases. This obviously created a dislocation in our pricing and cost structure given the inflation we continued to experience from the fourth quarter, and in the case of Europe, which accelerated more meaningfully in Q1.

Outside of SAP, the other key area that impacted our results was the changing macro landscape in Europe due to the invasion of Ukraine. This manifested itself directly for us in a few ways with the largest being lack of trucker availability and increased energy costs. Lack of trucker availability in Europe in March, resulting in increased variability around our customer pickups. Given the large number of truck drivers from Ukraine and many of them leaving their jobs to go back to their countries to join the fight, we had numerous instances of product not being picked up on schedule, leading to inefficiencies as well as greater than normal product left on the dock at the end of the quarter negatively impacted our performance.

Energy costs in Europe continued their increase from the fourth quarter and drove substantial increases in the cost of paper we purchased in the quarter. Natural gas prices elevated meaningfully at the end of 2021 due to low storage levels, which created a drag on margins in the fourth quarter. This continued into Q1 and was exacerbated further following the invasion of Ukraine.

To provide some context, Dutch Natural Gas averaged just under EUR 100 per megawatt hour in first quarter '22 with a peak close to EUR 212 in March. This compares to an average of EUR 18 per megawatt hour in the first quarter of '21, a 5x difference. And to give you a sense of how unprecedented this is, from 2005 to 2020, natural gas has averaged around EUR 19 and had a maximum price of EUR 30 in 2008. The world, Europe, in particular, and Ranpak are operating in a completely new environment due to this conflict and adjustments needed to be made. Bill will provide some additional context on the impacts of those headwinds in the financial section, but I think it is important to make clear that the system utilization inefficiencies dramatically improved throughout the quarter, and we exited March with a significantly improved operating cadence that continued through April.

We started the year with very specific plans to implement a new ERP system, but we're planning for doing business during times of peace. We ended the quarter with a new robust ERP system implemented, but are now adjusting to doing business during times of war. Our paper suppliers in Western Europe were hit the hardest this past quarter, and both our suppliers and us now have better plans on how to navigate the disruptive paper and energy markets. The market is already beginning to adapt as we are seeing shifts in how paper supplies flows throughout the world. Part of the relief in the upcoming quarters, we believe will occur as less Russian paper is sold into Western Europe and instead is redirected to Asia, especially China. Western European paper that would have been sold into Asia and China are being replaced by this Russian supply freeing up Western European paper to stay more local, to meet the demand in the European markets where we operate.

Again, the results for Q1 are not what we wanted them to be. But given the complexity of our ERP implementation and given the fact that we did so in 1 year on budget and on a global basis, while most people were working remotely, I'm pleased with the hard work and dedication of our employees who helped us achieve all of this while delivering almost flat results on the top line, and more importantly, positioning us extremely well starting in Q2 of this year.

Moving on from the implementation and the war in Ukraine, I think it would be helpful to give some color on the business activity and what we are seeing in the different regions. Demand for our products was solid in the quarter and activity levels became more robust as the quarter went on, particularly in North America, which even with all the inefficiencies had double-digit top line growth year-over-year, driven by a strong March.

We saw the quarter evolve a bit in North America as it started slower as some larger end users experienced supply chain issues, leaving them without product to ship, and Omicron impacted customer visits. But the momentum built throughout the quarter, and March saw really strong activity levels, both on the sales side and the new customer pipeline growth with a particular interest in automated solutions. I'm optimistic about the traction we are getting in North America and believe it will be a solid growth driver this year. Many of you have heard me say repeatedly that sustainability, in particular, is a large driving force behind the momentum, and I believe we have assembled a team and offering that can capture meaningful opportunities to drive results.

Consumer spending remained strong due to continued wage growth, low unemployment and strong consumer balance sheets. Obviously, the impact of rising inflation in food and commodities will be something to keep a close eye on. But for now, we are seeing good activity and some opportunities to really expand our business in North America.

We are well stocked on converters as we have meaningfully improved our sales and operations planning in North America and invested in safety stock to better insulate ourselves from potential supply disruptions. Container market pricing has come down approximately 20% since the end of February in a welcome sign of improvement to the global freight market, but the recent lockdowns in China lead me to believe the stabilization could be short-lived.

On a more local level in North America, freight markets have improved as spot rates have come down and trucks are more widely available. Labor in North America seems to have stabilized as we are getting more applications than in the past, and more skilled employees, albeit at higher wages. We implemented a price increase in March in North America, and I will say pricing power in North America remains strong, although not quite at the level we experienced in 2021 where increases went through with minimal, if any, resistance.

Moving to Europe and APAC. After a slow start, we finished the quarter strong and began to hit our stride in March with sales up double digit year-over-year. The macroeconomic outlook in Europe has deteriorated since the start of the conflict, and I'm seeing some headwinds as record commodity prices in natural gas and elevated oil prices impact industrial activity and consumer sentiment.

E-commerce remains elevated, but there has been a slowdown in activity there as disposable incomes take a hit from inflationary pressures and consumers are spending more on services and experiences. I'm optimistic, though, as we continue to see positive results into April, which is great to see given the uncertainty in that part of the world. I spent 2 weeks last month with our team in Europe to try to get a better sense of the status of the region, and I will say I came away from the visit encouraged. While there is greater variability in pickups due to the truck driver shortage, we are still seeing solid demand for our products, albeit not at the growth levels we experienced last year. And although the sentiment readings are down, every restaurant, airport and hotel I went to was packed with no availability, which I thought was an encouraging sign of the resilience of the European consumer.

We continue to win new business in e-commerce, automotive and manufacturing at a good clip, although the pace of wins is slower than we were accustomed to and cost savings is increasing in importance compared to a year ago. That being said, given the macro environment, the range of possible outcomes in Europe is wide at the moment. The tailwinds of substrate shift and automation demand in the business are powerful, but so is the potential impact sustained high energy prices will have on industrial production and consumer behavior.

In Asia, it is more of a mixed bag as we are seeing pockets of strength and other areas that are slower as inflation is having an impact in the region and e-commerce is not as elevated as it was in early 2021. Japan and Korea were lighter early in Q1, following a really strong Q4, but those areas appear to be bouncing back now. China has had a strong start to the year, but recent lockdowns and slowdowns in growth will have an impact on the near-term performance there. We have had a number of key wins recently in the region, where we have been able to leverage our multinational relationships with e-commerce, cosmetics, 3PL and semiconductor companies within the region to further penetrate other parts of APAC. From where we sit currently with our pipeline for the quarter, we are looking at solid improvement in the region and are optimistic about the rest of the year. APAC is a region that tends to be more back-end loaded given the festivals in Asia in the early part of the year and e-commerce.

In the combined Europe/APAC region, profitability in the near term will be impacted by the significantly higher energy prices on paper production costs. We took price in April, but given the lead time we provide to our customers, that increase did not cover the energy shock following the invasion of Ukraine. To counteract the margin pressure from the energy shock, we plan to implement further actions in June in the form of pricing or surcharges or both, which combined with our April pricing actions, we expect will improve our margin profile as the year progresses, as our pricing structure will be rightsized to reflect the new environment. We're also mindful of our customers in this environment and the need to be a good partner in challenging times. As I mentioned earlier, the paper market is evolving quickly. So we do not want to overcorrect on what could be a shorter-term dislocation given what we are seeing with more Russian paper going to APAC and China and freeing up some of the paper from Western European mills to be used more locally.

Overall, Ranpak is fortunate that we are starting from a position of robust margins, low leverage and strong liquidity and that we have the ability to invest some of our margin in the short term to help our customers. Since I have joined Ranpak, I have preached customer centricity, and this is an opportunity for us to demonstrate that, albeit in a balanced fashion to ensure we aren't absorbing the entire hit. I think this will be rewarded in the long term with loyalty and additional share.

It's important to know the coordinated global government and commercial response to Russia has not impacted our ability to serve customers today. We continue to receive shipments from all of our suppliers in March and April as they continued to produce and ship paper to us. We are, however, working with our supplier group to obtain additional [tons] as we take steps to reduce and ultimately eliminate our exposure to Russian mills going forward given the geopolitical landscape. For surety of supply and reliability, we feel this is a prudent approach, even though this requires more working capital in the short term as we are carrying roughly twice our normal paper as well as greater expense relative to our original forecast. Our greatest priority is serving our customers uninterrupted, so we are committed to making sure they have a positive experience with Ranpak. I do want to make clear, though, we are working tirelessly to minimize the cost headwind of changing course and finding offsets.

Moving on to automation. Our vision and plan here is unchanged as we continue to invest meaningfully behind this endeavor. We have been adding exceptional talent to this area with a particular focus on engineering as of late. The team continues to grow as we are ramping up and accelerating our hiring activity to expand our presence as our fortitude behind this opportunity only becomes stronger. The need for efficiencies and labor reduction is only gaining steam as wage growth accelerates and labor availability is scarce. This is a global phenomenon that is picking up steam, being driven by next-generation e-commerce fulfillment centers and 3PLs.

Our product line menu serving end-of-line needs is one-of, if not the most robust in the industry, especially when you take into account our partnerships with Pickle and Caja. We are really pleased with the way our offerings are being received and optimistic about our ability to make further inroads in the space. We are tracking to our goals and automation for 2022 and believe 2023 will be an important inflection point for our business.

Now with that, let me turn it over to Bill for some financial detail.

Thank you, Omar. In the deck, you'll see a summary of some of our key performance indicators. We'll also be filing our 10-Q, which provides further information on Ranpak's operating results. Machine placement increased 11.4% year-over-year to over 134,500 machines globally. Another solid double-digit performance, but at a lower rate than recent history due to machine placement being suppressed due to the SAP go-live. Cushioning systems grew 3.5%, while Void-fill installed systems increased 11.9% and Wrapping increased a robust 25.9% year-over-year.

Overall, net revenue for the company in the first quarter was down 1.3% year-over-year on a constant currency basis, driven by lower volumes of product shipped due largely to SAP go-live, the associated inefficiencies of getting up and running, and the macro environment in Europe impacting some of our ability to catch up in March. North America net revenue increased 10% year-over-year with all categories up for the year and particular outperformance in Cushioning and Wrapping. We are really pleased with what we are seeing in Cushioning as this area is getting a lot of traction as industrial customers are seeking cheaper alternatives to foam and more surety of supply. Void-fill also contributed nicely to the top line, albeit at a lower rate, given some of our e-commerce vendors experienced supply chain shortages. And overall online activity was a bit lower due to economies opening up and more dollars being spent on services and experiences rather than goods.

The overall top line growth was driven by pricing actions over the past year as volumes were down in the first 2 months of the quarter for the reasons previously mentioned, but encouragingly, turned positive in March as we exited on a strong note. In general, we are pleased that even with the go-live, all PPS categories were up year-over-year.

In Europe and APAC, net revenue on a constant currency basis was down 6.9%, driven by lower volumes in the region, offset somewhat by higher price year-over-year. Europe and APAC are up against an extremely challenging comparison as 1Q '21 was a record quarter that benefited from numerous tailwinds that drove exceptional volume growth. At that time, e-commerce was the only option in most geographies. Industrial activity was recovering from depressed levels. Paper pricing was extremely favorable in the region and sustainability tailwinds were driving paper adoption.

With that context and all the challenges we experienced in Q1, we are impressed with the way the team managed to improve throughout the quarter and meaningfully narrow the gap to Q1 '21. Cushioning was the biggest attractor in the quarter on an absolute basis. As in Q1 '21, we saw outsized demand due to industrial activity catching up from being down meaningfully due to the pandemic. We also saw challenging comparisons and Void-fill wrapping as e-commerce activity was more normalized, albeit at a higher level compared to Q1 '21.

Automation sales more than doubled year-over-year and represented almost 5% of sales on a constant currency basis as we continued to get traction in the space with our box customization and automated dunnage solutions. Automation is one area where we have seen some supply chain disruptions for key components, but we have a solid plan for the year and are doing everything in our power to minimize disruptions and keep projects moving.

Our gross profit decreased 28.8% on a constant currency basis, implying a margin of 29.8% compared to 41.3% in the prior year. Excluding depreciation, gross margins declined from 51.7% to 39.7%. The margin headwinds were driven by increased input costs, particularly in Europe without timely corresponding pricing offsets due to SAP, lower volumes resulting in unabsorbed overhead and the increased contribution from automation to overall sales as we ramp up that business.

Overall, North American margins were down roughly 2.5 points in the quarter, but meaningfully improved in March due to better absorption and pricing actions going into effect. Europe and APAC was more challenging from a margin standpoint, down 16.1 points as energy prices impacted our material costs without any corresponding price actions to help in the quarter. Automation contributed 8% of sales in the region compared to 3% prior, and we had lower PPS volumes year-over-year. Energy prices reflected in paper costs contributed approximately 4 points of impact and automation detracted by 3.2 points as we get this business up to scale. Higher volumes and better absorption in March helped to improve margins by roughly 4.6 points, and this is prior to any pricing actions having gone in place. As a reference, had our pricing actions in North America and Europe [influenced it] for the entire quarter, gross margins overall would have been 2.6 points higher to 32.4%.

Adjusted EBITDA declined 31.8% year-over-year to $19.1 million, implying a 22.8% margin. The decline was driven by lower gross profit, coupled with increased G&A as we continued to add talent to the organization to drive growth initiatives in PPS and automation as well as support our digital infrastructure transformation, increasing salary headcount by more than 150 year-over-year as well as increased IT systems cost.

Overall, the key areas we're investing in this year are IT, automation, engineering and procurement. Those are immediate areas we are focused on to help us achieve our growth objectives. Given the macro uncertainty, other areas that we had previously planned on ramping up are being met with a higher hurdle rate. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $9.8 million, driven largely by conferred replacement as well as some increased investment in technology infrastructure and our ongoing real estate projects.

Moving briefly to the balance sheet and liquidity. On the cash side, our cash balance in the quarter was $80.5 million. More of our sales being back-end loaded in March as well as investments in working capital and CapEx in the quarter drove our cash balance lower, but we expect that to level out with more normalized sales and our cash to build in the second half of the year. Our net leverage based on reported LTM adjusted EBITDA was a solid 3.0x at the end of the quarter. This environment has emphasized what a valuable tool a strong balance sheet is. We've been putting ours to work recently in a number of ways. We've invested in working capital in an effort to ensure adequate supply of converters and paper for our customers. We are also making upgrades to our key infrastructure to run the business and serve customers better, and it has also enabled us to make strategic investments for the short term and margin to help our customers.

While much of our discussion is usually focused on growth, this is a business that has really attractive margins and generates substantial cash. We're using that financial profile to our advantage right now to make investments that will pay off over the next number of years.

With that, I'll turn it back to Omar before we move on to questions.

Thank you, Bill. In closing, while we are not pleased with our financial results in Q1, I want to emphasize a few things. One, the team did a fantastic job and put in a tremendous amount of effort that cannot be overlooked. Second, Q1 is our seasonally smallest quarter of the year. So while Q1 results are painful, we are going to do everything in our power to claw that deficit back for the remaining 9 months of the year, which historically are larger contributors to our annual performance. If you look at it on a 2-year stack, even with the headwinds of war and the new ERP system implementation, our adjusted EBITDA is up versus Q1 of 2020. Third, we exited Q1 in a far better position and feel good about our ability to continue to grow our top line and improve our margin profile throughout the year. Beyond the April price increase we implemented, we will be taking additional actions in Europe to offset the energy impact.

Fourth, as I have said in the past, we at Ranpak are very focused on our annual and multiyear plans. For the greater good and to invest in the future, we will have certain quarters where our financial results take a step back due to noise related to our future investments. They do not change the quality of our business and are required to achieve our desired multiyear trajectory. We are a company that is still building scale in some areas, so certain disruptions and investments may have a magnified short-term effect. It is important to highlight that we do not take these investment decisions or quarterly results slightly. The people in our boardroom, including myself, represent roughly 50% of the stock of Ranpak. Every decision made is to maximize the value of Ranpak over the long term for shareholders. Sometimes this requires some short-term pain as we experienced in Q1.

Upgrading our digital infrastructure was a critical investment for us and one I would do all over again, as it was necessary for Ranpak to succeed on a far bigger stage. The timing of our upgrade, coupled with the outbreak of war and resulting energy shock is unfortunate and put us in a position where we are coming from behind on the margin front. But I am confident in our ability to claw our way back to the financial profile we are all accustomed to. The macro uncertainty in Europe clouds things for the near term, but we have an excellent team and a strong leading position to weather the landscape and emerge stronger. We have work to do on gross margins in Europe, but we will address those and feel confident in our ability to continue to improve as the year progresses.

Because of the slower start to Q1, at this time, we're updating our guidance for the remainder of the year. Our top line remains unchanged, although we believe we will likely be on the lower end of the range given the changed landscape. So this year, on a constant currency basis at our standard estimate of USD 1.15 to the euro, we are anticipating revenues of $425 million to $445 million, reflecting top line growth in the area of 13% to 18%. Given the margin pressures to start the year and lower volume expectations due to the uncertain outlook in Europe, we have lowered our adjusted EBITDA forecast to a range of $115 million to $125 million on a constant currency basis or negative 2.5% to positive 6% compared to 2021. Rather than our historical ranges, we believe in a potential range of outcomes in Europe warrants some additional cushion and flexibility. We're confident in our forecast and are working day and night to hit our goals.

With that, let's open it up for some questions. Operator?

(Operator Instructions)

We'll take our first question from Ghansham Panjabi at Baird.

Can you just give us a more specific view on what you're seeing for paper volumes thus far in 2Q and how you see that dynamic unfolding for the back half of the year? I'm just trying to get a better sense of how you're thinking about EBITDA between the second quarter and the second half of the year. Is there any lingering impact from ERP on 2Q, et cetera?

So sure. So on ERP, I would say we have made critical improvements. I'm not going to say, as of today, we're at 100% of where we are. But certainly, we're north of 90% or 95%. And I believe by end of the quarter, by June 30 or so, our ERP muscle is going to be where we want it to be. And hopefully, we would be getting benefits out of the system, which is what we're all focused on.

In terms of volume, I would say, in April, it's been a decent month. ERP has not been an issue so -- which is a good thing. Again, we're not perfect with the new system, but significantly better, and that's a good continuation of what we saw in March. Europe, in particular, had a stable month. We're up, but it's largely based on price, not volume yet, Ghansham. My expectation is we will deal with the pricing issue, maybe a surcharge this quarter to position us well by the end of the quarter to recover on the margin front in Europe. I'm not expecting robust volume, but I'm expecting a decent volume out of Europe, although that statement is subject to nothing dramatically changing on the war front, which is very tough for me to handicap. And from everything we're seeing with our trials, with our pipeline, we are expecting a pretty good second half of the year. Although I will tell you, our growth this year in light of what happened in Q1 is probably going to be predominantly price, not volume driven.

And the last thing that I will say, Ghansham, I'm sorry, just to give you some sense, we did increase the number of converters out there. And that's always a good leading sign for our business. All that happened or a big portion of that happened towards the end of the quarter. So the number of converters increased, but these converters were not out in the field producing paper. That's something that's going to be helping us in Q2 and in the second half of the year.

That's very comprehensive. Now for my second question, I mean, can you just give us a sense on the same sort of dynamic specific to machine shipments, which were very, very strong in the first quarter, irrespective of some of the challenges you highlighted. How do you see machine placements unfolding for the rest of the year? And maybe you could just give us some level of quantification on the backlogs relative to historical averages?

Yes. I'll have Bill to take that one.

Sure. So machine placements, as you pointed out, Ghansham, they were still solid in Q1, which is great to see that, as Omar said, was pretty back-end loaded, right? As we're kind of getting our feet underneath us on the system and getting machines shipped. So a lot of that happened in March, so you didn't really get the flow-through on the paper side. Just in discussing the outlook with the teams in the different regions across the world, demand for additional machines and trials and close activity is solid. So we feel good about continuing to place machines at a good clip throughout the year. Will it be as robust as last year where it was kind of in the mid-teens? Likely, probably not just given some of the uncertainty, but we still feel good about the demand that's out there for continued placements.

Okay. And just 1 final one for me. Will the June price increase catch you up where you need to be on price cost?

It will get us very close. So we're expecting margins to continue to improve throughout the year, right? So Q2 will still have some pressure, obviously, just given the timing of the increase going into place in Europe. But in Q3 and Q4, we expect those margins to get back closer to where we historically have been.

Next, we'll move to Adam Samuelson at Goldman Sachs.

So I guess my first question is I'm trying to disaggregate the volume -- the performance in the quarter a little bit. I was just thinking about your installed base was up 11% year-over-year in the period, the missed paper volumes were down 21%. So kind of on a same-store kind of like-for-like installed base, your paper volumes are down closer to 30%. And I guess I'm trying to understand kind of the trajectory from here. How much of that paper decline would you directly attribute to the ERP issue? How much would you kind of attribute to softer customer activity, particularly in the e-commerce space? And maybe I'll stop there, and I have some follow-ups.

Yes. I think I think let me start with a high-level bridge and then I'll have Bill walk you through some detail. But as I think about the quarter, and I know ERP certainly was a big deal. ERP combined with war happening in our biggest region and impacting March was a was a pretty tough combination. And obviously, that's what we do not see at the beginning of the quarter. But as I look at our numbers, at our top line, and this will flow through into obviously volume and into your questions on demand, we probably have something around $3.1 million of buy-in given the ERP downtime at the beginning of the year. So that impacted this quarter where people bought some in December.

The trucker issue in Ukraine or the Ukrainian, I should say, trucker issues -- basically moving back to their country to join the war. It's something, obviously, we did not know, we did not anticipate, and that impacted us by more than $2 million in March. We also had some customers in March in Eastern Europe, Poland, et cetera, delay some orders that were in our book, and that was north of $2 million as well. And then as Bill said, we couldn't take pricing action given we were implementing a new system, and that probably impacted us by another $3 million or so for the quarter. So if you add these up, you get to more than $10 million, that was predominantly a hit in Europe, given both ERP as well as the whole trucker issue and delayed orders issue given the war. What we are seeing is, obviously, some of these numbers are starting to normalize. I do think on the demand side, in particular in e-commerce, it remains at a high level. The growth rates are not like what we saw last year. And frankly, what is very tough for us to assess, is it that the new normal level in e-commerce and it will stay at these levels? Or is there further weakness that we may see going on, in particular, in Europe, if consumer sentiment changes? That's the piece that's a lot harder for us to assess, and that's what we try to reflect in our updated guidance and give a broader range on EBITDA because it's very tough to handicap that impact.

In the U.S., I would say, traditional e-commerce guys have had decent volumes with us, not huge. We continue to see okay pickup in activity in retailers doing more in their e-commerce business, but they're starting off a smaller base. Bill, I don't know if you want to add something.

Sure. So Adam, just to give you a sense of how we're thinking about the rest of the year, which I think will give you a little bit more normalized view, right? We are expecting at the low end of our range, right, lower volumes in each quarter compared to 2021, largely in the top line, making that up on price. And this is going to be largely driven just by lower utilization of the machine base, right? So we're kind of baking in high single-digit, low double-digit declines in utilization per machine, which will be offset by of course, the pricing as well as increased machine placement. So I do think a big chunk of what you saw of that 21% decline in Q1. A big chunk of that was driven by just getting up to speed on the ERP system. And then you did have some impacts, as we stated from some lower e-commerce activity as some folks in North America had supply chain shortages, which seem to be resolved. And then just generally a bit lower activity on the e-commerce front as things have opened up.

All right. That color is really helpful. And I guess, maybe if I'm thinking about how taking all those points, Bill, and thinking about that in the context of your annual revenue -- constant currency revenue guidance, which is unchanged as the range that you're kind of saying more at the low end. Is it -- obviously, there was the impact in the first quarter, but has the expectation on volume utilization through the installed base for the rest of the year come down, offset by higher price? I'm just trying to think about how kind of given the first quarter performance and where we are, just how we're still holding the constant currency revenue guidance where it is?

Yes, that's correct, Adam.

Okay. And then just a clarifying question just because you're reporting -- you're giving guidance on a constant currency basis on a [EUR 1.15]. The euro is about [EUR 1.06] today. So in practice, you reported results in dollars relative -- especially relative to where you were at the end of February, that's about 4% or 5% lower given your euro exposure and the move in the currency. That's the right framing?

Yes. I think just per rule of thumb, about 5 points makes sense. So if you're thinking about guidance at spot, right, you'd be at, call it, [405.1] on the low end and call it [428] EUR 1.20 at the high end. And we've used the EUR 1.15 since we've gone public. That's been kind of the average over the past 5 years, it's been the average over the past year. So there's been a lot of volatility, obviously, in the currency. And actually, if I look at the forecast for what's out there for next year, just if I pull up the [FC FX] or FXFC screen on Bloomberg, it's at EUR 1.15 as well. So we feel like it's a good barometer to give folks a view of the business just kind of on a stable currency basis.

We'll move next to Stefanos Crist at CJS Securities.

I do want to clarify on one of the previous questions, just on the revenue guidance. Can you just give us your thoughts on pricing and volume and how that's changed since you initially gave the guidance?

Sure. So on the volume side, when we were going into the year, we were originally looking at volumes in the mid- to high single digits, right? I think, obviously, that's come down given the first quarter and then what we're seeing in terms of uncertainty in the European region. Pricing obviously has gone up, right, in terms of our expectations. We originally, we're not baking in any sort of energy surcharge. So those are kind of the 2 moving pieces there. And I think we've also just dialed down probably the [sum] to machine placement just given the macro in Europe. Obviously, if there's a resolution sooner than that, that can ramp back up with additional volume and growth in the back half of the year, but that's not what we were planning on.

Got it. And then can you just give us just a status update on the 3 new facilities, just given supply constraints? Are those still on target -- on your targets to be completed?

So the Connecticut facility for automation is very much on target, and our automation plan is intact and expectations for this year remain the same, and we continue to see the same robust demand. Our new facility in Europe is also on target, and that will combine automation and our PPS business and that will be ready end of the year, maybe beginning of next year. Our localized plan in China, we're revisiting that. In light of the new geopolitical world, I suspect we will be localizing in the region, but we're revisiting a few details and the precise geography of where we want to be. So that's going to be delayed a little bit.

And next, we'll move to Alexander Leach at Berenberg Capital Markets.

Could you start with giving us some more detail on the lower volumes you experienced in this quarter? Can you quantify what was attributable to SAP in downtime? And out of the 21 percentage points you down in the quarter, how much was attributable to Russia? And then how much is attributable to some lower customer demand in the European region?

Sure, Alex. Happy to. So as Omar mentioned, right, there was some buy-in in the fourth quarter, related to the SAP implementation, where customers were purchasing ahead in case of any disruption. So we'll put that at around $3 million, a little bit more than that in terms of top line. The variability in pickup, some of the truck driver availability issues in Europe. We would estimate that to be around $2 million in top line impact. And then on some of the pushouts, right, with distributors deciding that they wanted to take products in April rather than May, we put that at around $2 million as well, just given what we saw unfolding throughout the month, may have been a little bit higher. And then that plus kind of the pricing impact of the delayed implementation, that would all kind of total up to around $10 million in top line.

Okay. Great. And how do we think about sort of price stickiness given that's what's really driving growth for you guys this year? Is there any risk to the top line if there was some normalization in price at all?

Sorry, Alex. Can you ask that one again?

How do we think about price stickiness given that's what's driving growth in full year 2022? Any risk to the top line if there's some normalization and price on a more longer-term view?

I think as we think about it, frankly, we've been in discussions with our customers, and this is largely focused on Europe. The energy situation is not Ranpak specific. So what's happening with nat gas and the elevated levels, it's impacting pretty much every player in Europe, whether it's an industrial player or frankly, the consumer as they were consuming energy in their own home. And our customers, we've been speaking openly with them about passing through some of that unusual activity. And again, we may do it in the form of a price increase and/or a surcharge and we would do it transparently where if the energy market eases, if things improve in Europe on that front, we're happy to pass along the savings down the road. So I think the driving force behind it being energy-driven, being driven by what's happening with the war makes it more sticky. People understand that. Now the question is what's going to happen with sort of demand and consumer sentiment in Europe? And honestly, that stuff is very tough to assess. As you can tell from what we're telling you about our guidance for the rest of the year, we're not assuming a robust Europe. We're not assuming that we maintain volume or productivity of our converters. So we're trying to be a little bit cautious. But that's going to depend on the trajectory that happens in the continent and with the war. And frankly, that's not just a relevant point for Europe. If things get materially worse, it could impact the rest of the globe as well.

So that's something that we're watching. But I think the nature of what's driving our price increase, which is predominantly the energy situation, given our communication with our customers, with our distributors and end users, we feel they understand it and it will be sticky. And we are all sort of hoping for a more stable future for us and for them, where these prices become a bit more rational.

Okay. And if I could just fit one more in. You mentioned that there was a bit of a lag with implementing price increases. So price came in at 16.5% in the quarter. How much more of an increase in price should we expect for the remaining 3 quarters of the year?

Yes. I mean, Alex, just for competitive reasons, right, we don't want to get too specific in terms of any plans. But I'll tell you that we are focused on just getting back to our margin profile, right, as we exit the year. and we'll be able to structure different increases as we need to in order to achieve that. So whether it's through a surcharge that Omar mentioned as well as other price increase, just on traditional paper price increase. We'll be looking to both of those mechanisms to make sure that we're clawing back our margin as we exit the year, Q3 and Q4 in a much better spot.

The way I would triangulate our thinking without giving specifics is expected in this quarter, you'll see some improvement in the margin profile. And that in the second half, we will get pretty close to our historical margin profile. That's what we are solving for.

And next, we'll move to Greg Palm at Craig-Hallum.

I guess, just starting off. I mean, I understand some of the impacts in Europe. I mean, obviously, a lot of that is outside your control. But looking back at Q4, your commentary certainly didn't imply that there were, I guess, any major disruptions associated with the ERP implementation. And those comments were back in late February. So I'm still trying to reconcile that. Were you expecting maybe a bigger ramp in March? Because even if I adjust for, call it, the $10 million of impacts, there was still quite a bit of a shortfall relative to expectations. So just trying to tie that out.

Yes. Basically, the summary, Greg, is we were expecting a much better March in Europe, in particular. We had a good March. And when I say good March compared to where we started from an ERP standpoint, but certainly, the war and its impact hurt our plan. So when we went live in January, we expected every month in the quarter would get better. Our plan worked out more or less in North America. Of course, I'm not going to tell you it worked out precisely, exactly with the numbers we anticipated, but close enough. And that gives you a sense of what we were expecting. And North America ended up delivering top line growth, of course, largely driven by price. But given implementing a new ERP system and delivering that, we were feeling pretty good about what we delivered in North America. We had the same exact expectation in Europe. And then obviously, when we gave our Q4 sort of earnings report, it was very early in the war. It was very tough to assess where the war is taking us, and we have the view that we would be delivering results that were sort of in line with expectations for a company that implemented an ERP system.

Clearly, when we spoke in that earnings call, we did not know a lot of drivers were originally from Ukraine and are not going to show up. We -- it was tough to see what our customers are going to do with delaying orders, et cetera. So we're trying to give you a sense of the numbers, but a lot of things happened that changed the landscape with the war that really hurt our business in March. And that clearly had an impact on our plan in terms of how we envisioned implementing ERP.

Yes. No, that makes sense. In terms of supply, you mentioned you're still receiving product, I think, from all suppliers. Have you made any meaningful changes over the last few months? I mean, I don't know, were you forced to purchase on the spot market at all due to those supply disruptions? I know you've got some exposure to Russia specifically.

We are. We did make some changes. We continue to make some. We're not done with our changes on the supply side. I will tell you the following on supply side. We still are getting some paper from Russia. We expect to continue to do that. It's decreasing. And I expect that to change materially based on our plan in the second half of the year, where we would be getting a lot less paper from there. We're getting paper from other sources, some European players, some other international players helping our European business. I feel pretty good about our plan. From everything I'm hearing from all of our discussions with different suppliers and mills, I do not anticipate running into issues in terms of securing paper supply. And that's something I know that I said back in February. So when the war started, obviously, our Russian customer exposure is de minimis. And then our Russian mill exposure was a meaningful number. But from everything we know, we are not nervous about securing supply. Now at some level, we have to adjust pricing and it might be that we're paying slightly more. And if we do, then we will deal with that in our price increases, et cetera. But securing supply for the rest of the year, given what we're seeing and reducing the Russian exposure is not going to be an issue.

Okay. That's good to hear. I guess last one, you talked a lot about the negative impacts of what's going on across the energy markets and those costs. I mean, curious if you've thought about the -- I don't know, maybe the positive driver that could become for increased adoption of paper in lieu of resin, just given resin costs have continued to increase given what's going on in the energy markets? Any thoughts on that? Or is it sort of too early to know?

I think it's a little bit too early to know. I will tell you, we watch very, very closely sort of how we compare to the resin market. And I've had some folks sort of asked, are we worried with paper increases that we are at a competitive disadvantage. We are not seeing that. What we're seeing is more akin to what you are saying, which is the plastic and resin market also has pricing and inflationary pressure. How it all shakes out, it's really tough to tell. I do think some of the actions and the pain we've taken, and I alluded to that in my comments, I'm hoping will lead to us getting benefit from a market share standpoint. But frankly, Greg, just given the quarter that we have, given the different issues with implementing a new system, with the uncertainty with war, et cetera, we've decided we'll do what we can to gain market share, to improve on the volume front, but let's not put it as our base case, if you know what I mean.

Yes, I got it. All right.

And that does conclude our question (inaudible)

Thank you, and thanks, everybody, for joining. (inaudible)

And that does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.