TSE:KPT KP Tissue Q2 2026 Earnings Report C$12.93 +0.16 (+1.25%) As of 08/13/2026 04:00 PM Eastern ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast KP Tissue EPS ResultsActual EPSC$0.24Consensus EPS N/ABeat/MissN/AOne Year Ago EPSN/AKP Tissue Revenue ResultsActual RevenueN/AExpected RevenueN/ABeat/MissN/AYoY Revenue GrowthN/AKP Tissue Announcement DetailsQuarterQ2 2026Date8/13/2026TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateThursday, August 13, 2026Conference Call Time8:30AM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress ReleaseEarnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by KP Tissue Q2 2026 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrAugust 13, 2026ShareShareShare This ReportLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Positive Sentiment: Adjusted EBITDA rose 25% year over year to CAD 90.6 million on revenue of CAD 550.9 million, lifting the margin to 16.4% from 13.5%. Gains came from higher U.S. volumes, improved Memphis mill performance, and lower pulp costs. Positive Sentiment: U.S. revenue increased 9.5%, with consumer and Away-From-Home volume growth driving consolidated sales, while the new Memphis converting line is ramping ahead of plan and adding premium tissue capacity. Negative Sentiment: Canadian consumer revenue declined 2.6% and the company lost bathroom tissue and paper towel share as inflation-sensitive consumers traded down to private label. Management expects its pricing, promotional, and brand initiatives to support share recovery in the second half. Negative Sentiment: Away-From-Home revenue grew 7.4%, but segment EBITDA fell to CAD 8.5 million from CAD 9.0 million because of higher freight and transportation costs. The company announced price increases of approximately 3%–5%, effective September 1, to offset these pressures. Neutral Sentiment: Management expects third-quarter Adjusted EBITDA to remain in the range of Q2 results and says tariff exposure should be limited, with less than 1% of Canadian sales potentially affected. The proposed Western U.S. TAD facility remains under evaluation, with site selection and investment timing delayed by permitting, infrastructure, financing, and economic uncertainty. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallKP Tissue Q2 202600:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xTranscript SectionsPresentationParticipantsPresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Good morning, and welcome to KP Tissue second quarter 2026 results conference call. Today's call is being recorded for replay. All participants are currently in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided at the time for you to queue up for questions. If at any time you have difficulties hearing the conference, please press star followed by zero for operator assistance. I will now turn the call over to Doris Grbic, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin your conference. Doris GrbicDirector of Investor Relations at KP Tissue00:00:36Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review Kruger Products' second quarter 2026 financial results. With me this morning is Dino Bianco, the CEO of KP Tissue and Kruger Products, and Michael Keays, the CFO of KP Tissue and Kruger Products. Today's discussion will include certain forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. A list of risk factors can be found in our public filings. In addition, today's discussion will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measure can be found in our MD&A. The press release reporting our Q2 2026 results was published this morning and will be available on our website at kptissueinc.com. The financial statements and MD&A will also be posted on our website and on SEDAR+. Doris GrbicDirector of Investor Relations at KP Tissue00:01:33The investor presentation to accompany today's discussion can be found in the investor relations section of our website. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Dino Bianco. Dino? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:01:45Thank you, Doris. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter earnings call for fiscal 2026. We maintained strong momentum in the second quarter of 2026, highlighted by double-digit growth year-over-year and adjusted EBITDA to CAD 90.6 million. This growth, achieved against an uncertain economic environment, was mainly driven by higher sales volume in the U.S. and lower pulp prices. Revenue grew nearly 3% in the second quarter, reflecting strong growth from our Away-From-Home business. Looking ahead to the second half of 2026, we anticipate ongoing market softness in the Canadian consumer market, with some consumers trading down to private label products to contend with inflationary pressure. We have put in place a trademark recovery plan for the second half of 2026, which should deliver improving shares as we move through the year. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:02:41Given the recent tariff announcements affecting North America, we do not expect the impact on our business to be significant. We will continue to closely monitor the impact of potential tariffs and develop contingency plans to mitigate any associated financial risk. For the longer term, we are making progress towards securing a preferred location for a new TAD facility in the western United States. Let's take a closer look at our quarterly numbers on slide six. As previously mentioned, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of more than CAD 90 million in the second quarter of 2026. This is up 25% year-over-year on a revenue of CAD 550.9 million. Revenue in Canada declined 2.6% in the second quarter, reflecting the market softness I mentioned earlier. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:03:29It should also be noted that we are facing a high comparable in Canada, with sales growth of 7.4% or CAD 20.7 million in the second quarter of 2025, which is driven by strong Made in Canada activities and promotion last year. Revenue in the U.S. remained robust, with sales growth of 9.5% in the second quarter of 2026. Let's go to slide seven, which shows pulp average prices in Canadian dollars that increased sequentially in the second quarter of 2026. On a year-over-year basis, NBSK average prices declined 13.4% due to continued overcapacity, while BEK average prices were up 15.2% during the same period. Industry analysts expect both NBSK and BEK prices to trend upwards late into 2026 and into 2027, but BEK should accelerate at a faster pace and higher level. Let's move on to our operations on slide eight. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:04:29Production rates for paper machines and converting operations continued to exceed expectations across our network in Q2 and the first half of the year in general. We are very pleased to continue to maintain a strong safety culture and strong safety results through the middle of the year. At Memphis, our new state-of-the-art converting line, which launched early in the second quarter, is progressing ahead of plan, allowing us to expand our capacity and produce a wide range of high-quality tissue products for our U.S. customers. We are also pleased that our Memphis facility is delivering on key safety, productivity, and sustainability metrics. Finally, as previously mentioned, we are progressing towards selecting a new TAD facility in the western United States. Let's turn to slide nine, on brand support. During the second quarter, we continued equity-building campaigns for our Cashmere, SpongeTowels, Scotties, and Bonterra brands. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:05:30We also leveraged our Made in Canada positioning with activity supporting Cashmere and Purex bathroom tissue. In addition, we modernized our Cashmere packaging to enhance brand segmentation for our ultra strong, ultra soft, and original offerings, which should make it easier for consumers to shop our products. Also during the second quarter, we launched our national and international award-winning Cashmere UltraLuxe Bathroom Guide in Montreal, recognizing exceptionally luxurious restaurant bathrooms in the Montreal area. We also introduced several product innovations in the second quarter, including the launch of Sponge Napkins Premium, offering premium softness and strength in a napkin. We expanded our collection of nature-inspired plastic-free Bonterra facial tissue boxes created by Canadian designer and TV personality, Sarah Richardson, with the introduction of single-box offerings. Turn to slide 10. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:06:27The data presented is taken from NielsenIQ and shows Kruger Products' branded market share performance in Canada over a 52-week period ended June 13, 2026. The numbers reflect a soft Canadian market due to inflationary pressures and slower population growth. We also experienced some share losses in the bathroom tissue and paper towel categories, with some consumers trading down to private label products. As previously mentioned, a share recovery plan has been put in place for the second half of 2026, which should deliver improving shares as we move through the year. In facial tissue, we increased our leadership position to 47% of the Canadian market, supported by continued strong investments in our Scotties brand and in innovations. Let's look at Kruger PRO, our Away-From-Home segment on slide 11. Q2 2026 revenue and volume grew year-over-year, but profitability declined slightly due to higher transportation costs. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:07:27Although volume rose in both Canada and U.S. in the second quarter, our U.S. business continued to drive stronger growth versus Canada. On a sequential basis, Kruger PRO delivered increased revenue volume and profitability. During the second quarter, we also announced a price increase to offset inflationary impacts on our Kruger PRO business, primarily driven by higher fuel and transportation costs. Finally, strong operational performance continued to support sustained growth in the commercial market. I will now turn the call over to Michael. Michael KeaysCFO at KP Tissue00:08:01Thank you, Dino. Good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide 12 for a summary of our financial performance for the second quarter of 2026. As Dino mentioned, we generated an adjusted EBITDA of CAD 90.6 million on sales of CAD 550.9 million in the quarter, representing strong year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth of 25%. Net income totaled CAD 22.1 million in Q2 2026, comparable to the second quarter of 2025. The higher adjusted EBITDA was mainly offset by unfavorable foreign exchange difference. In our quarterly segmented view on slide 13, revenue from our consumer business increased by 1.9% year-over-year to CAD 457.6 million. This increase was driven by higher U.S. sales volume, partially offset by a slight decrease in Canada. In our Away-From-Home segment, revenue improved 7.4% year-over-year to CAD 93.3 million, primarily due to higher U.S. sales volume. Michael KeaysCFO at KP Tissue00:09:03Consumer adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter totaled CAD 85.3 million compared to CAD 69.2 million in Q2 2025, with a margin of 18.6%, representing an improvement of 3 points over the same period last year. On a sequential basis, consumer-adjusted EBITDA increased by CAD 1.4 million from Q1 2026. For our Away-From-Home segment, adjusted EBITDA amounted to CAD 8.5 million compared to CAD 9 million in Q2 2025, with a margin declining by 1 point year-over-year to 9.1%. Sequentially, AFH adjusted EBITDA increased CAD 2.2 million from Q1 2026. Moving on to slide 14, we show our consolidated revenue for Q2 2026, which reached CAD 550.9 million, up by 2.8% year-over-year. The increase was primarily due to higher U.S. consumer and AFH sales volume, partially offset by lower consumer volume in Canada. Michael KeaysCFO at KP Tissue00:10:05On a geographic basis, revenue in Canada declined CAD 7.7 million or 2.6% year-over-year, while U.S. revenue increased CAD 22.5 million or 9.5%. On slide 15, we provide details of our year-over-year profitability. The adjusted EBITDA increased CAD 18.1 million to CAD 90.6 million, resulting in a margin of 16.4% compared to 13.5% for the same period last year. The year-over-year increase was driven by improved mill performance at the Memphis facility, higher sales volume, and lower pulp prices, partially offset by elevated freight costs and greater SG&A expenses. Now let's turn to slide 16, where we compare Q2 revenue to Q1 2026. Revenue increased CAD 6.3 million sequentially or 1.1%, primarily due to higher AFH sales volume. Geographically, revenue in Canada increased by CAD 3 million or 1%, while U.S. revenue rose by CAD 3.3 million or 1.3%. Michael KeaysCFO at KP Tissue00:11:11On slide 17, adjusted EBITDA improved sequentially by CAD 3.7 million or 4.2% to CAD 90.6 million, and these were mainly due to lower manufacturing overhead costs, higher AFH sales volume, and lower marketing expenses. These factors were partially offset by the elevated freight costs and warehousing expenses and higher SG&A expense. Adjusted EBITDA margin attained 16.4% in the second quarter compared to 16.0% in Q1 2026. Turning to our balance sheet and financial position on slide 18, our cash position declined in Q2 2026, reaching CAD 165.2 million compared to CAD 205.9 million at the end of Q1 2026. The decrease was primarily due to changes in working capital. Total debt at the end of the second quarter remained stable compared to the end of Q1 2026. Michael KeaysCFO at KP Tissue00:12:10Our leverage ratio of 2.9x at the end of the second quarter remained stable compared to Q1, since the increase in net debt was offset by a higher adjusted EBITDA over the last 12-month period. Now to conclude my section, we will review capital expenditures on slide 19. Our CapEx for Q2 2026 totaled CAD 15.5 million, compared to CAD 16 million in Q1. For 2026, our CapEx is expected to be in the range of CAD 90 million-CAD 110 million, which includes spending on related strategic projects, including the pre-engineering work for our U.S. TAD extension. Thank you for joining us this morning, and I will now turn the call back to Dino. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:12:54Thank you, Michael. Let's turn to slide 21 for my closing comments. We delivered strong profitability in the first half of 2026, and we will remain actively focused on margin delivery, given potential escalating input costs and tariffs. We are ramping up our new converting line in Memphis, which is adding capacity to our U.S. network. We will continue to invest in our brands to drive long-term share, including the share recovery plan that I talked about for the back half. We expect our Kruger PRO business to continue to deliver profitable growth. We are making progress towards securing a location for the new TAD tissue plant in the western United States, and we are developing our organizational capability to strengthen our adaptability and resilience, given the continuing economic changes. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:13:48Finally, our adjusted EBITDA outlook for the third quarter of 2026 is expected to be in the range of our Q2 2026 results. We will now be happy to take your questions. Operator00:14:01Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct a question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press the pound key followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a one-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Your questions will be polled in the order they are received. If you would like to decline from the polling process, please press the pound key. Please ensure you leave the handset if you are using a speakerphone before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Ahmed Abdullah with National Bank of Canada. Please go ahead. Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:14:40Hi. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Dino, you mentioned a share recovery plan for Canada in the second half. Can you perhaps give us a bit more color as to how that's going to work? What's the main levers behind that? Will it require promotional activity or brand investment, and how quickly do you expect to see that benefit? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:15:03Yeah, great question. We saw some erosion to our share, probably around the month of March, and then continued into April and May. I'm talking mainly about bathroom tissue and towel. Paper towel's been strong. We started to see some recovery in June as we put some plans in place, and we expect to continue to see a recovery. I guess it would come down to probably a couple of things. First off, I think in some accounts, some of our pricing got a little out of whack and we had to make some course corrections to make sure that our price caps were in the place where we need them to be. So we have done that. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:15:46We have worked with the accounts and done a category management story to be able to demonstrate the need to have the leading brands at a price that is good for the consumer and good for the customer. We are doing that, and we have secured additional promotional activity because of some of the shortfalls that we had. I would also say there was a bit of a-- We are lapping a very strong last year. We had Made in Canada, a very strong sentiment from the consumer. I think the sentiment's still there, but not to the level it was last year. Some of that we're lapping, that's creating some of the share loss because we were benefactors of that. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:16:30Lastly, we put a product in the marketplace up on towel that we didn't probably support enough in terms of communication with the consumer of the value that that product delivered. We're going to make some tweaks to our communication and to the product itself. Is it going to cost a lot of money? I don't think so. It's not material. We're basically tweaking at this point and really, really focused on getting the execution. We're starting to see benefits already, as I'm speaking to you here in mid-August, and we expect to continue to see progress through the second half. Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:17:13Got it. That perhaps talks to some sustainability of the consumer margin here. Just on the Memphis progress, how far along are you in kind of realizing the full earnings potential of that facility, and what incremental productivity or cost benefits can we still see here? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:17:33Yeah, great question. I've often talked about Memphis. Unfortunately, I've talked about the turnaround, and I am so proud of what that entire team has been able to do. I mentioned not only great performance, work that they're doing on sustainability, work that they're doing to keep their people safe. I think there's a renewed culture and attitude there. Thanks to the leadership and the entire team that is there, with a new winning mentality. They're delivering against that. Plus, as you know, we have been investing over the years with cash around putting new lines in, doing the maintenance on our lines, et cetera. We're progressing quite well. I would say we probably have another year before we get to our maturity level. You're seeing the performance improvement through the assets. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:18:28I'd say the areas where we probably need to tweak a little bit more is we still spend a lot of maintenance because we've been getting those assets in place to working condition or base condition. Once we do that, we'll be able to get back to normalized maintenance costs, and I think that should also help improve the economics of that site. We're also looking at making additional investments to increase capacity at that site. So that would be not quite a big strategic investment, but some equipment improvements that we would look at making to expand capacity of what I would call very ultra-premium tissue. There's a lot of positive things going on in Memphis. I think the turnaround is happening, sustainable, and we'll continue to see growth as we go in through 2027. Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:19:21Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. And just on the TAD facility, it seems that things are just taking a bit longer than initially expected. What kind of milestones should we be looking for over the next six months? When do you expect a final investment decision to happen where we can get more details around that project? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:19:46Yeah. I guess I'm not surprised by that question, so thank you for that question. I would say, definitely it's taken longer. I would characterize the reason why it's taking longer is, first off, it's a greenfield site. That's the primary site we're looking at. Whenever you're dealing with a greenfield site, there's a lot more work to be done. There's work to be done on infrastructure, water, permitting, road, rail, wastewater. A lot of work to be done to make sure-- Operator00:20:17This call is no longer being recorded. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:20:21Hello, are you still there? Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:20:24Yes. Hi, I am still here. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:20:26Okay. I do not know what happened there. Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:20:28Neither do I. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:20:29Somebody didn't like what I was saying. A lot more work when it's a greenfield site, not just for us, for the particular city or region. Working through all that and doing the due diligence, I think that's one aspect. We continue to do engineering and working to secure financing. I think the other piece that's maybe slowed it down a little bit is that we're dealing with a very uncertain economic environment. So before we make a final announcement, we would like to get more clarity on what's going on in the economic environment. Obviously, I talked about tariffs, the status of CUSMA, to some extent the collateral impacts of the war in the Middle East. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:21:06There's just a lot of unknown, and to make such a big investment, I think we want to get a little more clarity on what is going on in that environment. We're still very committed to the project, still very committed to our goals in the U.S. Just doing a little more due diligence and taking time. As it relates to a specific timeline, I'm not going to give you a specific date. It's more based on the activity that I just explained. I would hope, before we got out of this year, that we would provide clarity. Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:21:38Okay. That's very helpful. I'll pass along. Thank you very much. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:21:41Thank you. Operator00:21:43Thank you. The next question comes from Hamir Patel with CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital Markets00:21:52Hi. Good morning. Dino, are you able to quantify the magnitude of the price increases that you've announced in AFH? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:22:02Yeah, sure. We announced a price increase of 3%-5% that was going to be effective September 1st. That was mainly to cover, as I said earlier, transportation costs and packaging and oil-based inputs. That is moving through the system. It's across both Canada and the United States. Moving through the system, obviously, others have also announced pricing before and after our announcement, so it looks like the market is feeling the same sort of cost pressures. That price increase affected about 2/3 of our business because the other third is generally on contract, and they renew as those contracts renew. So that's more of a general market increase that we took. As I said, you've probably seen very similar announcements from others. Hamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital Markets00:22:59Okay, great. Just coming back to the consumer business. Your guidance overall is quite encouraging for Q3, but I know you're working to restore market share. You highlighted maybe your sticker prices have perhaps making some adjustments there. Is there a component of perhaps balancing that with de-sheeting and other innovations so that the maybe per-sheet pricing relatively stable? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:23:33Yeah, we're looking at all that, Hamir. But as you know, when you're dealing with product, particularly bath tissue, it's very important to get your format to be very competitive and very important to have a competitive price point. We are not the lowest priced product in the market, as you know, but there's a certain gap that you need to maintain. We just want to make sure that we have that gap and not more than that gap at any of our customers across the board. We continue to look at de-sheeting, we continue to look at innovation, we continue to look at product formats. Obviously, all the marketing and promotion that we do, but we need to get our fundamentals straight. I think we've worked with particular accounts to make sure that we've got that balance in place. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:24:22I mentioned in my prepared remarks, there's also a natural movement, I think, to some private label products as consumers are feeling cash-strapped and maybe going more on the value side. We're seeing that, and maybe we will promote more of our base or value products and make sure we've got an offering for that consumer that wants that price point. Hamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital Markets00:24:46Okay. Fair enough. Just with respect to the guidance, it's fair to assume the Q3 guidance assumes no tariff impact. Then just related to the tariffs, the potential Section 338, sort of worst case, if they were in effect for any period of time, what is the percent of your volumes that would be affected? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:25:09Yeah, I think everybody is still working through all this. We're a week and a bit away, but a lot can happen between now and then. We're preparing mitigating actions around some pre-shifts, maybe looking at alternative sourcing. We don't want to trigger anything dramatic at this point, just given we want to make sure and we understand if the tariffs are going through and if there's any changes in how they're going to be implemented. We are doing some pre-mitigating work ahead of time that's what I would call fairly minor in scope. We reassured all our customers that there's not going to be an impact to them from this. As it relates to your specific question, we would be looking at less than 1% of our Canada sales would be related to this tariff, and we would continue to manage that down. Hamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital Markets00:26:02Okay, great. So that's pretty minor. Just last question I had, I know, maybe back in June, Valmet announced a new Advantage NTT technology for ultra-premium tissue. Are you locked in with TAD technology for your next mill? With respect to this newer version of NTT, do you see that as potentially a threat to TAD? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:26:32Well, there's always new technologies being introduced. I think TAD is a very proven technology. It's been around a long time, proves that it can deliver what it delivers against. We obviously have two of them in our system. We know what they do. So, we've declared internally, and certainly you can see externally, that we're going to have a strong conventional base. We have that. We launched a new LDC machine a couple of years ago in Quebec, and we're going to have a strong premium base, which is the TAD. Those are really the areas we're going to play in. Other technologies to me are-- I'd rather be in the technology we know, and the technology the consumer wants, and the technology that we know how to-- and the market knows how to operate. So for me, that's conventional and TAD. Hamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital Markets00:27:28Okay, fair enough. That's all I had. I'll turn it over. Thanks, Dino. Operator00:27:35Thank you. The next question comes from Sean Steuart from TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Sean SteuartAnalyst at TD Cowen00:27:44Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Dino, you touched on relative positive momentum for hardwood pulp versus softwood. I wonder if you can remind us the mix between the two in your furnish and your ability to flex one way or the other, depending on relative price momentum between hardwood and softwood? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:28:07Yeah. I am not going to give you a specific answer, Sean. I know you want that, but we have been migrating more to NBSK as, sorry, as more of hardwood or BEK, I should say. Over the years, we have been doing a lot of reformulation and really trying to understand what is the right bundle of pulp or furnish that gets us to the output we need at a favorable cost. Obviously, there has been improvements in areas like BEK as well in terms of its construct and being able to be used in substitution for NBSK. We have been continuing to do that. We have some flex in some of our brands. We can move between the two depending on the arbitrage. I have always said we are kind of 60/40 mix between the two. I think that is the range we tend to operate in. Sean SteuartAnalyst at TD Cowen00:29:02Okay. Thanks for that detail. One follow-up on the TAD project. I appreciate all the details you have given around milestones to move this along. Just so I understand some context, though, reading the local press, it sounds like the site is locked in. Is that the case, or is there still some competitive tension from one site versus another in the western U.S. to move it along? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:29:33Yeah, I would say nothing is locked in until we tell you it is locked in. So there are always rumors out there. We have, and we continue to look at various sites. We do have a lead site that we work with, but we do have other sites that are a small group of sites that meet the criteria. So nothing is final until you hear it from us. There is always lots of speculation out there. Maybe I will just leave it at that. Sean SteuartAnalyst at TD Cowen00:30:03Fair enough. Okay. Thanks very much. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:30:06Thank you. Operator00:30:08Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press the pound key followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a one-tone prompt acknowledging your request. There are no further questions at this time. I will now transfer the call over to Dino Bianco for closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:30:40Great. Thank you. I want to thank everybody for joining us on the call today. We look forward to speaking to you again, after the release of our third quarter results. Thank you, and have a great day. Operator00:30:55Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesDoris GrbicDirector of Investor RelationsDino BiancoCEOMichael KeaysCFOAnalystsAhmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of CanadaHamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital MarketsSean SteuartAnalyst at TD CowenPowered by Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress Release KP Tissue Earnings HeadlinesKP Tissue Inc. (KPT:CA) Q2 2026 Earnings Call TranscriptAugust 13 at 3:22 PM | seekingalpha.comKP Tissue Inc.: KP Tissue Declares a Quarterly Dividend of $0.21 per Common ShareAugust 13 at 10:20 AM | finanznachrichten.deHere’s the stock symbol I’ve promisedWhitney Tilson of Stansberry Research has long recommended Berkshire Hathaway as a core retirement holding - but now he believes he's found something better. This under-the-radar company sits at the intersection of America's two most important industries, including AI, pays massive dividends, and attracted a famous money manager who put 60% of his multi-billion-dollar fund into it. Tilson is revealing the name and ticker symbol completely free - no credit card or email required. | Stansberry Research (Ad)RETRANSMISSION: KP Tissue to Release Its Financial Results and Those of Kruger Products Inc. for the Second Quarter of 2026August 12 at 11:16 PM | theglobeandmail.comKP Tissue Inc. Announces its Annual Meeting of ShareholdersJune 8, 2026 | finance.yahoo.comA perfect TFSA stock: A 6.2% yield with constant paychequesMay 26, 2026 | msn.comSee More KP Tissue Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like KP Tissue? 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PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Good morning, and welcome to KP Tissue second quarter 2026 results conference call. Today's call is being recorded for replay. All participants are currently in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided at the time for you to queue up for questions. If at any time you have difficulties hearing the conference, please press star followed by zero for operator assistance. I will now turn the call over to Doris Grbic, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin your conference. Doris GrbicDirector of Investor Relations at KP Tissue00:00:36Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review Kruger Products' second quarter 2026 financial results. With me this morning is Dino Bianco, the CEO of KP Tissue and Kruger Products, and Michael Keays, the CFO of KP Tissue and Kruger Products. Today's discussion will include certain forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. A list of risk factors can be found in our public filings. In addition, today's discussion will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measure can be found in our MD&A. The press release reporting our Q2 2026 results was published this morning and will be available on our website at kptissueinc.com. The financial statements and MD&A will also be posted on our website and on SEDAR+. Doris GrbicDirector of Investor Relations at KP Tissue00:01:33The investor presentation to accompany today's discussion can be found in the investor relations section of our website. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Dino Bianco. Dino? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:01:45Thank you, Doris. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter earnings call for fiscal 2026. We maintained strong momentum in the second quarter of 2026, highlighted by double-digit growth year-over-year and adjusted EBITDA to CAD 90.6 million. This growth, achieved against an uncertain economic environment, was mainly driven by higher sales volume in the U.S. and lower pulp prices. Revenue grew nearly 3% in the second quarter, reflecting strong growth from our Away-From-Home business. Looking ahead to the second half of 2026, we anticipate ongoing market softness in the Canadian consumer market, with some consumers trading down to private label products to contend with inflationary pressure. We have put in place a trademark recovery plan for the second half of 2026, which should deliver improving shares as we move through the year. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:02:41Given the recent tariff announcements affecting North America, we do not expect the impact on our business to be significant. We will continue to closely monitor the impact of potential tariffs and develop contingency plans to mitigate any associated financial risk. For the longer term, we are making progress towards securing a preferred location for a new TAD facility in the western United States. Let's take a closer look at our quarterly numbers on slide six. As previously mentioned, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of more than CAD 90 million in the second quarter of 2026. This is up 25% year-over-year on a revenue of CAD 550.9 million. Revenue in Canada declined 2.6% in the second quarter, reflecting the market softness I mentioned earlier. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:03:29It should also be noted that we are facing a high comparable in Canada, with sales growth of 7.4% or CAD 20.7 million in the second quarter of 2025, which is driven by strong Made in Canada activities and promotion last year. Revenue in the U.S. remained robust, with sales growth of 9.5% in the second quarter of 2026. Let's go to slide seven, which shows pulp average prices in Canadian dollars that increased sequentially in the second quarter of 2026. On a year-over-year basis, NBSK average prices declined 13.4% due to continued overcapacity, while BEK average prices were up 15.2% during the same period. Industry analysts expect both NBSK and BEK prices to trend upwards late into 2026 and into 2027, but BEK should accelerate at a faster pace and higher level. Let's move on to our operations on slide eight. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:04:29Production rates for paper machines and converting operations continued to exceed expectations across our network in Q2 and the first half of the year in general. We are very pleased to continue to maintain a strong safety culture and strong safety results through the middle of the year. At Memphis, our new state-of-the-art converting line, which launched early in the second quarter, is progressing ahead of plan, allowing us to expand our capacity and produce a wide range of high-quality tissue products for our U.S. customers. We are also pleased that our Memphis facility is delivering on key safety, productivity, and sustainability metrics. Finally, as previously mentioned, we are progressing towards selecting a new TAD facility in the western United States. Let's turn to slide nine, on brand support. During the second quarter, we continued equity-building campaigns for our Cashmere, SpongeTowels, Scotties, and Bonterra brands. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:05:30We also leveraged our Made in Canada positioning with activity supporting Cashmere and Purex bathroom tissue. In addition, we modernized our Cashmere packaging to enhance brand segmentation for our ultra strong, ultra soft, and original offerings, which should make it easier for consumers to shop our products. Also during the second quarter, we launched our national and international award-winning Cashmere UltraLuxe Bathroom Guide in Montreal, recognizing exceptionally luxurious restaurant bathrooms in the Montreal area. We also introduced several product innovations in the second quarter, including the launch of Sponge Napkins Premium, offering premium softness and strength in a napkin. We expanded our collection of nature-inspired plastic-free Bonterra facial tissue boxes created by Canadian designer and TV personality, Sarah Richardson, with the introduction of single-box offerings. Turn to slide 10. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:06:27The data presented is taken from NielsenIQ and shows Kruger Products' branded market share performance in Canada over a 52-week period ended June 13, 2026. The numbers reflect a soft Canadian market due to inflationary pressures and slower population growth. We also experienced some share losses in the bathroom tissue and paper towel categories, with some consumers trading down to private label products. As previously mentioned, a share recovery plan has been put in place for the second half of 2026, which should deliver improving shares as we move through the year. In facial tissue, we increased our leadership position to 47% of the Canadian market, supported by continued strong investments in our Scotties brand and in innovations. Let's look at Kruger PRO, our Away-From-Home segment on slide 11. Q2 2026 revenue and volume grew year-over-year, but profitability declined slightly due to higher transportation costs. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:07:27Although volume rose in both Canada and U.S. in the second quarter, our U.S. business continued to drive stronger growth versus Canada. On a sequential basis, Kruger PRO delivered increased revenue volume and profitability. During the second quarter, we also announced a price increase to offset inflationary impacts on our Kruger PRO business, primarily driven by higher fuel and transportation costs. Finally, strong operational performance continued to support sustained growth in the commercial market. I will now turn the call over to Michael. Michael KeaysCFO at KP Tissue00:08:01Thank you, Dino. Good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide 12 for a summary of our financial performance for the second quarter of 2026. As Dino mentioned, we generated an adjusted EBITDA of CAD 90.6 million on sales of CAD 550.9 million in the quarter, representing strong year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth of 25%. Net income totaled CAD 22.1 million in Q2 2026, comparable to the second quarter of 2025. The higher adjusted EBITDA was mainly offset by unfavorable foreign exchange difference. In our quarterly segmented view on slide 13, revenue from our consumer business increased by 1.9% year-over-year to CAD 457.6 million. This increase was driven by higher U.S. sales volume, partially offset by a slight decrease in Canada. In our Away-From-Home segment, revenue improved 7.4% year-over-year to CAD 93.3 million, primarily due to higher U.S. sales volume. Michael KeaysCFO at KP Tissue00:09:03Consumer adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter totaled CAD 85.3 million compared to CAD 69.2 million in Q2 2025, with a margin of 18.6%, representing an improvement of 3 points over the same period last year. On a sequential basis, consumer-adjusted EBITDA increased by CAD 1.4 million from Q1 2026. For our Away-From-Home segment, adjusted EBITDA amounted to CAD 8.5 million compared to CAD 9 million in Q2 2025, with a margin declining by 1 point year-over-year to 9.1%. Sequentially, AFH adjusted EBITDA increased CAD 2.2 million from Q1 2026. Moving on to slide 14, we show our consolidated revenue for Q2 2026, which reached CAD 550.9 million, up by 2.8% year-over-year. The increase was primarily due to higher U.S. consumer and AFH sales volume, partially offset by lower consumer volume in Canada. Michael KeaysCFO at KP Tissue00:10:05On a geographic basis, revenue in Canada declined CAD 7.7 million or 2.6% year-over-year, while U.S. revenue increased CAD 22.5 million or 9.5%. On slide 15, we provide details of our year-over-year profitability. The adjusted EBITDA increased CAD 18.1 million to CAD 90.6 million, resulting in a margin of 16.4% compared to 13.5% for the same period last year. The year-over-year increase was driven by improved mill performance at the Memphis facility, higher sales volume, and lower pulp prices, partially offset by elevated freight costs and greater SG&A expenses. Now let's turn to slide 16, where we compare Q2 revenue to Q1 2026. Revenue increased CAD 6.3 million sequentially or 1.1%, primarily due to higher AFH sales volume. Geographically, revenue in Canada increased by CAD 3 million or 1%, while U.S. revenue rose by CAD 3.3 million or 1.3%. Michael KeaysCFO at KP Tissue00:11:11On slide 17, adjusted EBITDA improved sequentially by CAD 3.7 million or 4.2% to CAD 90.6 million, and these were mainly due to lower manufacturing overhead costs, higher AFH sales volume, and lower marketing expenses. These factors were partially offset by the elevated freight costs and warehousing expenses and higher SG&A expense. Adjusted EBITDA margin attained 16.4% in the second quarter compared to 16.0% in Q1 2026. Turning to our balance sheet and financial position on slide 18, our cash position declined in Q2 2026, reaching CAD 165.2 million compared to CAD 205.9 million at the end of Q1 2026. The decrease was primarily due to changes in working capital. Total debt at the end of the second quarter remained stable compared to the end of Q1 2026. Michael KeaysCFO at KP Tissue00:12:10Our leverage ratio of 2.9x at the end of the second quarter remained stable compared to Q1, since the increase in net debt was offset by a higher adjusted EBITDA over the last 12-month period. Now to conclude my section, we will review capital expenditures on slide 19. Our CapEx for Q2 2026 totaled CAD 15.5 million, compared to CAD 16 million in Q1. For 2026, our CapEx is expected to be in the range of CAD 90 million-CAD 110 million, which includes spending on related strategic projects, including the pre-engineering work for our U.S. TAD extension. Thank you for joining us this morning, and I will now turn the call back to Dino. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:12:54Thank you, Michael. Let's turn to slide 21 for my closing comments. We delivered strong profitability in the first half of 2026, and we will remain actively focused on margin delivery, given potential escalating input costs and tariffs. We are ramping up our new converting line in Memphis, which is adding capacity to our U.S. network. We will continue to invest in our brands to drive long-term share, including the share recovery plan that I talked about for the back half. We expect our Kruger PRO business to continue to deliver profitable growth. We are making progress towards securing a location for the new TAD tissue plant in the western United States, and we are developing our organizational capability to strengthen our adaptability and resilience, given the continuing economic changes. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:13:48Finally, our adjusted EBITDA outlook for the third quarter of 2026 is expected to be in the range of our Q2 2026 results. We will now be happy to take your questions. Operator00:14:01Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct a question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press the pound key followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a one-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Your questions will be polled in the order they are received. If you would like to decline from the polling process, please press the pound key. Please ensure you leave the handset if you are using a speakerphone before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Ahmed Abdullah with National Bank of Canada. Please go ahead. Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:14:40Hi. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Dino, you mentioned a share recovery plan for Canada in the second half. Can you perhaps give us a bit more color as to how that's going to work? What's the main levers behind that? Will it require promotional activity or brand investment, and how quickly do you expect to see that benefit? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:15:03Yeah, great question. We saw some erosion to our share, probably around the month of March, and then continued into April and May. I'm talking mainly about bathroom tissue and towel. Paper towel's been strong. We started to see some recovery in June as we put some plans in place, and we expect to continue to see a recovery. I guess it would come down to probably a couple of things. First off, I think in some accounts, some of our pricing got a little out of whack and we had to make some course corrections to make sure that our price caps were in the place where we need them to be. So we have done that. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:15:46We have worked with the accounts and done a category management story to be able to demonstrate the need to have the leading brands at a price that is good for the consumer and good for the customer. We are doing that, and we have secured additional promotional activity because of some of the shortfalls that we had. I would also say there was a bit of a-- We are lapping a very strong last year. We had Made in Canada, a very strong sentiment from the consumer. I think the sentiment's still there, but not to the level it was last year. Some of that we're lapping, that's creating some of the share loss because we were benefactors of that. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:16:30Lastly, we put a product in the marketplace up on towel that we didn't probably support enough in terms of communication with the consumer of the value that that product delivered. We're going to make some tweaks to our communication and to the product itself. Is it going to cost a lot of money? I don't think so. It's not material. We're basically tweaking at this point and really, really focused on getting the execution. We're starting to see benefits already, as I'm speaking to you here in mid-August, and we expect to continue to see progress through the second half. Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:17:13Got it. That perhaps talks to some sustainability of the consumer margin here. Just on the Memphis progress, how far along are you in kind of realizing the full earnings potential of that facility, and what incremental productivity or cost benefits can we still see here? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:17:33Yeah, great question. I've often talked about Memphis. Unfortunately, I've talked about the turnaround, and I am so proud of what that entire team has been able to do. I mentioned not only great performance, work that they're doing on sustainability, work that they're doing to keep their people safe. I think there's a renewed culture and attitude there. Thanks to the leadership and the entire team that is there, with a new winning mentality. They're delivering against that. Plus, as you know, we have been investing over the years with cash around putting new lines in, doing the maintenance on our lines, et cetera. We're progressing quite well. I would say we probably have another year before we get to our maturity level. You're seeing the performance improvement through the assets. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:18:28I'd say the areas where we probably need to tweak a little bit more is we still spend a lot of maintenance because we've been getting those assets in place to working condition or base condition. Once we do that, we'll be able to get back to normalized maintenance costs, and I think that should also help improve the economics of that site. We're also looking at making additional investments to increase capacity at that site. So that would be not quite a big strategic investment, but some equipment improvements that we would look at making to expand capacity of what I would call very ultra-premium tissue. There's a lot of positive things going on in Memphis. I think the turnaround is happening, sustainable, and we'll continue to see growth as we go in through 2027. Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:19:21Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. And just on the TAD facility, it seems that things are just taking a bit longer than initially expected. What kind of milestones should we be looking for over the next six months? When do you expect a final investment decision to happen where we can get more details around that project? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:19:46Yeah. I guess I'm not surprised by that question, so thank you for that question. I would say, definitely it's taken longer. I would characterize the reason why it's taking longer is, first off, it's a greenfield site. That's the primary site we're looking at. Whenever you're dealing with a greenfield site, there's a lot more work to be done. There's work to be done on infrastructure, water, permitting, road, rail, wastewater. A lot of work to be done to make sure-- Operator00:20:17This call is no longer being recorded. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:20:21Hello, are you still there? Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:20:24Yes. Hi, I am still here. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:20:26Okay. I do not know what happened there. Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:20:28Neither do I. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:20:29Somebody didn't like what I was saying. A lot more work when it's a greenfield site, not just for us, for the particular city or region. Working through all that and doing the due diligence, I think that's one aspect. We continue to do engineering and working to secure financing. I think the other piece that's maybe slowed it down a little bit is that we're dealing with a very uncertain economic environment. So before we make a final announcement, we would like to get more clarity on what's going on in the economic environment. Obviously, I talked about tariffs, the status of CUSMA, to some extent the collateral impacts of the war in the Middle East. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:21:06There's just a lot of unknown, and to make such a big investment, I think we want to get a little more clarity on what is going on in that environment. We're still very committed to the project, still very committed to our goals in the U.S. Just doing a little more due diligence and taking time. As it relates to a specific timeline, I'm not going to give you a specific date. It's more based on the activity that I just explained. I would hope, before we got out of this year, that we would provide clarity. Ahmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of Canada00:21:38Okay. That's very helpful. I'll pass along. Thank you very much. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:21:41Thank you. Operator00:21:43Thank you. The next question comes from Hamir Patel with CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital Markets00:21:52Hi. Good morning. Dino, are you able to quantify the magnitude of the price increases that you've announced in AFH? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:22:02Yeah, sure. We announced a price increase of 3%-5% that was going to be effective September 1st. That was mainly to cover, as I said earlier, transportation costs and packaging and oil-based inputs. That is moving through the system. It's across both Canada and the United States. Moving through the system, obviously, others have also announced pricing before and after our announcement, so it looks like the market is feeling the same sort of cost pressures. That price increase affected about 2/3 of our business because the other third is generally on contract, and they renew as those contracts renew. So that's more of a general market increase that we took. As I said, you've probably seen very similar announcements from others. Hamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital Markets00:22:59Okay, great. Just coming back to the consumer business. Your guidance overall is quite encouraging for Q3, but I know you're working to restore market share. You highlighted maybe your sticker prices have perhaps making some adjustments there. Is there a component of perhaps balancing that with de-sheeting and other innovations so that the maybe per-sheet pricing relatively stable? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:23:33Yeah, we're looking at all that, Hamir. But as you know, when you're dealing with product, particularly bath tissue, it's very important to get your format to be very competitive and very important to have a competitive price point. We are not the lowest priced product in the market, as you know, but there's a certain gap that you need to maintain. We just want to make sure that we have that gap and not more than that gap at any of our customers across the board. We continue to look at de-sheeting, we continue to look at innovation, we continue to look at product formats. Obviously, all the marketing and promotion that we do, but we need to get our fundamentals straight. I think we've worked with particular accounts to make sure that we've got that balance in place. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:24:22I mentioned in my prepared remarks, there's also a natural movement, I think, to some private label products as consumers are feeling cash-strapped and maybe going more on the value side. We're seeing that, and maybe we will promote more of our base or value products and make sure we've got an offering for that consumer that wants that price point. Hamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital Markets00:24:46Okay. Fair enough. Just with respect to the guidance, it's fair to assume the Q3 guidance assumes no tariff impact. Then just related to the tariffs, the potential Section 338, sort of worst case, if they were in effect for any period of time, what is the percent of your volumes that would be affected? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:25:09Yeah, I think everybody is still working through all this. We're a week and a bit away, but a lot can happen between now and then. We're preparing mitigating actions around some pre-shifts, maybe looking at alternative sourcing. We don't want to trigger anything dramatic at this point, just given we want to make sure and we understand if the tariffs are going through and if there's any changes in how they're going to be implemented. We are doing some pre-mitigating work ahead of time that's what I would call fairly minor in scope. We reassured all our customers that there's not going to be an impact to them from this. As it relates to your specific question, we would be looking at less than 1% of our Canada sales would be related to this tariff, and we would continue to manage that down. Hamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital Markets00:26:02Okay, great. So that's pretty minor. Just last question I had, I know, maybe back in June, Valmet announced a new Advantage NTT technology for ultra-premium tissue. Are you locked in with TAD technology for your next mill? With respect to this newer version of NTT, do you see that as potentially a threat to TAD? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:26:32Well, there's always new technologies being introduced. I think TAD is a very proven technology. It's been around a long time, proves that it can deliver what it delivers against. We obviously have two of them in our system. We know what they do. So, we've declared internally, and certainly you can see externally, that we're going to have a strong conventional base. We have that. We launched a new LDC machine a couple of years ago in Quebec, and we're going to have a strong premium base, which is the TAD. Those are really the areas we're going to play in. Other technologies to me are-- I'd rather be in the technology we know, and the technology the consumer wants, and the technology that we know how to-- and the market knows how to operate. So for me, that's conventional and TAD. Hamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital Markets00:27:28Okay, fair enough. That's all I had. I'll turn it over. Thanks, Dino. Operator00:27:35Thank you. The next question comes from Sean Steuart from TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Sean SteuartAnalyst at TD Cowen00:27:44Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Dino, you touched on relative positive momentum for hardwood pulp versus softwood. I wonder if you can remind us the mix between the two in your furnish and your ability to flex one way or the other, depending on relative price momentum between hardwood and softwood? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:28:07Yeah. I am not going to give you a specific answer, Sean. I know you want that, but we have been migrating more to NBSK as, sorry, as more of hardwood or BEK, I should say. Over the years, we have been doing a lot of reformulation and really trying to understand what is the right bundle of pulp or furnish that gets us to the output we need at a favorable cost. Obviously, there has been improvements in areas like BEK as well in terms of its construct and being able to be used in substitution for NBSK. We have been continuing to do that. We have some flex in some of our brands. We can move between the two depending on the arbitrage. I have always said we are kind of 60/40 mix between the two. I think that is the range we tend to operate in. Sean SteuartAnalyst at TD Cowen00:29:02Okay. Thanks for that detail. One follow-up on the TAD project. I appreciate all the details you have given around milestones to move this along. Just so I understand some context, though, reading the local press, it sounds like the site is locked in. Is that the case, or is there still some competitive tension from one site versus another in the western U.S. to move it along? Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:29:33Yeah, I would say nothing is locked in until we tell you it is locked in. So there are always rumors out there. We have, and we continue to look at various sites. We do have a lead site that we work with, but we do have other sites that are a small group of sites that meet the criteria. So nothing is final until you hear it from us. There is always lots of speculation out there. Maybe I will just leave it at that. Sean SteuartAnalyst at TD Cowen00:30:03Fair enough. Okay. Thanks very much. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:30:06Thank you. Operator00:30:08Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press the pound key followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a one-tone prompt acknowledging your request. There are no further questions at this time. I will now transfer the call over to Dino Bianco for closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir. Dino BiancoCEO at KP Tissue00:30:40Great. Thank you. I want to thank everybody for joining us on the call today. We look forward to speaking to you again, after the release of our third quarter results. Thank you, and have a great day. Operator00:30:55Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesDoris GrbicDirector of Investor RelationsDino BiancoCEOMichael KeaysCFOAnalystsAhmed AbdullahAnalyst at National Bank of CanadaHamir PatelAnalyst at CIBC Capital MarketsSean SteuartAnalyst at TD CowenPowered by