Ball sales shrink in quarter when aerospace division sale was inked

WESTMINSTER — Ball Corp. (NYSE: BALL) saw its year-over-year sales and net attributable earnings tumble a bit in the third quarter of 2023, a busy period for the can-manufacturing giant during which it inked a deal to offload its aerospace business. 

Net earnings attributable to the corporation were $203 million on sales of $3.57 billion in the most recent period.

That’s down from net earnings of $392 million on sales of $3.95 billion in the same period of 2022.

Still, the company grew its earnings per diluted share year-over-over. That figure in the most recent period was 83 cents — topping the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a cent — compared to 75 cents in the third quarter of 2022.

“We delivered strong third quarter results. Improved operational efficiencies across our global aluminum packaging operations, inflationary cost recovery and benefits of cost-out actions offset higher interest costs and challenging year-over-year volume comparisons. During the third quarter, the initial phase of sequential improvement in our quarter-over-quarter global beverage can shipments emerged and was driven by double-digit volume growth in our Brazilian beverage can business,” Ball CEO Daniel W. Fisher said in a prepared statement. “In North America, we further optimized our plant network to ensure proper supply/demand balance while continuing to enable access to high-quality, innovative aluminum beverage cans and bottles at a growth cadence appropriate for market conditions and our customer mix. These actions and improved plant performance, in addition to deploying the aerospace sale proceeds to significantly reduce our leverage and increase share repurchases, serve as catalysts for higher shareholder returns.”

In August, Ball announced that it had struck a deal with British aerospace company BAE Systems PLC to sell Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. for $5.6 billion in an effort to focus on its core can business.

“Ball, going forward, will be a pure-play aluminum packing leader,” Fisher said in August. 

Ball leaders said that they plan to use proceeds — after taxes, the windfall is expected to be $4.5 billion — to buy back stock and provide shareholders with dividends. The deal will also help Ball reduce its debt.