Crown Holdings: Taking a more shareholder-friendly attitude but credit fundamentals remain solid

​Crown, the US metal cans maker, has presented this afternoon decent 4Q16 results. Yoy Sales were down 5.0% on a reported basis and down 1.0% organically to $2bn due to the pass through of lower material costs. This also reflects flat volume in beverage cans (c. 60% of sales), with healthy demand in the US, Brazil and Asia, offset by softness in Saudi Arabia. Yoy EBITDA gained 2% at constant currency to $295m, or +60 pts in margin to 15.3%. Meanwhile, the deleveraging pace was a high 0.3x in 4Q, as is usual in this quarter, bringing net leverage to 3.3x.

The company continues its longstanding expansion to emerging countries: it announced the construction of a new beverage can plant in Indonesia and Burma to be operational in 3Q17 and 1H18 respectively, to support dynamic local demand. This echoes the openings of new plant and production...