Packaging Corporation of America Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
April 25, 2023

Key Takeaways

  • Packaging segment shipments fell 12.7% year-over-year in Q1, driven by customer destocking and regional weather disruptions, causing margins to decline to 21.7% from 23.6%.
  • Excluding special items, Q1 EPS was $2.20 versus $2.72 a year ago, primarily due to lower volumes, inflationary input cost increases, and higher depreciation and logistics expenses.
  • Early Q2 bookings are up about 11% over March and 10% over Q1, indicating a potential demand rebound as inventory destocking nears completion and ag markets recover.
  • Q2 EPS guidance of $1.96 reflects the impact of recently published containerboard price decreases, a shorter shipping month, and higher scheduled maintenance, converting, and rail costs.
  • Q1 generated $280 million in operating cash flow and $168 million of free cash flow, supporting flexible capital allocation for dividends, share repurchases, or acquisitions.
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Earnings Conference Call
Packaging Corporation of America Q1 2023
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Operator

Thank you for joining Packaging Corporation of America's first quarter 2023 earnings results conference call. Your host today will be Mark Kowlzan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PCA. Upon conclusion of his narrative, there will be a question and answer session. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Kowlzan. Please proceed when you are ready.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thank you, Jamie. Good morning, thank you for participating in Packaging Corporation of America's first quarter 2023 earnings release conference call. Again, I'm Mark Kowlzan, Chairman and CEO of PCA. With me on the call today is Tom Hassfurther, the Executive Vice President who runs the packaging business, and Rob Mundy, our Chief Financial Officer. As usual, I'll begin the call with an overview of our first quarter results, then I'll turn the call over to Tom and Rob, who will provide further details. Then I'll wrap things up, and we'd be glad to take questions. Yesterday, we reported first quarter net income of $190 million or $2.11 per share.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Excluding special items, first quarter 2023 net income was $198 million or $2.20 per share, compared to the first quarter of 2022 net income of $256 million or $2.72 per share. First quarter net sales were $2 billion in 2023 and $2.1 billion in 2022. Total company EBITDA for the first quarter, excluding special items, was $405 million in 2023 and $467 million in 2022. First quarter net income included special items expenses of $0.09 per share, primarily for the closure costs related to corrugated products, facilities, and design centers. Details of special items for both the first quarter of 2023 and 2022 were included in the schedules that accompanied our earnings press release.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Excluding the special items, the $0.52 per share decrease in first quarter 2023 earnings compared to the first quarter of 2022 was driven primarily by lower volumes in our packaging segment for $0.95 and paper segment, $0.04. Although recycled fiber costs were lower than last year, overall operating costs were $0.27 higher, primarily due to inflation on chemicals, labor and benefits, supplies, repair materials, and services. Energy costs, although trending down, were also higher versus the first quarter of 2022. In addition, we had higher depreciation expense of $0.11, freight and logistics expenses, $0.04, non-operating pension expenses, $0.04, and higher converting costs, $0.02. These items were partially offset by higher prices in mix in the packaging segment for $0.58 and paper segment, $0.18.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

A lower share count resulting from share repurchases we made in the second quarter of 2022 for $0.11, lower interest expense, $0.03, lower other expenses for $0.03, lower scheduled maintenance outage expenses for $0.01, and lower tax rate, $0.01. The results were $0.03 below the first quarter guidance of $2.23 per share, primarily due to the lower volume and lower prices in mix in the Packaging segment. Looking at our Packaging segment, EBITDA, excluding special items in the first quarter, 2023 of $392 million, with sales of $1.81 billion, resulted in a margin of 21.7% versus last year's EBITDA of $464 million and sales of $1.96 billion, or a 23.6% margin.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Demand in the packaging segment was well below our expectations for the quarter. Tom will discuss this further in a moment. The mills and corrugated products plants responded to the lower demand by remaining highly focused on efficient and cost-effective operations as we balanced our supply accordingly. Our employees continued to deliver on numerous cost reduction initiatives, efficiency improvements, integration and optimization enhancements, and capital project benefits to not only minimize the negative demand impacts on the short term, but also to remain in position to capitalize on our longer term strategic goals. The accomplishments were achieved while building less inventory than we had planned and staying committed to ending the quarter at our targeted weeks of supply inventory. I'll now turn it over to Tom, who'll provide further details on containerboard sales and the corrugated business.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Thanks, Mark. Domestic containerboard and corrugated products prices and mix were $0.64 per share above the first quarter of 2022 and were down $0.50 per share compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. Export containerboard prices were down $0.06 per share versus last year's first quarter and down $0.04 per share compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. Corrugated product shipments were down 12.7% in total and per workday compared to last year's first quarter. Outside sales volume of containerboard was 69,000 tons below last year's first quarter and 33,000 tons above the fourth quarter of 2022. With the first quarter of 2022 setting a shipments per workday record, as well as being our all-time record for total shipments, we knew this would be a tough comparison period.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

However, that being said, the lower demand in our packaging segment that Mark spoke of was driven by several items, the combined impact of which resulted in our volumes being much lower than we anticipated. We mentioned on last quarter's earnings call, it was difficult to predict the demand curve given the numerous variables with varying degrees of impact. Noted in our earnings release yesterday, the shift of consumer buying preferences more towards service-oriented spending, persistent inflation, and higher interest rates continued to negatively impact consumers' purchases of both durable and nondurable goods. In addition, there is a varying degree of inventory destocking across our customer bases, both in boxes and our customers' products. The inventory destocking situation has been a longer-term issue than we originally anticipated.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

The manufacturing index has remained in contraction territory for several months now, and as you know, we have a large presence in the ag business in the Pacific Northwest and also down in Florida, where both of these regions have been dealing with significant weather events. As we look to the second quarter, we expect the inventory destocking of both customer product and boxes to be near completion. We expect to see recovery in our ag business, and we have received some positive feedback from our customers regarding improvements in their business. Our April volume, as we see it today, supports that position. I'd also like to point out that the capital spending and optimization strategy within our box plant system that we have been focused on over the last few years continues to remain one of our top priorities.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

The current demand trends will not cause us to lose our focus in this area. The investments from this strategy provide the products and service needs that our customers desire and allows them to grow while focusing on the mix of customers we want to profitably grow our revenues with. I'll now turn it back to Mark.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thanks, Tom. Looking at our paper segment, EBITDA, excluding special items in the first quarter, was $41 million with sales of $151 million or a 27.2% margin compared to the first quarter of 2022, EBITDA of $29 million and sales of $153 million or an 18.9% margin. Paper prices and mix were 18% higher than last year's first quarter and about 3% above the fourth quarter of 2022. Sales volume was about 17% below last year's first quarter, which included some of the inventory that had been sold from our Jackson, Alabama mill and just over 4.5% below the fourth quarter of 2022. The efforts of our employees to optimize the cost structure, inventory, and product mix in our paper business helped minimize the inflationary cost increases compared to last year and deliver solid returns for the quarter. I'll now turn it over to Rob.

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thanks, Mark. For the first quarter, we generated cash from operations of $280 million and free cash flow of $168 million. Free cash payments during the quarter included CapEx of $112 million and common stock dividends of $112 million. We ended the quarter with $520 million of cash on hand, including marketable securities. I want to update you on a revision to the scheduled mill maintenance outage guidance we provided on last quarter's call. Current plans and the scope of work for the scheduled maintenance outages at our containerboard mills has changed, resulting in a revised total company estimated cost impact for the year of $0.75 per share versus the $0.67 per share we mentioned previously.

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

The actual impact in the first quarter was $0.13 per share. The revised estimate impact by quarter for the remainder of the year is now $0.18 per share in the second quarter, $0.24 in the third, and $0.20 per share in the fourth quarter. I'll now turn it back over to Mark.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thanks, Rob. Looking ahead, as we move from the first and into the second quarter, although there is one less shipping day for the corrugated business, we expect improved volume in our packaging segment. However, prices will be lower as a result of the previously published domestic containerboard price decreases, along with lower export prices. Sales volume, as well as prices and mix in the paper segment, are assumed to be slightly lower based on lower demand. Although we do look for most operating costs to trend lower, our converting costs, scheduled maintenance outage expense, and depreciation expense will be higher. Primarily due to recent increases in contract rail rates at most of our mills, we expect higher freight and logistics expenses compared to the first quarter. Considering these items, we expect second quarter earnings of $1.96 per share.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

With that, we'd be happy to entertain any questions, but I must remind you that some of the statements we've made on the call constituted forward-looking statements. The statements were based on current estimates, expectations, and projections of the company and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including the direction of the economy and those identified as risk factors in the annual report on Form 10-K on file with the SEC. The actual results could differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. With that, Jamie, I'd like to open the call up for questions, please.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star and one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset prior to pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. With those instructions in mind, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one. Our first question today comes from George Staphos from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead with your question.

George Staphos
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Thanks. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for the details. Mark, question for you. You know, normally, 2Q is up sequentially from 1Q. When we look back historically over time, the only time that we saw a down 2Q, if we're correct, was the COVID second quarter. Even if we went back to the Great Recession, in '08 and '09, you had up 2Qs versus 1Q. As you sit here today, and if you're in our seat, what is the biggest driver of the drop off 2Q versus 1Q? Is it the timing effect on the pricing and just how that's flowing through, or is it the demand effect, the continued demand effect being worse than expected? If you could give us some qualitative comments on that'd be helpful. A couple follow-ons.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Yeah, George, let me start that out. I think, again, if you look at the November, December, and February price decreases and how they've rolled in, I think in the past 20-plus years, we've only had one or two incidences of this kind of timing of price decreases. Rob can give you some real detailed color on how that's impacting, but that's pretty much what's happening.

George Staphos
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Okay.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Yeah. No, you're right, Mark. You know, in the, in the magnitude, you know, that's $70, George. You know, the timing of that, as you look at going from 1 Q to 2 Q, that's unprecedented in, you know, in the company's history. You know, we mentioned on last quarter's call that, you know, the vast majority of those price declines would show up in the second quarter, and that's exactly what's happening. It's sort of an unprecedented drop in price just based on the timing of the published decreases, is really what's driving that. That's pretty much the answer.

George Staphos
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Understood. I appreciate the color there. Could you give us a sense for how much demand might have been off relative to your prior expectations and what the bookings and billings look like early in 2Q?

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Yeah. Tom, why don't you go ahead and take care of this.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Yeah. Yeah, George. Let me give you a good color on that.

George Staphos
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Morning, Tom.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

If you recall, on our call last quarter, we were starting out in January, pretty decent in the bookings. As the quarter rolled on, it just got a little bit weaker each month. That was disappointing. Of course, what I told you back then was, it was impossible to predict what was happening in the destocking and what was really happening in terms of consumer demand. If you look all those indicators, whether it was consumer demand or the Manufacturing PMI, the Purchasing Managers' Index, they all really kind of got more negative as the months went on and correlated exactly with kind of what the volume situation was.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

The good news is that there's been a big turnaround starting in April. We've, you know, we've got a good look, 13 days into the month, and, you know, our bookings right now just over March alone are up 11%, and they're up 10% over the first quarter. Still down 6% compared to April of 2022, April of 2022 was our all-time record. Just to calibrate everybody, the volume continued to increase significantly because of COVID all the way through April, then finally started to turn the other way. You know, we've still got that really tough comp coming in the month of April.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

you know, given the fact that we're double digits ahead of where we were in March is a huge improvement. It's across all of the sectors. Now we've still got some laggards in there, you know, if you talk home improvement or you talk home building or some of these other areas. The other big, you know, plus for us is that we suffered badly in that first quarter in that ag business as we alluded to down in Florida from the hurricanes, in Northern California from the significant rain and flooding that they had and, of course, in the Pacific Northwest because of the cold weather. That's coming back as well. I think that We I think we're towards the end of that big problem, relative to the volume situation.

George Staphos
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Thank you, Tom. Last quick one, I'll turn it over. Just from an operations standpoint, can you talk a little bit about the facility closures, kind of what they're allowing or optimizing for PCA? Given this shift in, you know, recycled costs versus virgin costs, you know, this question comes up periodically on your calls, how are you flexing your system, you know, relative to, you know, lower cost recycled and lower cost recycled board, recognizing your customers ultimately dictate what kind of box they want, and that ultimately dictates the board? I'll let it go there. Thanks for everything.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Okay. Thanks, George. Yeah, relative to the plant and the design center closure that we announced in the first quarter, you know, that is typical of the evaluation that we do of our footprint at all times, and it's part of our capital planning process. These are not knee-jerk reactions to let's just say, a volume demand change or anything like that. These are all part of our capital planning process where we're trying to optimize our system. Of course, we've made acquisitions over the years and other things like that, so we do have some duplicity in some of the markets that we wanna fix.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

So it's been a continuous process that we've been doing this. Relative to the recycled versus virgin, what PCA has been and I've said this before, what we have been focused on for years now in our mill system, is to be able to match the just the right amount of fiber to the performance that's necessary in the marketplace. Some of those proprietary products and some of the things that we've done in our mill system has served us incredibly well in the marketplace, and is ultimately even more competitive than recycled in most of those, in virtually all of those markets. I'm very pleased with what we've been able to do in the mill system. It's been an outstanding performance by all of our people.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

We've talked about our engineering expertise. We've talked about our paper tech expertise, and that's provided us. Of course, the flexibility we have in these mills. We will flex back and forth, obviously, with OCC to the degree we can, when the, when the price is of a nature that that makes the most sense.

George Staphos
Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Thanks, Tom.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Mm-hmm.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Next question please.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mark Weintraub, from Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead with your question.

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

Thank you. Good to hear that demand looking better in April. Did wanna follow up a little bit on George's question, and I realize it's a bit of an overlap. In the 3rd quarter and the 4th quarter as well, your year-over-year box shipments were a bit below the industry, and we don't have the industry data yet. We'll get that, I guess, on Friday. Certainly the 12.7% what was surprised us to the downside and you guys as well. As you look back over the last six months or so, any thoughts as to why you might have been showing reduced market share? You know, recognizing that, you know, over time you've actually outgrown the industry very substantially and very profitably.

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

You know, whether it's this ag business or what were you coming up with in terms as to what might have been going on with your book of business?

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Yeah, Mark, just remember back in 2008 into the 2009 period, we saw a more rapid downturn in volume than our competitors. When we started, seeing the improvement in the spring, we came back stronger and faster than our competitors. I believe most of that has to do with the predominantly local book, you know, specialized local accounts, smaller, local account business that we have. You know, these accounts are much more tuned in to what's happening with their own business. They can move very quickly. They're very nimble. I'm gonna let Tom elaborate on that because, again, it's not as simple as it seems.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Yeah, Mark. I think that the, you know, one of the things that I think is really important is, number one is we haven't lost any volume, so we're not losing any market share. That's not taking place. If you think about the thing that we've talked about many times, and we take great pride in, is the broad base of business that we have and the broad base of sectors that we deal across. In this particular, during COVID, we had some of those sectors were up as much as 200%. Once COVID ended, of course, those are gonna be down significantly. You know, it just depends on the sector, and that's why we've, that's why we've had to sort through this volume situation a little longer than what we would have hoped.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

You do have a lot of these, some of these various sectors are down significantly. Some of them have stayed level. Some of them are up slightly. For the most part, that's, you know, that's the biggest factor. The other thing that we did during COVID is we had to run a lot of business that we could not get supplied from the outside, which we traditionally would have done. We now have that business placed back on the outside again. Even though we keep the revenue and we keep the income, it's a drag on our volume. That's just kind of a, you know, kind of funny math, if you will, based on the way it has to be reported to the FBA. That's, you know, that's another factor that's affecting us. Does that help?

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

It does. Just two quick follow-ups. One is you mentioned, you know, not lost volume. Were you basically saying you haven't lost customers? Obviously, your volumes are down.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Well, yes, we haven't lost any customers in terms of, you know, what you would call market share in terms of customers or things like that. Obviously, our volume is down, but it's down, you know, we haven't lost any share within those accounts or anything like that. It's just that some of that broad-based business, some of those sectors are down significantly. As I mentioned, we've never had a period where we got hit with ag getting hit like it did in the regions where we have big footprints all at the same time.

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

Got it. Just to maybe a little bit of clarification, why would you given that demand has been weak and you certainly have the capability to have, fulfilled needs, which, you know, maybe were being fulfilled from the outside and now apparently you're fulfilling from the outside, I guess I'm kinda a little puzzled why you would, given you've got plenty of capability, I would think, to meet it internally, or maybe I don't understand exactly what you're saying?

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Well, the reason is because we have to produce that at a much higher cost than we can get done on the outside. It doesn't make sense for us to do that. In order to take care of our customers, we opted to do it at a much, you know, at a much higher cost point. That's why, that's why we're doing it. Of course, you know, we wanna maintain, run our plants as efficiently as we possibly can. It just from a cost standpoint, makes the most sense.

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

Okay. I'll circle back. Thanks so much.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Mm-hmm.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thank you. Next question.

Operator

Our next question comes from Philip Ng from Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.

Philip Ng
Philip Ng
Managing Director at Jefferies

Good morning, Mark, Rob, Tom, this is John on for Phil. I appreciate all the details. Thank you, guys. I want to first start off asking how much economic downtime you guys took in 1Q, given the last couple of quarters you've called that out, and it's been a bit outsized. Is that, is that something you can quantify? Maybe how can we think about trends for that in 2Q with some of the demand starting to normalize?

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Rob?

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

Yeah. It was about 110,000 tons in the first quarter.

Philip Ng
Philip Ng
Managing Director at Jefferies

Okay. Any insights on how to think about 2Q?

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

No, you know, we'll just, as we always done, we're just gonna run to demand and do what we've got to do to satisfy our customer base. If you go back and look at the first quarter, when we were in the January period of time, anticipating that volume was starting to settle down and improve, we anticipated going through our winter, spring annual shutdowns that would have a greater need. Our plan was to build a little more inventory. As a matter of fact, I think the number was about 30,000 tons more inventory through the first quarter that we ended the year last year. In fact, as we saw the deteriorating volume in, especially in February and March, we certainly didn't need that extra volume.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

We trimmed back and scaled back operations and only ended up 6,000 tons at the end of 1Q as opposed to where we thought it would be. Again, we'll just continue running to demand.

Philip Ng
Philip Ng
Managing Director at Jefferies

Okay, that's helpful. I just want to pivot over to the cost side. You guys have done a very good job taking out costs in the system. In terms of the guidance, just a couple of questions. First, I want to get a better understanding of what's driving the higher converting costs. Is that maybe more on the labor side? On the rail rate increases, is that something that you can maybe give us a little bit better understanding of the structure of those contracts, like how long those rates will kind of be in place when they get renegotiated? You know, how much maybe it was weighing on, 1Q and going into, 2Q, just to give us a, you know, some better tools to forecast the models out.

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

John, it's Rob. As far as on the rail rate increases, most of that is some of it occurred during the first quarter, we have some that just started at the beginning of the second. You know, the it's a large impact as you move from one Q to two Q because you'll have all of those pretty much higher, as we start the second quarter. That's, you know, that's what's driving the, you know, the freight costs up higher. I'm sorry, your first question was?

Philip Ng
Philip Ng
Managing Director at Jefferies

Well, I guess, just to stay on that for a second. Are those contracted rates for the next year, next couple of years? How do you-

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

Yeah, typically. Typically, that's probably a good way to think about it.

Philip Ng
Philip Ng
Managing Director at Jefferies

Okay. The first question was around the converting costs and what's driving higher converting costs forward.

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

Yeah. Yeah. Really, you know, labor benefits, obviously, with, you know, just, you know, that's part of it. The, you know, the other is really it's starch. You know, starch prices are just skyrocketed. You know, that is something that, you know, we had another big increase this year. As we, you know, expect our volume to start improving in the box plants and so forth, then you're using more of those types of things. That's what's driving labor and some of your material costs that are also included in that converting number.

Philip Ng
Philip Ng
Managing Director at Jefferies

Is the starch starting to turn over or it's still?

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

No. No, it's not.

Philip Ng
Philip Ng
Managing Director at Jefferies

Okay.

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

No.

Philip Ng
Philip Ng
Managing Director at Jefferies

All right. I appreciate the insight. Thank you all.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thank you. Next question.

Operator

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. Our next question comes from Anthony Pettinari from Citi. Please go ahead with your question.

Anthony Pettinari
Citi at Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst

Good morning.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Morning.

Anthony Pettinari
Citi at Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst

you know, kraft liner prices have been stable for a couple of months now. you know, and understanding you don't sell much board in the open market, and I'm not asking about forward pricing. You know, I'm just wondering if you had any thoughts about kind of where containerboard markets kind of feel like they are right now. I mean, you've seen a number of cycles. Maybe some of these capacity projects have started up and maybe are being sort of absorbed. I just wanted to get your sense of, containerboard markets versus maybe where we were a few months ago.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Anthony, this is Tom. I'll take this one. you know, yeah, prices have stabilized. There's no question about it. In fact, you know, I can make an argument that, you know, there really hasn't been a whole lot of activity, relative to price in the past. I'm not a predictor of price going forward, but I can just tell you that, I think the outlook's more positive. Of course, you've seen the industry really, adjust dramatically to demand. as I've said many times, I mean, the open market is a small open market today. you know, those that have excess capacity are either taking the downtime or they're looking to, you know, export markets to try to figure out how to sell into those markets.

Anthony Pettinari
Citi at Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst

Mm-hmm

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

... which are also under some duress. You know, I think that the, I think the market in general, is different than the past, given, the small open market that we have today. I think that leads towards much more stability.

Anthony Pettinari
Citi at Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst

Got it. Got it. That's helpful. Just I wonder if you could talk a little bit, you know, given the balance sheet flexibility that you have, you know, about capital allocation, and from a capital return perspective, I mean, you're paying an attractive dividend. I don't know if you can talk about maybe opportunities for repurchases. In terms of investing in the business, you know, you're coming off maybe a big CapEx cycle where you were doing a lot of internal projects. Just wondering if you could kind of talk about where you're seeing the opportunities in capital allocation and capital return, you know, this year.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

You know, we, you know, as we've talked about for the last year, our plans were to bring capital down this year, and we're in that $400 million range. I would anticipate that working through into next year also. You know, we've done most of the big projects that we could foresee in the mills, and we're just gonna continue with the box plan optimization. As far as utilization of cash in terms of other opportunities like dividends, share repurchases, acquisitions, we'll remain flexible on any and all opportunities in that regard as we go forward. You know, as we've done for many, many years now, we've got that flexibility to take advantage of all of these opportunities as they present themselves. That's how we look at it day to day.

Anthony Pettinari
Citi at Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. I'll turn it over.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thanks. Next question.

Operator

Our next question is a follow-up from George Staphos from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead with your follow-up.

George Staphos
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Hi. Thank you so much. actually, Anthony, took my next question. I will turn it over to the next person. Thank you so much.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thank you. Next.

Operator

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one. Our next question is also a follow-up from Mark Weintraub from Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead with your follow-up.

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

Thank you. I was thinking a little bit about how I believe your volumes ended up being down about twice what you had or anticipated back in January. I think you'd been talking about flat flat average day and so it would have been, like, 6% or 7% down, and you ended up down, you know, 12.7%. Is it fair to therefore if you talked about the negative impact year-over-year on volumes being about $0.95? If I just took half of that, was that the incremental negative impact from the, you know, additional demand weakness that you experienced so that had in fact the volumes come through as you anticipated, you know, in theory, you might have been closer to $2.70, particularly if we add the fact that you had the pricing down by $20 in February, which would have had some small impact?

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

Then if that is the case, and I realize that maybe that math doesn't work, but if that was the case, that's a huge difference from sort of the $223, and presumably that relates to all the operating adjustments that you had made and sort of just trying to get a sense to whether that's something you can hang on to or those were measures taken because of what was going on in the business and, you know, maybe a little bit less certain types of spend that you could defer. Sort of just trying to get a sense of that underlying earnings power in a future type of environment.

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

Yeah. Mark, this is Rob. There's a lot going on there. If you're saying if our volumes were higher or were, you know, closer to what we had anticipated, you're looking at that $0.95 being something a lot larger?

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

I believe you had stated during the January call that you were looking for average daily box shipments to be flat in-

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

Right... you know, sequentially, which would have suggested about down 6.5% rather than the down 12.7%.

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

Right. Yes.

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

Basically, I'm saying, well, does that mean that instead of being a $0.95 negative hit, it would have been about half of that, like a 40-.

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

Yeah.

Robert Mundy
Robert Mundy
EVP and CFO at Packaging Corporation of America

... 7% negative hit.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

No, you know, that volume, it's not just box shipments, right? It's, you know, there's export volume, there's trade, there's, you know, domestic outside volume. That's would not be a good way to look at it. However, you know, it, you know, directionally, yes, it would be a higher number, but you would also have a lot better, probably cost within your system because your mills would be running more full. Your box plants would be, you know, running more full. You know, your converting costs, your direct variable costs, all those types of things, your unabsorbed costs would not be as high, would more than offset, you know, any additional decline that you would see in that price variance, if that makes sense, because of higher volumes.

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

It does, but sort of comes back to the point that you're only $0.03 off what your guidance had been.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Yeah. You know, if you wanna look at it sort of simply, you know, the published price dropped $20 a ton after we gave our guidance. If you sort of do the math on that, and as we said before, when that price, the published price drops, you know, pretty much hits our outside containerboard immediately. You know, there's no delay. If you sort of do the math, there's about $0.03 just from that price decline that occurred after we gave our guidance.

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

Right. What I'm trying to get to is if we get this sort of rebound in demand, and what it would seem that our, you know, the bounce back in earnings could be, you know, very dramatic relative to sort of that 2023 type of run rate you had suggested in a, in a down 6.5%.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Absolutely, Mark. Absolutely. That's what we would anticipate.

Mark Weintraub
Mark Weintraub
Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners

Okay. I apologize for the fairly convoluted questioning here. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is also a follow-up from Philip Ng from Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.

Philip Ng
Philip Ng
Managing Director at Jefferies

Hey, guys, it's Philip again. I appreciate you taking the follow-up. I just wanted to quickly shift over to the paper segment. You know, demand was a bit lower than we had expected. Just kinda looking to get some insights on how the paper segment volumes are trending. It looks like, you know, maybe this next quarter we should see another down double digit type of volume year-over-year. You know, just kinda what's going on and maybe what are the main factors impacting demand on the paper side?

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

You know, again, as we spoke last year that we, our paper business now had become just the International Falls mill up in Minnesota, and that mill is capable of a little over 500,000 tons a year. That's pretty much what we're selling to. We're down slightly off of that peak capability, but what that allows us to do really is just run and optimize the market and where we choose to sell and, you know, where we want to sell to maximize profit. We really have the luxury of being the fourth largest player. We don't have to do anything, like say we're in a real sweet spot right now, down just a few thousand tons off of where we were last year.

Philip Ng
Philip Ng
Managing Director at Jefferies

Okay. Thanks. Appreciate it.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thank you. Any other questions, please?

Operator

Our final question comes from George Staphos. Once again, a follow-up from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead with your follow-up.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

George?

George Staphos
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Oh, hey, sorry. Had technical issue here. Thanks, guys. I just wanna reaffirm the guidance on the paper segment is for pricing and volume to be down slightly sequentially. Was that the comment, Mark and Tom? Rob, thanks very much and good luck in the quarter.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Yes. Yes, George. That's correct.

George Staphos
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Excellent. Thanks, guys. Good luck in the quarter.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thank you, George.

Tom Hassfurther
Executive Vice President at EVP

Thank you.

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Any other questions, please?

Operator

Mr. Kowlzan, I see no more questions at this time. Do you have any closing comments?

Mark Kowlzan
Mark Kowlzan
Chairman and CEO at Packaging Corporation of America

Thank you, everybody, for joining us on the call today, and appreciate your time, and we look forward to talking with you in July and covering the second quarter earnings results. Have a nice day. Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Executives
Analysts
    • Tom Hassfurther
      Executive Vice President at EVP
    • George Staphos
      Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities
    • George Staphos
      Analyst at Bank of America Securities
    • Mark Weintraub
      Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development at Seaport Research Partners
    • Philip Ng
      Managing Director at Jefferies
    • Anthony Pettinari
      Citi at Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst
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