With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Industries included in the sector are building materials, forest products, metals, and packaging.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Materials

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-269-Crown Holdings

Founded in 1892, the packaging company's products include aerosol containers and metal food and beverage cans.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-272-Crown-Holdings

The Philadelphia packaging manufacturer, founded by the inventor of the bottlecap in 1892, makes metal cans and closures for food and beverage companies including Coca-Cola.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

Profits ($M)

Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

Profits as % of Assets

Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

Earnings Per Share ($)

EPS % Change (from prior fiscal year)

EPS % Change (5 year annual rate)

EPS % Change (10 year annual rate)

Total Return

Total Return to Investors (last year)

Total Return to Investors (5 year, annualized)

Total Return to Investors (10 year, annualized)

Crown Holdings is a global packaging company that manufactures and sells aluminum beverage cans, glass bottles, aerosol cans, and more. Founded in 1892, the company operates 189 manufacturing plants in 39 countries. Crown Holdings also serves food industries, including pet food, personal care, household, and industrial products.

Q2 2026

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Q4 2024

Crown Holdings (CCK): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Crown Holdings

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Good morning, and welcome to Crown Holdings' Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Conference Call.

Your lines have been placed on a listen only mode until the question and answer session. Please be advised that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Gluthier, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Thank you, sir, and you may begin.

Thank you, Al, and good morning. With me on today's call is Tim Donahue, President and Chief Executive Officer. If you do not already have the earnings release, it is available on our website at crowncorp.com. On this call, as in the earnings release, we will be making a number of forward looking statements. Actual results could vary materially from such statements.

Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to vary is contained in the press release and in our SEC filings, including our Form 10 K for 2023 and subsequent filings. Earnings for the quarter were $3.02 per share, including a $2.32 per share gain from the sale of Eviosys compared to a $0.27 per share in the prior year quarter. Adjusted earnings per share were $1.59 compared to $1.24 in the prior year quarter. Net sales for the quarter were up 2% compared to the prior year quarter, reflecting a 4% increase in global beverage can volumes and increased food can volumes offset by lower volumes in Transit Packaging. Segment income was $428,000,000 in the quarter compared to $382,000,000 in the prior year, reflecting higher beverage can volumes in Americas and European beverage, increased volumes in North American Food, partially offset by macroeconomic headwinds impacting the transit business.

During the fourth quarter, the company received $338,000,000 from the sale of Eviosys and recorded a gain of $275,000,000 For the year, the company delivered record adjusted EBITDA of $1,942,000,000 dollars compared to the record $1,882,000,000 dollars from 2023. The improvement was driven by 5% global beverage can growth and strong operational performance in all of our beverage businesses. The company delivered $814,000,000 of free cash flow after contributing $100,000,000 to annuitize The U. S. And Canadian pension plans and making an estimated tax payment of $50,000,000 related to the Eviosa sale.

The company returned $336,000,000 to shareholders in twenty twenty four, one hundred and nineteen million dollars in dividends and $217,000,000 in share repurchases. With our record EBITDA combined with the net debt reduction of $878,000,000 we reduced net leverage to 2.7 times at year end. First quarter twenty twenty five adjusted earnings per diluted shares are projected to be in the range of $1.2 to $1.3 a share with full year range projected to be $6.6 to $7 per share. The adjusted earnings guidance for the full year includes net interest expense of approximately $355,000,000 to $360,000,000 depending on the timing of share repurchases exchange rates at current levels with the euro at $103 to the dollar full year tax rate of approximately 25% depreciation of approximately $310,000,000 dollars non controlling interest expense to be approximately $150,000,000 dividend to non controlling interest are expected to be approximately $130,000,000 We currently estimate twenty twenty five full year adjusted free cash flow to be approximately $800,000,000 after $450,000,000 of capital spending. At the end of twenty twenty five, we would expect net leverage to be closer to our targeted leverage ratio at 2.5 times.

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

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning to everyone. As reflected in last night's earnings release and as Kevin just summarized, operating performance in the fourth quarter was well ahead of last year's fourth quarter, owing to stronger performances across our global beverage can businesses. Fourth quarter beverage segment income improved 17% compared to last year due to a 4% increase in global shipments, high utilization across the network and continuous improvements in our manufacturing performance. In total, adjusted earnings per share were well ahead of last year even after accounting for the higher tax rate. Americas Beverage reported an 8% income improvement over a very strong prior year fourth quarter on the back of a 5% shipment increase in the segment.

North American volumes advanced 7% in the quarter with Brazil up 4%. For the full year, North American volumes were up 7% and Brazil Ten Percent. We significantly outperformed the North American market again in 2024, which we believe for the full year was up about 1%. Looking ahead to 2025, we expect our North American volume performance to be largely in line with the market. In Brazil, we expect mid single digit growth in 2025.

European beverage volumes increased 8% in the fourth quarter with shipments notably strong across The Mediterranean and in The UK. This led to significantly higher income in the segment compared to a soft prior year. For the full year, volumes improved seven percent over 2023, leading to a record income performance for the segment. We continue to see the conversion to the aluminum can as the package of choice for beverages in Europe and we expect 2025 to be another record year of earnings on the back of strong demand. Income performance in Asia Pacific remained firm in the fourth quarter leading to a 27% increase for the full year.

Volumes in the fourth quarter were down 4% mainly a result of our prior year actions to improve revenue quality. While consumer purchasing power across the region remains subdued, our cost reduction programs have positioned this segment well for future income improvement. Based on current demand forecasts, we expect the segment will be in line to better in 2025 compared to 2024. In line with our expectations, income and transit packaging was down as global industrial activity remains sluggish. We remain focused on tightly managing the business and generating cash on cash returns.

Unlevered free cash flow in this business once again exceeded $250,000,000 The current outlook for 2025 is for flat to marginally up income performance with the first six months reflecting current conditions. Volume in North American food improved significantly compared to a soft prior year fourth quarter with the demand increase balanced across pet food, vegetables and soups. We expect income in the non reportable businesses to be up about 10% in 2025. Operationally, 2024 was a strong year. So to summarize, segment income was up almost $100,000,000 and we generated significant free cash flow.

Asian production capacity has been right sized. The sale of our remaining 20% interest in EDOSIS was completed. We reduced future balance sheet risk by annuitizing almost all of The U. S. And Canadian inactive defined benefit pension obligations.

More than $300,000,000 was returned to shareholders and after all of that, net leverage was reduced to 2.7 times. Looking forward, the company has a world class manufacturing team, capable to serve the needs of a diverse set of global customers from an optimized footprint. We serve a well balanced portfolio of attractive growing categories. The balance sheet is strong. We generate significant cash flow and are well positioned to continue to create and return value to our shareholders.

And with that, Elle, we are now ready to take questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Phil Ng of Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hey guys, congrats on a very strong quarter. I guess first out, Tim, Americas has been really strong, especially in the back half of 2024. What's driving some of the outperformance? Is continuous improvement in manufacturing an element of that? And when we look at the '25, what are some of the puts and takes off of a record year?

You gave us some outlook on demand, but how do you kind of see earnings kind of shaking out this year? And what are some of your customers saying at this point?

Yes. So I'll deal with the first part of the question first, Phil. I had a look at this. I know last year, the fourth quarter was the strongest quarter we had. The fourth quarter this year came within $5,000,000 of being the strongest quarter and certainly the back half of both years much stronger than we've traditionally experienced in the past.

A lot of that due to continuing growing business in South America that is Colombia and Brazil. Their season a little different than our season. And again, exceptionally strong demand around the holiday season here in North America. I'm always a bit surprised. I was a little surprised the outperformance we had here in Q4 compared to the guidance we gave you previously was principally due to how strong North America was here or The Americas was here and specifically North America in the fourth quarter.

We did not anticipate that we would exceed last year's record fourth quarter and we did that. Looking ahead, as we said, we think demand for the company having outperformed the industry over the last several years, each of the last several years, we think we're largely in line as we've stated before with market performance. So if you will, if the market give yourself a range of minus one to plus two depending on how promotions go and how strong or weak the consumer is or how strong or weak the consumer perceives he is, the market could be anywhere in that range minus one to plus two in our view. Others may have a different view, but that would be our view. We have modeled so you know, we have modeled North American volume to be flat in the numbers that Kevin has provided you.

So we are not stepping out on a ledge assuming the consumer is going to be exceptionally strong. Now we'll talk about tariffs and I'll ask you to allow somebody else to ask that question since you asked yours already. We'll talk about tariffs and the potential impact that tariffs may have on demand. The other puts and takes, obviously, there will be a little PPI giveback to the customers when those contracts cycle. The majority of those are April, some in July, a few in January.

And as you can tell by our margins certainly our margins are very strong and contracts are set very well, but there does come a time when the customers deserve to get some of the money back when costs come down. And while PPI is not a perfect proxy for our cost and we've talked about this before, labor never comes down. You can reduce labor content, but labor rate never comes down. And certainly, the coatings guys have found a sweet spot in how they can drive value. And we've not seen a lot of we've not seen a lot of give back from the coating suppliers to us over the last several years.

So while not a perfect proxy, it is the methodology used within the contracts and we adhere to contracts. So that'll be just a couple of the puts and takes. I don't know if I've answered your question. I think I did.

Yes, that's great. And then Tim, just from a cash flow standpoint, cash flow is strong. Your balance sheet is pretty close to your leverage target. So my question is, what are you going to do with all that cash? Is it buyback?

Do you see any opportunities on bolt ons? Just kind of help us think through how you're going to deploy that capital and unlock value for

Well, I think, Phil, let's start with $800,000,000 and I'll make it as clear as I can. $800,000,000 back off a couple hundred million dollars for dividends to the minority partners and dividends to the public shareholders, it leaves you with about $550,000,000 to $600,000,000 And as we sit here today, the modeling that Kevin has done, we're assuming fifty-fifty debt reduction and share repurchase. And that can change depending on where the markets take us here in 2025 and depending on how you all in the buy side determine you want to value us. We continue to believe that we are significantly undervalued given a pristine balance sheet and high cash flow generation and a low share flow.

But we'll see how we're valued and we'll make a decision as to whether we adjust that fiftyfifty.

And Tim, will you front load that buyback or is it going to be

Phil, look, I think the share price is at a good price now, Phil. I would expect through the first half of the year for us to do something close to the fifty-fifty that Tim was talking about.

Okay. Appreciate all the color guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Parkinson of Wolfe Research. Your line is now

Hi, guys. It's Andrew actually on for Chris. Real quick, want to kind of understand sustainability of momentum in Europe. Obviously, you've had a couple of really strong quarters.

How are you thinking about that going into 2025 and sort of what are the puts and takes in the region?

Well, I think it has real traction in Europe. There are I'm going to use the term any number, which is kind of a meaningless term, but there are any number of various packaging directives being floated about by individual countries, by the European Union, etcetera, that either directly or indirectly affect the aluminum beverage can. We believe the aluminum beverage can continues to be the best positioned drinks package to accomplish everything that the let's just call them the greens that the greens want to accomplish. I think that for the most part, we can always do better, but recycling rates are certainly much higher in Europe. So we feel very good about that.

We need to get recycling rates higher in The United States, but we feel very good about the rates in Europe. And we would continue to expect to see conversion from glass and other substrates to the can. But I think if you look at glass performance in Europe versus can performance in Europe, you can see what's happening and I don't expect that to slow down.

Got it. Thanks. And any commentary on Asia on a go forward basis in terms of volume especially?

Yes. So I think we're up significantly this year, but that's really just clawing back what we gave away in the last couple of years and that was rightsizing the cost based production capacity into what we believe is a new volume framework until the consumer regains some strength. So the consumer is still a little weak in Asia, in principally all of the Asian countries. We continue to do well in Cambodia. Vietnam is a little softer than we would like.

We've modeled a decline in our volumes in China, but an increase in Southeast Asia. We've got some other contractual things we're working through, but we think the business is marginally up. Maybe it's income wise, it's up 2% to 3%, four % next year compared to this year. So we'll certainly hold on to the gains we've made and cost base is really in a good place for when volume returns for it to flow through to the bottom line.

Great. Thank you so much. I'll turn it over.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ghansham Panjabi of R. W. Baird. Your line is now open.

back to your comments on North American volumes, I think you said the industry estimated plus 1% last year and then you're assuming flat for this year. So if we kind of go back to the 1998 through 2018 sort of paradigm where volumes for the industry are flattish for an extended period of time. What

Flatish is generous, Ghansham, right? I think you could argue they were down over that period, right?

I rounded up, yes. What does that do to your margin profile for that segment in context of being at record margins in 2024?

Well, it doesn't have to do anything. It really depends on the behavior of the participants. We've talked previously about the value proposition that we offer to our customers, all of us in the aluminum beverage can world offer to our customers. It is a package that costs a lot of capital to install, to run incredible amounts of talent and discipline in the factories. We all possess it.

We all deliver that quality and service to our customers. We deserve to get paid for it. Now post the COVID boom, we had a number of independent one liner guys think that they could just step in and make cans. And I don't want to say they failed miserably, but they didn't do too well. And so three of them are gone now.

I think the other participants that we still have remaining in the market, two of them are can companies in other parts of the world, they're going to succeed. So the competitive profile is certainly different in the marketplace than it would have been three or four years ago. And we all have to learn how to compete in that environment. But it's incumbent upon us to hold price to do better in manufacturing so that we can keep more of the manufacturing improvements that we make for our shareholders. We can't just be in business to return all the value from our hard work to somebody else's shareholder group.

So nothing solves your problems like volume growth, right? On the other hand, most of us did fairly well for a large period of time. So if you took 1998 to 2018, we all did fairly well in terms of cash generation. Margins did grind down, but we generated cash. We didn't spend a lot of capital and we returned that value to shareholders.

We have to find the sweet spot in all of that as an industry and no one company can do it themselves, Ghansham.

Got it. And then if you switch to transit, just given the elongated downturn, two year manufacturing recession globally, etcetera, I know you've taken costs out of the system, but what else are you looking at in terms of some of the positive variances to kind of get you through this period before volumes hopefully inflect higher at some point?

Yes. So I mean, there are things we do in that business that you don't see or we don't report. We have consolidated some facilities. We don't necessarily call them out because the cost is relatively inexpensive. That is if it's $5,000,000 it's a lot, sometimes it's below $5,000,000 So we are doing that.

I hesitate to do a whole lot more. We took a lot of cost out. And at some point industrially, we're going to have a bounce back. I don't know when that is and I've gotten it wrong in the past, so I don't really want to call it again. I do think the first six months of this year are going to be more of the same and we're hopeful that we get some uptick in the back half of the year.

We are starting to see some green shoots in the protective space. What we really need to see is capital equipment orders tick up and we haven't seen that yet. But I think the cost base is in pretty good shape. The amount of volume we and others have lost in that space and I guess if you looked at other industrial companies you cover depending on what industrial applications they're in, they may have similar experience as well.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of George Staphos of Bank of America. Sir, your line is now open.

Thanks very much. Hi everyone, good morning.

Tim, you might need to take some honey or something. Good luck fighting whatever you got there.

what I did here, George, but I haven't been able to get rid of it, so

You're in Florida for crying out loud. But anyway, good luck as well this weekend. Listen, if you could talk a little bit more about what you're seeing in Europe in terms of the volume outlook, it sounds positive. At the end of the day, we're not going to hold you to anything specific. But do you have the opportunity given your answer, I think, to Ghansham or somebody else's question in terms of the green trends there to see mid single digit or better growth.

You had teed up the question on tariffs, so I will take that one kindly as well in terms of what you see as the puts and takes there. And then lastly, I think the answer is no, but I'll ask the question anyway. Do you see given the balance sheet positioning, given where you're at, given the cash flow, to do anything beyond what you have been doing in terms of normal cap allocation for productivity for growth? Do you have another couple of years left to grow into your capacity across your major regions? Thanks and good luck in the quarter.

Okay. So mid single digit growth in Europe, yes. Can we grow into the capacity we have installed over the next couple of years without significant capital being spent? For the most part, yes. We have a we've got a line we're going to install in Thailand in the near term.

It's a joint venture with a very large global energy company and they want us to expand the footprint there. But that's within the envelope that Kevin's described. I think the envelope we've described $450,000,000 George, if you want to think about $400,000,000 to $500,000,000 that envelope beyond $250,000,000 to $300,000,000 of maintenance will cover any necessary growth. But I don't really see the need right now to spend a lot of money in any of the major beverage regions. I think we're pretty well set.

And I guess your last question was tariffs. Is that correct?

So I think the biggest impact from tariffs is likely to be the impact that the consumer is going to feel if there is an inflationary impact from tariffs, so indirect to us. I'm going to say almost all of the aluminum, I think it is all I think, but almost all of the aluminum we buy in The U. S. Is domestically sourced. Our aluminum that we buy in other regions in North America does not come from The U.

S. So we're not seeing any of that. There will be other direct materials that do come from The U. S. To Canada and Mexico, coatings and the like, and we'll have to work through that.

And on a sales point of view, what we make in Mexico stays in Mexico, almost 99%, ninety eight % stays in Mexico. So we don't expect our Mexican customers to feel the pinch of having to export their product from Mexico into The U. S. We make I think everything we make in Canada in beverage stays in Canada. Maybe there's some exported Canadian beer back to The U.

S, but that's always what it's been and they generally sell for premiums anyway. There are food cans and aerosol cans that move across the border from The U. S. Into Canada. And to my knowledge, there is not a sizable food can or aerosol can manufacturer in Canada.

So I would expect that we are going to have to pass those costs on. So I think largely, George, I think it's a from where we sit on tariffs, it feels like it's an indirect exposure that we have if the consumer feels the pinch from inflation further and dials back their purchasing habits.

Tim, thanks so much. Great rundown. I will turn it over. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stefan Dias of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Hi, everybody. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just back on the tariff topic and maybe another way to ask this is, we saw significant aluminum and Midwest premium inflation at the beginning of twenty twenty two. How did your customers react during that time period?

And let's say that tariffs lead to premium inflation again. Do you think there'd be any reason they would react differently this time?

Well, the customers in 2022 reacted by pushing the price of a 12 pack of soda from $3 to $9 or they got themselves to $9 along the way and that had some demand implications, but by and large, they recovered or over recovered their costs. They made a lot of money on their top line and consumers more or less found their way to continue to buy beverage cans. How high can you push a 12 pack of soda? I don't know. But the Midwest premium, well, there are customers who buy their own metal.

So for them, it's on their account. And then for those customers where we procure the metal, it's pass through. So but I would expect we're going to see significant Midwest premium increases, yes.

Okay, great. Yes, that's helpful. And then maybe we could just spend some time in your other businesses in Americas, Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. What are you seeing as far as the consumer there? What's driving the strength in those regions?

And maybe you could expand a little bit on your expectations for 2025?

Yes. So listen, you've always heard us say and I always feel like I'm repeating myself, it's only the can business. We're not making airplane engines for jets, so it's not as complicated as we want to make it. But Brazil is a market, I've said it before, if you you can have ups and downs and hiccups along the way, but if you look at it over a three to five year period and you draw a graph, it's always growing. The trend line is up.

And so we had a down year in Brazil, Late Twenty Twenty Two, Early Twenty Twenty Three, and we bounced back nicely. I think they are the Brazilian economy is sorting its way through inflation and unemployment. They always have their statistics are certainly shockingly high compared to ours. But in their environment, it's always been high. So they're used to that.

And again, the fourth quarter, first quarter are the big seasons for them. So we continue to expect Brazil is going to do well over the medium to long term. There could be hiccups along the way, but as we've said, we don't get too excited. It's an investment we've made and we believe in the market. Colombia, we have a very it's a one line plant, but it's a large line.

It's a high speed line. We do have a partner there who takes significant amount of cans and we have another global customer that also takes a significant amount of cans and we run that plant well from a manufacturing standpoint. The plant was built in '96 and I've said it before, I don't know where the sweet spot is from a manufacturing standpoint for a facility and the workforce, but we are feeling a really good sweet spot right now in Columbia. The performance that the team there has generated has been nothing short of excellent over the last twelve months. So again, a one line plant, but sold out and doing very well.

Mexico, this is principally the business we acquired ten years ago. We make all the beverage products, if you will. We make beverage cans. We make beverage bottles, only no bottles for any other product other than beverages, principally beer and soda. We might We might have a little mismatch this year whereby we gained a customer last year.

We lose a little bit from one customer this year. So it's a little mismatch. But by and large again a really solid business. I think as Kevin likes to remind me, it's it's more than $1,000,000,000 business in Mexico. So it is a large business.

We don't talk about it. We jump right from The U. S. Down to Brazil. But in between for Crown, there's a business in excess of $1,000,000,000 and we call that Mexico.

Great. Thanks for the color, Tim. I'll turn it over.

Crown Holdings (CCK) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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