Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Greif fiscal third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time all the participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session you will need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Matt Eichmann. Please go ahead. Thanks, Whitney. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Greif's third quarter fiscal 2021 earnings conference call. This is Matt Eichmann. I'm joined by Pete Watson, Greif's President and Chief Executive Officer, Larry Hilsheimer, Greif's Chief Financial Officer, and Ole Rosgaard, Greif's Chief Operating Officer. We will take questions at the end of today's call. In accordance with Regulation Fair Disclosure, please ask questions regarding issues you consider important, because we're prohibited from discussing material, non-public information with you on an individual basis. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up before returning to the queue. Please turn to slide two. As a reminder, during today's call, we will make forward-looking statements involving plans, expectations, and beliefs related to future events. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed. Additionally, we'll be referencing certain non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP metrics can be found in the appendix of today's presentation. Now, I turn the presentation over to Pete on slide three. Hey, thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your interest in Greif and hope that you and your families are staying both safe and healthy during the pandemic. Greif delivered robust third quarter results. We executed with discipline to deliver record quarterly adjusted EBITDA of $238 million and adjusted Class A earnings per share of $1.93, fueled by strong volumes and ongoing strategic pricing actions as we continue to experience strong demand across our global portfolio. Our leverage ratio fell at 2.8 x, our board approved a $0.02 and a $0.03 increase to our Class A and Class B quarterly dividend, respectively payable on October 1st. We're also increasing our adjusted earnings per share and adjusted free cash flow guidance, reflecting our strong year-to-date results and positive outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year. Finally, in late June, we announced a planned executive leadership transition that will occur next year. Upon my retirement on February 1st, 2022, Ole Rosgaard will assume responsibility for Greif's next Chief Executive Officer. Until that time, Ole will serve as Chief Operating Officer and work closely with me and our executive leadership team on his transition. Ole is a servant leader and a proven team builder with a demonstrated commitment to customer service excellence and disciplined operational execution. Those attributes, along with his extensive manufacturing and industrial packing experience, makes him the ideal leader to take Greif forward. Ole, I'd like to ask you to say a few words. Thanks, Pete, and good day, everyone. It's great to be with you. As Pete mentioned, my name is Ole Rosgaard, and I'm excited and humbled to be named as Greif's next CEO. I look forward to joining these calls in the quarters ahead and to working more closely with all of you in the future. As Head of Global Industrial Packaging, my focus was on driving and delivering the operating and business results that our customers and shareholders expect. As COO, that focus continues across the wider Greif portfolio. As Pete said, I'm working closely with the executive leadership team on our fiscal 2022 business plan and will share more about my priorities for the future after I assume my new role. With that, I'll turn the presentation back over to Pete on slide four. Hey, thank you, Ole. On slide four, the Global Industrial Packaging business delivered outstanding third quarter results. Our global steel drum volume increased by 8% per day, while global rigid IBCs and large plastic drum volumes both rose by more than 25% per day. We also saw a mid-teens improvement in our filling volumes versus the prior quarter, with demand accelerating specifically in APAC. Third quarter average selling prices were up across all key global substrates year-over-year due to raw material pass-through arrangements and strategic pricing actions. In North America, which features our most diverse product mix, all of our key substrates recorded low teens volume growth or better versus the prior year, thanks to generally improving industrial conditions. In Latin America, steel drum volumes rose by 15% on a per-day basis versus the prior year and benefited from improved industrial trends and a strong agricultural and citrus season. In EMEA, third quarter steel drum and rigid IBC volumes increased by roughly 5% and 28% per day respectively, with strong improvement across most key end markets. Finally, in APAC, steel drum volumes rose by 7% per day versus the prior year. Demand was solid in China, but a little softer in Southeast Asia due to COVID-19 related lockdowns that we continue to monitor across parts of that region. Across GIP, we see little indication of customers rebuilding inventory. Supply chain conditions remain tight, and our team is managing this challenge very well. While we have not experienced any significant raw material shortage, some of our customers have, which has negatively impacted our demand in certain regions. Labor availability is becoming more challenging, which is not unique to Greif, and has impacted the productivity of some plants in both GIP and Paper Packaging. These disruptions are not material at enterprise level, but certainly present operational challenges nonetheless. GIP's key end markets are healthy. We experienced a double-digit performance volume demand year-over-year for both chemicals, specialty chemicals, and lubricants in most parts of our global portfolio. Volume demand for paints and coatings also strengthened, especially in the U.S. and EMEA. Volume demand for solid food and taste weakened versus the prior year quarter, but this was largely the result of pricing and margin decisions on our part that impacted cyclical demand in Southern Europe. GIP's stronger volumes and higher average selling prices resulted in higher segment sales and gross profit year-over-year. GIP's third quarter adjusted EBITDA was a record and rose by roughly $62 million due to higher sales, partially offset by higher SG&A expense, mainly attributed to higher incentive accruals. The business also benefited from a $9 million operating tax recovery in Brazil and an $8 million FX tailwind. Please recall that GIP's Q3 2020 results included an opportunistic sourcing benefit of $5 million that did not recur. Looking ahead, GIP is off to a solid fourth quarter with August volumes comparable to our trend in July. I'd also like to comment that our thoughts and prayers are also with those that were impacted by Hurricane Ida earlier this week. While the damage from Hurricane Ida is extensive and dramatic, at this time and what we know, we do not anticipate a material impact to our fiscal 2021 fiscal results from the storm. I'd ask you to please turn to slide five. Paper Packaging's third quarter sales rose by roughly $120 million versus the prior year, attributed to stronger volumes and higher selling prices due to increases in published containerboard and boxboard prices. Adjusted EBITDA rose by roughly $18 million versus the prior year due to higher sales, partially offset by higher transportation and raw material headwinds, including a $24 million OCC drag. SG&A expenses rose year-over-year, primarily due to higher incentive accruals. We are actively executing on price increases in response to robust demand and cost inflation. Since early June, we've announced five price increases, including a total of $100 a ton on CRB, $120 a ton in total on URB, and $70 a ton on containerboard. As of August, the published indexes recognized $50 a ton on the CRB increases, $50 a ton on the URB increases, and a $50 and $60 a ton on linerboard and medium respectively. Demand in our current converting operations remained very strong. Third quarter volumes in CorrChoice, our corrugated sheet feeder system, were up roughly 27% per day versus the prior year, and are anticipated to stay strong through the fiscal fourth quarter. Third quarter specialty sales, which includes litho -laminate, triple -wall bulk packaging, and coatings, were up more than 38% versus the prior year. Third quarter tube and core volumes were up nearly 18% per day versus the prior year and accelerated by mid-single digits versus Q2. Thanks to improved demand for textiles and protective packaging and continued strength in the film end -market segment. Paper Packaging's off to a solid start in August. Volumes in CorrChoice and our tube and core business are comparable to July's actuals. Similar to my comments about GIP, we do not anticipate damage caused by Hurricane Ida to have a material impact to our Paper Packaging results in Q4. I'd like to now turn it over to our CFO, Larry Hilsheimer. Thank you, Pete. Good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide six to review our quarterly financial performance. Big picture, it was an outstanding quarter. Third quarter net sales, excluding the impact of foreign exchange, rose 34% versus the prior year quarter due to stronger volumes and higher selling prices, and were a record. Adjusted EBITDA rose by $78 million and was also a record. As Pete mentioned, EBITDA results include a $9 million Brazilian tax refund from overpayment of revenue-based taxes to the government that occurred in prior periods and were wrongly levied. That refund reduced SG&A. Keep in mind our adjusted EBITDA result overcame more than a $50 million of combined OCC and incentive headwinds versus the prior year, making our performance that much more impressive. Interest expense fell by roughly $6 million versus the prior year quarter due to lower debt balances, lower interest rates, and a lower interest rate tier on our credit facility as a result of our substantial debt repayment. Our third quarter GAAP and non-GAAP tax rate were both 22% and were flat to the prior year. Third quarter adjusted Class A earnings per share more than doubled to $1.93 per share. Finally, third quarter adjusted cash flow fell by roughly $43 million versus the prior year. While profitability improved significantly, working capital was a substantial cash use compared to a source in the prior year due to the run-up in raw material prices and corresponding cost increases. That said, our team is executing with discipline and controlling what it can with superb results as trailing four-quarter working capital as a percentage of sales improved by 190 basis points year-over-year to 10.7%. Please turn to slide seven to review our outlook and key modeling assumptions. As Pete mentioned, we are increasing our adjusted earnings per share and adjusted free cash flow guidance, which reflects our strong year-to-date results and positive trajectory for the remainder of fiscal 2021. At the midpoint, we anticipate generating Class A earnings per share of $5.20, which is $0.50 per share more than our guide at Q2. This improvement is largely due to stronger volumes and favorable pricing, more than offsetting the additional OCC headwinds we expect to incur for the remainder of fiscal 2021. With our anticipated fiscal 2021 result, we will have more than doubled earnings per share since 2015, despite COVID-19's negative impact, the closure and/or divestiture of nearly 99 core or suboptimal plants, and without any share repurchase benefit. Keep in mind that we currently have 600,000 more shares outstanding now versus the end of 2015. We now anticipate generating between $335 million and $365 million in adjusted free cash flow, with a bias to the upside of that range. At the midpoint, adjusted free cash flow has improved by $45 million relative to our Q2 guide due to improved earnings, slightly lower Capital Expenditures, and cash tax savings, partially offset by higher working capital usage commensurate with our announced price increases to offset cost inflation. Please turn to slide eight. We employ a consistent three-pronged capital deployment strategy focused on business reinvestment, debt reduction, and capital returns. We have executed on an aggressive de-leveraging plan and repaid $370 million in total debt since Q3 2020. Our compliance leverage ratio improved by nearly a full turn over that time period, and we now anticipate reaching the high end of our targeted leverage ratio range by the fiscal year-end. Given the dramatic improvement in our leverage profile and confidence in strong future cash generation, the board approved a 4.5% increase to our quarterly dividends effective this year. This is a first step towards a practice of steadily increasing our dividend as we discussed in prior earnings call. With that, I'll turn the call back to Pete for his closing comments. Hey, thanks, Larry. If everyone could please turn to slide nine. I want to personally thank our global Greif team for executing with discipline to deliver outstanding third quarter as we continue to strive towards our vision of being the best in customer service. Looking ahead, we are well-positioned to benefit from ongoing strength and improving trends in our key end markets. Our extensive global portfolio, differentiated service capability, and sharp focus on operational execution enable us to best serve our customer needs while generating significant shareholder value. Thank you for your interest in Greif, and Whitney, if you could please open the line for questions. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question is from the line of Ghansham Panjabi with Baird. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Morning, Ghansham. Congrats, Pete and Ole, on your new roles. Wish you the best in the future. I guess on the Global Industrial Packaging side and the operating leverage you delivered was quite substantial. Can you give us a bit more insight into whether there was any sort of mixed benefit for that segment? I'm just looking at volumes, which basically reversed the decline from 3Q 2020. I guess I'm trying to understand what drove the extent of the margin expansion, even with cost inflation to the extent you experienced. I'll talk a little bit about the volume and a little bit margin, and Larry can add. From a volume standpoint, Ghansham, we had some low benchmark comparisons versus prior year. I think in our opening comments, the only end segment that we had lower volumes was the food and solid food business, but that's more relative to the decision we made on price and margin in Southern Europe. Our volumes and all our substrates are strong. The end markets are very healthy. We don't see much change in that going forward. We continue to execute with discipline on some of our self-help initiatives that we've talked about. We're very disciplined in our pricing actions, both on executing on pricing for raw materials to our PAMs. We've done a really good job in that business of getting non-raw material increases. I think 55% of our contracts include an opener. The teams have done an exceptional job, and we're executing very well operationally and driving a lot of self-help initiatives through a variety of our actions to drive better margins. We're really pleased and excited, and we think there's good upside going into next year. Larry, any other thoughts? Yeah, Ghansham. I take it down to three things. One, we have been maniacal on our approach to staying ahead of inflation, and our teams have executed extremely well. The annual openers that we built into the contracts over the last four, five years have really provided a way to offset those other increasing costs. That's number one. Number two is the execution of the PAMs and making them way more efficient and cutting down the lag period. That has benefited us greatly in a period of highly accelerating raw material costs. So we've had some nice tailwind from that. Third is our focus on really getting rid of underperforming operations. I mentioned previously where we were. Well, we're now up to about 89 plants. We've over $500 million of revenue we've walked away from on very low-margin business that was 2% or EBITDA or so. All of those things combined are what's driven the margin, and we can expect to continue to execute going forward. Got it. Just for my second question, I know it's early, but any reason why we should not use the back half of this year's EPS run rate at a minimum as a baseline for fiscal year 2022 EPS, adjusting for any seasonality? You have a lot of pricing coming through and volume seem to be in a good spot. Any reason why that would not be the case? No. Very clear. Thank you. Your next question is from the line of George Staphos with BofA Securities. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations, Ole and Pete, again. I guess to start, if you can talk about the cost inflation you incurred in the quarter. You mentioned $26 million in terms of OCC, if I heard you correctly. What was the total, including OCC, of variable cost pressure year-on-year in the fiscal third quarter [audio distortion] and other input costs? Because you had about $250 million of pricing, what's built into your assumptions for the fiscal fourth quarter, again, on variable cost inflation year-on-year, including OCC, transport, and the like? George, in the paper business, the inflationary element Q3-over-Q3 was about $36 million. $24 million of that was OCC. The other was related to chemicals, adhesives, et cetera. Transport was another $13 million just on higher volumes. Another $21 million when you take into account labor, other temps, and additional transport on just core volumes. Substantial in the paper business. Let me back up on the GIP piece. We had raw material price increases of around $46 million, currency drag of about $8 million, and then we had also manufacturing and transport of another $22 million from higher volumes, inflationary manufacturing and transport of $10 million. I'm sorry, the $46 million was actually our price increases. I don't have a number on the raw material cost year-over-year. Do you have that, Pete? It was $29 million. Got it. $24 million from OCC, $5 million for others. Yeah, $5 million for other pieces, $36 million in total. Just to give you a sense, George, cold rolled steel is about 3x more expensive right now than it was a year ago, and a similar ratio on resin. I'm sorry, Larry, I didn't quite get that. You said the $46 million in GIP was actually selling price increases. Yeah, that was price. That was raw and non-raw price increases. I was reading the wrong line. Okay. All right. I guess what I'm getting at, if I look at your guidance and I take the run rate of pricing that you got into the fiscal fourth quarter, and I add up the, again, not labor, but all the other variable cost pressures, it seems like your guidance is fairly conservative and is building in room for maybe another $50 million it seems like of incremental cost inflation. I don't know if you can talk to those specific factors, but any color there would be great. My other question, I'll turn it over. Pete, I heard you comment a little bit about the fiscal fourth quarter, but could you give us a bit more detail in terms of what trends you're seeing volumetrically across the businesses early in fiscal fourth? Thank you. On what we're seeing on volumes in the market in August, which is the first month of our fiscal fourth, the trends are very similar to what we saw in July. Again, healthy end markets. Our volume trends will continue to be strong. You do have to remember our fourth quarter last year, our volumes started picking up from the COVID drop-off, so the increases will not be as substantial as they were in Q3, but they'll still be pretty strong, and we feel really good about the market and the demand equation for our fourth quarter in both PPS and GIP. George, I don't have the clear data on the raw material component. We do expect that our margin in our GIP business will be slightly lower in Q4 than it was in Q3 because we don't anticipate steel costs going up as much, and so we'll have a catch-up where our pricing indexes did not increase, but we have some higher -cost steel coming in to our inventories. Still very healthy margins. Okay, thank you. I'll turn it over Your next question is from the line of Mark Wilde with BMO Capital Markets. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Pete, I just want to say kind of congratulations to both you and Mike. I can remember six years ago, the company was in a much tougher situation when you took over, and it's nice to see you kind of getting ready to go out with such strong performance. My questions are really if you can help us a little bit more on what is left in terms of pricing. You talked about sort of the board price initiatives you have, I'm also just curious in terms of kind of the lag roll -through on tubes and cores and corrugated sheets and converted products. If you can just help us think about that issue. Thanks, Mark, and I appreciate the kind words, and I've got to tell you, we've got a very deep bench here at Greif, and we've got a great talented team, and I have very high belief that we're going to have a great future at Greif. To your question on what's left of the mill increases. As we said, containerboard is a $60 in medium, $50 in liners. It's been recognized. We'll start getting impact in September with full impact by October. Not a full Q4 impact, but it'll be accelerating through the quarter. On URB, we have a $50 ton increase that has been recognized, and again, the impact will start in September and be fully realized through October. What's left on URB is we announced $70 on September 13th. We fully expect that to be recognized as the backlogs and demand for that product is very strong at this point and don't see any change in the future. On CRB, we announced a $50 and was recognized in two pieces, one a $30 and one a $20. Our recognition or impact won't be till calendar 2022 due to contracts in that business. We have also announced a $50 ton increase for August 30th for CRB. We fully expect that to be recognized as well. Again, business conditions are strong, our backlogs are long, and we're real bullish on this business right now. Okay. Pete, for my second question, I'm just curious about potential investments in the URB business. You've got one really large competitor there. They picked up a very efficient machine in Wisconsin a few years ago. They're rebuilding their main complex down in the Southern U.S. To remain competitive with them as they improve their asset base, do you need to make incremental investments in your system? You make a good point, our largest competitor has done some investments, as you know, they have taken a stranded medium machine and converted it to a wider and a very efficient URB machine. We've got a plan for how we're going to improve our URB system, and it combines both our mill system and our converting capability. We don't see that we're going to have a significant disadvantage in cost in that. I think what's more important is what we do and how we go to market and create a differentiated advantage, high touch from a customer service standpoint, how do we create value for our customers and grow that business through that customer service differentiation. We are looking at ways to improve the overall cost structure and footprint of that mill system, and we'll have more to come into 2022. Okay. If I could slip just one more in. Is it possible to just remind us of sort of the roll-off on the Graphic CRB contract? We're not going to go specifically into it, Mark, only because that's between us and Graphic. It's rolling out through the three different mills sequentially starting next year into late 2024. Okay. Sounds good. Thanks, Pete. Thank you. Your next question is from the line of Adam Josephson with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Good morning, Pete and Ole. Congratulations and all the best of luck to both of you. Larry, one on GIP, just on your fourth quarter assumption, and then I've a full-year question. You had the FX benefit, the Brazil benefit. There's seasonality typically in that business, and that profitability is normally lower, 4Q versus 3Q. You mentioned that the steel price issue. Can you just help me with what your expectations are for the profitability in that business in 4Q? I'm going to, again, ask a full-year related question. Adam, I don't have the breakdown of that business for the elements that you just spoke of. Let me just walk through just what we anticipate and what changed from our prior year guidance. I can talk broadly at the factors that are going to impact GIP, which will have lower profitability in the fourth quarter for some of the reasons you mentioned. We had previously guided to $4.70 a share, and we're now up to a midpoint of $5.20. Just roughly, you've got $0.82 of operational improvement that's related to volume and prices, offset by about $0.42 of OCC. Interest expense is a $0.05 lift, tax is a $0.01 lift, we've got other on equity earnings and stuff that's roughly $0.04 on the midpoint. There's ranges around all of those. Yeah, we won't have any more tax refund from Brazil in this current year, and likely not in the future, although there's a slight possibility we may get something further down the line. The element of steel cost catch -up, as you're accelerating rapidly, you clearly have some benefit of the inventory that you have already purchased at the lower cost as things accelerate. The curve has started to flatten a bit, although there's been a recent cold rolled steel cost increase again in the U.S. The rate of increase has dramatically decreased, you'll have some margin squeeze as that plays through the inventory. We don't anticipate, relative to the given current economic projections by most economists, that there's going to be any kind of dramatic drop in steel cost, which would be the only thing that would really be problematic for us. We do see a little bit of squeeze in the margin. The seasonality impact that you mentioned clearly plays out in the fourth quarter. A step down in profitability in the fourth quarter for GIP is a correct assumption on your part. Just two more. If I look at the full year, Larry, let's say that your EBITDA in that segment ends up being, call it $450 million. If I look at the previous four years, it was somewhere around $300 million per year. You'd be going from basically $300 million- $450 million, which is it's a 50% jump. Can you help us with, is that the right baseline, in your mind, to go off of for next year? I mean, the improvement is truly dramatic and commendable, and I'm just trying to understand if you think that is kind of the right baseline or there are some perhaps temporary factors such that that is not the right baseline to go off of for next year. Our team has been doing an outstanding job of improving operational. Matt pointed out, I think I might have said 89 facilities closing. It's actually 79 facilities, stated that. Like I said, we've walked away from a lot of unprofitable business. We've replaced virtually all of it with more profitable business by winning through our focus on customer service and improved margin business. I think the basics of what you say, and I'm not going to get into specific numbers, but are accurate. We will, as the steel cost flattens, there will be some margin degradation. We also have a lot of continuing self-help efforts going on. We have additional CapEx projects on blow molders and a few other operations that are going to continue to improve. It's a good baseline to work off of, is the bottom line answer your question. Yeah. Thanks so much. Just one more, if you don't mind. Can you, however you want to answer this, in other words, include the price increases you've announced but haven't been recognized, or just limit the answer to those that have been recognized. If you add all of them up, containerboard, URB, CRB, what would the impact be on your revenue and Paper Packaging next year? Similarly, if you take the assumed 4 Q OCC price and you just flat line it through next year, what would the impact of that be? Yeah. Yeah. If we take all that and go with the assumption that Pete and I have of recognition of the last price increases we announced, and you played through OCC at the current level, it's about $180 million lift on the bottom line. All right. Thank you, Larry. Your next question is from the line of Gabe Hajde with Wells Fargo. Good morning, team. Pete, pleasure working with you, and Ole, look forward to working with you going forward. Yeah. Thanks, Gabe. Appreciate it. A lot of questions have been asked, but I want to kind of come back to what Adam was dialing in on. I think maybe instead of focusing on margins, because raw materials can play a pretty big role in what those numbers shake out to be. Even if I go back to kind of coming out of the global financial crisis, I think the comment is pretty consistent in that EBITDA, I think, kind of peaked out around $366 million in 2010. Taking into account all the business that you've walked away from, and I'm asking sort of in the context of you guys have given kind of fiscal 2022 financial objectives. Is there anything in that business that you can point to or direct us at, whether it's mix of business from a product standpoint or geographic standpoint, that makes it structurally different than kind of what the business was before? Appreciating, obviously, Pete told us you walked away from $500 million of revs. Yeah. Gabe, I'd make some comments on it. I'll repeat them. Big picture, if you think about it, we've been consistently talking to all of you about the fact that we've been focused on building our business in plastics and IBCs. It's a pretty big structural change relative to the margin profile, particularly after we walk away from the poor business we had. The other is a bigger focus on the end markets we serve. We have shifted a way where, if you went back to that post-financial crisis time that you spoke of, we were way more heavily dependent on the chemical companies than we are today. Those are two big structural shifts for us that I would mention. Pete, anything? Yeah. Really three things, how we've improved the overall structure and how we lead that business. First, it's much more improved price discipline. We've talked a lot this year about the improvements to our contracts and PAMs and shorter pass-throughs, also about the non-raw material price increases. More importantly, we're much more coordinated in that business with one leader under Ole Rosgaard. We've centralized all pricing desk with really strong analytics. I think technically we're better at what we do. We have better overall view of the markets on a global basis, which most of our customers are global in nature. I think we're much more consistent over our strategy to value over volume, which goes to Larry's point. We've walked away from a lot of unhealthy business, and we've gone after markets that are growing higher and have opportunities to be more profitable. You can also look at what GIP's done from a customer service initiative. When we started in 2015, they had a 57% CSI score. Now they're above 95%. Our ability to serve our customers across a global portfolio has dramatically improved. As Larry said, our strategic growth initiatives are into the resin-based products, IBCs, IBC reconditioning, and plastic drum. If you remember five years ago, I think our total percentage of products or revenue in steel was over 60%. It's now at 51%. That growth is in better profitable business and higher growth markets that the plastic drums and the IBCs address. Third, we've talked about this, and it's really important. We've had some tremendous self-help initiatives. As Larry said, we've closed significant shops that were losing money, were at low EBITDA. We've done rooftop consolidations to reduce our fixed cost structure. We've done some structural changes to our SG&A cost as part of running this as a global business. When you look at all that, Ole Rosgaard's done a really tremendous job at changing trajectory of that business. We feel really confident that it's sustainable and can grow. We're real pleased with that business and the potential we have in the future. Thank you guys for that. The other one is on capital allocation. Obviously you guys kind of bumped the dividend here, and you've talked about that. You talked about investing in the business on slide eight. One of the things I think you put in prior slide decks is kind of your framework for which you kind of filter and think about inorganic or M&A. Can you remind us a little bit, maybe Larry, as to how you think about M&A, I guess from a financial standpoint, and sort of how does that coincide with the way management is incentivized? Yeah, thanks, Gabe. Look, we will remain committed to spending the capital needed to make sure that we feed the cash machine we have, meaning we will spend what we should on maintenance capital. I think you'll see us doing more and more around automation, given the labor components of things. Highest priority is always making sure that we save and grow what we have. We will continue to focus on getting our debt leverage ratio down to where we target. Obviously we're very close and expect to be there at the end of this fiscal year now. We've talked previously about we're in the middle of a strategic plan, focusing on wrapping that up by the early part of next year, and then we'll communicate out to all of you about what our go forward look is relative to M&A and that kind of thing. We also recognize that we are going to be in a situation of really having a lot of excess capital very shortly. The extent that we don't meet our criteria, which that same chart that we showed many years ago around the various return criteria that we have given the risk of a potential investment will continue to apply. To the extent that we don't find opportunities that fit our appetite, then we'll be returning even more capital to our shareholders. Hey, Gabe, this is Pete. I just want to make one comment on that. I think we've done a phenomenal job at de-leveraging the balance sheet, but I just want to make it clear, regardless of what our debt leverage ratio is, we're going to be really disciplined in our process to capital allocation. I think that's important. We're going to stay true to our strategy and our priorities. I feel really good about that process that we've put in. Again, we're going to have a very disciplined approach for how we allocate capital to create the best value for the shareholders. I appreciate that, gentlemen. Obviously there was an initial response to the Caraustar Industries acquisition and questions around timing and such. Just wanted to kind of refresh as to how you guys think about it. Thank you. Thanks, Gabe. Again, to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question is a follow-up from the line of George Staphos. Hi, everybody. Thanks for taking the follow-on. Pete, I was wondering if you could talk about where your volume trends are by end market relative to where they were pandemic. Larry, if you could, I think you commented a little bit on this on the last call, you thought that there should continue to be growth for Greif in end markets and for the company looking at fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2023, because a lot of the questions, obviously, from the analysts today, ourselves included, is, "Hey, you've had a great year, but you also have a tough comparison now. So where's the growth going to come from essentially? I think I got most of your points, George, but you broke up pretty significantly on the part that you addressed to me, but I'll try, and if I don't hit it, then maybe come back to you. I'll let Pete go through your first question first on end markets and that, and then I'll try to attack yours on what are we seeing growth in the future. Yeah. George, let me comment first on our Paper Packaging segment. Our business models to serve both integrated and independent plant corrugated box plants raw materials, and then on tube and cores, we certainly have a direct model, a pretty widely dispersed end market segment. That model has really accelerated our customer service model in a really tight supply chain environment. I think it's enhanced our Paper Packaging value proposition. With our strategic investments in that business, we've really taken advantage of the e-commerce packaging. We've grown significantly in that segment compared to where we were two years ago. I think that's one big trend. I also think the pandemic in our tube and core business really damaged some of those markets, and they're coming out of it very well, as you can see by our growth of 18% year-over-year. We see really good, strong trajectory of our end markets in our tube and core business in August and going forward. I think we're really well-positioned in the end segments there. I'd like to ask Ole to comment on those end segment strengths in GIP, if you could, George. Thanks, Pete. Hi, George. Hi, Ole. We see the end markets that we serve at the moment very strong, and in particular, bulk and specialty chemicals are strong. Lubricants, oils, and paints and coatings and adhesives, those end markets are strong, and we expect them to remain strong into the foreseeable future. Yeah. I think one thing is you look at a trend, George, from a standpoint of disinfectant and cleanliness, which I think is going to be a bigger factor post-pandemic. Some of those end products and chemicals we produce, that will continue to improve. Again, our greater access to IBCs and IBC reconditioner really positions us well to some of those growing markets. George, relative to at least what I think I heard your question of, "Hey, this is great. We've had a wonderful 2021. Makes it for a comparable challenge in how might we be focusing on growth?" A lot of it's going to be sort of, hey, things remain the same. We are going to continue to leverage our focus on customer service. We have, we believe, gained some market share. We recovered the business that we walked away from with more profitable business. We attribute that to winning customer share because we are a reliable supplier, and we are a value-add supplier. Our teams have done a great job of building those relationships with the customers in both the GIP and PPS business. We'll continue to leverage that. Second is back to the strategy of continuing to extend into plastics in the IBCs and our plastic drum businesses and extending that. Third, we'll be looking at over integration in our paper business and what do we continue to do. We've been very pleased with the success of Palmyra, even through COVID and coming out. That's been a fantastic operation for us. The last I'd say goes back to the process we're working on right now, which is our strategic focus in determining what is our growth plan going forward, which is sort of in the sausage works right now. Again, we'll talk about that next spring. Thanks, Larry. Can you hear me okay, or is it still chopping? If it is, I will. No, it's good now. Okay. Yeah, it's good now. To everybody. Sure. I guess the question I have to follow -on is just on plastics. Do you feel you have sufficient share and penetration both in IBC and plastic so that you get the optimal in both plastics and metal? I'm guessing from your comments, you feel you do because it seems like it's a focus. Yeah, I think, George. Unfortunately, you broke up again, but I think your question was, do we feel like we have a market position to begin to leverage that more fully? Yeah, we've said this often before. Virtually every one of our IBC CapEx spend has been a situation where we have been approached by customers who want us to serve them, and we have over 50% of the volume committed before we even do a project. We're being asked by customers, because of the great service that we're providing them, to get more into the IBC business. As we do more and more, that virtuous cycle and the recycling component really starts to drive the margin improvement. We did the Tholu acquisition two years ago. We did the investment in the recycling group here in the United States. We did another small deal in Italy. We continue to execute on that whole recycling component of IBCs and plastics. We are a significant player in plastic drums already. In the U.S., we're the largest player. We have the opportunity to expand our business in EMEA and in Asia. There's a good growth path in front of us. George, to comment on Larry's reconditioning comment, a big part of our strategy is grow that circular business economy model. Right. It's very important to customers, where not only are we supplying a new IBC, but we have a system in place to collect it and repurpose it, whether it's cleaning and reconditioning it and sending it back out to customers or by using it for recycled PCR that we can go back and increase the amount of resin that's recycled in our products. It's really important to customers, and you'll see, going forward, we need to improve and increase our ability to do that. That, in turn, will really enhance our overall position in that market, and we're behind some others, but we're making quick movement to catch up. I think our customers have responded very well based on our growth rates in that business. Whitney, we'll take the next question. We may have lost George. Okay. He's fine. Okay, our next question is a follow-up from Mark Wilde. Thanks. I've got three quick follow-ups. First, Larry, can you give us a sense in both GIP and in paper of the year-over-year increase in the incentive accruals in the third quarter? The overall incentive increase corporate-wide, Mark, was $27 million third quarter over third quarter. The breakdown of that ends up being about $6 million in PPS, $8 million in PPS, and then the rest on corporate functions and other units. Okay. All right. Second question. Ole, you've had a change in leadership recently at your primary competitor in GIP. I just wondered whether you're seeing any changes in behavior there that you'd be comfortable talking about. Thanks for the question. We primarily focus on our own business, our own customers, and my primary function is to serve our customers the best possible. Okay. No change in behavior that you've seen in the market? No. Okay. All right. The last one, for Pete and Ole. I'm just curious. Any learnings from that sort of early teens experience in M&A that didn't go well as you think about sort of the strategic plan going forward, things that you learned you don't want to do again? Back when we got back into an acquisitive mode in 2017 and 2018, we did extensive learnings on what went right and what went wrong, both in process, which includes this risk management structure and framework. How we went about doing diligence, evaluating fits to our business, and also how we executed and determined the value we can create. I think we demonstrated that in not only the Caraustar Industries acquisition, but some of the other smaller acquisitions we've done. We're really pleased. Part of this process we're involved in now has to do with relearning. Let's go back and look at what we did really well in the past few years and what we need to improve on. We're always in this mindset of a continuous improvement. Again, it's really important that we stay focused on what drives shareholder value, and not be excited about growth for growth's sake. It's got to be accretive to our current portfolio and to the value we can deliver. We're learning, and we're improving, and what we want to do is get the reputation that we are great executors in our business operationally and our strategic intent. I think we're making good progress on it. Ole, anything you'd like to add to it? No, Pete. Yeah. I'll just add one thing, Mark. I'm a big believer in checklists. Maybe it's back from my public accounting experience, but we have created a checklist of all the lessons learned. Whenever the business units have to present an opportunity to Pete and I, whether it's a CapEx project or an acquisition opportunity, every one of those items on that list that came out of all those learnings has to be addressed. We're very formalized about it, structured, and I think it'll pay off for us continuously going forward. Yeah. I think Mark, the other comment, what Ole has demonstrated in the last five years here is really strong execution, very disciplined approach to business. I think him going into this role will create a really stronger discipline in how we evaluate acquisitions, and more importantly, how we execute them going further. I feel really good about where we are and what we're going to do going forward in a very disciplined approach to capital allocation. Okay. Thanks, Pete. Good luck in the fourth quarter and as we look into next year. Yeah, thanks, Mark. Thank you. Your last question is from the line of Adam Josephson. Thanks a lot, Pete and Larry. Appreciate it. Larry, one on the tax rate. If you end up at the low end of your range at 20% this year, your tax rate will have gone from 27% last year to 20% this year. Do you consider that a sustainable level thereafter, or is there something unusual this year that you would point us to? Yeah, we had some additional free-up of reserves as some tax exams were completed, but not substantial. I do believe, again, with the caveat of whatever happens in Washington and other government capitals around the world on changing rates, but if rates were to stay stable in the current tax system, then low 20s is very sustainable for us. Obviously, I can't predict, at least I'm not willing to predict yet what's going to happen in Washington or in other places around the world. If it were stable, we'd be very confident in staying in that rate. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. Just on your OCC assumption and thoughts. You're assuming, I think, a $5 increase sequentially in September/October. Some people I've talked to expect a lot more than that in September. Can you just talk about why you appear to be assuming a fairly modest increase sequentially in September, October, and what you think the sustainability of these kind of price levels is? Obviously, we're at the high end of the historical OCC price range. Box demand has been the best it's ever been, so it comes as no surprise, I guess, that OCC is behind of its range. How sustainable do you think these price levels are, and why not expecting more of an increase in September? Thank you. Obviously, you know we have a relatively sizable player in the recycled paper business, we go to our team for what they believe is going to happen. Obviously, we're not blind to what comments are being made at conferences and things that are driving some other people's views. That said, we've said we estimate $5 in the average. As you know, we have a range. Our range contemplates the numbers that have been thrown out there by others. We're totally comfortable with the guidance we've provided if that does happen. As to the sustainability, I think it's going to be very interesting to see how things play out, because as you mentioned, production of containerboard and boxes and everything else is at all-time highs. Well, that means there's a whole lot of supply out there. It's just how are we getting it collected. Obviously, the supply of OCC is not matching the supply of production of containerboard, and I think everybody would acknowledge it has a bit to do with the change in where stuff is going. Obviously, more is going to e-commerce than historically it happened. The big driver, we believe, is labor, and it says much labor for collection, but also in the MRFs. So we have active dialogues going on with the large haulers, Waste and Republic and regional ones like Rumpke and others, to try to understand what's going on in their business. What we're hearing is they're all somewhat optimistic that as some of these unemployment supplements roll off, that they'll have more success in getting labor back into their operations. If that happens, that should lead to more collection and more supply. We're, I'll say hopeful, I wouldn't say optimistic, but hopeful and believe that OCC costs should trend back down over time as the labor component of this gets addressed either through more employment or through more automation in their operations. Got it. Thanks so much, Larry, and best of luck in the quarter. Thanks. Thanks, Adam. At this time, there are no further questions. I will now hand the call back to Matt Eichmann for closing remarks. All right. Well, thank you very much, Whitney. We'd like to thank everybody for their participation today and their questions. Hope you all have a really nice week ahead. Take care now. That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.