International Paper Company

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to today's International Papers first quarter 2024 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent background noise. After the speaker's remarks, you will have an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, press 1 then 0 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw a question, press 1 then 0. As a reminder, to ask a question, press 1 then 0. To withdraw a question, press 1 then 0. Again, that is press 1 then 0 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw a question, press 1, then 0. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mark Nelson, Vice President, Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Greg. Good morning, and thank you for joining International Papers' first quarter earnings call. Our speakers this morning are Mark Sutton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Tim Nichols, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. There is important information at the beginning of our presentation, including certain legal disclaimers. For example, during this call, we will make forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. We will also present certain non-U.S. GAAP financial information, and a reconciliation of those figures to U.S. GAAP financial measures is available on our website. Our website also contains certain copies of the first quarter earnings press release and today's presentation slides. I will now turn the call over to Mark Sutton.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. We will get our discussion on slide four where I will highlight our results. Starting off the year, our teams across international paper executed well with intense focus on taking care of our customers while accelerating our commercial and mill optimization strategies. We are also encouraged to see positive market momentum as we continue to see signs of demand recovery. Additionally, sales price index has improved across our portfolio and the majority of the benefits will flow through our contracts in future quarters. Our first quarter earnings were generally in line with our outlook and represent a trough based on seasonally low volumes, higher OCC costs, and the majority impact from the 2023 sales price index declines. Earnings were also unfavorably impacted by approximately $38 million from the January winter freeze and approximately 14 million from a significant fire that consumed our box plant in Iztac, Mexico. Fortunately, no one was injured and our teams remained focused on taking care of our employees and customers as we managed through this incident. Also in the quarter, our teams across international paper made significant progress executing our strategic initiatives. We realized significant margin and mixed benefits from our box go-to-market strategy. well above our initial expectations for the first quarter. In addition, we continue to make investments to strengthen our packaging businesses. We also realize benefits from our optimization strategy in global cellulose fibers and from the fixed cost reduction initiatives in our mill system. These strategic initiatives across our portfolio are focused on accelerating margin improvement and driving profitable growth. In addition to this ongoing work, last week we announced a catalyst to create significant value for shareholders through a highly compelling combination with DS Smith. This additional catalyst is something we look forward to working on with the DS Smith team and continuing our conversations with investors regarding this opportunity. At this time, we do not have any additional information to share, so for today's call, including the Q&A session, we intend to focus specifically on international papers performance. I will now turn it over to Tim, who will provide more details about our first quarter performance and also our outlook. Tim?