Dear Colleagues:
Another year has come and gone – and what a year it has been! I would like to take a moment to thank you for your tireless work; without you, we would not have celebrated so many achievements in 2023. Your efforts have made a great difference and helped us achieve the following in 2023:
- we have opened new state-of-the art facilities in Poland and Turkey.
- we have made major investments in our Large Packaging business, particularly as it relates to IBC’s.
- we have added significant capacity in producing hybrid paint cans that will support the needs of consumers and our customers.
- we spent a record amount on capital investment in this year –more than we ever have in the history of our company.
- our International business implemented and actioned a great safety culture, that resulted in our recordable rate going down by almost 40% during the year.
- and, we had record EIP results grown from ideas generating through collaboration between BUs and Corporate Functions. These results help offset much of the market weakness that impacted us this year.
For all these successes, I thank you. Much like 2022, this year was not without obstacles where we could have done better addressing some of our objectives. In our Small Packaging business, our safety performance deteriorated over the course of the year despite the keen focus and attention given to safety. Meanwhile, safety performance in our Large Packaging business, while improved versus last year, did not achieve our 2023 goals. Likewise, our overall sales performance in all our businesses was disappointing. Much of our sales results were driven from very tough market conditions, where our customers destocked overbuys, and then drew down inventories even further because of softening consumer demand. As a result of the soft market volumes, we will not achieve our budgeted numbers this year.
That said, Mauser is well positioned for success in 2024. In the coming year we will continue to navigate headwinds and environmental dynamics by focusing on the areas within our control.
I believe 2024 will present more opportunities for growth for our company and industry alike.
- Additional focus on safety will help drive the right results this year and reinforce how important safety is as a core value for our company.
- While we expect markets to remain weak, I believe we have seen a pick-up in demand requirements from our customers and expect volumes in the second half of 2024 to improve.
- Our sales organizations have won new business that will turn into incremental volume in 2024. When coupled with the market improving this new business should result in good top line growth.
- With our billion-dollar plan, continued investments in people, capital and training will occur this year, resulting in additional growth opportunities.
- I expect our EIP program to deliver just as much in 2024 as it did in 2023. The ideas you continue to propose and the continued engagement I see in this effort are making a real difference. We can deliver more in 2024 if we focus on execution, hold each other accountable, and take calculated risks.
- We will more closely examine our underperforming plants and businesses to develop strategies on how to achieve an appropriate rate of return. In many cases, this will mean making additional investments.
- We have, and will continue to, invest in new businesses. Our investment in Mexico, will help provide more capability and diversity to our North American metals franchise allowing us to service our customers more effectively.
- We are seeking various other acquisitions that will help support our overall business allowing us to grow in the right markets. This will be a major objective in 2024.
- We are beginning to ramp up our innovation efforts; making great improvement in lightweighting products by creating new designs to support our customers’ requests that can help us grow in markets that we do not participate in today.
These are all things that we should be excited about. As part of our billion-dollar plan, I promised you that we would continue to invest in making our business better. In addition to our continued investments, all of us making up Mauser Packaging Solutions must now leverage these investment to prove that we can take our business to the next level.
So, what is next.
- Speak up on what you need to deliver.
- Establish stretch goals that show your commitment to our company.
- Don’t tell me why you can’t deliver, explain to me how you are going to deliver.
- Make sure you take the right steps to be safe in what you do.
As 2023 draws to a close, I want to again take a moment to thank all of you for your work and commitment to our company. I can never say thank you enough for the extra hours on the production line spent making sure our customers get their product on time, the weekend work required by our engineers to support new product start-ups, the overtime put in by our maintenance staff to keep our plants operating, the efforts of our IT department to upgrade systems and provide us with better tools to manage our business, our Finance teams who grind to ensure we have the data to do our job, our Sales and Procurement areas which contribute greatly by providing savings and holding the line on pricing despite tremendous market pressure, our HR, Legal, Safety and Environmental teams that keep us in compliance with regulations and keep the day to day going. The success of our company is built on your efforts, day in and day out. Thank you for your dedication. I am truly grateful for your valuable contributions to our company.
I hope you enjoy time with family and friends and have a safe and happy holiday. You and your family deserve it. I look forward to leading you all going forward in what will be a challenging, dynamic, and ever changing 2024!!!
Mark Burgess
President & Chief Executive Officer
Mauser Packaging Solutions
