Amcor's fiscal year 2026 closed exactly where the company has said it would, with one twist. The four quarters that followed the April 2025 closing of the Berry Global merger delivered what the deal was sold on: revenue of $23.5 billion, up 57% on a reported basis; adjusted EBITDA of $3.7 billion, up 68%; adjusted EPS of $4.02, up 13%. The headline GAAP EPS, $2.38 versus $1.60, swung on a very different cycle: amortization of acquired intangibles rose to $558 million, restructuring and integration expenses stayed elevated at $298 million, and the year-ago base was softened by one-time transaction costs. Strip the deal noise and the engines ran cleaner than the reported numbers suggest. Adjusted EBIT of $2.8 billion grew 63%; free cash flow of $1.3 billion, after $290 million of integration spend, grew 41%.
The fourth quarter is where the year got honest. Net sales of $6.4 billion rose 26% reported, but 19% of that lift was acquired (Berry) sales net of divestitures, 6% was the pass-through of higher raw-material costs, and 2% was currency. The volume signal underneath was roughly flat: management estimated organic growth at minus 1% on a combined, comparable basis. Adjusted EPS of $1.23 grew 23% in the quarter; adjusted EBIT of $836 million grew 37%. Synergy capture from Berry - $100 million in the quarter, $240 million for the year - came in ahead of plan. The integration is the real product, and the product is ahead of schedule.
The twist is the year-end itself. Amcor will run a six-month "Transition Period" from July 1 to December 31, 2026, the bridge to a new December 31 fiscal year. For those six months, the company has set adjusted EPS of $1.80 to $1.90, and leverage of 3.5 to 3.6 times. The market will live in a reporting gap: half-year results in February 2027, then a true calendar 2027. Investors are buying a yield anchor - 5.6% on the new declared 65-cent quarterly dividend - alongside an integration that is delivering, in a quarter where the underlying volume signal was soft and the macro backdrop was "unprecedented input cost inflation," as CEO Peter Konieczny put it. The story of fiscal 2026 was the merger running ahead of plan. The question for fiscal 2027 is whether the volume engine starts running with it.