Jan 24, 2011
Executives
Amanda Butler - Director of Investor Relations David Kelsey - Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President William Hickey - Chief Executive Officer, President and Director
Analysts
Peter Ruschmeier - Barclays Capital Sara Magers - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC Ghansham Panjabi - Robert W. Baird & Co.
Incorporated Alex Ovshey - Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Albert Kabili - Macquarie Research Rosemarie Morbelli - Ingalls & Snyder LLC Philip Ng - Jefferies & Company, Inc.
Gilbert Alexandre George Staphos Christopher Manuel - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. Chip Dillon - Crédit Suisse AG Timothy Thein - Citigroup Inc
Operator
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Sealed Air Conference Call discussing the company's fourth quarter and full year 2010 results. [Operator Instructions] Leading the call today, we have William V.
Hickey, President and Chief Executive Officer; and David H. Kelsey, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
After management's prepared comments, they will be taking questions. [Operator Instructions] And now, at this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Amanda Butler, Director of Investor Relations.
Please go ahead, Ms. Butler.
Amanda Butler
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin our call today, I'd like to remind you that statements made during this call stating management's outlook or predictions for the future are forward-looking statements.
These statements are made solely on information that is now available to us, and our future performance may be different due to a number of factors, and many of these factors are listed in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, which you can find on our website at sealedair.com. We also discuss financial measures that do not conform to U.S.
GAAP, and you may find important information on our use of these measures and the reconciliation to U.S. GAAP in the financial tables that we have included in our earnings release today.
And now, I'll turn the call over to Bill Hickey, our CEO. Bill?
William Hickey
Thank you, Amanda, and good morning to everyone. During today's call, I would like to discuss our 2010 business performance and then address our outlook for 2011 and outline our strategy for delivering ongoing growth.
Once Dave and I have concluded our prepared remarks, we'll be happy to take questions from both the telephone lines and from our webcast participants who can use text-in questions. This morning, we reported our full year 2010 adjusted earnings per share of $1.60.
This figure excludes a number of items which we highlighted in our press release. Our 11% growth in adjusted earnings was primarily driven by a solid 5% annual growth in volumes, $100 million in productivity benefits achieved through various global supply chain initiatives that leverage our world-class manufacturing practices and our Global Manufacturing Strategy program, as well as tight control of expenses.
Unit volume was particularly strong for us in the second half of the year and we achieved peak daily sales rates in the fourth quarter, showing 7% volume growth in the fourth quarter. This resulted in 6% growth in annual sales of $4,500,000,000.
As a quick review of a year that marked our 50th anniversary, we positioned ourselves for future growth and presented a number of strategic and operational goals, including a long-term goal of 5% to 6% organic growth in sales and a return to 15% operating margin by the 2012/2013 period. In driving to those goals, we focused our top 2010 goals on cash flow and improving return on assets, continuing to innovate and accelerate products to market, optimizing our process and operations to maximize profitability, accelerating our growth in India and China, developing our people and finally, expanding our sustainability initiatives.
I am pleased to report that we exceeded our targets in many of these areas and I'd like to touch upon a few highlights. In the area of innovation and commercialization, I'm pleased that we launched over 55 new solutions this year, which compares to about 25 new solutions in 2009.
That represents new products or new solutions represent approximately 20% of the sales in 2010. We expanded our new CT series shrink film, further commercializing our newly patented manufacturing process which we are diligently working on to scale in other product families and to further drive differentiation and efficiencies across our core portfolio.
We are actively engaged in pilot testing our new patented Cryovac 360 shrink sleeve solution, which represents our initial entry into a new market segment for Sealed Air. We've expanded our portfolio of products using alternate raw material components, including our new Instapak RC45 foam-in-place system, which uses up to 25% organic content.
And in December, we acquired a 100% natural biodegradable plant-based buoyed film material, which we just launched under the brand name Pak Nature [ph]. We continue to expand equipment solutions in each business segment and benefited from ongoing customer investment.
Company-wide equipment sales grew 17% in 2010, which suggests strong ongoing orders in 2011 and a strong order base. We increased our service-on-service-based solutions.
This includes the introduction of our PakFormance remote repair diagnostic service that supports our equipment systems, and we further expanded our I-Pack and Ultipack automation services for high volume fulfillment customers, a growing segment for our Protective Packaging business. Looking at the developing regions on our focus on accelerating growth in China and India, we dedicated a key executive to spearhead this regional growth in 2010.
Although we are in the early stages of implementing our new strategic plans in these countries, we generated approximately 30% sales growth in the businesses that are included in this program. Looking at developing regions overall, we reported a sales growth of 10%, which includes 6% favorable foreign exchange.
We saw several areas of strength in the fourth quarter, including a 23% sales increase in Brazil, which includes 15% favorable foreign change. China was also solid with approximately 9% sales increase as was Southeast Asia, which achieved a 16% sales growth, which included an 8% favorable foreign exchange.
By business, Protective Packaging led the developing regions of the world with a solid 21% growth rate, which includes 7% favorable foreign exchange. For full year 2010, developing regions represented 16% of total consolidated net sales.
Key contributors to steady profitability performance were productivity gains achieved by our supply chain organization. These include $10 million of incremental benefits generated from our GMS program and approximately $90 million of benefits from our record-level performance in quality, safety and material yield, as well as ongoing improvements in labor and asset productivity.
These productivity gains helped to largely offset the approximately $130 million in incremental raw material costs that we incurred this year. As we saw our average cost per pound of raw materials at a level almost on a par with resin costs in 2008.
Before I move on to key segment highlights, we launched an important global, company-wide initiative, branded SmartLife, which characterizes the holistic approach to our sustainability strategy. SmartLife embodies our guiding principles and practices in the area of workplace and supplier diversity, governance, workplace health and safety and our philosophy of how we design our products and services to minimize their carbon footprint throughout their entire lifecycle, from our in-house manufacturing process through to the waste stream, all in an effort to conserve resources and maximize material efficiency and use.
And I'm pleased as we continue to develop initiatives on our SmartLife program. We will roll this out in 2011 and discuss them with you as they come to the market.
To spend a moment on our business segment highlights. Their key achievement was solid top line performance, which culminated in the strong fourth quarter for all businesses and all regions.
The key drivers to this fourth quarter volume growth were: first, in our Food Packaging business, where 6% volume growth reflected both seasonality as well as incremental sales from new customers and new contracts gained across several regions, including an expanded presence in Asia, Central Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Volumes also benefited from strong U.S.-based fresh red meat exports and solid demand for equipment systems globally, which increased 30% in the quarter.
We did experience some weakness in Australia, as appreciating foreign currency rates hindered that region’s export market and unfavorable weather slowed customer production rates. Unfortunately, recent flooding in Queensland appears to have impacted customer production sites, and we are currently assessing what effect this may have on our Australian volumes in early 2011.
The Protective Packaging business had a very strong quarter, with 8% volume growth that was generated largely in North America and Europe, due to the strength of industrial production and from e-commerce and fulfillment-oriented applications in those regions. The high-growth rate reflected not only ongoing recovery of unit volumes but also the strong reception of our new products among new and existing customers, which exceeded goals in several regions.
We achieved strong unit volume growth in products such as our Instapak foam-in-place system, our air cellular products and our inflatable products, including our next generation inflatable bubble, or I.B. Express system.
Our Food Solutions business achieved 6% volume growth in the quarter, which was largely due to an 11% volume growth in Europe. This strong growth reflected not only stabilizing economic conditions in that region but also ongoing growth in our Ready Meal solutions and strength in our newer case ready solutions such as Darfresh and Mirabella, due to their successful rollout programs, which continued throughout the year.
The business also achieved good performance in rigid containers used in deli salad applications. Asia was also an area of strength due to over 20% volume growth, primarily from our Ready Meals and Vertical Pouch Packaging solutions.
Our other category achieved 8% volume growth in the quarter, due largely to a 16% volume increase in Europe, where both our Medical and Specialty Materials businesses generated equivalent growth in the fourth quarter. I would like to elaborate on our reported price mix results for the quarter.
Our businesses have been generating benefits from their various pricing actions, and we did realize favorable contract adjustments on our business throughout the fourth quarter. However, the combination of selective pricing reductions associated with higher volume commitments from customers, which include items such as volume rebates, combined with transitioning sales to lower gauge products, has had an unfavorable impact on our reported price-mix results.
Additionally, as mentioned in our press release, in some of our international businesses, we adjust pricing to maintain margin performance against fluctuating foreign currencies. As price-mix performance remains a key metric for our management team, we're carefully balancing our efforts to accelerate volume growth with the need to recover higher input cost through a combination of price increases, input substitutions and productivity gains.
Today, most of our businesses have already implemented price increases that either went into effect January 1 or will go into effect in February. And we're also continuing our productivity improvement initiatives where we have already demonstrated measurable results.
Now at this time, I will turn the call over to Dave Kelsey, our CFO, to discuss fourth quarter financial results in more detail
David Kelsey
Thank you, Bill. Like to provide some details on our operating expenses first then some other matters and finally, our key balance sheet and liquidity items.
Then I'll turn the call back to Bill to discuss our guidance for 2011. Looking first at our P&L statement for the fourth quarter, you'll note that marketing, administrative and development expenses decreased $14 million to $198 million or 15.7% of net sales.
This decrease was primarily due to lower variable incentive compensation expenses as we only partially achieved our full year 2010 performance targets. Also, as you saw in our press release, we recognized $10 million of restructuring and other charges, of which $7 million related to the closure of a small factory in Europe and $3 million related to our Global Manufacturing Strategy program.
After several years of investment, realignment and start-up activities, I'm pleased to announce that this marks the completion of our GMS program. The listeners who are less familiar with GMS over the last five years, we have invested approximately $155 million in plant and equipment and incurred approximately $80 million of related expense.
With this completion of the program, we have repositioned our supply chain platform for more profitable growth in developing regions while concurrently realigning our core manufacturing sites to improve operating efficiency. Collectively, the individual projects making up GMS delivered cumulative annual benefits of $55 million in 2010.
These benefits are expected to carry forward to future years, while the individual projects provide the foundation on which to generate additional benefits. Moving on to other matters.
In the fourth quarter, we sold all of our remaining auction rate securities investments and recognized a $6 million gain. Now I'd like to turn your attention to some key balance sheet and liquidity items.
Cash and cash equivalents were $676 million at December 31, 2010, down $19 million from December 31, 2009. We're very pleased with this achievement as we used over $370 million of available cash during the year for the redemption of 1/2 of our 12% senior notes, capital expenditures, dividends and $10 million of share repurchases in the fourth quarter.
Our receivables increased $30 million from December 31, 2009, in line with our increased sales volumes. Based on an analysis of our days sales outstanding, or DSO, and our past due aging balances, the quality of our receivables remains good and continues to improve.
Inventory investments increased $27 million from December 31, 2009. Excluding the increase attributable to foreign currency translation of $10 million, our inventories increased $17 million, growing less rapidly than revenue, resulting in lower days on hand, or DOH, invested in inventory.
Looking at our liquidity position. Our debt, net of cash and cash equivalents at December 31 was $754 million, down $72 million from September 30, 2010, reflecting our strong cash flow in the fourth quarter.
Also, we had no amounts outstanding under any of our committed credit facilities at any time during the fourth quarter. Our available committed borrowing capacity was approximately $750 million at December 31.
In summary, we remain well positioned to fund day-to-day operations and the pending W.R. Grace settlement, although we have no date certain on when we will contribute our funds.
And now, I'd like to turn the call back to Bill to discuss our 2011 guidance
William Hickey
Thank you, Dave. As you saw by our press release earlier today, we are expecting to maintain the volume momentum we generated in the second half of 2010 into 2011.
This is reflected in our 2011 constant dollar sales growth rate guidance of 5% to 7% versus the prior year. It looks like January is already off to a good start as our volumes seem to continue strong into 2011.
This higher sales volume, combined with a leaner cost structure, ongoing productivity improvements and steady control of expenses, are guiding a full year 2011 EPS range of $1.75 to $1.90. As part of our guidance, we are assuming an annual low to mid single-digit increases in resin prices, which we expect to be higher on a year-over-year basis in the first quarter and then moderate in the second and third quarter before potentially rising again towards the end of the year.
We're continuing to carefully manage the cost price spread as we pursue our growth targets. Now let's look at our expectations for future organic growth.
Over the last 12 to 18 months, our businesses had been developing growth strategies that are centered on innovation and geographic expansion. All of these plans leverage four growth drivers, which include newly patented technical platforms, our entry into new markets, expansion into unpenetrated applications and in service-based solutions and accelerating our growth in developing regions, we have been placing an emphasis on growth in China and India based on their long-term growth opportunities.
We believe we will generate an average annual organic sales growth rate of 5% to 6% through 2013 through the successful execution of our strategic plans, combined with the benefits we expect to realize from an ongoing economic recovery. We expect that we will generate approximately $750 million in higher revenue through 2013 that will likely be represented by a mix of 1/3 of which will come from our expanding our presence in core markets.
Examples include growing our existing Mirabella and Darfresh solutions within the U.S. among nonusers and low-penetration users or expanding our equipment on automation sales within our current customer base.
We're expecting the remaining 2/3 of growth to come from a combination of new product sales and our entries into new applications and new end markets. Examples of new product sales will be new shelf-stable solutions, including aseptic formats, new automated fulfillment packaging systems, expanded applications using our new ETHAFOAM high-recycled content foam family.
New market entry goals, include establishing a sustainable presence in the $1 billion shrink sleeve market with our new Cryovac 360 sleeve and other areas of development include bag-in-box applications and an expanded presence in air applications. As you can see, our growth approach is diversified, which minimizes risk and increases growth opportunities for all of our businesses to leverage.
In addition to these organic growth rates, we will prudently evaluate M&A opportunities as additional sources of growth. But by their nature, acquisitions are opportunistic, so we would discuss any particular activity at the appropriate time.
To support our higher growth, we have raised our capital expenditure guidance to $150 million to $175 million in 2011, approximately $100 million of this capital is targeted toward growth and cost reduction initiatives globally, the remaining amount to be directed towards maintenance CapEx projects. Key growth projects include investing in developing regions such as equipping our new facility in Brazil, which will service Food Packaging customers and in our new technology platforms.
These investments should bring our capital expenditure spending more in line with our depreciation and amortization levels of about $150 million per year, and we expect to maintain these levels over the next several years to support higher levels of unit volume growth, using new technology platforms and in non-core applications. A key component of our long-term goal is return to a 15% operating margin by 2012 and 2013.
A good example of our progress toward that way is, if you notice in the fourth quarter, that our Food Packaging business on a segment basis actually achieved an operating profit of 14.7% in the fourth quarter. Another key enabler towards reaching this goal is the operating leverage that is generated by the higher unit volume growth rates, which I've previously mentioned.
To achieve our profitability goals, we have ongoing projects that target incremental productivity improvement across our platforms and are aggressively deploying cost-to-serve initiatives that focus on product and customer profitability and process simplification. We continue to maintain diligent management of expenses and are redeploying key resources into growth initiatives.
As such, we feel confident in our ability to continue to generate solid incremental margins as we realize our growth volumes. We have noted additional assumptions for our 2011 guidance, which you can find in our press release.
But I'd like to note that our 2011 EPS guidance continues to exclude the payment of the W.R. Grace settlement and the impact of that going forward as the exact timing of the settlement is unknown.
We estimate that the payment of the settlement is expected to be accretive to EPS by approximately $0.12 to $0.14 annually, following the payment date on the assumption of using a substantial portion of our cash balance to fund the payment. And now, operator, I'd like to open up the call to any questions from the participants, and we'll follow up with text questions from our webcast participants as well.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of George Staphos of Bank of America.
George Staphos
First question for you, Bill. You mentioned that there were various factors including mix, I guess, that made for a -- this is my wording not yours, but somewhat compressed price-mix result for the quarter.
Is there a way to disaggregate as much as possible across your various products what are average price change was and what the effect of mix was to lessen that? It just seems like it's a very low number relative to what these reported sources were saying about resin cost increase in the fourth quarter.
William Hickey
Yes. You’re right, George, we spent a fair number of hours trying to disaggregate it and the complexity continues to overwhelm us.
Dave Kelsey and I have spent a lot of time on it and we will spend more time on it over the next couple of days to see if there is a way we could disaggregate it. I'll give you an example, when we introduce the CT-301 films, they use 30% less resin to make a shrink film.
Now we do sell it at a lower price. We maintain our margin, we maintain our profitability but the fact is that it's replacing a film called D-955, which has a higher selling price.
That's one fact, just the swap. And then as we’ve gained new customers that aren't in our base customer base, that higher volume is a second mix as you roll that product family up.
So it is rather complicated and you've got the currency factor. If you look back in the footnote to that page on price volume mix back attached to the press release, you'll see that approximately half of the $30-odd-million for the year and about the same for the quarter are really FX related.
So it's a swamp that we need to drain a little bit better, George. I mean, I know where you're coming from.
I do the same thing here every day. You can ask my colleagues next time you're out to see us about trying to get a handle on that.
So the answer is there's a lot in that number, that price-mix number, and we will try to see if we can disaggregate it, George.
George Staphos
The related follow-on, two parts very quickly, the $30 million in FX, why wouldn't that be captured in FX opposed to in pricing? And again, if you just looked at like-for-like products where there was no substitution and maybe a flawed premise, you’re continually trying to evolve your product line, but nonetheless, for products that you have like-to-like comparisons, what would that price change have been?
William Hickey
That's what we're trying to do. In terms of the FX piece, why it’s not FX, it's actually an equal and offsetting amount in the FX column.
And it relates to a historical practice on the food side of the business where we price to Latin American countries that were subject to volatile currency changes where we priced the product based in U.S. dollars.
But the customers paid us in local currency so that the customer bore the exchange rate loss. Well what’s happened in terms of number of countries in Latin America, the exchange rates change so they're actually paying at the same number of dollars but it's less local currency.
So therefore, it comes across as a lower price. We will try to do it better, George.
Operator
Your next question will come from the line of Ghansham Panjabi of Robert W. Baird.
Ghansham Panjabi - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated
A couple comments in your press release related to volume rebates, which seem to be new items relative to before. Were customers trying to pre-buy during the fourth quarter to hit those rebates?
And perhaps you can comment on whether it was a big pickup in December to support that or not.
William Hickey
No, it's interesting. I was watching that really closely, Ghansham, and that's why I was careful in my script to tell you that the volume commitment continued into January.
So [indiscernible] first good start to the month of January. So there are always customers, Ghansham, that are on the edge that maybe will order a little more to hit the rebate level.
But I think primarily, the point we're trying to make is some of that drops into the price effect. For example, at one customer, we picked up a fair amount of kind of new business.
And in order to secure that new business, we essentially had to apply a rebate on that new business over their base business. So that's a factor where we try to say it in elegant way of there was some selective pricing actions in order to get the new commitments from customers.
Ghansham Panjabi - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated
Just as a follow-up, one of your competitors in Protective Packaging on their last conference call was talking about their price increase initiatives in North America and Europe being below target. They cited a lack of market support and just curious on whether this is consistent in what you're seeing.
William Hickey
Well, I haven't met a customer that likes a price increase, Ghansham, so I'll just leave it at that.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Philip Ng of Jefferies.
Philip Ng - Jefferies & Company, Inc.
Just had a quick question on the pricing side. I mean, obviously, you guys have been a little more aggressive, but how much pricing do you guys expect for 2011 and when you guys expect to reach price cost parity?
William Hickey
Can you say the last part of that question again?
Philip Ng - Jefferies & Company, Inc.
Yes, I just want to get a better feel for how much, from a percentage standpoint, pricing for 2011 you're expecting to realize and when do you expect to meet price cost parity.
William Hickey
Dave, do you want to just take a stab on that? I mean, things move around a lot around here, so it's hard to say what's going to happen next month.
But I'll let Dave try it.
David Kelsey
We don't typically give forward-looking guidance on pricing actions. I think Bill has summarized the comments in the press release relative to top line revenue growth of 5% to 7%.
There is an element of price reflected in that and we continue to be focused on recovering our higher costs through a combination of price increases. Some of which we’ve recently put in the market given today's resin environment.
William Hickey
Yes, I think as you heard me say probably during my comments, that we've got price increases January 1 in some of our business in February in other business, so we've got price increases on the Street now.
Philip Ng - Jefferies & Company, Inc.
And then on the CapEx increase for 2011, how much of that is secured by contracts or new business already? Or are you just filling capacity because you're anticipating faster growth?
David Kelsey
Well, as you can appreciate, you need to add the capacity before you can record the sales. We don't have long-term take-or-pay commitments for our products.
But as we look out at that 5% to 7% sales growth in 2011, and previously, we've shared expectations that we think we can maintain that level of organic growth in the future periods, we clearly will need to add incremental capacity. Also, as some of the new platforms that we're developing are commercialized, we'll need to add new capacity.
But there does need to be a triggering event where we can forecast out over the next two years sufficient broad-based customer demand to warrant putting those units of production into place. And I will point out that unlike very capital intensive industries, we can put some quality unit of production in place for several million dollars if we need to start adding a greenfield facility such as the Brazilian plant that we invested in 2010, that could run to $20 billion to $30 billion.
But we're not putting all that $150 million into just one or two plants and it will be done incrementally as demand builds.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Tim Thein of Citigroup.
Timothy Thein - Citigroup Inc
First question was on your segment margin progression as you look into 2011, you had mentioned, Bill, that the Food Packaging was inching up to that 15% target that you've given for the company but obviously, Protective. And I know there’s some seasonality here but Protective had led down in the quarter.
As you look into 2011, where do you think the biggest upside and conversely where do you think you have the most challenges in terms of margins by segment?
William Hickey
I'll tell you the one that actually did a little better than my original expectation was Food Solutions coming at 11. I was looking at more hit the 10 numbers.
So they did a great job in Food Solutions in moving their margin up to 11. Protective usually ought to run in the 12 to 13 so I would expect perhaps if I look for the biggest improvement in ‘11, it would probably be in the protective side.
And of course, the key thing when you really look at where we are is really to turn the other category around. Because if you take out the other category, I think our operating margin numbers will look quite a bit better.
Timothy Thein - Citigroup Inc
And then separately, when you went through the top of your remarks in terms of the developing regions, I think you had mentioned a 10% sales growth but 6% of that was from FX. Is that one, did I hear that correct?
And two, what do you think about the longer term? Obviously, you're talking here of extending presence in those markets.
Was there something unique or kind of special that you’d call out in terms of the growth in 2010? Because I would've thought that would've been on an organic basis higher than, call it, 4% or 5%.
William Hickey
Well, actually it was. If you look at our expanded sort of Emerging Markets business, we include the usual China, Brazil, India, but we also had, if you take out our Medical business which really had a slow 2010, it was up much more like 13%.
So that sounds about right. If you take China alone, I think, you heard we said it was up about 30%, again, excluding the Medical business.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Rosemarie Morbelli of Ingalls & Snyder.
Rosemarie Morbelli - Ingalls & Snyder LLC
Bill and Dave actually, you are looking at constant sales to grow at 5% to 7% in 2011, and that will include pricing, as Dave mentioned. Unit alone, what 6.7% in 2010, so you are really not expecting that much from volume growth.
What am I missing?
William Hickey
Dave, do you want to...
David Kelsey
I'm not sure, completely.
Rosemarie Morbelli - Ingalls & Snyder LLC
Well, if you have 5% to 10% in sales and that includes some pricing which maybe 1% to 2%, then volume will be a heck of a lot lower than your unit growth of 6.7% in the fourth quarter of this year.
David Kelsey
Well, for this year, we got 5% volume growth and 5.9% all in top line growth. So we're really talking about top line growth that is in that same range that we had this year.
We are looking forward to getting more pricing in 2011 than 2010 given the timing of how some of our price increases have come in the fourth quarter. We're expecting less wind at our back from foreign exchange, we got a favorable impact from foreign exchange in 2010.
We're expecting a slightly negative impact in 2011. So the volume growth is not out of line with the volume growth that we achieved in 2010 as we look at our projected numbers in 2011, Rosemarie.
Rosemarie Morbelli - Ingalls & Snyder LLC
That is helpful but if I may push that a little bit, you have added manufacturing facilities, you have added lines. The global economy is recovering and that includes the U.S.
and Europe which are mature area. Shouldn't your unit growth grow a lot more than what you are anticipating?
David Kelsey
Well, it did grow more in the Protective business. Our Protective business unit volume was up 9% for 2010, and it's still not back at the levels it was at prior to the recession.
So we do see some opportunity in the Protective business to return to those pre-recession levels and contribute in 2011 to that top line growth. Then we go beyond 2011, that's when we expect to see some of these new platforms and some of these new technologies that Bill has referenced in his remarks continue to drive organic growth after the economy is back to pre-recession levels.
Rosemarie Morbelli - Ingalls & Snyder LLC
This was all applied to Protective or does that apply to the company-wide businesses?
David Kelsey
The Protective side is primarily geared towards a broad-based cross-section of industrial and retail customers. So that is seeing much more of a rebound coming out of recession than the Food business has.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Chris Manuel of KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Christopher Manuel - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.
The first question I had is actually a follow on to the last caller's question. When you look at that Protective business, you had some really good volume numbers, both in the quarter and for the full year.
But when we look to contribution from those, it appears as though, if we just looked at 4Q, the margin was essentially flat on some pretty nice up volume. Is there something missing within there?
Could you maybe expand on that a little bit as to where that contribution or something we're missing?
David Kelsey
Well, one thing to keep in mind, Chris, is that we had the restructuring charge in the fourth quarter for the closure of the European plant. So you want to make sure you're looking at the adjusted margin numbers for the quarter.
I think that was roughly a $7 million add back.
Christopher Manuel - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.
Yes. So that would make it, I think, 13% in 4Q versus 12.9% last year.
So just a little bit better but you had, I think, 9% to 8% volume growth?
David Kelsey
Yes, we had, I think, as I mentioned earlier for the year, volume grew 9%.
Christopher Manuel - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.
Right. So my question is, shouldn’t we expect -- basically, it didn't translate into much improved margin from the higher volume.
But what would the normal contribution margin look like in that business? Maybe I should ask that question.
David Kelsey
A normal operating margin which is really the number we look at, I think, Bill mentioned earlier that we would expect something in the 13% -- 12%, 13% range. So I think -- I'm not sure that I'm fully picking up on your issue.
Clearly, the Protective business does have a higher resin content as a percent of its revenue than in our Food businesses, which use more specialty resins and also have more intellectual property built into their product mix. So the resin cost recovery is certainly one element that affected the Protective business throughout the year.
But overall, I think the yield we've gotten from the increased volume in Protective was generally consistent with our expectations.
Christopher Manuel - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.
And then the second question I had centered around the GMS program. So you're basically done with that.
You said you had $55 million as a run rate, I think, in the press release coming out of the year. What's the incremental benefit to be harvested in 2011 beyond what you harvested in 2010?
Or what's the extra yet to come?
David Kelsey
The last increment of benefit arrived in 2010, it was roughly $10 million. So on a going forward basis, we don't expect any incremental return from that initial capital and related expenditures.
But as I mentioned, it does create a very efficient and effective global network of plants so that when we do things like add the incremental capacity we've been talking about with our capital spending, we can do so on a much more productive basis than we could've done five or 10 years ago. So those are the kinds of benefits we'll see on a going forward basis from having spent five years sweating the details on our Global Manufacturing Strategy.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Chip Dillon of Crédit Suisse.
Chip Dillon - Crédit Suisse AG
I noticed the $100 million in productivity you cited for 2010 and I just wanted to -- a couple of questions, wanted to confirm that, that does or does not confirm or include that is the $55 million from the GMS program. And can you give us an idea of what you see both of those possibly contributing in both '11 and '12, both productivity and GMS?
David Kelsey
The GMS one is fairly straightforward. As I just mentioned to the prior caller, $10 million of incremental benefit is attributable to the GMS program in 2010.
So $10 million of the $100 million would be GMS related. Beyond that, there's a whole wide range of activities that have contributed to that productivity gain.
Just like we talked about our resin purchasing and the activities there to improve yields, resin only represents roughly half of our purchases of goods and materials that go into cost of goods sold from third parties, and we have ongoing efforts in purchasing those consumables more effectively. We have several hundred factory floor projects that our supply chain teams initiate every year that contribute to that remaining $90 million of productivity gains.
So there are a number of things in there that help drive that savings. On a going forward basis, we don't expect to add anything incremental specifically related to GMS.
But as I said to the prior caller, it does give us a platform for future productivity gains. Our guidance does not contain a specific number.
But as you take that guidance and work with your models, I'm sure you'll see where improved margins do factor into the earnings guidance range that we've given for the year.
Chip Dillon - Crédit Suisse AG
And just as a quick follow-up, let's say you even take the high end of that range, at least I'm having a hard time getting north of certainly not even to 13% on the segments themselves. That lines up to the 12.1% you did in 2010.
That would infer that you have quite a jump in '12 and/or '13 to get to the 15% goal. Are there things -- first of all, does my logic follow the way you guys are planning to get there?
And secondly, are there things you can tell us we can look forward to whether it's the higher exposure to emerging markets or new products or more productivity that could get you to jump from, say, below 13% this year to say as high as 15% by two years from now?
David Kelsey
I think all of those are going to be contributors and the on adjusted operating income percent in 2010 was 12.2%. Clearly, to get to the 15% target that we've been talking about for a while now, we need to add 100-plus basis points to operating income in each of the next couple years, and that's part of the plan that we're working on.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Al Kabili of Macquarie.
Albert Kabili - Macquarie Research
Wanted to circle back a little bit on price cost. And if I look at the gross profit number for the fourth quarter, it looks to be relatively flat versus last year.
If I look at EBIT, it looks to be relatively flat if I adjust for some of the things going on with incentive comp and SG&A. I know there's various factors you've talked about, but is there a way to help us with how much of that is temporary resin headwind that you think you're going to get back over the coming quarters?
William Hickey
I would say the majority of it’s headwind between price cost. I mean, we implemented -- we basically implement prices now pretty close to when higher costs go up but you've always got customer orders in the pipeline, you got inventory turnover, so there's a catch-up effect and I would say that's the principal factor.
Albert Kabili - Macquarie Research
And is there a way to help us quantify how much is you see as a temporary headwind there that you're going to catch up on given some of the other factors on discounts and...
William Hickey
I think we said the fourth quarter was about $25 million. In the fourth quarter was the resin costs – yes, about $25 million, $30 million fourth quarter that, obviously, the December 1 price increase picked up part of it, didn’t pick all of it up.
You’ve got January price increase, you got some February price increases. So I mean, this is a process.
As I've said on these calls for lots of years now, if resin would stay stable, you'd see things a lot more clearly but the volatility both up and down, both up and down, introduce kind of noise into the system. And I do appreciate you folks have a harder time following.
But you can be sure, we're following it.
Albert Kabili - Macquarie Research
Follow-up question is on margins of some of the newer businesses that you're looking at, like expansion in the aseptic and some of the new initiatives there that you expect that will do 2/3 of your kind of growth over the next few years. Help us with the margin profile of these new expansions, how that compares to the existing business,
William Hickey
Let me just say quickly, by and large, most are higher, some are a little bit lower but they complement what we do. But right now, the improvement over that other category would be a big help because if you just take that low single-digit gain or loss on the other businesses to some reasonable positive number, you'll see it'll move the total quite a bit.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Richard Skidmore of Goldman Sachs.
Alex Ovshey - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
This is actually Alex Ovshey on behalf of Rick. First, on the guidance as I look at the outlook, 4% or 5% to 7% volume growth or total growth in constant dollars sales, what does that imply for the actual dollar amount?
What would the contribution to the EBIT line on a dollar basis be from the 5% to 7% uptick in sales? Can you share that number with us?
William Hickey
I mean, I would just do the math, I'll tell you really, but go ahead, Dave.
David Kelsey
I'll say the same thing, Bill. We don't give that kind of granularity guidance down to EBIT dollars or EBIT margins.
We're going to have to leave that to your judgment to complete that part of the exercise.
Alex Ovshey - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
I guess what I'm really trying to get to is how do we think about the incremental margin on organic volume growth in the business?
William Hickey
I would say the incremental margin's higher than the existing margin, existing company. The incremental basically is additive.
So the last caller that should that should -- the incrementally should be accretive to operating margins.
Alex Ovshey - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
And then just a question on free cash flow, can you talk about the priorities of free cash flow in 2011 and whether or not the settlement of W.R. Grace, if that would have an impact on the way you think about the use of cash flow in 2011?
David Kelsey
Well, not a lot that's changed on our thinking about free cash flow. Top of the list is reinvesting in the business and clearly, to support the organic growth opportunities we see ahead of us.
We do anticipate bringing capital spending up to the extent that we think we have commercially viable projects to launch. On the balance sheet management side, other than the potential settlement on Grace, we have no debt maturities in the near future so that's not going to be a cash requirement.
We did buy back a modest number of shares in the fourth quarter and continue to pay dividend in excess of $80 million a year, so returning capital to shareholders will continue to be a key element of our use of cash in 2011. And as Bill mentioned, on the acquisitions side, we are opportunistic.
We are also patient and we'll advise you of anything that we think would make a value-adding acquisition when the time is appropriate.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Peter Ruschmeier of Barclays Capital.
Peter Ruschmeier - Barclays Capital
I was curious if you're seeing a meaningful mix shift to products with lower price points, say, per unit area but yet higher contribution margins? I'm really thinking about, for example, some of your thinner shrink films?
William Hickey
Yes, I think you hit a good point there, Peter. It's all in this price-mix conundrum that we talked about earlier.
We are seeing growth in the CT series film. We've introduced now three films from the original CT-301.
Those are going well. Our Shrink business continues -- actually has had a good first year with these new products and they are lower selling price, there's less resin and we make good margins.
So I think you're right on.
Peter Ruschmeier - Barclays Capital
And what percent -- if you could quantify, I would imagine it's a relatively small percentage today, but what percent of total sales might be these new products, the shrink film thinner products? And importantly, where could that go three to five years from now?
Is it a meaningful step change or is it really more incremental around the edges?
William Hickey
Well, I'd hesitate to put a number on it because we're testing the technology across a variety of products. We saw it commercially shown it works on a standard shrink film, we are still doing experimental work on some of the other structures, other films we have.
So I'd rather not sort of put a number out there that is really inappropriate at the current time. But if you asked the question of next quarter for the quarter after, we'll be able to keep you updated because I think it's a real great breakthrough in technology but it’s yet to be proved in commercial.
Peter Ruschmeier - Barclays Capital
Can I just ask a clarification question of David? On the D&A guidance of $145 million, I guess it was $176 million in '09, $155 million in '10.
Can you just elaborate on that guidance and the related interest expense guidance at $150 million that's, I believe, without the Grace settlement?
David Kelsey
The interest expense is without the Grace settlement but does include the impact of having retired half of the 12% notes in the fourth quarter. As far as the D&A number, there are two pieces that go into D&A, one is the traditional depreciation and amortization of our capital equipment that we also have about $30 million in that number that represents the amortization of our share-based compensation.
So the $145 million number is the plant equipment-related number.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Sara Magers of Wells Fargo Securities.
Sara Magers - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC
Just a clarification and I apologize I know you guys have talked about pricing quite a bit, but you mentioned pricing initiatives being put through in January and February. Can you get a little bit more specific on that in what segments they were?
William Hickey
Sara, they were different prices in different segments. I think some of the food was January, protective, I think is February.
They were all in the mid-single digit range, that’s probably the best flavor I can give you. I mean, there are price increases out there so you can probably get a little more detail.
It's not that it's not public. It's just I don't have all the details right here in front of me.
Sara Magers - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC
To follow up on that, you made some good forward progress in Q3 on the price-mix side and kind of that came back a little bit in Q4. Was that all just higher volume on lower margin products, was that price?
I'm just trying to think of how we're going to get back to, I guess, a more positive contribution from that price-mix component?
William Hickey
Well, I guess the simple answer is it takes a little time because, I mean, the raw materials have been moving rather dramatically up and down. If you remember, in 2009, they really went down.
So that what happens is you've got some of those prices and contracts that still have a price from the prior quarter even though the raw material went up in the current quarter and those prices haven't been reset. So I mean the simplest thing that I can say is a little bit of time and hopefully, some stability until all catches up.
Otherwise, we continue to kind of move the pricing along with the cost and we catch up. It just takes a little time.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Gilbert Alexandre of Darphil Associates.
Gilbert Alexandre
Does it make sense that your gross margins could approach 28.5% in this year or am I pushing it too much?
William Hickey
Gil, I would love to see it 30% but 28.5% would be good, too. Anything higher than today is what we're looking for.
Gilbert Alexandre
And my follow-on question is when you look at your Protective Packaging operating margins and you're looking at 15% operating rates for the company, is it pushing it too much for Protective Packaging operating margins to get to 14%? Or is that at the high side?
William Hickey
Gil, if you go back, I think, it's 2008, Protective was 16% operating margin. I think that's about the right number.
We can check it to be sure, but I think it was 2008 was about 16%. And so it's not out of reach.
It's not beyond what we've done. It's not that we're going to scale a mountain we haven't scaled before.
We just have to stay ahead of this much more volatile price cost curve than I think most of us have seen in years.
Operator
And you have a follow-up question from the line of George Staphos of Bank of America.
George Staphos
Two questions for you, one, maybe you have mentioned it earlier, but if you could provide us some guidance in terms of what's impacting the tax rate into next year, what could cause the mix to change one way or another. And then I had a question I'll come back to once you answer the first one on capital intensity or the turnover on the capital spending, at least what’s implied into your numbers.
William Hickey
I know our Vice President of Tax has done a lot of work here recently. Let me let Dave sort of try to fill you in on that.
David Kelsey
I think, George, the 27% tax rate is where we have started out the last couple of years in terms of guidance and then whether it's one-time events like the significant impact in the U.S. of retiring those 12% notes early or a failure of a government body to renew an expected tax benefit.
Those have caused the actual rate to move around during the year. But as we move into 2011, based on our best knowledge of our mix of domestic and foreign income and the kind of tax regime that we have in place around the world, that's how we’ve come back to that same 27% number.
George Staphos
And, Dave, just a quick follow on before I get to the other question, so in the fourth quarter what was driving that? Was that the early retirement of the notes?
David Kelsey
Yes, that's what took the rate in the quarter per se down into the low teens was the fact that we had a significant loss in the U.S. to record.
And of course, the U.S. has the highest corporate income tax rate in the countries we do business in.
George Staphos
The other question I had, if I go back about a year ago, the company's view on capital spending was that, I think, you'd maintain a range of $80 million to $100 million or something in that range for the next several years based on the growth that you were seeing at the time, which as memory serves, you or putting roughly around 2% to 3%. 2010 came in at 5%.
This year, you're now guiding to about 5% as well. And it seems like for that incremental, I think, it winds up being around $300 million of revenue between realized '10 and at this structure projected '11, you have to raise the capital spending $50 million to $75 million, which is not a bad turnover ratio.
So are you getting 2x the revenue contribution for the investment that you're making on these new projects? And should we expect that going forward?
William Hickey
George, I really think it's more than 2x. I mean 2x is probably a floor.
To tell you the truth, my goal is 2.5 to 3x. But the numbers kind of hang together.
As Dave said earlier, we’re only going to spend if we got the project to justify it.
David Kelsey
Yes, and what I'd also point out, George, is some of that $150 million or actually a large part of it is really not to drive the growth we're expecting in 2011. It's to give us the capacity for the 2012 and 2013 growth that we expect to see.
George Staphos
But again, the leverage you're getting on that is fairly significant based on that math.
David Kelsey
Yes.
William Hickey
I think the guys in the company know me well enough. If they bring a project, they got to have at least two-plus x.
Operator
You also have a follow-up question from the line of Rosemarie Morbelli of Ingalls & Snyder.
Rosemarie Morbelli - Ingalls & Snyder LLC
Could you give us a better feel for the investments you mentioned in the other category? And if in 2011, you see that particular area in the black, losses in the fourth quarter?
William Hickey
Yes, Rosemarie, there are several initiatives in that area. There are really four what we’ll call strategic investments.
One is an additional investment in our Medical business, which we hope that should be positive in this year. We also invested in this Pak Nature, which we'll be investing in.
And I think that will not only be positive in '11 but very positive in '11, because I do believe it's a real revolutionary product. And there are two other technologies that we're investing in that have applicability across several businesses and we really believe that those could help multiple parts of the company.
And when they are more mature and ready for prime time, we'll give you a little more information on them.
Rosemarie Morbelli - Ingalls & Snyder LLC
Bill, if I may, if you eliminate those investments, could you share with us the profits from Specialty Materials and Medical applications, which I am guessing are the only two making money?
William Hickey
Yes, both Medical and Specialty are both making money, yes. They are making money.
They make reasonably good money. They make comparable profit margins to the rest of the company.
It's what I’ll call, what we internally call, new ventures category, which are four technologies which we believe have a future in our space.
Rosemarie Morbelli - Ingalls & Snyder LLC
So when you say similar to the company, we are talking about around 12% if I looked at the segment's profit operating margin just for Medical and Specialty Material and eliminate the recent investments?
William Hickey
Yes. I think, yes.
If you wanted to bifurcate it, you could say that you’ve got 11, 12 or so in the Specialty Materials and Medical, and the balance in the new ventures which results in that minus couple of million dollars.
Operator
Your final question comes from the line of Chris Manuel of KeyBanc Capital Markets with a follow-up.
Christopher Manuel - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.
Bill, I know you don't like to get too granular thinking of it quarter-by-quarter, but as we think of cost price working through 2011, with the couple of price increases you've got announced here for 1Q, realizing it takes time to work through, I guess, I would assume that you may be again a little bit behind in Qs one, probably catching up in Qs two and Q2. And then you said you think resins will start to move lower in Q2, three.
So could you maybe talk through what your assumption was for full year 2011 for cost price? I'm assuming neutral or kind of how you would envision that playing out over the course of the year?
William Hickey
Yes, we stopped giving quarterly guidance a couple of years ago because of the extreme volatility of resin. I mean, it can go up one month and surprisingly come down the next month and I'm just not that good a forecaster.
So what we try to do is manage the spread.
Christopher Manuel - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.
So thinking about that spread with increases, I'm assuming that means 1Q, you'll again be a little bit behind, is that fair?
William Hickey
That's probably fair.
Christopher Manuel - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.
Second question I had as we think about some of the other -- your target for 15% margin, is that mostly predicated upon your other -- the Specialty business getting up to the rest of the company levels, or do you also assume that your Food businesses and your Protective business will be at or above 15% on their own?
William Hickey
I think all of the above. I mean, track food over a multiyear period.
I think it's worth doing, tracking food. And I'll tell you, 14.7% in the fourth quarter’s pretty good progress for that business, which is a very mature business.
And as you begin to see opportunities to balance that price cost mix kind of service level ratio around the world. And those are the things that we're doing in every business as well as kind of the new technologies.
Okay. Operator, let's try to wrap up here.
I'd like to thank you all for your participation. Extend my thanks and appreciation to our customers, employees, shareholders and partners and everyone who helped us celebrate our 50th anniversary and for your continued support as we look to 2011.
We're really excited with the momentum going in this year, January looks good in the early two weeks and we're continuing to focus on what's next for Sealed Air, our customers and our consumers worldwide. Thank you for taking time to listen to us today.
Operator
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation.
You may now disconnect. Have a wonderful day.