Highlights from Salomon Smith Barney's packaging conference hosted by George Staphos May 5th: Can industry shares. Analysts Terrence Sinclair and Patricia Kasehagen estimate US beverage can market shares: Ball Corp 34; Pechiney's American National Can 24; Anheuser-Busch's Metal Container Corp 22; Crown Cork & Seal 20. Europe: Pechiney 32; Schmalbach Lubeca 27; PLM 21; Crown Cork & Seal 20. Aluminum dominates US beverage can market, but Europe still about evenly split between aluminum and steel.

Ball. Vice chairman/CFO David Hoover says 66% of company's beverage cans supplied to CSD bottlers; remainder beer. 80% of PET bottle output sold to Pepsi bottlers. Cans account for 65% of Ball's 1998 sales; PET 6%. Hoover reports "improvement in China this year" with demand high for company's beverage cans. Owens-Illinois. CFO David Van Hooser says Owens-Illinois holds 45 share of US glass packaging sales, Ball Foster 32; Anchor 16. Van Hooser adds Latin America non-returnable glass sales down -40% so far in 1999 because bottlers increasing use of returnable glass, which lowers packaging costs and allows lower retail prices. Notes increasing PET resin prices in US, predicts more increases.

Crown Cork & Seal. President/COO John Conway says beverage cans account for 31% of 1998 sales, plastics 18%. Notes company is largest supplier of PET bottles to US Pepsi system. Observes shaped cans "didn't get off the ground with Coca-Cola for cost reasons but ... shows a lot of promise" with beer brewers. Heineken and Carling use shaped cans in various markets. Re PET resin prices, company treasurer Craig Calle says "perhaps we've seen the trough in pricing." Pechiney. Company prepares to spin off global beverage can business. Unit produced 38.5 bil cans in 1998. Cans accounted for 29% Pechiney sales last year. Company will retain 40% stake in spin-off. Chairman/CEO Jean-Pierre Rodier predicts growth in market for PET beer bottles; adds: "Production cost of a can is much less than any PET bottle."

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