Ranpak Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
October 30, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Walmart strategic partnership announced — up to $300 million in spend (ex-paper) via a 10‑year warranty arrangement that implies roughly $700 million total potential product spend and warrants to buy 22.5M shares, a transformational customer win that management says will materially drive long‑term revenue.
  • Positive Sentiment: Automation momentum — automation revenue grew ~56% CC in Q3 (140% in North America), on track for $40–45M in 2025, and secured a multi‑year enterprise agreement with Medline; management targets automation as ~15% of an $800M revenue goal in five years.
  • Positive Sentiment: Q3 operating performance showed improvement with consolidated revenue +4.4% (5.3% ex‑warrant non‑cash), gross margin recovered to 34.5% (from 31.3% in Q2), and adjusted EBITDA up ~3.5% (7.6% ex non‑cash FX), while management expects year‑end cash of $65–70M and to generate free cash flow next year.
  • Negative Sentiment: Warrant accounting from strategic deals continues to depress reported results — warrants are treated as a revenue reduction and non‑cash expense, trimming ~0.5 pts of gross margin and ~0.6 pts of EBITDA margin and complicating short‑term comparability.
  • Negative Sentiment: Regional softness and leverage risk — Europe and Asia‑Pacific faced volume weakness and destocking, management expects to land at the low end of H2 guidance, inventory remains elevated into peak season, and net leverage is 4.4x (targeting 2.5x), keeping deleveraging execution critical.
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Earnings Conference Call
Ranpak Q3 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Carly and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Ranpak Holdings Q3 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Sara Horvath, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Sara Horvath
Sara Horvath
General Counsel at Ranpak Holdings

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.

Sara Horvath
Sara Horvath
General Counsel at Ranpak Holdings

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.

Sara Horvath
Sara Horvath
General Counsel at Ranpak Holdings

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 September 30, 2025. 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 third quarter results and discuss our outlook. Bill will provide additional detail on the financial results before we open up the call for questions.

Sara Horvath
Sara Horvath
General Counsel at Ranpak Holdings

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

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

Thank you, Sara, and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I wanted to start today by discussing our third quarter announcement that we entered into a strategic and economic partnership with Walmart. This agreement has been years in the making and required the hard work and execution of many of our Ranpak team members. The Walmart agreement is a transformational deal for Ranpak and Ranpak Automation in particular. I'm extremely proud of the team and the solutions we have built in automation as those really drove the origination of this partnership. Our warranty agreement with Walmart can be summarized as a potential for up to $300 million in spend excluding the cost of paper over 10 years in exchange for warrants to purchase up to 22.5 million shares in Ranpak with a strike price of $6.83 per share.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

We expect that over $100 million of such potential spend would be allocated towards automation equipment and services with $200 million of such potential spend focused on PPS products. Given the requirements for vesting exclude the cost of paper, this implies roughly $600 million in potential reported spend in PPS products over the 10 year period for a total potential spend of roughly $700 million across all of our products. This is an extremely exciting transaction for us at Ranpak and I believe cements our place as a true leader in warehouse automation.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

Adding to the momentum in automation, we are pleased to share that we have entered into a multi-year enterprise sales agreement with Medline, the largest provider of medical surgical products and supply chain solutions serving all points of care to provide them with our DecisionTower and right-sizing solutions for up to 14 of their distribution centers over the next several years. As the world's largest user of autostore robotic technology, Medline is on the cutting edge of implementing warehouse automation solutions. We are thrilled to collaborate with them to unlock further value in their supply chain by pairing our end-of-line packaging automation solutions with their storage and retrieval investments so they can maximize throughput in their facilities by picking goods quickly and optimizing shipping volume and customer experience for outbound shipments. The amount of rigor required to satisfy customers of this caliber is tremendous and our team is executing.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

We've made substantial investments in the team and solutions over the past years and it is now paying off. We have marquee automation deals in North America with our two key workhorse products in the Cut'it! as it relates to Medline and AutoFill for Walmart. The Walmart deal in particular highlights how powerful having the best-in-class automation solutions can be in driving growth opportunities in Protective. When I first got to Ranpak the assumption from most was that automation would detract from Protective and that it was a hedge for that business. What we are actually seeing is that they work extremely well together and forge deeper relationships than either business could ever achieve on its own.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

In 2025 we have now partnered and economically aligned ourselves with two of the most demanding and sophisticated customers in the world in Amazon and Walmart, and have the potential to generate well over $1 billion in revenue from these two customers alone over the next 8 years-10 years. I can't think of many companies that can say that and I believe it is a testament to the solutions and talent we have assembled at Ranpak. Five years ago this would not have been a possibility at our company. Now on to the quarter. Consolidated net revenue increased 4.4% and would have increased 5.3% excluding the non-cash impact of warrants on a constant currency basis for the quarter. Enterprise accounts in North America as well as global automation continue to be the main top-line growth engines in 2025.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

Our volume momentum in North America continued in the quarter with large accounts driving 3.7% volume growth against the solid third quarter in the prior year. In Europe and in Asia-Pacific volumes were down 2.5 points versus last year as a more challenging operating environment weighed on top-line results. Overall, consolidated volumes were down 30 basis points versus prior year. Automation increased 56% on a constant currency basis in the quarter versus last year, keeping us on track to achieve our expected full-year automation revenue of $40 million-$45 million. Automation continues to gain traction globally as we believe we are winning more than our fair share in box customization and are beginning to ramp up with Walmart in North America with our AutoFill solution.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

We believe our solution set of box customization, automated dunnage insertion, robotic pad insertion, data and analytics, and partnerships with cutting-edge AI players such as Pickle and R Squared are a clear differentiator in the market and driving adoption of our solutions. North America was a key driver of top line performance with sales up 10.9% driven by an increase in volumes and an increase in automation revenue of 140% over Q3 of last year. Enterprise accounts drove solid growth while the distribution channel improved somewhat relative to the softer Q2 that was impacted by trade and tariff uncertainty. The team continues to drive closes and focus on solution selling, highlighting our breadth as a key differentiator. Underlying demand has been really strong in VoiceCo throughout the year in North America with each quarter up double digits.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

Wrapping had solid contribution in the quarter, up mid single digits after a softer Q2. Cushioning was the only area in North America that was down year-over-year, driven by softer July, August, and September. Cushioning revenue increased nicely and we are expecting cushioning to get a boost from our new launches within our Guardian product line that provides us with smaller footprint and lower cost alternatives to foam in place. Although the launch is very new, the momentum we are seeing is one of the best I've seen from our new product introductions. I think there is a large opportunity in the next number of years to meaningfully grow our cushioning business in North America and Europe with these new products.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

This will not only boost growth but provide favorable mix as cushioning has a better margin profile relative void fill given it's a robust solution that requires more engineering and know how to effectively make cushioning pads capable of shipping heavier industrial grade items. Innovation in PPS will remain a key area of focus for us as we look to expand globally and take further share from plastic and foam. We feel very good about the outlook for North America PPS where we expect our growth will be anchored by Amazon and Walmart in the upcoming years and supplemented by continued innovation while its origins are in automation. We expect the Walmart agreement to drive growth in PPS over the upcoming years as each AutoFill unit placed is expected to consume over $100,000 of paper per year, which we believe should lead to a solid recurring revenue stream.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

We also expect to expand our PPS relationships beyond void fill associated with the AutoFills in order to help Walmart maximize the vesting of their warrants. In Europe, industrial activity continues to weigh on cushioning, which was the driver of volume challenges in the quarter void fill and wrapping combined were close to flat year-over-year. The environment seems to be stable at this point and offering some glimpses of improvement as trade tensions settle, but it's choppy nonetheless. In Europe, we are very focused on what is within our control and driving outcomes through better execution. Europe is our most profitable region, so we are taking a number of steps to drive volume growth. We've put in new sales leadership and are hiring key talent to target larger accounts and focus on total solution selling.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

This will better position us to drive growth through cross-selling opportunities among PPS and automation solutions and develop sticky relationships with some of the largest end users in Europe. Asia-Pacific production continues to ramp up and the team is doing a good job of driving growth in the region, which has been offset somewhat this year due to destocking activity as we ramp up local production of product lines. We continue to view Asia-Pacific as a really important part of our growth story in the upcoming years as having locally sourced paper and production will enable us to be a lot more competitive in the region. We have just qualified our first local paper vendor, which is really exciting. We are looking forward to ramping up production there and produce more for the region locally than in Europe given it's an entirely new team there.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

We have gone slowly and methodically to ramp up production as expected. We saw some sequential improvement in profitability as our margin enhancement initiatives began to have an impact throughout the quarter, driving an increase in gross margins to 34.5% compared to 31.3% in Q2 on a constant currency basis. Adjusted EBITDA increased 3.5% for the quarter or 7.6% excluding $0.8 million non-cash foreign impact. The input cost environment remains similar to our update last quarter. In the U.S., pricing has been flat since increasing earlier in the year and we expect it to remain that way through the remainder of the year. In Europe, the energy markets remain favorable with Dutch Nat Gas in the low $30s. We expect paper pricing for the fourth quarter to be in line with Q3 and helping to maintain our attractive margin profile in the region.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

To summarize, our priorities remain what we shared last quarter: improve margin in North America, drive volumes in Europe, scale automation, and generate cash. We believe all of these things will contribute to a far improved financial profile and enable us to delever to 2.5x target that we have. We want our capital structure to not be a topic of discussion and are committed to delevering. We're executing on a plan to do all these with some early successes in key areas. With that, here is Bill with more info on the quarter.

Bill Drew
Bill Drew
CFO at Ranpak Holdings

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 third quarter increased 4.4% year-over-year on a constant currency basis, driven by solid volume growth in North America and an increase in automation revenue, offset by a somewhat sluggish environment in Europe and destocking in APAC for the quarter. In the Europe and APAC reporting segment, combined revenue decreased 0.6% on a constant currency basis, driven by 2.5% PPS volume headwinds, offset somewhat by price mix and 34.5% growth in automation revenue. Our reported results benefited from 6.4 points of currency as the Euro has meaningfully appreciated since the start of the year. In North America, both PPS and automation increased year-over-year, driven by large e-commerce accounts.

Bill Drew
Bill Drew
CFO at Ranpak Holdings

Automation increased $2.1 million or 140%, void fill and wrapping each contributed positively to growth, resulting in regional revenue growth of 10.9% net of $0.8 million more in expense, which detracted 1.7 points from reported NorAm results. Gross profit declined 3.8% in the quarter on a constant currency basis and would have declined 1.5% excluding the $0.8 million non-cash impact of warrants, excluding depreciation within COGS. Gross profit increased 3.2% on a constant currency basis due to higher sales and improved margins in both NorAm and EMEA. Higher gross profit excluding depreciation from both geographies drove an increase in adjusted EBITDA of 3.5% in the quarter on a constant currency basis or 7.5% excluding the $0.8 million non-cash impact of warrants.

Bill Drew
Bill Drew
CFO at Ranpak Holdings

We continue to keep a tight lid on our spending and are laser focused on our margin enhancement initiatives to drive growth in adjusted EBITDA and enhance our cash position with the ultimate goal of deleveraging to 2.5x. Moving to the balance sheet and liquidity, we completed the third quarter with a strong liquidity position. We had a cash balance of $49.9 million and no drawings in our revolving credit facility, bringing our reported net leverage to 4.4x on an LTM basis and 3.8x according to our bank leverage ratio. As expected, we reduced our inventory somewhat in the quarter, although it remains elevated due to our entering into peak season. Given last year, we want to ensure we have adequate supply to satisfy customer demand and insulate ourselves from any potential disruptions. We expect to reduce inventory further in Q4 and turn that working capital into cash.

Bill Drew
Bill Drew
CFO at Ranpak Holdings

We expect to build cash for the remainder of the year given the seasonality of the business and improvements we will make on our cash conversion cycle. Overall, we are expecting to end the year with approximately $65 million-$70 million in cash on the balance sheet. This is down somewhat compared to last quarter due to a lower sales environment in Europe in Q3 and expectations for Q4 compared to where we expected to be at the end of July. Our CapEx for the quarter was $7.8 million in line with our expectations, of which $6.4 million related to PPS converter spend. Capital expenditures are the area most directly impacted by the evolving tariff landscape. Our strategic sourcing work related to options for converters globally continues. We're encouraged by the progress there in fermenting options for alternatives to sourcing in China.

Bill Drew
Bill Drew
CFO at Ranpak Holdings

We continue to focus our efforts on minimizing impact on CapEx through a greater focus on refabrication and refurbishment of older converters in the field. To reiterate from last quarter, while the environment around this is obviously uncertain from a paper sourcing perspective, we expect minimal impact as we source locally in our production areas. One final area to mention is that you continue to see warrant expense impacting our P&L. In the short term, these will have a meaningful impact on our P&L, but as we hopefully ramp our business with Amazon and Walmart, the impact will be far less pronounced on the comparisons. Again, these are all non-cash impacts, but they will be added back in the statement of cash flows. For reporting purposes, we must treat the warrants as a reduction in revenue, which flows throughout the P&L dollar for dollar.

Bill Drew
Bill Drew
CFO at Ranpak Holdings

This results in a 0.5 point impact on gross margin and a 0.6 point impact on EBITDA margin. With that, I'll turn it to Omar.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

Thank you, Bill. While it has been a challenging start to the year, I'm pleased we demonstrated meaningful progress on our margin enhancement initiatives this quarter, and I'm looking forward to further improvements going forward. As we think about the finish of the year, we feel very good about continued growth in automation and achieving $40 million-$45 million in revenue for 2025 net affordance expense. The momentum in automation is building, and I believe we have something special in that business. In North America the PPS business continues to perform well, driven by our larger customers, and I believe we will have a strong holiday season based on the feedback I'm hearing from the team and our customers. Our margin enhancement initiatives are well underway and having an impact. I believe a lot of the noise and disruption from the beginning of the year is well behind us.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

Europe and Asia-Pacific have been a bit more volatile as volumes have been up and down from one month to another. Asia-Pacific has some air pockets of destocking as lead times for products that we are producing there go from five months to one to two. That being said, our distribution channel in both reporting regions is getting invigorated by our new products in cushioning, void fill, and wrapping. Our innovation is broad based, and that is energizing our partners as well as attracting talented personnel to join the Ranpak team. I have been out meeting with our distribution partners in North America and Europe, and the message is consistent. They all want to grow with Ranpak. I feel very strongly that we're on the right path and building momentum with customers and the market based on the environment.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

In Europe and Asia-Pacific, we are expecting to come in at the low end of the second half revenue guide of $216 million-$230 million and expect profitability to be robust to achieve the lower end of the second half adjusted EBITDA guide of $44.5 million-$54.5 million. Our milestones achieved in 2025 and everything that has led to it has laid a strong foundation of growth and expansion in the years to come. We believe we have the right personnel and structure in place to meaningfully scale this business and that the investments we have made in systems and people are starting to show up across the board. I see tremendous opportunity to enhance our margin profile and gain efficiencies through our internal processes and by working with our vendors who want to grow alongside us. Externally, I see substantial growth opportunities in protective, automation and cold chain.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

The strategic and warrant agreements we signed are having the desired effect of deepening our relationships and providing the opportunity to get into additional products and geographies. With these key players, we have an excellent platform for growth and the opportunity to build. The leader in industrial automation technology, physical AI, and machine vision is driving the next phase of industrial automation, and I believe we have the solutions and access to data that others dream of. The target I'm setting for the team is to grow to $800 million in revenue organically within the next five years and to have automation be at least 15% of that total revenue. I believe we can achieve that with our current offerings and what we have currently in development in our new products. At this point, we'd like to open it up for questions. Operator.

Operator

At this time I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Greg Palm with Craig-Hallum.

Greg Palm
Greg Palm
Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions, Omar. Going back to the guy, just wanted to make sure I understand all the kind of the puts and takes. It sounds like, you know, relative to the last update, you know, really no change in automation, no change in North America, a little bit of a slowdown or weaker results in kind of Europe and in APAC. Is that right? Anything else that you want to point out? I just wanted to make sure I understood all that.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

Good morning, Greg. No, you got it right. I think we continue to feel excellent about automation globally. By the way, in North America we continue to see very robust volumes, including up to now. Europe and Asia-Pacific are a little bit inconsistent, so just to be clear, we will be within the guide. It's just given the inconsistency in those businesses, we expect to be on the lower end of the range. That's the thing that we're monitoring. Honestly, Europe continues to start and sort of show some pattern of improvement. The hesitation we have around that, Greg, is things are changing fast in Europe, and we would like to see a trend continue over a longer period of time before we build our confidence on the business there. That's basically the summary. You got it right in terms of the building blocks.

Greg Palm
Greg Palm
Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum

Okay. Gross margin actually bounced back a lot more, I guess more quickly as well, relative to what I would have thought. How much of sort of the full impact of both pricing and some of the cost reductions did you see in Q3? I guess maybe a different way to ask it is how much is still left to go in Q4.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

In pricing. Obviously, given what we've done in North America, we saw a good positive impact in Q3 on the cost initiatives, margin improvement, continuous improvement. Honestly, I see a lot more room there. We continue to execute. We're improving in our buying, we're improving in our logistics and freight. We've made some tangible moves. We have a plan over the next few months to continue doing that. We are also looking at our physical footprint and optimizing that. You may recall we've hired a new Chief Operating Officer who joined us who is working hard on some of these initiatives. I think on the cost initiatives, I'm expecting a lot more progress and to continue to drive gross margin on that front.

Greg Palm
Greg Palm
Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum

Okay, perfect. Just shifting gears to Walmart, obviously a very important announcement. Congrats there again. Can you give us just a sense on how the ramp will progress over the time frame? $700 million spend, 10 years. That implies a pretty significant annual contribution. I'm guessing it will be a lot less than that initially and then ramp more meaningfully over time. Maybe you can help us understand what that might look like based on what you know today.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

Sure. We are already in the ramp up phase. There was some modest help in Q3. You will see more help in automation in Q4. We are expecting in 2026 and beyond in the next few years to really ramp up quite a bit on the equipment side. I personally think that spend will occur in a period that's meaningfully shorter than 10 years. Given the dialogue I'm having with Walmart, I think you will see Walmart relatively quickly become probably the second largest customer we have and there's quite a bit of room to grow in terms of their annual spend with us. I think we will see how 2026 goes, Greg, and obviously that will help us guide the upcoming sort of ramp up. The key thing is some of our projects are in their next generation facilities, so it's related to their build out there.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

You can see in public comments, Walmart is investing heavily in e-commerce, in DCs and in FC fulfillment and we are the beneficiaries of that as they continue to invest in that area. I think you'll see some impact starting in Q4 and hopefully much bigger impact in 2026 and thereafter.

Greg Palm
Greg Palm
Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum

Okay, perfect. Lastly, your sort of longer term targets that you put out, I want to make sure I heard it right. You said $800 million in revenue in five years, automation to contribute 15% of that, is that right? Do you have sort of an EBITDA margin target in mind if you're able to, you know, execute upon that?

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

You have that right. These are the right numbers in the next five years. That is our organic plan, if you will, where we think the businesses we have today and the new product introductions that we're working on can lead effectively to doubling the top line in the next five years to $800 million. You have it right on automation, where I believe we can get to 15% out of that $800 million coming from automation. Honestly, the guidance I have for the team that we're working towards, and you're seeing us making progress toward that, is we want to be in a business that has north of 25% EBITDA margin. That's the longer term goal.

Greg Palm
Greg Palm
Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum

Okay, appreciate the insights. Good luck. Thanks.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

Thank you.

Operator

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from Ghansham Panjabi with Baird.

Ghansham Panjabi
Ghansham Panjabi
Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird

Yeah. Hey guys, good morning. Just sort of building on the last question, you know, as relates to 2025. I mean obviously a lot going on with the macroeconomic environment in Europe, U.S. and you know, of course your internal initiatives, etc. What is a reasonable baseline for volumes for 4Q and how would that disaggregate between your two major regions?

Bill Drew
Bill Drew
CFO at Ranpak Holdings

Hey Ghansham, this is Bill. For 4Q, I think we're expecting fairly consistent with what you saw this quarter just based on what we're seeing out of Europe and then continued strength in North America. We continue to see the enterprise accounts drive solid volumes in North America. We do think we'll get more of a contribution from the distribution channel as well in North America, which should help to improve things and also contribute favorably to the margin. EMEA and APAC, given the environment there, remains a little bit more challenging and harder to call. We are expecting to be a little bit down there year-over-year and also take into account some destocking in APAC. Overall, as we exit the year, we're looking to get back to growth in that area as well.

Ghansham Panjabi
Ghansham Panjabi
Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird

Okay. In terms of automation, clearly, this is, or at least I think it's going to be more lumpy than perhaps your protective packaging business in terms of volumes. How do you think about, how should we think about the comparison going into next year and how you're going to build off that pretty significant momentum that you're showing this year for different reasons, including your strategic partnerships?

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

Yeah, good morning, Ghansham. I think, you know, as you highlight, obviously automation is about, you know, it's driven by the sale, you know, and then the deployment and installation of equipment. It's a little bit different than the consumable business we have in PPS. As I said, we feel very confident that we will hit the $40 million-$45 million this year which will represent, you know, meaningful 40%, call it 50% growth year-over-year in the near term, honestly. Ghansham,

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

we continue to see the trend of 50%+ growth in automation and our confidence in that growth trajectory is increasing because frankly a bunch of it is with customers that we signed, that we're deploying, that we're building the equipment and installing and it's agreeing with them on the deployment and installation schedule. As I announced in the call, we have a large enterprise agreement now with Medline who is very sophisticated in automation. We're very excited about helping them in a number of their DCs and we're working on other deployments like that. This is a business where you can start building a backlog over time Ghansham, and the confidence in the numbers is higher. It's probably more a business where you should think about it in terms of annual deployments that you can do rather than quarter by quarter, which is how we're thinking about it.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

The growth trajectory in the near term, I'm expecting it to be 50%+ in the top line.

Ghansham Panjabi
Ghansham Panjabi
Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird

Got it. Just one final one, you know, as it relates to the momentum that you're seeing with these, again, these partnerships, etc. including Medline. How is the weighting going to change between North America and the overseas market, especially Europe, as we, you know, over the next three years, just given the asymmetric growth that you're seeing, or is the growth yet to come in Europe and the weighting is going to be pretty much comparable as it is now?

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

That's a great question, Ghansham, because obviously recently and with enterprise accounts, we've seen bigger growth in North America and we've seen some challenges in Europe.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

What I'm expecting as Europe stabilizes is that we will get back to growth in Europe, in particular around new product introductions that are really important globally, but in particular very important in Europe as we try to come up with converters that are faster and have a more compact sort of footprint. That's really important in the European market where DCs and warehouses are smaller than what you see in the U.S. We have a roadmap to regain market share to drive our growth. Having said that, in the next few years, I continue to expect higher and more further growth in North America than in Europe. To your question, I think the geographic exposure of our company over time will lean heavier towards the U.S., but for the right reasons. In other words, not because I think Europe is going to decline.

Omar Asali
Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings

I actually think we're going to reverse the trends and as Europe stabilizes, we will grow, but it will be at a lower pace than what we're seeing in North America. We've been a small public company. That's a bit unusual in the quantum of exposure to Europe. Over time I expect that you will see Europe still being a very large and important contributor, but North America play a bigger role and obviously given sheer size today, we think Asia-Pacific has tremendous room for growth to try to drive top line.

Ghansham Panjabi
Ghansham Panjabi
Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird

Okay, and if I could just squeeze one more question, maybe for Bill as it relates to cash flow, anything we should keep in mind versus your initial guidance and obviously you're pointing towards the lower end of your EBITDA range for the back half of the year. Also, lastly on CapEx for 2026, can you give us a frame of reference as you think, how to think about that component?

Bill Drew
Bill Drew
CFO at Ranpak Holdings

Yeah, sure. I think it's pretty consistent, right, with what we went through last quarter. We did lower our year-end cash balance forecast to $65 million-$70 million, which is a little bit lower than what we talked about in Q3, sorry, at the end of Q2. That's really driven by just the performance in Europe and APAC, right, the lower sales environment there. I think we are looking to finish in that $65 million-$70 million area in cash on hand, and that's just driven by the lower volume outlook. As we think about next year, right, we do look to get back to free cash flow generation. I think, for us, we're looking to generate probably $15 million-$20 million in free cash at least next year based on what we're seeing.

Bill Drew
Bill Drew
CFO at Ranpak Holdings

I think the CapEx piece of that would be about $35 million or so based on what we're looking at now.

Ghansham Panjabi
Ghansham Panjabi
Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird

Thank you so much.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back over to Bill Drew for closing remarks.

Bill Drew
Bill Drew
CFO at Ranpak Holdings

Thanks a lot, Carly, and thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to speaking again after Q4.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Sara Horvath
      Sara Horvath
      General Counsel
    • Bill Drew
      Bill Drew
      CFO
Analysts
    • Ghansham Panjabi
      Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird
    • Greg Palm
      Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum
    • Omar Asali
      Chairman and CEO at Ranpak Holdings
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