Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Holly.

Here we are on our first quarter investor update. I'll draw everyone's attention to slide 2, if I can advance the slide here.

That's our disclaimer regarding forward-looking information. I'll let everyone note that our risks and uncertainties and opportunities are under our annual MD&A and our first quarter 2026 report, particularly under the section risks and uncertainties.

Our annual and quarterly reports can be found online at the company's website, cclind.com, or on sedarplus.ca. Moving to our summary of financial results, slide number 3, for the first quarter of 2026, sales increased 2.8%, with 1.9% organic growth, 0.3% acquisition-related growth, and 0.6% positive impact from foreign currency translation, resulting in sales of $1.94 billion, compared to approximately $1.89 billion in the first quarter of '25.

Operating income was $317.5 million for the 2026 first quarter, compared to $316.9 million for the first quarter of 2025, an improvement of 0.2%. Geoff will expand on the segmented operating results of our CCL, Avery, Checkpoint, and Innovia segments momentarily.

Corporate expenses were down for the 2026 first quarter compared to the prior-year first quarter due to lower variable compensation expenses. Consolidated EBITDA for the 2026 first quarter, excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, increased 1% compared to the same period in 2025.

Net finance expense was $16.7 million for the first quarter of 2026, lower than the $18.5 million for the first quarter of 2025. The decrease is due to higher finance income earned on the company's cash and cash equivalents and a reduction of finance costs on the company's drawn bank debt.

The overall effective tax rate for the first quarter of '26 was 25.4%, compared to an effective tax rate of 24.7% recorded in the first quarter of '25, due to an increase in taxable income in higher tax jurisdictions. The effective tax rate may change in future periods depending on the proportion of taxable income earned in different tax jurisdictions with different rates.

Net earnings for the 2026 first quarter was $204.9 million, compared to $207.4 million for the 2025 first quarter. Moving to slide 4, earnings per share, basic and adjusted basic earnings per Class B share were $1.18 and $1.20, respectively, for the 2026 first quarter, compared to $1.18 basic and adjusted basic earnings per Class B share for the 2025 first quarter.

Adjusted earnings per Class B share increased 1.7% compared to the first quarter of 2025. The 2-cent increase in adjusted basic earnings per share was primarily driven by 2 cents from reduced share count, 1 cent from reduced interest expenses, offset by 1-cent increase from our tax rate.

Moving to the next slide, free cash flow from operations, for the first quarter of 2026, free cash flow from operations was an inflow of $37.3 million, almost equal to the inflow of $39.1 million posted for the first quarter of 2025. The slight decrease is principally due to an increase in net working capital, part offset by lower net CapEx and taxes paid for the first quarter of '26 compared to the prior-year first quarter.

For the trailing 12 months, our free cash flow from operations remains near record levels. Moving to the next slide, returns to shareholders, during the first quarter of 2026, the company moved from a discretionary share buyback to an automatic share repurchase plan.

Therefore, commencing March 2nd to the end of the quarter, March 31st, 2026, the company repurchased approximately 779,000 shares for $67.5 million. In addition, during the blackout period, April 1st until yesterday, the company also repurchased an additional 1.4 million shares for $119.5 million.

Including the 12.5% increase in the 2026 annual dividend that we announced in February, dividends paid for the quarter amounted to $62.3 million, for a total of $129.8 million returned to shareholders during the quarter. It's the company's expectation that more will be returned to shareholders in 2026, as the automatic share repurchase plan is active in the market daily, including blackout periods, where we were previously restricted in 2025 due to our normal course issuer bid being discretionary.

Our board of directors has authorized management, commencing March 2nd, 2026, to purchase up to $1.2 billion of shares over the next 12-month period. Moving to our next slide, cash and debt summary, net debt as at March 31st, 2026, was $1.38 billion, an increase of $115.3 million compared to December 31st, 2025.

This increase is principally a result of higher total debt outstanding due to capital expenditures and share buyback activities. Despite the increase in the company's net debt, the balance sheet closed the quarter in a strong position.

Our balance sheet leverage ratio was approximately 0.8 times at March 31st, 2026, up from 0.78 times reported at December 31st, '25. Liquidity was robust, with nearly a billion dollars of cash on hand and $949 million US of available undrawn credit capacity in our revolving credit facility.

The company's overall average finance rate was approximately 2.5% at March 31st, same as December 31st, '25. The company's balance sheet continued to be well positioned as we move through 2026.

Geoff, over to you.

Thank you, Sean. Good morning, everybody.

I'm on slide 8, highlights for capital spending for the year. A little under $100 million spent in the first quarter, and we're planning to spend $470 million for the year of 2026.

Slide 9, highlights for the CCL segment. Solid 3.1% organic growth, driven by low single-digit decline in North America and the Middle East, mid-single-digit growth in Europe and Latin America, and Asia Pacific where we were very strong due to CCL Design, up in the mid-teens.

We had good results at CCL Design, CCL Secure, and Healthcare & Specialty, and had a strong recovery in Food & Beverage from recent period of soft comps. HPC profits were down on the capacity interruption we mentioned in the press release at a US aluminum container plant and slow sleeve sales.

Labels for mass markets were solid globally with strong results in Europe and Asia. Slide 10, highlights for Avery.

Strong course through the direct-to-consumer space globally, especially RFID-enabled cards and wristbands, and recent acquisitions are also performing. Back-to-school orders we expect to be up a little this year, and that's to say they're now tariff-free, unlike last year, and we saw solid progress in horticulture.

Checkpoint segment, MAS business had another good quarter in Europe, but was weak in the Americas and also a little slower in the Asia Pacific region. Apparel label results were impacted by an abundance of inventory caution across the industry's supply chain.

RFID inlay sales are still however up in a down market, but Mexican startup losses in our new plant there continue. Slide 12, highlights for Innovia.

Strong results in our Polish operation where we make a lot of label films, good growth there, including good success with EcoFloat. Volume however declined from our UK and Australian plants, with deliveries to the Middle East also impeded.

The new German plant, startup costs sequentially declined. Very solid quarter in North America, modestly below a very robust prior-year period.

Outlook for the coming quarter: overall CCL segment orders are solid, but we have significant inflation to manage, which we'll talk about on the Q&A session. The Sleever acquisition is due to close late this quarter, probably in June.

Avery direct-to-consumer growth is due to continue. Apparel orders are expected to improve in coming quarters at Checkpoint, and our confidence in RFID remains very solid.

Innovia demand was strong in April on buy-forward activity in the label material supply chain. That could aid Q2, but potentially hurt Q3 as buy-forward activities normalize as things progress.

FX looks decidedly neutral for the coming quarter. With that, Operator, we'd like to open up for questions.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

A couple of questions.

Morning, Sean. Good

morning. Geoff, hoping you can give context on the inflationary environment you mentioned, I guess from two perspectives.

It's our impression that you guys have a lot of pass-through mechanisms, but we're a few months into this now. Can you give some context on inflation across the system and how those pass-through mechanisms are working?

Then on the demand side, are you seeing any evidence of broader macro concerns starting to feed into demand pressure at all?

I'll deal with the first part of that question. Aluminum hit $6,000 a ton a few weeks ago, but we have good pass-through mechanisms in that business.

Whether it'll affect demand for our products, we haven't seen any change to that as we stand, but it's at a very elevated rate compared to historical levels. The pass-through mechanisms are pretty robust, and are in process.

There's a bit of a lag, some of the customers have 90-day averages, some of them are immediate, some of them have no gain, no pain clauses, it's a bit of a mix, but it's generally speaking a bit of a lag when you get a big increase, but that will probably pass as we accelerate through Q2, as long as aluminum doesn't go to $7,000 a ton. The other area of weakness is in Europe, where the resin markets have really escalated pretty significantly.

I stress mainly in Europe. We've seen some increases in the US, but not to the same extent as we've seen in Europe.

There the pass-through mechanisms are much more mixed, it's much more by negotiation, but everyone has been declaring price increases, we're pretty sure we know what the customers are expecting, and we're expecting to see that margin still stay stable as the quarter progresses. The CPG space has been quite reasonable in the first quarter.

Orders have been okay, and you've seen the results from all of our customers, they've been pretty solid with volume increases. Whether that will continue in the light of gasoline prices only time will tell.

We're looking to see what happens with that, same as everybody else does.

Okay. Thanks for that detail, Geoff.

On the M&A front, between Sleever and the other acquisition, you have about $180 million earmarked for acquisitions in Q2. That's small relative to your liquidity position.

Can you give some context on your appetite for more M&A and the depth of the evolving opportunity set?

We're always interested in M&A. That's our priority for excess free cash flow.

I haven't got anything more to add than that. We still have a pipeline, and we'll see what happens as the year progresses.

Okay. That's all I have for now.

Thank you very much.

No probs.

Hi. Good morning.

Geoff, appreciate at Innovia the focus is more on EBITDA dollars than margins, but how should we think about the scale of price comps that you're likely to realize here in Q2, just given the resin headwinds you mentioned? Also, I know the prepared remarks referenced a potential volume pull-forward from Q3.

Just wondering if you could quantify that.

I can't really quantify it, but I can tell you our orders have been up pretty significantly late March and through most of April so far, and also in the early part of May. How much of that is dollar price increases, how much of that is buying forward ahead of worries about further price increases?

Label materials industry has announced price increases ahead of implementing them, that always triggers demand for label converters to buy forward, and that feeds back into Innovia. We'll just have to wait and see.

The order situation has been very strong, but we know it's not demand-based, it's definitely all activity around the current price activity in the channel.

All right. Fair enough.

I just want to ask on RFID. You sounded confident on the growth there.

Maybe if you could speak to what your expectations on market growth this year and whether you think you're gaining share in this market.

The market declined last year, the numbers of RFID inlays produced by the industry last year declined for the first time in many years. That was all driven by the changes in the apparel channel.

It's stabilized now. We think it'll return to growth, maybe even in the coming quarter.

We did actually grow a bit in terms of number of inlays produced across the board, both in apparel and outside of apparel. That's why we still have great confidence that the business will still grow, but it's definitely took a knock in the apparel space, for sure.

Okay. Great.

Thanks. That's all I had.

I'll turn over.

Thanks.

Yeah. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question.

Can you quantify the financial impact from the thermal oxidizer outage at the Pennsylvania facility and how much insurance recovery you expect to recognize over the balance of the year?

About US$5 million.

$5 million? Okay.

Thanks. Just on Innovia, can you give us an update on the utilization ramp and profitability trajectory of the new thin gauge line in Germany, and when do you expect that asset to start contributing positively to segment margins?

I think it'll be a while before that happens, but the order pipeline is progressing quite nicely. Takes a long time to get approvals to switch.

Have to get through testing and all the rest of it. We're quite pleased with the pipeline progress.

How soon we'll move into positive, we're more focused on positive cash flow at the moment. As soon as the EBITDA is positive, we'll let you know that.

I think that'll be a quarter or two before that happens, before we get EBIT contribution. I think that'll be small to limited this year, but should be a very different picture in 2027.

Okay. That's great.

Just if I can squeeze in just a follow-up on the demand question, at CCL, you referenced softness in higher-end beauty markets while mass market demand remained resilient. Are you seeing a broader consumer trade-down dynamic across the categories you're in?

No, I wouldn't call it trade down. It's just that certain categories of products in the high-end beauty space, we've definitely seen some impact in those areas, in some specialty brand owners.

First quarter for that was slow. It has picked up in Q2, I can tell you that.

It may have been a situation around excess inventories or holiday last year, I don't know, but it was certainly slow in Q1. It's picked up a bit in Q2.

Things like shampoos, skin cares, deodorants, things of that order, the everyday items, that's been pretty solid.

Okay. That's helpful.

Okay. I'll pass the line.

Thank you very much.

Welcome.

Hey, good morning. Geoff, can you just maybe remind us for the label business specifically how some of the inflation and pass-through mechanisms work in those product lines?

We have tens of thousands of SKUs in the label space, probably hundreds of thousands, actually. A lot of it's done with spot changes, things are changing all the time with designs and shapes and sizes, a lot of it's finesse pass-through.

Some of it is more where the labels exist in a more continuous form, that we have pass-through arrangements for. I just want to stress the heavy area of inflation is in Europe.

We aren't seeing that anywhere near the same extent in either Asia, Latin America, or Europe or the US. The focus for us is particularly around Western Europe in the label space.

It's done well. It's finesse pass-through, really.

As we see resin prices increase specifically, does that naturally lead to flow-through on your label input cost?

Absolutely. It goes from the resin to the film producers, including Innovia and other producers, into laminators, and then out to us.

It happens pretty quick.

Okay. Then just on Checkpoint, you did have very modest organic growth in the segment, but margins were down.

What is the big item that is overhanging margins in Checkpoint in Q1?

It's really the weakness in the MAS business in the United

States. Okay.

Thank you.

Hey, good morning. I just wanted to circle back to the disruption in the Middle East.

It doesn't seem like you have material direct exposure. I think you called out CCL segment organic growth in the region down only low single digits.

Is there any chance you can detail for us what your footprint looks like in the region?

We have plants in Egypt, which obviously not really affected by the turmoil there, and that's where our biggest operation is. We have a plant in Dubai, a plant in Saudi Arabia, a very small plant in Oman, and a plant in Pakistan.

That's what we refer to as the Middle East. It was very low single-digit decline.

It was almost flat, actually. We've seen very limited disruption in the CPG space in those businesses since the trouble started.

Okay. That's helpful.

Then, I don't think you'd have anything meaningful exposure here, but figured I'd ask anyways. On the Section 232 tariff update that was announced a few weeks ago, would you have any exposure maybe in the aluminum cans business or anything else for us to kind of keep in mind there?

The Section 232 tariff changes really eliminated the potential to be charged for empty cans crossing the border. Filled cans were tariff-free.

Empty cans they tried to get those to be subject to a tariff, and now seems to have fallen by the wayside. That's good news for us and our customers.

Got it. Then maybe switching over to Avery, you noted that the back-to-school season is expected to be tariff-free this time around.

Can you maybe just detail what your supply chain exposure looks like at this point in time?

We've localized more of the production into our operation in Mexico, raw material supplies. We managed to localize that to a sufficient enough extent where we can claim USMCA status, and that's now been documented and agreed.

One of two leading retailers in the US decided not to take supply chain risks from Asia this summer and opted to have brands that are deemed to be onshore. That's why we have greater confidence in back-to-school.

Great. That's all for me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, great. Thank you.

A couple of questions. Just on the RFID growth, I guess we should assume that was probably in the single-digit range, right, for the quarter for you?

The inlay growth was actually double digits, but most of it occurred in the non-apparel space.

Okay. That's great.

That RFID market itself, that was down, right, in the quarter, you would think?

The year of 2025 was down, for sure. You're talking about the whole market, yes, for sure it was down.

Q1 2026, it was down, it certainly wasn't down by much.

I'd

characterize it as flattish.

Okay. What would you attribute to your, say, outperformance of the market?

We're still a small player. It's probably more around the law of small numbers more than anything.

Okay. Then just moving to the CCL segment, the auto was weak within CCL Design, how soft was that in the quarter?

It wasn't too bad. It was down about 3% in organic sales, down a little bit in profit.

That was more than compensated by growth in electronics.

Okay. When do you We did have

we did have one customer in Germany go bankrupt on us, so that cost us that was most of the most of the profit problem. It was more triggered by customer bankruptcy, but it's an indication of softness in the industry in general.

Okay. Given that then, you're probably going to face that for the next few quarters to lap that event, right?

That's correct.

Yeah.

I think it's still going to be offset by growth in electronics.

Okay. Outside of that one customer, would you say the automotive part of CCL Design was maybe flat in the quarter?

Not flat in sales, bit down in sales, close to flat in profit, excluding that one problem.

Okay. Any idea when you think that might improve?

In automotive?

Yeah.

No, your guess is as good as mine.

Okay.

There's a lot of speculation about automotive right now, I think it wouldn't be wise for me to comment about what's going on with our customers. We just have to wait and see.

In the label business in that space, we're still growing. We're still encouraged by that.

It's not a huge business for us, it's on the order of $300-$400 million annually, it's not material to the whole company.

Okay. All right.

That's it for me. Thank you.

No problem.

Thank you. Good morning, guys.

Morning, Steve.

Morning, Geoff. Just on the CCL segment, the outlook was certainly quite constructive, certainly on the top line.

I'm just wondering, do you still expect sort of full-year organic sales growth in that kind of low-to-mid single-digit range?

The comps get easier in the second half, we know that. It's a pretty uncertain situation we face, Steve, with what's going on in the Middle East.

We don't really know what the impact of all that's going to be on consumer behavior, that we have to wait and see. We haven't seen any signs of weakness yet in terms of business levels with our customers.

We read the newspapers the same as everybody else. When you see gasoline at $5 and $6 a gallon in the US, that perturbs you to the extent of worrying what effect will that have on consumer spending long term.

Far we haven't seen much.

Yeah. Okay.

No, that's helpful. Then just when you think about all the inflation and that you referenced earlier, and that obviously we can all see, but when you think about the CCL segment, is it fair to assume that you'd see sort of a more minimal or more moderate impact to margins from inflation just because of your pass-through mechanisms and the flow-through of

We've got fairly good pass-throughs, but there's always a bit of a lag. We'll see in this quarter how much impact on that there really is.

We've been out putting in surcharges and price increases where that's necessary, and pulling our supply chain levers, renegotiating with suppliers and doing all the things you do in situations like this. We'll just have to wait and see.

I'm not going to speculate on what may or may not happen this quarter or the rest of the year. All I can tell you is right now, in a business where we have four to six weeks backlog, we haven't seen much change in circumstance so far.

Okay. That's helpful.

Thank you, Geoff. Maybe just one for Sean.

Sean, you mentioned you now have the automatic buyback in place. Do you just expect to execute on that as the year progresses naturally?

Yeah. I think, if you look at our monthly reports that get filed, you'll see us in the market each day buying a quantity of shares, depending where the share price is.

As the share price moves up, we'll buy a little less; as it moves down, we'll buy a little bit more; but we'll be active and supporting the stock daily.

Great. Okay.

Great. Thanks, guys.

Appreciate the color.

No problem.

Hey, good morning, everyone. I just wanted to ask one higher-level question around AI, given it's the soup du jour.

Would think your business is very well insulated from any disintermediation or disruption risks, but I was just curious if you're seeing any opportunities to implement efficiencies or cost-saving exercises you might be starting to pursue around that.

Technology tends to affect the design process first in any technology revolution, that's where we see it happening first. I think we're more likely to see that in the design-intense businesses we have, which are really Avery and Checkpoint, the apparel label business of Checkpoint, which are, I don't know, a billion billion-four, billion-five of our revenues, so that's to give you a flavor for that.

We're as intrigued by the productivity impact of AI as everybody is, but it's still early days.

Got it. Okay.

Thanks very much.

No problem.

Thank you, Holly, and thank you everybody for attending the call. We'll see you again in the summer when we hope we have warmer weather than we've had this spring.

Thank you very much.