Chairman and CEO statement

In 2024, SIG continued to outperform the market and gain share, demonstrating the resilience of our business model and strategy despite a challenging economic environment, particularly for consumers. Our ongoing focus on innovation and customer-centric solutions drives our progress. With a solid track we look to the future with optimism.

Financial performance

In 2024, Group revenue increased by 4.3% on a constant currency basis and by 3.9% on a constant currency and constant resin basis. The adjusted EBITDA margin for 2024 was 24.6%. (2023: 24.9%).

Free cash flow was €290 million, 32% ahead of 2023 primarily due to lower capital expenditure after a high level of investment in the prior year. This included geographic expansion into high growth markets, such as India, and delivery of a high number of filling machines.

We are very pleased with the 6.0%¹ revenue growth of our carton packaging. This performance highlights the value we deliver to our customers through our unmatched packaging flexibility, competitive total cost of ownership and our best-in-class sustainability offering.

In 2024, we placed 75 aseptic carton filling machines which was another strong performance after two years of exceptional placements exceeding 90 fillers annually.

Bag-in-box and spouted pouch revenue declined by 5.0% for the year, at constant currency and constant resin. This reflected a weak first half performance given subdued market conditions, particularly in North America, and operational challenges at our US production facilities. These operational challenges were addressed, and we were pleased to report revenue growth of 2.5% in the second half of the year.

Growth strategy

We continue to develop the business organically along geographies, categories and channels, leading to market share gains across our portfolio.

Geographically, we are successfully expanding into India. In December 2024 we completed the construction of our first aseptic sleeves plant in the country. The Company has approved the next phase of expansion with an investment for a local extrusion line expected to be completed by 2027. The expansion will increase our local capabilities, further shorten supply chains and enable local sourcing of raw materials.

In category expansion, our unique capability to fill different types of products, including products with high viscosity and with particulates, means we can offer our customers a diverse range of solutions, enabling a single product, such as milk, to evolve into multiple dairy-based categories During. 2024, SIG successfully launched long-life probiotic milk products in the IMEA region. This is a new market category created by SIG.

With our expanded packaging portfolio, including spouted pouch and bag-in-box solutions, we are providing customers with greater go-to-market opportunities in both retail and out-of-home dining channels. We are pleased to report a significant increase in new contract wins for both packaging formats in 2024. SIG is successfully transforming the portfolio to increase the share of systems-based solutions with recurring packaging revenue as well as expanding the share of aseptic technology. Many of these successes are with our established aseptic carton customers, who recognize the potential to diversify into new market segments.

Innovation strategy

Advancements in aseptic technology and material sciences drives growth of our packaging portfolio. In 2024, utilizing our aseptic carton filling technology, we launched our second-generation aseptic spouted pouch filling machine. It significantly reduces the total cost of ownership for the customer, and importantly enables access to new markets previously reliant on cold chain distribution. This is an industry first in the spouted pouch market.

As part of the rollout of our next-generation aseptic carton filling machine platform, SIG Neo—initially launched for our multi-serve carton format—we have successfully transferred knowledge and technology to our single-serve filling machines. This has enabled us to increase the speed of installed lines, boosting output per line by 10%. This is a strong example of how we continue to deliver added value to our customers in a capital-efficient manner.

Sustainability

SIG has consistently embraced a regenerative approach to sustainability, addressing every aspect of the value chain, from sourcing to end-of-life.

Our paperboard is FSC™ certified, and we are actively restoring ecosystems through partnerships with WWF Switzerland in Mexico, Thailand, and Malaysia. All of our packaging substrates have the lowest carbon footprint among competing substrates and are designed for recycling.

Furthermore, we are steadily increasing the regenerative content of our cartons, with targets to raise the fiber content from approximately 75% today to 85% by 2025 and to 90% by 2030.

Importantly, our aseptic technology minimizes food waste by protecting the nutritional value for up to 12 months and ensures safe food delivery to remote areas of the world, without an energy intensive cold chain distribution system.

Our packaging materials can be recycled into valuable resources like paper, cardboard boxes and other paper-based products. While the polymer and aluminum components can be recycled either separately into recycled polymer and aluminum or together into building materials.

We are delighted that our sustainability efforts have been recognized with the first-time inclusion of SIG in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and reconfirmation from Ecovadis that SIG remains amongst the top 1% of all companies assessed. This applies to all our packing substrates which were included for the first time. We are also proud to have achieved an improved MSCI ESG rating of AAA for 2024, up from AA in 2023, reinforcing our leadership in sustainability.

Capital allocation

To leverage future growth opportunities, we have continued to expand our manufacturing footprint around the world. This included greenfield aseptic carton plants in Mexico (2023) and India (2024) and a new chilled carton plant in China (2024) as well as plant extensions for example in the United States (2023). In terms of capital expenditure for the construction of our filling machines, we anticipate maintaining a level that is largely consistent with previous years.

For the year ended December 31, 2024, we slightly reduced our net leverage ratio from 2.7 times as of December 31, 2023 to 2.6 times. We are committed to achieving our net leverage target of towards two times in the mid-term.

In 2024, SIG’s outlook was upgraded to positive by Moodys (Ba1 positive) and our investment grade rating was confirmed by S&P (BBB- stable). We successfully extended the Group’s debt maturity profile during the year with competitive pricing and terms and saw a high level of demand from a wide range of investors.

Given the strong fundamentals of our business, we are proposing to increase the dividend to CHF 0.49 per share, compared with CHF 0.48 per share in 2023.

Finally, we would like to sincerely thank all of our employees, customers and shareholders for their support and trust in SIG. Without their commitment we would not have been able to build a resilient business that can continue to deliver industry leading growth even in difficult macro-economic circumstances. With the ever-increasing need for more nutrition, together we will continue to innovate and sustainably drive the future of packaging for liquid food and beverages. We look forward to welcoming Ola Rollén, whom the Board has nominated for election as the new Chair, given Andreas has decided not to stand for reelection, as previously announced. Andreas would like to wish Ola all the best in this new role. Samuel and his management team thank Andreas for his leadership and look forward to working with Ola to continue creating value for our stakeholders – for better.

1 At constant currency.