Ranpak Holdings Corp. ($PACK)

Hello, and welcome to Ranpak Holdings First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Sara Horvath, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that we will 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 a 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, 2026. 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 market conditions, 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. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are pleased with how we started the year and how effectively we are navigating a dynamic environment. I believe the work we have done over the past several years and strategic focus we have taken towards developing paper-based value-added and differentiated solutions positions us well to advance our position in this environment. Our strategy is working, and the business is demonstrating strong momentum across critical areas such as automation and large enterprise accounts that we have been investing in for years. Automation delivered an exceptionally strong quarter, increasing 111% year-over-year on a constant currency basis and excluding the impact of warrants. The momentum is evident and anchored by our European business, where we continue to build strong reputation across a wide range of accounts as well as our larger customers such as Walmart in North America. Automation is a major growth engine and clear differentiator for us in the market. The cost savings our solutions deliver through lower freight, labor, and higher throughput are significant and mission-critical for large organizations. PPS volumes increased 0.8% year-over-year, marking growth in 10 out of the last 11 quarters. Europe was the outperformer and exceeded expectations that we shared on our fourth quarter call. The trends we shared regarding North America in our fourth quarter call came to fruition as we saw strength with our large enterprise e-commerce customers, but the distribution channel faced a challenging comparison with the first quarter last year as many customers were reinvesting in inventory due to paper market disruptions. Overall, we expect this trend to normalize throughout the year and get back to growth in this very important channel. We have invested a great deal in new product introduction related to our PPS business and believe many of our new products in cushioning, wrapping, and void-fill are reinvigorating the channel. Cushioning in particular, is gaining tremendous momentum through our Guardian 24 launch in North America, and the launch is timely given the current disruption in pricing in the resin markets. Now more on to our results. Consolidated net revenue increased 4.5% on a constant currency basis for the quarter or 5.4% excluding the impact of warrants, driven by an excellent almost 100% growth in automation on a constant currency basis. We also benefited from strong currency tailwinds in the quarter, which added 6.5 percentage points to top line growth on a reported basis in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased $1.6 million to $18.9 million on a reported basis and was flat in constant currency terms. Excluding the impact of ForEx, adjusted EBITDA increased 5% on a constant currency basis and roughly in line with growth in gross profit on a constant currency basis. Now moving to the market environment and how we are positioned. Prior to the start of the war, we have been seeing positive movement in economic activity in Europe following several years of challenging conditions driven by energy price shocks, tariffs and elevated inflation. The global conflicts that have unfolded since the end of February are creating a new flavor of energy price shocks and uncertainty across the globe that we are navigating. So far, we are not seeing a meaningful impact on demand side of the business, while customers are understandably nervous about the impact higher gas prices may have on the consumer and the resulting demand for goods. At the same time, the goods economy has been soft for the past number of years as consumers have shifted dollars to travel and experiences. With travel now becoming significantly more expensive due to fuel price increases, we could see some rebalancing if folks decide to stay home and order more goods. It's too early to say how this will play out, but we are positioning ourselves conservatively when it comes to managing the business and being extremely mindful of our margin profile by taking cost reduction measures and continuing our focus on operational efficiency. In North America, the input cost environment for paper has been stable, which positions us well against resin, where we have already seen meaningful price increases begin in the marketplace. We're pushing the sales team to be aggressive in accelerating the plastic to paper transition as this is the dynamic we have not seen in North America in years. In Europe, Dutch natural gas pricing has been volatile since the start of the conflict, moving from the low to mid-30s to more than EUR 60 per megawatt hour quickly following the start of the conflict before retreating to the current levels in the low to mid-40s. Paper producers in Europe are passing on price increases beginning in the second quarter, and we will, in turn, protect our margins through a temporary surcharge. We are being transparent with our customers; and when conditions normalize, we will remove the surcharge. From a commercial perspective in Europe, we see additional opportunities for paper to gain share versus plastic as resin costs and availability in the region are experiencing greater pressure than what we are seeing flow through the paper markets. Conditions seem to be changing daily. But overall, we believe they are manageable and are far better than what we experienced in Europe in 2022, following the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, where the continent lost nearly half of its gas supply overnight. For everybody safe, we're hopeful for a speedy end to the conflict, but are positioning ourselves for this prolonged uncertainty. Fortunately, we have some very powerful structural tailwinds at our back and strong momentum in automation as well as with our largest customers, Amazon and Walmart, where our relationships continue to deepen. Our sequencing and priorities are consistent with what I shared in our last call: drive top line growth to achieve scale, leverage that scale to unlock operational efficiencies, and enhance purchasing power, which will flow through to adjusted EBITDA as revenue continues to grow. This, in turn, will support deleveraging and ultimately enable us to generate meaningful cash. The strategy remains the same in this environment. With that, here's Bill with more information on the quarter.

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. Overall, net revenue for the company in the first quarter increased 4.5% year-over-year on a constant currency basis or an increase of 5.4%, excluding the impact of warrants, driven by accelerating growth in automation, volume strength in EMEA and APAC, and solid e-commerce volume growth in North America. Our North America business was roughly flat in the quarter or up 1.6%, excluding the impact of warrants as more than 130% growth in automation, excluding warrants, was offset by the lower contribution from the PPS distribution channel versus the prior year. Growth with Walmart really helped to propel the North American automation business in the first quarter, but we expect more broad-based growth throughout the year. We lapped prior year PPS volume growth of 45% in an unusual environment where distributors were restocking. So we were pleased with the team's ability to keep the gap as narrow as it was. In Europe and APAC, net revenue increased 8.6% on a constant currency basis, driven by 95.2% growth in automation and 3.4% volume growth in PPS. We saw volume growth in both EMEA and APAC in the quarter and are looking to build on that throughout the year through our key initiatives of sales, product management and procurement. Gross profit increased 5.2% on a constant currency basis in the quarter and would have increased 7.9%, excluding the $1.7 million noncash provision for warrants. Excluding depreciation within COGS and warrants, gross profit would have increased 9.8% on a constant currency basis. Our cost out and margin efficiencies are taking hold, driving 210 bps of gross margin improvement to 43.1%, excluding warrants and depreciation, even in the quarter where automation and large enterprise accounts in NOAM had an outsized impact. We continue to believe gross margins are a real opportunity for us in 2026 and are pleased that our actions are having an impact. The footprint activities in NOAM has settled and resulted in reduced temporary charges that we saw last year and cost-out initiatives are taking hold. Our greater scale and growth prospects in PPS and automation are also enabling us to be better buyers of key inputs. SG&A, excluding RSU expense, was down 1.5% on a constant currency basis versus prior year. As we have shared previously, we are extremely focused on controlling our costs and improving our margin profile. Tight spend and leveraging our G&A investments to better absorb our overhead remains a top priority. This is particularly true for automation, where a substantial amount of our G&A investments over the past few years has been focused. The greater scale we are building is getting us much closer to breakeven on an adjusted EBITDA basis. As Omar mentioned, adjusted EBITDA was flat year-over-year on a constant currency basis or up 5% excluding the impact of warrants. The constant currency calculation is based on the rate of 1.052, which was last year's average rate for the quarter. There has been considerable movement in the euro since then. So as an example, on a reported basis, adjusted EBITDA increased 9.2% and had the rate used for constant currency been 1.15, adjusted EBITDA would have been up 1.6%. Given the movement in the currency, we wanted to provide a few different data points to help triangulate the moving pieces. Moving to the balance sheet and liquidity. We completed Q1 2026 with a strong liquidity position with a cash balance of $48.5 million and no drawings on our revolving credit facility, bringing our reported net leverage to 4.7x on an LTM basis. Our goal remains to achieve between 2.5x to 3x of net leverage, which we believe we can do over the next 24 months. Our CapEx for the quarter was $8.3 million, which is up $800,000 from prior year, but still meaningfully below the levels seen in 2023 and 2024. We continue to be disciplined in our CapEx spend in order to maximize cash. With that, I'll turn it to Omar.

Thank you, Bill. Before I close, I want to touch on a few strategic updates and the broader environment we're operating in. During the quarter, we funded an additional investment in Pickle Robot through a SAFE note transaction. This allows us to maintain our roughly 9% ownership stake in the company, which we continue to view as highly strategic and valuable. The momentum in automation is real and strong. Given how we started the year in terms of bookings, we're expecting to be closer to $60 million in revenue in automation this year, and I am confident in our path to surpassing $100 million in revenue in the near future. As Bill mentioned, our margin enhancement initiatives are taking hold. The team is getting a lot more efficient in improving execution across both PPS and automation. These efforts are starting to show up in the numbers and will continue to build throughout the year, including key projects like sourcing paper locally in Asia, which we believe is a major opportunity to reduce cost and drive top line growth in the region. Our relationships with large enterprise accounts remain strong and are deepening as expected. We are pursuing initiatives with both Amazon and Walmart that we believe can meaningfully move the needle over the next 24 months. We continue to expect more than $1 billion in cumulative revenue from these 2 relationships over the next 8 to 10 years. Within the current environment, we're focused on what we can control, driving our key initiatives, strengthening our top line and improving margins. We feel very good about the direction of the business and the opportunities ahead, particularly as we advance our industrial technology platform and expand the cross-selling opportunities it creates for PPS. Thank you again for your time and continued support. With that, we'd like to open the line for questions. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Greg Palm of Craig-Hallum.

Congrats on the results. I think what stood out most to me was your results in Europe, just given everything going on there. So maybe you can spend a little bit more time on giving us a little bit of a flavor on sort of what's going on in the region since the start of the war. And I'm also interested in the comments about resin, not just cost, but availability. So did you actually see any shift in the quarter to paper, or is that something a potential that we could see play throughout the year?

I think I'll start with that last point. On the resin, I think this is something that we didn't see in the first quarter. Frankly, we're seeing more of it now. and we're seeing more concern around customers shifting. I think it's largely driven by price, but availability could be a factor. What we saw in Q1 was a couple of things. One from our team, late last year, we had changed part of the organization and the sales organization in Europe. We have more focused leadership, frankly, stronger, more analytical leadership, and we saw better execution throughout the quarter. And that execution was both covering existing accounts better as well as increasing the level of trials and closes, which are metrics that we're following very closely. So fundamentally, I think, there was better execution in Q1. Second, just from a demand standpoint, we got very concerned like everybody else with the war. But as March progressed, we continue to see decent demand. And if I'm being frank, we continue to see that in this quarter as well. So the European team and our European business continue to do better than what we had expected. And I think it's honestly execution. And I think right now, there is a benefit from the resin to paper switch. Now the concern is always with the war ongoing and with energy prices is, will this impact demand, and when and could that play a role in the upcoming weeks? We really don't know. But what we're seeing day by day, Greg, we continue to see business trends that we like.

I recall last quarter, you talked about automation, and I think you had a pretty good backlog going into the quarter, but it also sounds like you had pretty good bookings activity in Q1 as well, it sounds like it's given you a little bit more confidence in that growth outlook. What exactly are you seeing? Just curious what kind of conversations or order activity or pipeline came out of MODEX and just it sounds like the path to surpassing $100 million, I think, you used the term kind of near term, obviously, not this year, but it sounds like you're more confident in your ability to get there.

I think our confidence is increasing, Greg. I think that's correct. Just to give you a sense where we are, including this past quarter in the last few years, cumulatively, we have sold more than $120 million in equipment. So we have a lot of equipment out there working 24/7. We have customer feedback. We've built customer confidence. We're building our reputation. You mentioned MODEX, which is the show here in the U.S. There's an equivalent show in Germany called LogiMAT that happened a few weeks before that. We had record attendance, record leads in both shows. So we feel like we're building a very, very strong reputation as a real player in packaging automation. Obviously, as you and I know, it takes some time to do that. So that's the first step that I would highlight that I like where we are and the inflection point that I see. In terms of booking and in terms of activity, honestly, we are super busy. The appetite is there. We continue to build our funnel. Our funnel in Europe is exceptionally strong. Our funnel in Europe and the U.S. is developing. And obviously, it's driven by a number of very large enterprises that we're close to, but we're expanding that enterprise coverage in the U.S. around automation. And our confidence in hitting our numbers this year and getting to $100 million in the near term, honestly, Greg, is very high. The other thing that we're seeing is that automation business is increasingly driving some volume for PPS with customers that historically have not used us in protective packaging, getting to know us through automation and then asking for some of our packaging solutions and vice versa. So the new businesses, we continue to see they go well. But I would say our operating and commercial muscle in automation has really developed to a place where our confidence is quite high with what we're seeing near term. Then if you talk just about the market, remember, our solutions come with ROI, ROI around labor, ROI around freight, around materials, around energy. We live in a world where everybody is under so much inflationary pressure, frankly, in a world where there are labor issues as well. So coming up with these solutions that are reliable is resonating in the marketplace.

Last one for me. I didn't see or hear you address the guide for the full year. But based on the outperformance in Q1, I mean, knowing we still have a lot of time left in the year, but qualitatively, how are you thinking about the guide you put back out in March?

Qualitatively, feeling great. We feel that the business is in really good shape. So we don't want to be in the business of, frankly, like just tinkering with the guide all the time and in particular, if I'm being blunt, not understanding what's happening geopolitically and what the impact of that could be, which is something that we just cannot analyze. We've decided we're going to keep executing, but our confidence is very high. We think this first quarter positions us very well for the rest of the year. And then when we look at the building blocks, Greg, for the rest of the year, we feel we have a lot in our arsenal to deliver and surpass.

Your next question comes from the line of Ghansham Panjabi of Baird.

It's actually Josh Beth on for Ghansham. Maybe just to start off on the demand component, Omar, you're talking about March and April continuing to stay strong. Is there a chance that that could just be a potential prebuy from your customers just ahead of any potential price increases? Then maybe related to that, just maybe on the margin cadence for the year, just given those input cost headwinds that you guys are going to face and just the price increases are eventually going to come via surcharge. But is there going to be any potential lag where maybe you might see some margin impact in 2Q before you start to realize that in the back half of the year?

Yes, I think. And let me start, and then I'll have Bill chime in. So on the buy-in, it's very tough to say if some of it is buy-in or not in light of people anticipating. I will tell you, we're watching carefully what's happening now. We're watching very closely what our book looks like in May. And we're also watching very closely the bottom-up sort of our trials, our closes, our funnel. There is no question that the building blocks are better in our company. And that we are winning at existing accounts, we're winning new facilities, we're also winning new accounts, and that is part of the growth that we're talking about. So could there be some folks in general, doing some buy-in here and there? Yes. I will tell you, and we try to stay very, very close to our end users and very close to our distribution channel, just in the level of inventories out there is not high. It's not concerning. So when we look at the period of inventory that they're having, we're not seeing any abnormality there. So I think that's the one point around what we're seeing in the marketplace. On cost, let me start, and then I'll have Bill chime in. We actually feel pretty good. In the U.S., we have a number of agreements in place that are giving us quite a bit of protection and the paper market is stable, and we are getting our hands on good supply, high-quality product and the prices are locked in. It's actually enabling us to go and compete against some of the plastic plays. So when I mentioned the Guardian 24, that's a cushioning application where we're competing against foam and other resin-based cushioning applications. We are seeing a huge issue in pricing with some of them, up 30%, 40%, 50%, while our price is stable. So our price to the customer is stable, our productivity is high and then our input cost is stable. So actually, we like what we're seeing in the U.S. In Europe, it's slightly different because some of the product is dependent on nat gas, and that obviously has been volatile. And this is why we are adding the surcharge just to protect our margin. And that has been communicated to the market, the market understands it, we're giving visibility. If there is no need to have the surcharge in the future, we will deal with it. So we're calling it a temporary surcharge and the market has embraced it there. And we have not seen any sort of change in patterns with us asking -- in terms of buying patterns with us asking for the surcharge. Bill, I don't know if you want to add stuff on the cost side.

Yes. I think overall, for the margin, gross margin, for the year, we are expecting to see improvement versus last year by a good 200 basis points. I do think in Europe, you'll see a slight lag in Q2. So you might see a little bit of pressure in the beginning of it, but that will level out as the surcharge goes into effect. As Omar mentioned, we're just very focused on maintaining our margin profile, and we think we've covered that well with the surcharge, where you could see some impact as the customers trade down to lower paper grades. But overall, I think we feel good about our margin outlook for Europe and APAC.

Okay. Great. And then maybe just one last one for me. Bill, I think the free cash flow bogey that you guys gave was kind of in the $15 million range during your call in March. Can you just help us think about that again? And if there's any puts and takes just given everything that's going on, whether it be higher working capital, just given higher inventory holding costs or whatever that might be, just to kind of bridge that gap for us, that would be much appreciated.

Yes. I think it still holds, right? If you look at the midpoint of the guide, we're still around that $90 million area, right? And then you add back the $6 million to $8 million of warrants. So I think on that piece, we're still holding. Then on CapEx, I do think that we can probably do a little bit better. We're looking at $35 million. I think we might be able to be better than that. We're very focused on managing that tightly. Cash interest still remains about $34 million or so. Cash taxes, that $3 million to $4 million. And then working cap, we are still expecting about a slight use of $4 million or $5 million. So still kind of gets you to that $15 million area prior to any debt paydown. Sorry, just outside of that, right, in addition to kind of the margins that you were asking about, we do have a lot of projects and cost-out initiatives in play. Our new COO has implemented a really strong lean Six Sigma program that's underway in both Europe and North America and identifying a lot of opportunities for us to get more efficient, take costs out of the business and help improve our margins.

Your next question comes from the line of Ghansham Panjabi of Baird.

Ellie, I think that was just Baird that just asked.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Troy Jensen of Cantor Fitzgerald.

Congrats on the upside this quarter. Maybe a couple of questions just for you, Bill. To start off, 10% customers, can you quantify how many you had in the quarter?

We did, we had one 10% customer, it was about 10.5%.

Would you expect to have multiple 10% customers sometime this year?

This year, I wouldn't say so, but certainly over the next few years.

Perfect. And then a follow-up on Greg's question on the guidance. You see revenue seems safe, but I guess I just want to focus on the EBITDA. I think the midpoint of your EBITDA guidance was about $90 million. You did $12 million here in Q1. So you got to do about $25 million per quarter. Just thoughts on kind of hitting the midpoint of the EBITDA guidance.

Yes, the guidance is based on the adjusted EBITDA, Troy, so the first quarter was $18.9 million.

Yes. That's enough there. All right. Then my last question, just on the Pickle Robotics, have they reported a valuation pre or post capital raise?

They have not. So Pickle, just to give you a quick update, they have gotten the largest industrial PO for robots in the warehouse, and they're working on that. And Pickle as we speak, will be doing a round and the fund raise that will determine sort of the new valuation. So they're in the marketplace for that as we speak.

Have they talked about liquidation plans? Is the IPO target or grow the business or I'm assuming they get some liquidation, but any thoughts?

Sorry, on Pickle, I think, the expectation is they'll be doing around -- my expectation is this will probably be probably the last round that they do before contemplating something like potentially the public markets or an IPO, but we'll see. And the most important thing, honestly, is the customer traction and where the technology is and from all the work that we've done, we continue to believe they are the leader in trailer unload. And frankly, the POs are giving us that validation.

I'd now like to hand the call back to Bill Drew for closing remarks.

Thank you, Ellie. And thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to catching up on our update for Q2.

Thank you for attending today's call. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.