Silgan Q3 2026 results: record adjusted EPS of $1.31 as Metal Containers volumes fell 4%

How Silgan's three segments make money

Silgan reports three segments. Dispensing and Specialty Closures makes trigger sprayers, pumps, fragrance and beauty dispensers, pharma drug delivery devices and metal and plastic closures for food and beverage. Metal Containers makes steel and aluminium food cans for soup, vegetables, fruit, pet food and other foods. Custom Containers makes plastic bottles and jars for personal care, household and food brands.

The three segments earn their money in different ways. Metal Containers is the largest by sales, at $1,174.2 million of the $2,040.2 million group total in the third quarter, but carries the thinnest margin. By SPI’s calculation from the release, its adjusted EBIT margin was 9.0%, against 15.9% in Dispensing and Specialty Closures and 14.2% in Custom Containers¹.

Metal Containers is also seasonal. The third quarter is the fruit and vegetable pack, when growers and canners fill most of their year’s cans. By SPI’s calculation, the third quarter alone produced 44.1% of the segment’s January to September net sales and 47.6% of its nine-month adjusted EBIT, so a soft or strong pack decides the segment’s year.

Most of Silgan’s can and closure contracts pass changes in raw material costs through to customers, usually with a lag. That is why net sales can rise while volumes fall, and why a rise in sales says little about demand. The release states this directly for the group.

The muted demand the President and CEO describes shows up in the volumes: flat in Dispensing and Specialty Closures, down 4% in Metal Containers and down 8% in Custom Containers. Silgan’s earnings grew anyway, which is the pattern buyers need to understand before their next contract round.

What Silgan reported on 29 October

Group sales. Net sales rose $31.5 million, or 1.6% by SPI’s calculation, to $2,040.2 million. The release says this was primarily the result of the contractual pass through of higher raw material costs, partly offset by lower volumes. Silgan released the figures before its 8:00 a.m. ET conference call on 29 October and furnished them to the SEC under Item 2.02 of a Form 8-K the same day².

GAAP profit. EBIT fell to $191.7 million from $198.7 million and net income to $105.0 million from $113.3 million. Diluted EPS was $0.99 against $1.06. Rationalization charges rose to $17.1 million from $7.2 million, split $9.1 million in Dispensing and Specialty Closures, $6.5 million in Metal Containers and $1.5 million in Custom Containers. The release does not name the plants involved.

Adjusted profit. Adjusted diluted EPS rose to $1.31 from $1.22. The adjustments, mainly acquired intangible amortization of $15.9 million, rationalization charges and Trivium costs, added $0.32 a share against $0.16 a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA was $302.8 million against $288.3 million¹.

Against July’s estimate. Silgan’s second-quarter release of 29 July had estimated third-quarter adjusted EPS of $1.21 to $1.31, so the result landed on the top of the range³.

Interest and tax. Interest and other debt expense fell to $47.3 million from $50.0 million, which the release puts down mainly to lower average borrowings. The effective tax rate rose to 27.9% from 24.3%.

Trivium costs. Q3 included $10.3 million of costs attributed to the announced acquisition. Silgan expects about $17.8 million for 2026, including about $7.5 million in the fourth quarter. By SPI’s calculation, those figures leave nothing for the first half, so all of Silgan’s 2026 deal costs fall in the third and fourth quarters.

Debt and cash. Current and long-term debt was $4,548.0 million at 30 September, against $4,947.2 million a year earlier, with cash of $325.0 million against $389.2 million. By SPI’s calculation, debt net of cash fell to $4,223.0 million from $4,558.0 million. Nine-month operating cash flow was an outflow of $646.4 million, the usual build of can inventory before the pack.

Silgan Q3 2026 results by segment

Metal Containers. Net sales rose $16.0 million to $1,174.2 million, which the release attributes to price/mix from the contractual pass through of higher raw material and other manufacturing costs. Volumes fell 4%, mainly from lower soup volumes, partly offset by higher fruit and vegetable and pet food volumes. Adjusted EBIT rose $9.4 million to $105.2 million, mainly on more favourable price/cost, including mix, partly offset by the lower volumes¹.

By SPI’s calculation, sales up 1.4% on volumes down 4% means price and mix added roughly 5.6% to revenue per unit shipped. That figure combines the raw material pass through, which carries no margin, with mix, which can. The release does not split the two.

Dispensing and Specialty Closures. Net sales rose $8.8 million, or 1%, to $699.2 million. The pass through of higher raw material and other costs added 3%, less favourable mix took away about 1%, and currency translation was unfavourable. Volumes were flat: fragrance dispensing grew by a mid-single-digit rate and North American prescription pharma dispensing by a double-digit rate, while food and beverage closures softened in Europe and North America.

Adjusted EBIT in the segment fell $2.3 million to $111.2 million. The release blames less favourable price/cost, mainly the delayed pass through of manufacturing inflation, including freight and surcharges, and less favourable manufacturing efficiency¹. That delay is the line closures buyers should note, because a cost not yet passed through is a cost still to come.

Custom Containers. Net sales rose 4% to $166.8 million on price/mix from the pass through of higher raw material and manufacturing costs, partly offset by volumes down 8%. About 3 points of the volume fall came from exiting lower-margin business in 2025 under footprint optimisation plans. Adjusted EBIT rose 3% to $23.7 million on favourable price/cost, including the benefit of earlier cost reductions.

Nine months. January to September net sales rose to $5,244.7 million from $5,014.6 million, while adjusted EBIT across the segments and corporate was $572.2 million against $572.6 million. Metal Containers’ nine-month net sales rose 8.1% by SPI’s calculation, but its adjusted EBIT rose only 2.2%, to $220.9 million, because the second quarter had been weaker¹.

How cost pass through shaped each segment

The release uses the same mechanism to explain sales in every segment, but the profit outcome differed. In Metal Containers, price/cost was favourable. In Dispensing and Specialty Closures, it was unfavourable, because manufacturing inflation was passed through with a delay. The table below sets out what the release says drove each line.

Who gains and who pays after Silgan's third quarter

Silgan shareholders. Adjusted EPS rose 7% to $1.31 and the full-year range narrowed upward. GAAP EPS fell to $0.99 from $1.06, and the gap between the two measures widened to $0.32 a share from $0.16, mostly because of rationalization and Trivium costs¹.

Food brands buying cans. Soup brands bought fewer cans, and Silgan’s sales still rose on pass through. Metal Containers earned $9.4 million more adjusted EBIT on 4% less volume, so these customers paid more per can. Brands such as General Mills, whose Progresso soup uses steel cans covered by the Oregon and Colorado programmes according to the SPI Buyers Database, face both can pass through and state producer fees¹¹.

Pet food brands. Pet food volumes rose in the quarter, the release says, which helped offset soup. Pet food was also the growth line in Silgan’s second quarter, when its July release reported high single-digit pet food growth³. Growing customers have the least room to negotiate when capacity is shared with a seasonal pack.

Fruit and vegetable packers. Silgan’s fruit and vegetable volumes rose, while Sonoco linked lower metal can volumes to weaker harvests. The two companies serve different customers and regions, so the result depends on which packer a buyer is and where it grows.

Fragrance, beauty and pharma brands. Dispensing volumes in fragrance grew by a mid-single-digit rate and North American prescription pharma by a double-digit rate. These buyers are the ones Silgan wants more of, and the release says the segment absorbed inflation it has not yet passed on.

Food and beverage closures buyers. Volumes softened in Europe and North America. Weaker volume and delayed inflation recovery in the same segment point to closure price requests in coming contract rounds, by SPI’s reading.

Plastic bottle buyers in Custom Containers. Silgan exited lower-margin business in 2025, about 3 points of this quarter’s 8% volume fall. Those buyers have already moved to other suppliers.

The pinch point: delayed inflation in closures

Silgan’s two larger segments moved in opposite directions, and the reason is timing. In Metal Containers, the contractual pass through of raw material and other manufacturing costs worked in Silgan’s favour in the third quarter. In Dispensing and Specialty Closures, manufacturing inflation, including freight and surcharges, was passed through with a delay, and adjusted EBIT fell 2% to $111.2 million¹.

A delay is not a loss. Contracts that reset on a lag will pick up costs already incurred, which supports Silgan’s Q4 estimate of $0.76 to $0.86 a share against $0.67 a year earlier, about 21% higher at the midpoint, as the release states. The release does not say how much of the Q4 rise comes from closures recovery and how much from lower rationalization charges, which Silgan estimates at $2.5 million against $32.5 million in Q4 2025.

The arithmetic has one loose thread. Nine-month adjusted EPS was $3.06, so adding the Q4 range gives $3.82 to $3.92, by SPI’s calculation, one cent below the full-year range of $3.83 to $3.93. The release does not explain the difference, which is most likely rounding.

Silgan's 2026 guidance and the Trivium timetable

Silgan’s guidance changed at the bottom only. The results release moves 2026 adjusted EPS to $3.83 to $3.93 from $3.73 to $3.93, a midpoint of $3.88, about 4% above 2025’s $3.72. Silgan expects adjusted EBIT to be higher than in 2025 in every segment, free cash flow of about $450 million against $445.2 million, and capital expenditure of about $310 million¹.

The release mentions Trivium in its highlights as a transformative portfolio acceleration, and in its cost lines. It gives no update on closing, financing or approvals. Silgan’s 19 October release said the deal was expected to close in mid-2027, subject to regulatory approvals and applicable works council consultation processes, with debt financing fully committed by a group of banks⁴. SPI has not yet confirmed whether any approval or consultation step has been completed since.

The deal splits Silgan in two once it closes. Metal Containers and the food and beverage flat cap closures join Trivium in Silgan Metal Containers and Closures, which Silgan will control with 60%, while Dispensing and Custom Containers become Silgan Dispensing Solutions, as SPI’s Trivium deal story set out¹².

The release closes its outlook with the President and CEO saying that, as Silgan begins to reposition its segments, the company is poised to create meaningful value for shareholders through disciplined capital deployment and execution. By SPI’s reading, the third quarter shows what each future platform looks like on its own: a metal business earning 9.0% on contract pass through, and a dispensing business earning 15.9% while it waits to recover inflation.

How Silgan's quarter compares with other US-listed packaging groups

All five groups below report in US dollars, but their profit measures and business mixes differ, so SPI compares only the direction of change, not the size of any company’s figures. None of the rows is added up, averaged or ranked.

Silgan’s net sales rose 1.6% and adjusted EBIT 6.1%, by SPI’s calculation. Crown’s sales rose 16% on a $405 million pass through while segment income slipped to $484 million from $490 million, as SPI’s Crown story reported¹⁴. AMP’s revenue rose 19% and adjusted EBITDA 2%, according to SPI’s AMP story¹⁵.

Sonoco’s food can business sits in its Consumer Packaging segment, where sales fell 2.9% to $1,396 million and segment operating profit fell 14.6% to $179 million, its release shows⁵. O-I Glass, which competes with cans in some food and drink uses, reported adjusted EBITDA of $234 million against $329 million, as SPI’s O-I story reported¹⁶.

What state EPR fees add for steel food cans

Can prices are not the only cost moving for food brands. In Oregon and Colorado, the brand owner, not the can maker, generally pays producer responsibility fees on the cans it sells into the state, under SPI Regulation Tracker records PR-US-002 and PR-US-003^9,10.

Circular Action Alliance’s 2026 Oregon fee schedule sets steel containers at 10.0 cents a pound and steel aerosol containers at 64.0 cents⁶. Its 2027 Oregon schedule, published on 1 October 2026, sets a base rate of $0.09 a pound for steel containers and, after a reserve drawdown of $0.05, a final rate of $0.04⁷. Colorado’s 2026 dues schedule sets steel containers at 7.0 cents a pound after eco-modulation⁸.

SPI calculation (per tonne of cans): at 2,204.62 pounds to the metric tonne, Oregon’s steel container fee falls from USD 220.46 a tonne in 2026 to USD 88.18 in 2027, a 60% cut. A brand selling 1,000 tonnes of steel food cans into Oregon would pay about USD 220,460 in 2026 and about USD 88,180 in 2027. Colorado’s 2026 rate is USD 154.32 a tonne.