Greif, Inc. (GEF) Earnings Call Transcript

Good day, and welcome to the Greif, Inc. 2021 Annual Shareholders Meeting. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mike Gasser, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Greif. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Paul. I just like to call to order the Annual Meeting of the Stockholders of Greif, Inc. Hello. This is Mike Gasser, Chairman of the Board. It's my pleasure to welcome everyone. And on behalf of the Greif Board of Directors and our 16,000 colleagues in over 40 countries, we thank you for joining us today. We are conducting our annual meeting this year virtually by the Internet. As you know, safety is our first priority at Greif, and we believe given COVID-19 that this virtual format is the safest way for our stockholders, guests and friends to come together at this time. In 2 days, this Thursday, February 29 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, Greif will be hosting our quarterly earnings conference call with our CEO, Pete Watson; and our CFO, Larry Hilsheimer. They will be providing a presentation on our first quarter results, which will be released tomorrow afternoon after the stock market closes. They will be available during that call to answer questions. The earnings conference call can be accessed as described on the web page you are seeing for this meeting. This information is also set forth on the Greif website under Investors upcoming events. Accordingly, the company will not be providing a formal presentation or answering questions today. I would like to introduce you to the other members of the Greif Board of Directors, all of whom are in attendance on this call. You should be -- all should be familiar with all of them. They are Vicki Avril-Groves; Bruce Edwards; Mark Emkes; John Finn; Dan Gunsett; Judith Hook; John McNamara; and Pete Watson. Bob Patterson, the CEO and Chairman of Avient, is our newest Director as of last March, and we are very pleased that he has joined us. Also with me today is Gary Martz, Greif's Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. I now appoint Gary to act as Secretary of this meeting. In addition, on the line with us today are representatives of Deloitte & Touche LLP, our independent auditors. They will be available to answer and respond to any appropriate questions. [Operator Instructions] I will now ask Gary to read the notice of the meeting and present evidence that the notice was duly mailed to all stockholders entitled to vote. The Secretary will also present a certified list of the Class B stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting, which list will remain open for inspection by stockholders during the course of the meeting. Gary?

Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. I present an order filed with the minutes of this meeting the certificates showing that notice of this meeting was mailed to each stockholder entitled to vote at least 10 days prior to the meeting. I will now read the notice of the meeting, which was sent to the stockholders entitled to vote. Dear stockholders, it's our pleasure to invite you to join our Board of Directors at our 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Greif, Inc. Date and time, Tuesday, February 23, 2021, 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, place webcast, items of business to elect 10 directors to serve for a 1-year term and to transact such other business as may properly come before the meeting and any all adjournments. Only stockholders of record of the Class B common stock at the close of business on December 28, 2020, will be entitled to vote at the annual meeting. We hope that Class B stockholders will promptly vote over the Internet, by phone, by mailing their proxy cards in the enclosed envelope or in person. On behalf of the Board of Directors, management and employees of the company, thank you for your continued support. I now present a certified list of the stockholders entitled to vote at the meeting. If you have joined this meeting using your control number, you can access this list to the link at the bottom of the web page entitled Registered Shareholder List. I present an order filed with the record of this meeting a certificate, which shows that a duly certified list of stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting was open to inspection at this office for at least 10 days preceding the meeting. Back to you, Mike.

Thank you, Gary. I now appoint Sue Ann Myers and Tracy Greer to be proxy tellers for this meeting and ask and order all proxies surrendered to them later to be filed with the secretary of the meeting. I now direct the proxy tellers to submit their report to the secretary of the meeting.

Mike, I've received the report of the proxy tellers, which states that a majority of the Class B shares are represented at this meeting, and we have a quorum.