Sylvamo Q1 2025 Earnings Report

Sylvamo EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.68
• Consensus EPS: $0.70
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.02
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.07

Sylvamo Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $821.00 million
• Expected Revenue: $819.61 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$1.39 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: -9.30%

Sylvamo Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 5/9/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Friday, May 9, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Sylvamo (NYSE:SLVM) produces and markets uncoated freesheet for cutsize, offset paper, and pulp in Latin America, Europe, and North America. The company operates through Europe, Latin America, and North America segments. The Europe segment offers copy, tinted, and colored laser printing paper under REY Adagio and Pro-Design brands; and graphic and high-speed inkjet printing papers under the brand Jetstar; as well as produces uncoated freesheet papers. The Latin America segment focuses on uncoated freesheet paper under Chamex, Chamequinho and Chambril brands, as well as produces HP papers. This segment also operates integrated mills and non-integrated mills. The North America segment offers imaging, commercial printing, and converting papers, as well as uncoated papers under Hammermill, Springhill, Williamsburg, Accent, DRM and Postmark brand names. It distributes its products through a variety of channels, including retail merchants, e-commerce, agents, resellers, and paper distributors. The company was founded in 1898 and is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.

Sylvamo Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Our CEO succession plan sets John Sims as CEO on January 1, 2026, with Tom Devlin now CFO, ensuring a seamless transition after Jean Michel Rivieres retires at year-end.
• First-quarter adjusted EBITDA of $90 million (11% margin) met guidance but was burdened by ~$30 million of planned maintenance outages and typical Latin America seasonality, with free cash flow weighted to the second half.
• North American operational issues—including reliability setbacks at Ticonderoga and Eastover and lower Riverdale mill volumes—cost ~$10 million in Q1 EBITDA and may defer some order fulfillment into Q3.
• Implemented uncoated freesheet price increases in Brazil and North America, with Q2 price and mix expected to contribute an additional $5–10 million to EBITDA.
• Balance sheet strength is robust: net debt halved since spin-off (leverage 1.1×), $400 million revolver available, and $62 million remaining share repurchase authorization.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Silvamo's First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, you will have an opportunity to ask questions.

[Operator]

As a reminder, your conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to Hans Bjorkman, Vice President, Investor Relations. Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.

[Hans Bjorkman, VP, IR at Sylvamo]

Thanks, Sarah. Good morning, and thank you for joining our first quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. Our speakers this morning are Jean Michel Rivieres, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and John Sims, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Slides two and three contain important information, including certain legal disclaimers. For example, during this call, we will make forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties.

[Hans Bjorkman, VP, IR at Sylvamo]

We will also present certain non U. S. GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of those figures to U. S.

[Hans Bjorkman, VP, IR at Sylvamo]

GAAP financial measures are available in the appendix. Our website also contains copies of the earnings release as well as today's presentation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Jean Michel.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Thanks, Anne. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. I'll start on Slide four, highlighting some news we announced a few weeks ago. After over three decades of working in the paper and packaging industry, I have decided to retire at the end of the year. Serving as the Chairman and CEO of Silbermo for the past four years has been one of the greatest highlights of my career.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

I'm pleased that John seems to become the next CEO of Silvamo. John was elected Chief Operating Officer effective May 1 and will lead our commercial and operational functions. Following my retirement, John will assume the role of the CEO on 01/01/2026. As you know, John has served as the CFO of Silvamo since the spin off and has been instrumental in our work to build the world's paper company and drive our company's strong performance. Tom Devlin was then Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, effective May 1, and he is with us here for today's call.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

You'll hear more from Don in future earnings calls. He joined us from International Paper after twenty seven years of the company. Don has extensive international leadership experience with a track record of building teams, developing strategic plans and delivering results in diverse and challenging environment. He served in a variety of leadership roles, including Finance Director for European Paper, Chairman and CEO of IPs and Credit Suisse's business in India and most recently, Vice President Finance and Strategy for IP Industrial Packaging. I'm excited to have both John and Don in their new leadership roles to drive the company forward for future success.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Slide five shows our first quarter highlights. First, we successfully completed a heavy plant maintenance outage quarter in Europe and North America. Also these outages were executed well. We ran into some separate non outage related operational challenges, primarily in North America. John will talk more about the financial impact in a few slides.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

We also began implementing the previously communicated uncoated free sheet price increases to customers in Brazil and North America. Lastly, we returned nearly $40,000,000 in cash to shareholders. We distributed $18,000,000 via the first quarter dividend. And as of today, we have repurchased $20,000,000 in shares this year. Let's move to the next slide.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Slide six shows our first quarter key financial metrics. We earned adjusted EBITDA of $90,000,000 with a margin of 11%. In addition to having almost $30,000,000 of planned maintenance outages costs, the first quarter is our weakest demand quarter every year in Latin America. We generated adjusting operating earnings of $0.68 per share. As expected, free cash flow was lower than the fourth quarter due to the timing of year end payment, onetime cash benefit in the fourth quarter from the monetization of working capital related to the closure of the IP Jawston mill and the payment of annual incentive compensation in the first quarter.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Keep in mind that our free cash flow is heavily weighted to the second half of the year. The last two years, we generated almost 90% of our free cash flow in the second half. Now John will review our performance in more detail.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Thank you, Michel, and good morning, I also want to thank Don, who's sitting right next to me. We're in a transition of moving the CFO of all quickly over to him. I look forward to working in the future with Don. Slide seven contains our first quarter earnings bridge versus the fourth quarter. The $90,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA was in line with our outlook of $85,000,000 to $105,000,000 As Jean Michel mentioned, we had some operational issues in North America, which impacted us by roughly $10,000,000 half from lower sales volume and half from operations and other costs.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

This also includes less volume from IP's Riverdale mill than was planned. Price and mix was unfavorable by $10,000,000 driven by the expected seasonally unfavorable mix in Latin America, lower pulp prices and paper price decreases in Europe and in our export regions. These were partially offset by paper price increased realizations in North America and Brazil. Volume decreased by 30,000,000 driven by the seasonally weakest demand quarter in Latin America, lower North America volume from IP's Georgetown mill exit and the operational challenges in North America. Operations and other costs were unfavorable by 12,000,000 primarily driven by unfavorable FX plus the North America operational challenges we mentioned earlier.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Planned maintenance outage costs increased by $9,000,000 as we executed major outages at our Syat and East River mills. Input and transportation costs increased by $6,000,000 primarily driven by seasonally higher energy prices and the longer than expected extreme cold weather across The United States in the first quarter. Let's move to Slide eight. We expect to deliver second quarter adjusted EBITDA of $75,000,000 to $95,000,000 We project price and mix to be favorable by 5,000,000 to $10,000,000 This is primarily due to favorable mix in Latin America and North America. We expect volume to be stable.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Volume would have been sequentially higher as we have the orders, but anticipate being unable to fill them all during the quarter. This is due to low inventory levels in North America as a result of our operational issue. In addition, we expect to get less volume from IP's Riverdale mill in the quarter. Therefore, some of our orders may get pushed into the third quarter. Operations and other costs are projected to be favorable by 10,000,000 to $15,000,000 due to better operations and seasonally lower operating costs in North America and Europe.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

We expect input and transportation costs to improve by 5,000,000 to $10,000,000 primarily due to energy. Planned maintenance are projected to increase by 36,000,000 as we execute the heaviest outage quarter of the year across all three regions. Let's go to slide nine. This slide illustrates the planned maintenance outage scheduled for the full year. We spent $27,000,000 in the first quarter and expect to spend $63,000,000 in the second quarter.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

By midyear, we'll spend over 80% of the total annual planned maintenance outage cost. Unlike last year, we had no major planned maintenance outages in Europe. This year, we have outages in both mills in the first half of the year. Let's move to Slide 10. I'll now shift to talk about overall uncoated freesheet conditions across our region.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

In Europe, demand is down 7% year over year through the first quarter, while imports appear stable. As a reminder, industry supply was reduced by 7% after two uncoated freesheet machines closed late last year. In Latin America, demand is up 3% year over year through the first quarter with most of the increase in Brazil, largely due to strong demand in the publishing segment. In North America, apparent demand is down about 1% year over year through the first quarter driven by higher imports. This brings imports to almost 15% of overall North America supply, which is on the higher end of historical ranges.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

We still believe that real demand will be down about 3% to 4% this year. As another reminder, domestic industry supply was reduced by 10% after a few machines, including IP's Georgetown mill, closed in the second half of last year. We have strong order books across our region, and all of our mills are running full. We have more demand than we can supply right now due to our commercial team's success, combined with the supply issues we've been dealing with in North America. Consequently, going forward, we're going to take advantage of our global footprint to improve our mix and serve our customers in North America.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

As a result, we expect to have less exports to non core markets. We are not going to give a full year guidance with all the uncertainty. However, we do expect a significantly better adjusted EBITDA performance in the second half. This is due to lower planned maintenance outage expenses, improved commercial results and better operations. Tariff uncertainty aside, we expect 2025 Latin America and North America combined full year adjusted EBITDA to be slightly better than 2024.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Europe's '20 '20 '5 performance will be significantly worse than 2024 due to the $39,000,000 of planned maintenance outage this year and worse market conditions as we're seeing signs of the pulp market weakening. Let's go to Slide 11. I want to take some time to discuss our European business. As we look back on the Newmala Mill acquisition, the mill generated about $70,000,000 of free cash flow before overhead allocations in its first two years as part of Savamo. We exceeded over $20,000,000 run rate synergy target by $5,000,000 The pulp mill modernization project exceeded its projected benefits as well.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Unfortunately, compared to 2022, last year, the mill experienced a $41,000,000 increase in wood cost and a cumulative $63,000,000 over the last two years. This increase in wood cost is due to the war with Russia and Belarus stopping the export of wood fiber, reducing overall wood supply to the region. Additionally, high demand from the energy sector in the Nordic increased overall wood demand. Stepping back and looking at our entire European business, our earnings performance is below our expectations. In addition to numerous escalating wood costs, high input costs and challenging industry conditions have impacted demand and pricing.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

We're not satisfied with our performance and have installed a new Senior Vice President and General Manager effective May 1 to lead our talented team, further develop our strong customer relationship and improve our performance. We are focusing on reducing costs across the region. We'll be improving our product mix by upgrading some capabilities at Syat. We are working to reduce wood costs and are targeting best in class efficiency at the New Mala Mill. I'll now turn the call back over to Jean Michel.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Thanks, John. I'm now on Slide 12. We understand that one of the main risks in today's environment is a global economic slowdown due to the current tariff situation, which could impact uncoated free sheet demand. Some shift in uncoated free sheet and pulp trade flows are already starting to materialize.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

We also anticipate higher risk of inflation on our raw material, transportation and capital spending. While this represents possible challenges, this risk currently appear manageable. Our global sourcing teams are already working on mitigation strategies as well as alternative sourcing options for some raw materials plus optimizing modes of transportation. Regarding our major capital spending plans for the year, the business cases for this project include the possibility of higher costs, which are not expected to be material at this point. Let's move to Slide 13.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Although there is a lot of uncertainty around the tariffs and the impact on the economy, we are well positioned to manage through this environment. Over 90% of our raw materials are sourced locally, with very little coming from China. Regarding our shipments, the majority stay within their respective region. In Europe and North America, more than 90% of our shipments stays within their respective region. Latin America, 80 Percent of our shipments remain in the region.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Although we export about 20% of our products from Latin America, we are well positioned as our Brazilian mills are some of the world's most competitive and low cost uncoated free sheet facility. Lastly, I want to remind everyone that even though import tend to rise and fall for a variety of reasons, import historically represents less than 15% of uncoated free sheet industry supply in each of our three regions. Let's move to Slide 14. I will take this opportunity to remind everyone of all the work we did to deleverage our balance sheet over the past three years. After launching with close to €1,400,000,000 debt net debt and a leverage ratio of 2.6 times, we have reduced our debt by about half, and our leverage ratio is now 1.1 times.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

We have no majority major maturities until 2027, plus we have availability on a revolver of 400,000,000 Our strong balance sheet, available cash on hand, plus the availability on our revolver provides us with the ability to take care of our customer, run our business and invest in our future. Our capital allocation strategy is to maintain a strong financial position. We invest in our business to improve our competitive advantages and return cash to shareholders. Our position of financial strength allow us to navigate this uncertain environment without changing our thoughtful long term approach to capital allocation. It allow us to serve customers by navigating economic headwinds.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

It also enables us to invest in our business even during times of uncertainty. And it preserves the flexibility to return cash to share owners. We will continue to evaluate opportunities to repurchase shares at attractive price with the $62,000,000 available on our current share repurchase authorization. I'll conclude my remarks on Slide 16. All of the work we have done to strengthen our financial position the past few years is providing us with flexibility.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Our financial strength and regional businesses have us well positioned to navigate the current tariff uncertainty. We are reinvesting in our business through a great pipeline of high return capital projects, which will enable us to grow our earnings and cash flow in the coming years. This Vambo is creating shareholder value through strong cash generation and disciplined capital allocation. And we are in the process of executing a seamless CEO and CFO succession plan as we prepare for my retirement at the end of the year. We are confident in our future and motivated by the opportunities that lie ahead. With that, I'll turn the call back to Hans.

[Hans Bjorkman, VP, IR at Sylvamo]

Thanks, Jean Michel, and thank you, John. Okay, Sarah, we're ready to take questions.

[Operator]

Thank Your first question comes from George Staphos with Bank of America. Your line is open.

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for the details. Jean Michel, John and Don, congratulations. Yeah.

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

And all the best on the next chapters. And Jean Michel, thanks for all the help, obviously. And you're not retiring yet, but thanks for all the help with our our research or everybody on this call, since you've been public. I guess the question I had, I didn't really follow what the operational issues were. If you could give us a bit more detail in terms of what happened.

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

And then I know you're not guiding on third quarter, but you mentioned you won't be in a position to recover some of the orders in 2Q. It sounds like some of that might be pushed into 3Q. Is there a way for you to size what that benefit might be as you recapture some of those orders, particularly as regards seasonality? Brazil typically picks up in the third quarter as well. Thank you.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Yes, George, and thank you. Issues we had was actually the multiple reliability issues both at our Ticonderoga mill and our Eastover mill. Majority of that is behind us. We do have one issue that's intermittent, so it makes it hard to troubleshoot on one paper machine at Eastover. That actually is in our outlook in the second quarter, we think we're going to have that resolved we should have that resolved by this quarter.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

The other thing I'll make a point about is the impact of the Riverdale volume because that doesn't show up in the operations, but it's certainly showing up in the volume. In fact, they've obviously been having some runnability issues themselves, and it really started in the fourth quarter, translated into when it continued into the first, and it's also continuing into the second quarter. That in itself been about almost 30% of what they should be supplying us we haven't been getting. So you can see it actually comes to build up. In the first quarter, we said the impact of all these issues was roughly about $10,000,000 I would say that the Riverdale conditions also are continuing into the second quarter.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Some of that is in our outlook. But if you're trying to get to a number of what would the improvement be in the third quarter, something a little bit less than $10,000,000

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Okay. You.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

That's what the George, that's the thought. So they'll show up in both offset volume.

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Okay. And the related question, that I had there was just in general, can you remind us then seasonally what goes well third quarter versus 2Q? As I recall, LATAM volumes pick up. Is there a way to size that for us? I know you're not guiding on 3Q, as we're trying to build out our bridges or refine them. Thank you.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Yeah. George, you know, the best thing I would do is just look at what we've done historically.

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Okay.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

And we, you know, we break it down by region, we don't see much difference in that.

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Okay. Thank you, John.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Matthew McKellar of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Matt McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets]

Good morning. Jean Michel, congratulations on your upcoming retirement and congratulations also to John and Don for their appointments.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Hi, Matt.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Thank you, Matt.

[Matt McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets]

I'd like to start by asking just around the changes at SIAD to Nimala. Could you tell us maybe just a bit more about what the upgrades to your capabilities at SIAD to entail and the market opportunity that's leading you to reposition your product mix, maybe whether that's entirely serving demand in North America or if there's anything else going on there? And then at Nebula, what levers do you have to reduce your wood costs and improve efficiency? And as we kind of think about putting this all together, how do you have us think about how financially meaningful these changes could be and over what timeline? Thanks.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Hey, Matt. So in Saia, to answer your first question, we've invested on the new and revised winder. This is going giving us the capability to sell rolls in Saia in interesting segments, more specialty roll segments in Europe. We are quite a different position. I don't know if you get that in mind.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

In Numero, we sell 50% of our business in growth and we are very successful and 50% in cut size. In Saia today, sell 90% in cut size and only roughly 10% of growth. This is going to give us the capability to sell much more rules and enter into the specialty segment. So I hope I'm answering your first question. On Europe, in general, in Newmola, we have great opportunities in operations.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

We don't run Newmola mill at the same bench OEE or you want cost performance that we run the other mills. We've done some investments in capital, but also in people and we're continuing to do that. And that gives you quite a lot of cost opportunity to improve Lumina. And in Saia, it's in mostly mix and also looking at our fixed cost mostly.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Yeah. And I'll just add to that. Matthew, you asked about the levers that we have in reducing the wood cost. So when we purchased the new mill, there was an agreement that we would continue to source the wood from a company that's owned by a store. One of the options we have is to go directly right to the landowners, which cuts out some of the cost around that.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

The other opportunity we have is actually importing in the lower cost wood. And then there's operational improvements where we increase the yield and reduce the consumption of wood going forward. Those are some of the levers that we're pulling. In terms of the levers, how much and what we're targeting for is we're looking at and targeting at least a 10% reduction.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

And I think that you had asked also a question on Europe profitability in general. And as we mentioned, we're clearly not satisfied. We are clearly expecting a significant improvement in 2026 and now building programs to be back to cost of capital in 2027. So that's the plan we have as of today.

[Matt McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets]

That's helpful. Thank you for all the detail. Last one for me. There was a comment that some shifts in uncoated freesheet and pulp trade flows are already starting to materialize. Could you just elaborate on what you're seeing and kind of how that's affecting you by market? Thanks.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Yeah, I'll take that one. This is what makes it difficult around trying to assess the impact of tariffs because some of it is probably the most impactful to us could potentially be the secondary effects of the negotiations that are ongoing. And give you some examples that we've seen, like we talked about increased imports into The U. S. Some of that, we believe, could be due to pre buying or getting ahead of the tariffs in North America as an example.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

We also have seen in Europe, just reported this month by Fast Market, the REC, that pulp prices decreased almost €40 a ton on The UK coming out Brazil, and that's really driven because of this significant decrease in pulp demand in China. And then that's coming over to Europe. That's some of the impacts that we're seeing as a result of this tariff situation here in The U. S.

[Matt McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets]

Thanks for all the color. I'll turn it back.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Daniel Harriman with Sidoti. Your line is open.

[Daniel Harriman, Analyst at Sidoti & Company]

Thank you. Good morning, guys. And I echo the congratulations given by Matt and George. I had a question about your capital spending for the balance of the year. If we look at what you spend in the first quarter, that run rate won't get you to your guidance of $220,000,000 to $240,000,000 for the year.

[Daniel Harriman, Analyst at Sidoti & Company]

So I'm just curious how we should think about that over the last three quarters, understanding that you don't guide to cash flow, but just trying to get a sense of what we should be looking for the last nine months.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Daniel, we do. We haven't changed the revision on full year capital. And whereas most of our outages in the first half of the year, the second half will be somewhat influenced by the large capital projects we have associated with Eastover, both the speed up and the new sheeter. So the full year guidance will still be 02/20 to two forty.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Daniel, Jean Michel. Would just maybe add something in your I think when you look at free cash flow and we've had the, I would call it the issue last year and the one before, We are very strongly second half of the year cash flow. Our two last years were 90% of our cash flow the last two quarters of the year. We expect about the same this year. So I know sometimes in your modeling, it's a little bit difficult to do, but this is what we've seen historically speaking.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

You've got it in our appendix slide and we expect about the same thing this year. So a very significant increase in cash flow for the second half of the year.

[Daniel Harriman, Analyst at Sidoti & Company]

Okay. Thank you guys so much.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is a follow-up from George Staphos with Bank of America. Your line is open.

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Thanks. John, Jean Michel, Don, you mentioned on one of the slides that you think the North American demand is down 1%, but that is, I guess, if you will, higher than underlying demand because it reflects imports. So I guess two parts, imports you think are going into inventory right now and pre buying, putting to that common together with another one you just made, that will be, I guess, something that has to be absorbed and be an overhang for a little while? And then I think you said overall, you think demand is 3% to 4% on an underlying basis. Is that what your expectation will be for industry shipments over the rest of the year?

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

And how would those figures map? When do you think they should ultimately align demand versus shipments in 3Q, 4Q and the like. I'll turn it over there.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Yes. So the comment there was the apparent demand. And we called out the word apparent because of the calculated. When it looked at domestic shipments plus imports minus exports. And that's being reported as down negative 1%, but we believe that underlying demand is really down 3% to 4% to the point you just you made, George, because you count the imports as soon as it hits the port.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

And typically, that and there was a large surge of imports, particularly in January in the first quarter. And so we think that that has made demand look stronger than it actually is. But yes, it's in inventory and that will be probably consumed going forward. If you look at the numbers, and it's only I think it's reported, but February numbers import numbers were a little bit more, I guess, not full, but they were they were lower than than January. So we think some of this is due to just the timing of the imports coming in, like the first quarter demand maybe look stronger than what we actually see.

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

When do you think go ahead, John. I'm sorry.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

No, that was Jean Michel, sorry. I just wanted to integrate when we look in terms of demand, especially for Silvan, what I'm talking, our order flow, not only because we've had some issues in the mills, but in general, the demand we're seeing with our customers is strong. Have food.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

Yes. I think you were asking about the caustic shipments, George. So my comment on this was that there were some capacity that closed last year, so domestic just that in itself would lower domestic shipments. And then there was a mill that was recently announced that may be shutting down at the end of this year. But so we would expect domestic shipments to be down just because of the capacity closures.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

But as Jean Michel said, operating rates are in the mid low nineties domestically.

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Very good. Another question I had, and I'll turn it over actually. So the operational issues, thank you for going through those earlier, do they affect at all the progress on Eastover with your bigger projects? And if you can just give us a quick update on how that's going. Thank you.

[John Sims, SVP & COO at Sylvamo]

No. They do not. Just to be, frank with you, David, did not impact, that. And actually, those projects are are going well from a timing perspective. So we're still seeing start up next year on that. It's on schedule, on time. No impact there.

[George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Okay. Thank you,

[Operator]

I'll now turn the call back over to Hans Bjorkman for closing comments.

[Hans Bjorkman, VP, IR at Sylvamo]

All right. Thank you, everybody, for joining our call today. We appreciate your interest in Slovamo, and we look forward to continued conversations in the coming weeks. Thank you very much.

[Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO at Sylvamo]

Thank you, everybody.

[Operator]

Once again, we would like to thank you for participating in Salvamo's first quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Hans Bjorkman, VP, IR
• Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman & CEO
• John Sims, SVP & COO

Analysts

• George Staphos, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch
• Matt McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets
• Daniel Harriman, Analyst at Sidoti & Company