Earnings call transcript: BillerudKorsnas Q2 2025 shows mixed regional performance

BillerudKorsnas AB reported its Q2 2025 earnings, highlighting a strong performance in North America but facing challenges in Europe. The company’s stock dropped by 7.66% in pre-market trading to $47.41, reflecting investor concerns over flat sales growth and market conditions. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company maintains a GOOD Financial Health score, with a market capitalization of $4.88 billion.

Key Takeaways

• North American region achieved a 22% EBITDA margin, the highest since late 2022.
• Cash flow from operating activities more than doubled compared to the previous year.
• European market conditions are weakening, with muted consumer demand and new production capacity.

Company Performance

BillerudKorsnas demonstrated robust performance in North America, with the region’s EBITDA margin reaching 22%. However, the European market posed challenges due to weakening conditions and muted consumer demand. The company managed to maintain its leverage at around 1x EBITDA, indicating strong financial discipline. InvestingPro data reveals the company has maintained dividend payments for 16 consecutive years, demonstrating long-term financial stability. Subscribers can access 5+ additional ProTips and comprehensive financial analysis through the Pro Research Report.

Financial Highlights

• EBITDA margin: 9%, consistent with last year.
• North America’s EBITDA margin: 22%.
• Cash conversion rate: 131% for Q2.
• Estimated total CapEx for 2025: 3.1 billion USD, 400 million lower than previous outlook.

Market Reaction

BillerudKorsnas’ stock fell by 7.4 USD, or 7.66%, in pre-market trading following the earnings call. The decline brings the stock closer to its 52-week low of $36.55, indicating investor apprehension about the company’s European market outlook and flat sales growth. InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis suggests the stock is currently undervalued, presenting a potential opportunity for value investors. The company has demonstrated solid revenue growth of 14.52% over the last twelve months.

Outlook & Guidance

The company anticipates continued weak conditions in Europe but expects North America to maintain solid performance. BillerudKorsnas is focusing on cost discipline and cash flow protection, with an estimated CapEx of 3.1 billion USD for 2025. The company maintains a healthy current ratio of 1.69, suggesting strong short-term liquidity. For detailed analysis of BillerudKorsnas’s financial health and growth prospects, investors can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report available exclusively on InvestingPro.

Executive Commentary

CEO Ivar Vatne stated, "Another excellent quarter for Region North America, while we are navigating through more challenging conditions for Region Europe." He emphasized the need for "aggressive and creative" cost management to address these challenges.

Risks and Challenges

• Weakening European market conditions with muted consumer demand.
• New production capacity impacting market dynamics.
• Potential tariff impacts changing trade flows.
• Implementation of production curtailments and slow steaming.

BillerudKorsnas remains focused on navigating these challenges while leveraging its strong North American performance to support overall growth.

Full transcript - BillerudKorsnas AB (BILL) Q2 2025:

Conference Operator: by. Welcome to the Billiard Q2 Report twenty twenty five Webcast and Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there’ll be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Lina Shatawa, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Lina Shatawa, Head of Investor Relations, Billiard: Thank you. Good morning and very welcome to this presentation in connection to the Q2 report that we have published this morning. With me is our President and CEO, Ilberg Vatne, along with our CFO, Andre Kriess. They will hold the presentation and afterwards take questions from the telephone conference. So with that, we will get started.

Please go ahead, Ivar.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Thank you, Lena, and good morning, everyone. And thanks for listening in this sunny Friday, at least here in Stockholm. It’s a tale of two stories for our quarterly report. And I think it summarized quite well in the heading here on the slide. Another excellent quarter for Region North America, while we are navigating through more challenging conditions for Region Europe.

But let’s get into the details. So next slide, please. And if we start from the top, we record flat net sales growth when adjusting for currency. Growth in North America and decline in Europe. Our region North America continues to impress and record yet another excellent quarter.

And 22% EBITDA margin is a level we are clearly happy with. In fact, the 22% is the highest profitability level we’ve had in North America since end of twenty twenty two. The situation for Region Europe has been more challenging and market conditions have gradually turned more and more unfavorable during the quarter. And in essence, we are navigating in a market where we face weak demand and supply overcapacity. Now, despite this, and with our continued strong focus on working capital discipline, we have been able to produce an excellent cash generation, coming in with cash flow from opera activities of 75% versus year ago.

The progress on our evolution journey in U. S. Continues, and we’ve taken new important steps during the quarter. And I want to share some more details on that part. So let’s get into next slide, please.

Now, evolving our product portfolio in North America towards packaging material is one of the top priorities for the company. And I’m both proud and excited to see the progress we’re doing. We reached another important milestone during the quarter with 1,000 tons sold of our bleach line attribute and low ramage carton board Voyager. And overall, we see strong interest amongst both the new and existing customers to carry out trials for the new products. And overall, the feedback on the product quality and performance has been highly encouraging.

It confirms again that local US production VD9 industry is a good place to be where we can offer quality, speed, reliability, and predictability. Also in terms of the capital project to enable even further acceleration in evolution journey, we are progressing as per plan. And I’m looking forward to provide you with more updates on this exciting journey as we move along in 2025. Next slide, please. And over to some market comments.

And it is challenging to give a proper market read these days. And uncertainty, in particular in the wake of geopolitical decisions, seems to be the new normal and can change industry parameters literally overnight. But there is no doubt that some of the ingoing optimism for demand recovery in Region Europe for 2025 is a memory far away. The trading conditions for most of our categories in Europe weakened during the quarter, and there are three main reasons for that. So number one, consumer demand is still muted and is yet to recover the growth rates we are expecting long term for this industry and most of the categories we have exposure to.

Number two, we are seeing the impact of more production capacity coming online in the region, first and foremost within board, and three, the tariff impact is real. And we see now evidence of how the trade flows have started to change. Not only with volume historically being exported to in The US, but now due to import tariffs have lost some competitiveness and is partly relocated back into Europe. We also see some Asian volumes struggling to find its way into US and put more pressure into markets in The Middle East. And overall, we do not expect the situation to improve going into Q3.

Now, notable exceptions where we operate under more normalized conditions are liquid packaging border here in Europe and our graphic and specialty paper in North America. For both these cases, we are expecting to continue their solid performance we’ve continuously seen over the past quarters. So with that, I’d like to hand it over to Andre.

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Thank you, Ivar, and good morning, everyone. Let’s start by looking at our sales, which declined by 5% and that was entirely driven by the FX headwinds, meaning our currency neutral sales were flat versus a year ago. Now the strengthening of Swedish krona we’ve experienced first and foremost by the end of the first quarter is now fully impacting both our sales and also results. The positive pricing of 2% is mainly coming from our Europe region, while North America was quite flat versus a year ago. Volume wise, the negative impact is entirely from region Europe, while North American region had a solid volume growth of 8%.

Next slide, please. EBITDA margin in the second quarter was in line with the last year at 9% and also here a tale of two stories. North America improving margin with four percentage points, while Europe seeing corresponding decline. And despite significant change in FX rates versus last year, the impact on our results was relatively limited due to our hedging program in place. The year over year cost inflation, mainly from Nordic pulpwood costs, was more than compensated with improved pricing.

However, the volume growth in North America was also offset with decline in Europe, and volume was weighing negatively year over year. Despite significant inflationary pressure on our fixed costs, not least through the salary increases, we are maintaining strong cost discipline, and we were able to limit the cost inflation year over year. The negative amount in Other is almost entirely related to negative year over year effect from inventory revaluation. We had no major impact now in quarter two, but we had sizable positive impact last year. Now our quarter two was maintenance heavy with three mills in Europe having a maintenance shutdown, and those were executed as planned and also on budget.

Excluding the heavy maintenance costs, our performance for the group in terms of EBITDA margin was in line with quarter one, despite lower volumes. And now let’s move over to the regions. Next slide, please. Performance in Region Europe weakened during the quarter, and we did end up with sequentially lower sales volumes for the region across most categories. The earlier announced price increases for containerboard and second kraft paper were partly implemented, with clearly better implementation rate within second kraft, while containerboard has been more challenging.

Into the third quarter, we will have somewhat lighter maintenance schedule with cost impact of around SEK $280,000,000. And now let’s move over to region North America. Next slide, please. The reported sales for the region declined by 5%, but clearly heavily impacted by weakening of U. S.

Dollar. Currency neutral sales were actually up by 5%. The EBITDA margin, as I said, improved with four percentage points versus a year ago and was also up percentage points sequentially versus the first quarter. And it’s now been a sixth consecutive quarter with positive margin trend, which has been driven by volume recovery and continued stable cost and pricing situation in the region. The sequential improvement from the first quarter was primarily driven by price increases for graphic paper.

Operating rates for the region continued to increase to 76% in the second quarter. And we are now actually coming to the levels we haven’t seen since beginning of ’twenty three, which is very encouraging. Now heading into the third quarter, we will carry out maintenance shutdown at Escanaba Mill, and we will have additional maintenance partly in preparation for the evolution program. So we expect sequentially higher maintenance costs of 160,000,000 for the region. Next slide, please.

And I would like to spend a couple of minutes on the input costs. Now, in terms of the input costs for the regions, we are now in a much more stable situation also in Europe. The cost development during the second quarter was fully in line with our expectations, and we had a net cost relief of approximately SEK40 million, primarily from electricity prices in Europe. Heading into the third quarter, we expect continued stable cost situation for both of our regions. And on the Nordic pulpwood, we now see a trend shift.

The pulpwood prices are coming down. We decreased our price list during the quarter and have seen further downward adjustments by other wood purchases. We see good availability that will continue into the third quarter and expect also that the downward pressure on the pulpwood prices will intensify. With that said, the cost impact for billiard in the third quarter will be limited, and that is due to our sourcing mix during the summer, where many of the sawmills are closed, but we certainly expect the cost to come down further into the year. Next slide, please.

Now, with the newly introduced financial targets, we are emphasizing cash generation as one of our key priorities. And I’m particularly pleased with the cash conversion of 131% for the second quarter. Our cash flow from operating activities more than doubled compared to the first half of last year. And we are making a good progress on reaching the cash conversion of above 80% for the full year. The strong cash generation is certainly supporting our strong balance sheet.

And even after dividend payout during the quarter, we maintain our leverage in line with the first quarter at around one times EBITDA. In terms of the CapEx for the rest of the year, we now estimate the total CapEx of 3,100,000,000.0 for ’twenty five, which is 400,000,000 lower versus our previous outlook. And that is primarily driven by slower investment pace for our evolution program in North America. And we now expect that that amount will be pushed into 2026. With that, I would like to hand it back to you, Ivar.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Thank you, Andre. Now an essential part of our strategic framework, the way forward, is to focus on items we can control and avoid being distracted from mixed factors that we literally can’t do nothing about. And challenging conditions mean we truly need to be at our best to further improve our competitiveness and outperform our peer group. We have successfully been disciplined on fixed cost spending and need to be even more aggressive and creative on finding new additional saving opportunities throughout our cost base. As you just heard from Andre, protecting our cash flow is of utmost importance, and we certainly aim to continue the strong start of the year and land the year with 80% plus conversion.

Another priority is to carefully drive our most profitable and most structurally attractive mix opportunity with focus. And lastly, improving our meal efficiency across and secure supply chain reliability and predictability towards a large and diverse customer base. These points have been our priorities for some time, and they will continue to be so. So next slide, please. So to round it up and going into Q3, we do expect continued solving conditions for region North America.

In Region Europe, there are some variations across channels and categories, but overall, we would expect the market to stay weak and input costs should stay quite flat across the regions. So with that, I hand it back to operator for Q and A.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now take the first question. And your first question comes from the line of James Perry from Citi. Please go ahead.

James Perry, Analyst, Citi: Good morning and thanks for the presentation. Just a couple. First, I’d to ask about the wood costs. You mentioned that you’ve seen the first price reduction in the Nordic wood prices. Are you able to share what kind of magnitude of price decreases you’re seeing?

And whether you think this is temporary relief or negative momentum from here? And secondly, on North America, you said about the positive sales volumes and the higher interest in domestically produced products. I know it’s difficult to determine, but do you have any sense as to whether customers are looking for a temporary workaround or have they been interested in long term contracts? Thanks.

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Hi, good morning, James. I will start by commenting on the Wood Coast. So, as I mentioned, we have seen a good availability in the ’25 and that situation has continued also, you know, in the second quarter and will continue in the third. We have seen prices in Baltics and also in Norway coming down. We decreased our price list with five to 10% from the list prices and seen additional price reductions since then.

As I mentioned, the quarter three, we have a bit different sourcing mix. But if we would look at the impact beyond that at this point, with the price list changes we have seen, we would estimate positive cost impact of 40 to 50,000,000. But again, not much of that in quarter three.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: So hi, James, I can take the second question about the North America. I think it’s difficult to get customers to sign in blood that this is long term. But I can say that that process of going through the qualification and changing your supplier is to a certain extent a bit painful. There are some efforts being required on both sides. And you can certainly say that once you come to the step that you have been finding a way in, you know, that is expectation.

It will remain and it stays. So hence a much more long term. So we are clearly very much under the view that, you know, once we start opening the doors and can illustrate a good product performance, that is, you know, the start of the journey. And we expect just this now to snowball further into bigger figures going into 2026.

James Perry, Analyst, Citi: Okay. Thank you very much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Lars Kjellberg from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Lars Kjellberg, Analyst, Stifel: Yes, good morning and thanks for taking my questions. Just a follow-up on the pulpwood one. You mentioned, both this in Norway prices have declined And then you talked to list prices, which I suppose refer to Sweden. That’s not the same as prices are coming down just because you call list prices down. So the question is, are you having any success in lowering those prices I.

E. Wood flowing in at lower prices also in Sweden? And then I just wanted to get some color on Asia. You mentioned liquid paperboard markets being particularly challenging and competitive. And we can kind of see from your liquid paperboard sales that are down quite a bit.

Are you seeing them local competition in particularly in those Asian markets in liquid paperboard, which used to be sort of a broader speak an oligopoly between three producers. And of those, if that is indeed the case, are they breaking into other markets? You mentioned some volumes generally, suppose from China coming into The U. S, but would be interesting to hear some color on that specific market. And then finally in North America, you speak to solid performance.

But then again, if we actually take away the benefit of the maintenance activity, the schedule change, you’re actually down in North America. So what explains that sort of call it CHF 50,000,000 drop year on year in underlying performance adjusted for maintenance? That’s my questions.

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Good morning, Lars. I will start by providing additional comments on the pulpwood. So when we look at the price list in The Nordics, in Sweden, again, are underpinned by good availability and the most we see on the price list. And we certainly expect that we will be able to purchase wood going forward on the newly announced price list.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Yeah, I can. Morning Lars, I’ll jump into the second. I think it’s a fair question. And let me just try to give some color on what we see on the liquid packaging these days, because it is a bit of a mixed picture. We are seeing that the market is more or less flat and that is more on the kind of global basis, around zero to 1%.

But there are some pretty hefty regional differences. China now is in decline, while we see more growth in India, other items in Southeast Asia and North America and Europe is also quite flat. And our business then in terms of the supplies into Europe are performing well and more under stable conditions. So it is so that much more challenging Chinese market and consumption being much more muted. That hits us as well as that is a big market for us to deliver into.

And hence that Asia not growing and in decline that, you know, is certainly an effective tail. It is also so that some of our customer base in some of the key markets in Asia are losing share. And that also, of course, impacts us based on our exposure to a certain customer base. But I can confirm to your question that, yeah, we are meeting some competition from local players in China in particular, and they’ve been able to gain some meaningful share over the last time. Yeah.

If you take it off, Andrei.

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Lars, going back to the performance in North America, they have, of course, been heavily impacted or the results in the Swedish krona has been heavily impacted by the change in FX. So that’s shaving off approximately one percentage point in EBITDA year over year.

Lars Kjellberg, Analyst, Stifel: Got you. If I can just have a follow-up or another question. Kraft paper seems to be comparatively stable and reasonable in Europe. Can you share any color on how that market has progressed? You called out better pricing realization in the market, which would suggest less of an issue with, I guess, excess supply and less demand weakness, but some incremental color on that would be helpful.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Yeah, no, I can take that one. Yeah, I mean, there is no doubt that, you know, the excess supply is certainly most notable within board, particularly within paperboard. I think from what we see on our side is, yeah, a bit more balanced market, but the underlying consumption is still weak and it worsened a bit during the quarter. Yeah, customers holding a bit back on some borders And it has just been a sentiment that we just felt more on the demand side. But yes, it is in a relatively better shape versus what we see on the border side.

Lars Kjellberg, Analyst, Stifel: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Robin Santavirta from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Robin Santavirta, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: Yes, thank you very much. First question is related to the demand in Europe. Looking at your delivery volumes down 6% year on year, and I think you provided three reasons for that. But I was also wondering whether there’s potentially some destocking among your clients given this uncertainty that we have after Liberation Day? Or is this underlying demand this minus 6%?

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Yeah. Hey, good morning, Robin. No, I think it’s always difficult to pin it down exactly what drives what. But yes, I think there is a part of that maybe towards the end of the quarter, where in particular, lot of our customer base as well look to protect, you know, their cash generation since market is tough. And yeah, I mean, I think if you also look at some, you know, the historical behavior we’ll meet when pulp pricing tend to fall as it has during the quarter.

I’m sure also there are certain customer behavior that would expect, you know, material packaging pricing to follow and again, hold a little bit back. So there’s a part of it for sure, especially towards the end of the quarter, difficult to pinpoint exactly how big that impact is.

Robin Santavirta, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: Thanks. Second question I have is related to the pulpwood pricing. Could you just provide a bit more detail about, like, per cube where we stand at the moment. Is it sort of you have got the price by SEK 30 per cube and then there’s some SEK 50 sort of SEK per cube cuts out there right now? And if that would be the case, wouldn’t the impact be a bit bigger than 40 to 50 once that would come through the P and L fully?

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Yes. I can continue, Robin. So we have decreased our price list with 30 SEK per cubic meter on the softwood and 50 actually on hardwood. And these are also the changes we have seen, you know, happened since then. In terms of the impact for, you know, reminder of the year, it depends on, you know, which price list you purchase on in which regions to which mills.

But currently, our assessment is that will be in that region.

Robin Santavirta, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: And can I just ask what is the P and L lag from sort of you buying this wood at lower prices, three months or It’s usually two to three months

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: approximately? Thanks. A final question, just a

Robin Santavirta, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: quick one on capital allocation. The balance sheet is still quite strong. I understand it’s tough out there, particularly Europe. What about potential share buybacks? Is that something that now the stock is close to what is it, the five year low?

Is that something that you could take a look at this autumn?

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Yes. No, it’s a fair question. I can just say that there’s no discussions happening, you know, with the board on this, but it’s obviously not a normal discussion that will surface during second half of the year. And of course, we will come back if there are any news or any intervention we would decide or the board will decide. But for now, there’s nothing.

It’s full focus on our side to continue our, you know, improvement of the items that we can control.

Robin Santavirta, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: Perfect. Thank you very much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Linus Larsson from SEB. Please go ahead.

Linus Larsson, Analyst, SEB: Thank you very much and a very good morning to everyone. A couple of questions on Europe, if I may, starting with volumes. Shipments in the second quarter were on their lowest levels that that was seen for for many years actually, and and I I think they were even somewhat lower than than you had expected yourself. So is your message now that you’re expecting the same level of shipments from Region Europe in the third quarter? And also in relation to that, how how are you looking at this in terms of potential restructuring when you when when you look at your your your current footprint, are there certain measures that you are evaluating?

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Good morning, Linus. So in terms of volumes, I’m getting a bit back to what Ivar talked about. There are two things. The first of all, you know, the underlying demand is not where we would expect it to be long term. And we also have the oversupply partly due to capacity increases in the region, but also change to the trade flows.

With those two things out there, we do expect the situation for quarter three to remain weak, but it is also with very high uncertainty around, you know, what things are gonna change in quarter three. And hence at this point, it is just difficult to predict volumes for the third quarter. Our order books are weakened now versus where they have been, you know, when we were about for the first quarter, but difficult to predict and provide any more specifics on volumes for the third quarter at this point.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Hi, good morning Linus. I’m just jumping into your second which yeah, mean, we do have a profitability target of 15% EBITDA with clear regional targets broken down that we shared in the CMD. We are certainly far away from that. And the gap is in Europe. And as I mentioned in my part earlier, we will need to be aggressive and creative on the full cost base and continue to challenge that.

That might mean that there are additional structural savings that are coming. And if so, we will come back to that topic later in the year.

Linus Larsson, Analyst, SEB: Cool. Thanks. That’s super helpful. And then staying on on Europe, just on price, ASP came came down quite a bit year on year in the quarter. And if you could just help us dissect that, please, in into what was currency, what was mix, what was actually price, and also what your expectations are for price in Europe and mix the third compared to the second quarter?

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Yes. Linus, I can start with the second part of the question. We don’t again, based on what I mentioned in terms of volumes, we don’t expect any major shifts in the mix heading into the third quarter. Just in terms of the pricing also looking forward, I mean, we are meeting a weaker market now. Our starting point is to defend our pricing positions also on the back of stability in our input costs.

But we need to acknowledge the weakness, and we certainly expect some pricing pressure to come through during the third quarter. First and foremost, I think within containerboard and carton board, but we will, of course, defend our positions. If we look at development in Europe year over year, there has also been a hefty currency impact. And if we look at currency neutral sales for Region Europe, they were down 4% versus last year. And the majority of it was actually driven by mix due to the weaker volumes we had this quarter.

Linus Larsson, Analyst, SEB: Great. That’s also very helpful. May I may I just add add one one final question? You wrote about about this negative inventory revaluation. Could you just please clarify that?

Did you have and did you and if so, how much was the negative inventory revaluation in the second quarter? What was it in the first quarter? And if you at all have any anticipation for the third quarter that would be of interest as well?

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Yeah. For the second quarter, we had a negative revaluation impact of approximately 15,000,000. So really no drama and where we would, you know, expect it normally to fluctuate. But looking at the second quarter last year, we had quite sizable positive impact of approximately 80,000,000. So hence, year over year, quite significant deviation.

Heading forward now, we don’t expect any major movements there, again, based on the stability in the input costs.

Linus Larsson, Analyst, SEB: Okay. That’s great. Thank you very much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Cole Harthorn from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Cole Harthorn, Analyst, Jefferies: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I just like a follow-up firstly on Europe. I mean, I go back to the Q1 report, you talked about decent order books and I know the market changed, but I’m just wondering was the deterioration really in June that you saw the impact and kind of pullback in volumes? And was the volume pullback compounded by the operating deleverage that you saw?

I mean, is this really an operating deleverage across your asset base effect rather than anything else? And how can you improve the operating rates of your mills in Europe? Does it mean that you take some longer economic downtime and ways to save costs or does it require more of a permanent solution to remove capacity? Thank you.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Yeah. Hi. Good morning, Cole. I can take that one. No, again, can confirm that the situation got gradually worsened during the quarter.

And yeah, it is off that when we started the quarter, our order books at that time looked a bit more decent. And as also Andreas said, now they are weaker than we now are in the July. I think it’s again difficult to exactly pinpoint, you know, what is what impact carrying its weight. But there’s just no doubt that, you know, consumer demand has been delayed in terms of getting to recovery. And that is spreading, you know, gradual also to a customer base being worried about what underlying strength is and protecting their own cash generation and certainly the tariffs and the relocation of some of the volume back to Europe has just not helped.

It was a gradual impact that intensified towards the end of the quarter, no doubt. Yeah, I think the I mean, in terms of operating rates, yeah, there is little doubt that, you know, we need to manage this almost on a weekly basis. It’s one of the core question that the region, you know, wrestle with. And we have some leeway to either take downtime some days or slow steam. But surely now we run quite a bit lower than our normal capacity is and certainly also quite a bit lower than we would have on the fallout.

So, yeah, it’s the same for the whole sector. We’re doing what we can and, you know, we’ve been quite successful so far of maneuvering this and protecting our cash flow as you saw earlier in the deck.

Cole Harthorn, Analyst, Jefferies: And then maybe if I just follow-up on North America, which is a more positive story. But when I think about that North America division into the second part of the year, can you give any commentary on how you’re benefiting from kind of the import tariffs supporting specialty and graphic paper? Are you comfortable that you’re going to continue to be at a decent operating level there? And then secondly, I know pulp prices are lower, but, given potential tariffs on Brazil, how would your business perform? Would you be a net beneficiary from pulp sales domestically in The US?

Thank you.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Yeah, why don’t I start and Andre you can jump in if you have anything. Yeah, I want to say in the second half, I mean comfortable and comfortable. I think we are in a very good place And I think we’ve proven this now continuously over years that we are well placed and we have a very strong starting point where we can be the local player who offer speed and reliability and predictability. That has worked super and we expect that still to continue. I mean, as an example, our order books are much stronger as a relative comparison in the North America when we go into Q3.

Sure, there are topics and let’s say that the phone is ringing quite more frequently now in the light of the uncertainty we are facing on tariffs. We are certainly also calling a lot of our potential new customers to remind them of where we stand and we are ready to deliver. And surely that has helped us, but it’s not been a tsunami, but it’s been a good testament of the growth we’ve seen. If though some of these tariffs will become permanent at a high level, I mean, that’s surely going to be a benefit. But it’s speculation, as you know, at this time since this situation with the trade agreement can change extremely fast.

But overall, we are in a very good place and super impressed of what the North American team are able to produce quarter after quarter. Yeah, on pulp, it’s interesting, as you mentioned, we are a bit long on pulp in North America on the hardwood maple pulp about 200,000 or some 200,000 ish. We’ll see. I mean, there’s no doubt that a big chunk of the tissue production capacity in North America is supplied from Brazil. You know, with that tariff now on the table will remain or stay.

I mean, clearly, that would benefit the remaining players of, you know, locally produced North American pulp where we are one of them. But again, it’s too early to say anything. It can be an agreement or that is removed, you know, tomorrow or next week as we’ve seen. But surely, if it stays on long term, this this should help us for sure.

Cole Harthorn, Analyst, Jefferies: And then maybe just a a clarification. You called out, you know, the particular oversupply in paperboard, but were you referring more to kind of the folding carton, the boxboard side rather than the containerboard? Or just a little bit of specifics around which was the relatively weaker and more impacted by the oversupply? Thank you.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Yeah, think we talk about carton board and liner

Lars Kjellberg, Analyst, Stifel: first and foremost.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Think fluting for us or at least our Nordic fluting is a bit more protected, as you know, which runs on on separate machines. Yeah, liner in particular, coated, uncoated, and carton is the the bigger what we refer to.

Linus Larsson, Analyst, SEB: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We’ll now go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Martin Malby from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.

Martin Malby, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Yes. Good morning. You had a couple of comments there on price quarter to quarter for Q3. Are you basically saying flat or down with pulp?

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Yeah, I can repeat that, Martina, and good morning. So again, given the situation where we are, we do expect weaker market conditions to persist for the European side into the third quarter. Again, our starting point is that we will defend our pricing positions, but we do expect some pricing pressure. So any other guidance than that, I wouldn’t be able to provide at this point. For North America, we expect stable prices for for our paper grades.

Now the pulp prices have come down. We expect roughly 5% lower pulp prices for the North American region, which is a half percentage point for the whole region then.

Martin Malby, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Thank you. On on the maintenance costs, you have some different numbers in the presentation compared to the report. So if I get this right, you say four forty in the presentation, but, like, $3.80 in the report. And what is the difference?

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Yeah. So, so the difference is that when we call out in you know, report is the, you know, planned maintenance shutdowns where we close essentially our recovery boilers and stop all of the productions. But in the preparation for the evolution program in North America, we will take some additional maintenance that is not CapEx, but it is maintenance, and that will add some additional costs into the third quarter for North America.

Martin Malby, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: I see. And last question. Financial On items, is minus 111 clean, or is that FX loss including?

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: No. That is impacted by the changes in the FX rate. So that includes re evaluation of our cash balances in foreign currencies. The underlying interest costs are around 60,000,000. So the reminder is FX primarily.

Martin Malby, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Excellent. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Oscar Lindstrom from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Yes.

Lina Shatawa, Head of Investor Relations, Billiard0: Three questions from my side. First, two on volume curtailments. How are you distributing the production curtailments between mills? Are are certain of your mills in Europe more severely impacted by production curtailments? Are there perhaps even entire machines which are being taken offline?

Yes, that’s the first question.

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: If you could just hi. Good morning, Oscar. If you just give all of the three, and then we’ll start from the top. Okay.

Lina Shatawa, Head of Investor Relations, Billiard0: Yeah. So the first question is is how you’re distributing these production curtailments between mills and and and and if there’s entire machines in which are being taken offline or if it’s really just sort of day by day? The second question is, are other producers in Europe, in your different niches also taking production curtailments? What’s your impression here? And then the third question, you mentioned that there was a delay in CapEx in North America for the reason for taking down your full year CapEx guidance.

What’s the reason for the delay? Is it by choice or is the yeah, is there another reason?

Ivar Vatne, President and CEO, Billiard: Oskar, good morning. I can start with the first two and I’m sure Andre will jump in the third. I think when we have this situation where we start to see softer demand and we need to, I call it, wrestle through it, it’s one of the key points we have in our sales and operational planning. And it’s a bit of a chessboard at most quite a lot. There are no machines that are fully down that I can say.

And we have had slow steam or, you know, you can call it some downtime or curtailment more on the board side during Q2 versus what we saw on the paper side. I mean, the paper in general have performed a bit stronger through the quarter. And I mean, emerging that into your question number two, I can with quite high likelihood confirm that I think this curtailment on production is the theme of Q2 for, you know, pretty much everyone in the industry. And, yeah, I expect a lot of the same companies in this sector to report, you know, how they’ve been able and needed to take downtime and slow steaming to maneuver through what we currently see.

Andre Kriess, CFO, Billiard: Yeah, I can take the question on the CapEx, Oscar. So the 400,000,000 that we push into 2026 from ’twenty five, That is primarily the Evolution project in North America. And it is, you know, just more detailed planning of when we will carry out the investments. As you know, we don’t have any maintenance shutdown in Quinosec Mill. So we want to time that into the maintenance shutdown, but also make, you know, more investments during the next maintenance shutdown in Escanaba.

So that’s a deliberate choice to adapt it better to the planned production there.

Lina Shatawa, Head of Investor Relations, Billiard0: All right, thank you very much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back to you.

Lina Shatawa, Head of Investor Relations, Billiard: Okay. So with no further questions, we have come to an end of this conference. Welcome back when we report our third quarter, that is on the October 23. Thank you for participating and bye bye.

Conference Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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