Resolute Forest Products Inc.

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Resolute's first quarter earnings call. Following today's conference, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star followed by one on your phone. I will now turn the call over to Marianne Limoges, Treasurer and Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Welcome to Resolute's first quarter earnings call. Today we'll hear from Rémi Lalonde, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sylvain Gérard, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. You can follow along with the slides for today's presentation by logging on to the webcast using the link in the Presentations and Webcast page under the Investor Relations section of our website, and you can download the slides. Today's presentation will include non-U.S. GAAP financial information. Our press release and the appendix Two of the slides include a reconciliation of non-GAAP information to U.S. GAAP financial measures. We will also make forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information is based on our current assumptions, beliefs, and expectations, all of which involve a number of business risks and uncertainties, and can change as conditions do. Please review the questionary statements in our press release and on slide two of today's presentation. I will turn the call over to Rémi.

Rémi Bergeron- Thank you, Marianne. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Today, we reported $270 million of adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter, compared to $111 in Q4. The results reflect favorable pricing momentum in each of our segments, particularly in wood products and paper. Transportation network improvements were slower than expected. This is especially true in Quebec, where most of our production is based, which has led to lower sales volume and higher inventory levels. By segment, we reported adjusted EBITDA of $230 million for wood products, up by $138 million, $26 million in market pulp, up by $1 million, minus $4 million in tissue, down by 3, and $34 million for paper, up by 22. We further strengthened the balance sheet with significant cash generation in the quarter, and we improved the competitiveness of our business with two tuck-in acquisitions in the wood products segment, namely, the other 50% of our engineered wood partnership allowing us to lock in the downstream integration of over 60 million board feet of lumber capacity, and a cogeneration facility adjacent to our center sawmill, which allows us to maximize the use of biomass from our regional operations, generate green power, and further enhance our competitiveness in the Abitibi region. With our strong balance sheet and liquidity well over $1 billion, we have significant flexibility to generate long-term value for shareholders and to drive sustainable economic activity in the communities where we operate. Let's talk about our individual businesses, starting with wood products. First quarter, U.S. housing starts reached $1.8 million on a seasonally adjusted annual basis, up by 5% from the previous quarter. Benchmark lumber prices were strong but volatile during the quarter, and the transportation network has been sluggish. Our average transaction price rose to $1,022 per thousand board feet, an increase of 410, or 67%, from the previous quarter. Production improved by roughly 35 million board feet in the quarter, and we added 12 million board feet equivalent with the new I-JOIST capacity. But shipments were 86 million board feet lower due to limited rail car and truck availability, particularly in Quebec, which pushed finished goods inventory up by 97 million board feet to 223 million. We continue to work hard to adapt to ongoing challenges in the transportation network, and we expect to gradually normalize inventory levels over the second half of the year, starting with a significant improvement in shipments in the second quarter. While underlying fundamentals for building materials remain positive, we are mindful of inflationary pressure and rising interest rates, which could affect pricing and margins. Global demand for chemical pulp through February rose by 1%, with demand for hardwood up by 2% and softwood down by 2%. While Chinese demand has been softer year-to-date, North American and European markets have been resilient. Our average transaction price increased by $9 per metric ton, and our shipments were 28,000 metric tons lower, which reflects the capacity curtailment at Calhoun and significant logistics constraints. As a result, our finished goods inventory rose by 23,000 metric tons. We expect to see a marked price improvement in the coming quarter based on publicly available price announcements. This trend is the result of logistics challenges, the global geopolitical environment, and the accumulation of significant unplanned industry downtime. Accordingly, we expect our margins to widen, but the timing of maintenance will offset some of the positive impact in the second quarter. We expect to gradually reduce elevated inventory levels over the course of the year, starting with a modest increase in volume in the second quarter. Through March, U.S. at-home tissue demand improved by 4%, and the away-from-home segment grew by 6%, but to levels still well below pre-pandemic demand. Our average transaction price increased by $47 per short ton, or 2% in the quarter, due to better product mix and shipments rose by 1,000 short tons. We expect rising pulp costs in the second quarter to offset incremental average transaction price gains and shipments to remain similar. North American demand for uncoated mechanical paper increased by 7% in Q1, mainly due to grade substitution, but newsprint slipped by 6%. Our average transaction price for paper rose by $37 per metric ton, or 5% in the quarter, due to favorable market conditions in all grades. Our shipments fell by 22,000 metric tons, largely reflecting the capacity curtailment at Calhoun. Finished goods inventory remained elevated at 85,000 metric tons as a result of limited rail car and truck availability. Paper pricing conditions are strong due to limited supply, the macroeconomic environment, and logistics constraints. but we expect higher prices to be partly offset by higher planned maintenance in the quarter. I will now ask Sylvain to please discuss our financial performance.

Thank you, Rumi. We reported net income of $177 million in the first quarter, or $2.26 per share, excluding special items. This compares to net income excluding special items of $37 million, or $0.48 per share, in the previous quarter, and net income, excluding special items, of $119 million, or $1.45 per share, in the same period last year. Special items in the first quarter included $45 million in other income, mostly due to a gain on our 50% equity interest in the Resolute LP iJoyce partnership in connection with the acquisition, $7 million in non-operating pension and other post-retirement benefits costs, and... $4 million in closure-related charges for the indefinite idling of the Calhoun Mill. Compared to the previous quarter, our results include the favorable impact of $7 million from the indefinite idling of pulp and paper operations at the Calhoun Mill, which occurred early in the first quarter. We reduce our 2022 cash closure cost expectations for Calhoun pulp and paper operations down to $22 million from 32. Total sales in the quarter were $945 million, up by $111 million compared to the fourth quarter, reflecting higher realized prices in all segments, partially offset by lower shipments as a result of logistic constraints and the indefinite idling of our Callum Fulton paper operations. Mainly driven by higher log costs, manufacturing costs rose by $23 million in the quarter after removing the impact of volume including the capacity curtailment at Calhoun, and flooring exchange. Compared to the fourth quarter, all-in delivered costs for the wood product segment rose by $77 per thousand board feet, or 17%, mainly reflecting higher stumpage fees and harvesting expenses. EBITDA in the segment improved by $138 million to $230 million. In the market pulp segment, Delivered cost decreased by $8 per metric ton, or 1%. Epidynal segment improved by $1 million to $26 million. The delivered cost in tissue increased by $141 per short ton, or 7%, mostly due to higher pulp prices, including the loss of direct pulp integration at the Calhoun Mill. Epidophthora segment fell $3 million to negative $4 million. Papers delivered costs decreased by $47 per metric ton, or 6%, due to lower overall operating costs following the curtailment at Calhoun, partly offset by higher freight costs. Edits offered this segment improved by $22 million to $34 million. We generated $147 million of cash from operating activities in the quarter, despite an increase of $67 million of inventory. mainly as a result of logistic constraints and the seasonal buildup of logs ahead of the spring break-up. We expect log inventory to come down during the second quarter and for finished goods inventory levels to gradually normalize in the second half of the year. In March, we completed the acquisition of the iJoyce Partnership for $50 million, net of cash acquired and working capital adjustments. We made $13 million in capital expenditures during the first quarter, and we maintain our $130 million target for the year. We also made $43 million in softwood lumber duty deposits in the quarter, bringing our total deposits $440 million, which is recorded in other assets on the balance sheet. On April 6, Moody's announced a credit rating upgrade to BA3 from B1, with a stable outlook, as a result of our improved financial performance and leverage. With strong cash flow generation in the quarter, our net debt fell to only $140 million at quarter end, with a leverage ratio approaching zero, including pension, and our liquidity was over $1.1 billion. Finally, we contributed $20 million to pension plans in the quarter and made OPF payments of $3 million. Considering the significant increase in bond yields since year-end, if the year were to end on March 31st, the pro forma accounting deficit would have been $825 million, down from $1.41 billion. On the other hand, the funding deficit increased to $525 million due to Q1 market performance. We will conduct a formal revaluation of the accounting position only at year-end in accordance with U.S. GAAP rules.

All right, thank you, Sylvain. Our strategic objectives for the company remain focused on growing our wood products and pulp businesses and on driving further improvements in our overall asset performance. To that end, our current priorities in wood products are integrating our recent acquisitions in Quebec, continuing to enhance productivity in our U.S. sawmills, and investing in our assets with strategic capital projects and ensuring their disciplined execution. For pulp, we are driving operational efficiency and productivity and investing strategically to grow capacity organically. Following the indefinite idling of pulp and paper operations at Calhoun, we indicated last quarter that we would review strategic options for the tissue business. As part of this exercise, we recently launched a sales process to explore divestiture options. In the coming days, we will start main table bargaining with union leaders representing many of our Canadian pulp and paper employees. Our union partners have been instrumental in our progress as a company and their contribution is critical to our continued success. We look forward to a constructive, open and collaborative dialogue building on our shared goal of making sure Resolute remains an employer of choice and a successful company contributing to vibrant communities. In closing, I'm pleased to confirm that we surpassed our 30% absolute GHG emissions reduction target, cutting them by 34% from 2015 levels.

This concludes our formal presentation. Operator, we'll now open the call for questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star 1 again. Your first question comes from the line of Hamir Papel of CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Remy, there's been an unprecedented array of paper and newsprint hikes in recent months. Will that eventually hit your entire domestic paper business, or do you have some long-term legacy contract prices that may limit the upside to realizations?

No, I mean, we are always trying to get win-win deals with our customers, Hamir, but I would tell you that there are not too many long-term contracts that would limit the upside. We do, as you can see in this quarter, have realized a significant improvement in pricing, and we expect that to continue. So there aren't many long-term contracts that would limit our upside there.

Okay, great. Thanks, Rami. That's helpful. And just on the tissue strategic alternatives process, do you have a sense as to when you would expect that process to conclude?

No, not yet, Hamir. I mean, we've launched it, and so we need to let the process follow its course, and we'll see it through. But I don't have anything to report as of yet, and I'm not quite sure yet how long it'll take to work it through.

Okay, fair enough. Thanks. That's all I had. I'll turn it over. Okay.

Your next question comes from the line of Kasia Kopitek of TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. It's Kasia for Sean. First question is around cost inflation. Hey, good morning. Would you guys be able to talk about inflation and just how that trended this quarter relative to what you were expecting heading into the quarter?

Yep. No, absolutely. So what we were expecting last quarter was for a slight reduction in energy prices as a function of natural gas prices. We were expecting fiber to go up just on the basis of lumber prices. and freight also to come up. And what actually happened is an increase in total cost by $23 million, all of which really came from higher log costs as a result, as we indicated, of stumpage fees for higher lumber prices. And we also saw increase in freight costs as a result of the logistics constraints that we've been talking about and a slight uptick in energy prices. On the favorable side, we did get the benefit of removing Calhoun as a result of the indefinite idling of pulp and paper operations there. And we saw a bit better on power generation and lower SG&A because in the last quarter we recorded a mark-to-market for some of the equity-based compensation. So that's the key items. In terms of what we expect in the quarter ahead, You know, we, stumpage fees will be a function of lumber prices. We expect that freight costs will remain elevated because we still have high inventory and facing some challenges around logistics constraints. And we are expecting an uptick in maintenance costs as we head into just normal spring maintenance season.

That's great detail. And just on that last point, any guidance you can provide in terms of magnitude of impact for future for the maintenance?

In pulp and paper, I would be looking for plus $20 million quarter over quarter.

Okay, great. And then you spoke a lot about sales logistics constraints and how you expect inventories to gradually normalize over the course of the year. Did you take any downtime this quarter related to shifting constraints? Maybe more importantly, how is your platform running now? I think you referenced 233.4 million feet of finished goods inventories and lumber. Is that historically elevated? If you just provide context on that.

No, that's a good question, Kasia. So, I mean, for us, the logistics constraints are reflected in excess inventory. And so we have, as we talked about, finished goods here of $57 million on the balance sheet from last quarter. And we had higher freight costs of $8 million. We did not have any significant production interruptions as a result. So we're really building inventory. So the way we think about it is that this is really EBITDA deferred as opposed to denied. And 223 million board feet of inventory for the lumber business I would characterize as very high. It's about double what it was at the end of call it 2020. So we like to keep it at say 100 to 125. million board feet so 225 is on the high side so it's going to take a little bit of time before we can get all of that distributed but we expect to work it down over the second half of the year starting with a modest increase in shipments here in the second quarter. Actually in the lumber business we expect a significant increase in shipments about 100 million board feet.

That's good detail. Thanks very much for that. And last one for me just broadly speaking To strategic objectives, you gave some context already, but where does M&A figure in your strategic pecking order, and how do you look at returns of time for the shareholders? You guys still have most of the $100 million buyback that's authorized in December remaining, if I recall correctly.

So, I mean, M&A is a tool that we use. And so if you look at, say, in the first quarter, we bought out our partner in the Ijoys business, and we acquired a cogeneration facility in the Abitibi region to tactically improve the competitive position of our lumber business. We also did buy the three U.S. sawmills from Conifex two years ago. So we always think of M&A in terms of value-added synergistic acquisitions. But it has to make sense for us. But the way that we think about it, Kasia, is rather than looking at M&A with significant valuations where your return expectations are only slightly better than your cost of capital, it kind of forces us to look inward and to realize that some of our highest return opportunities are investing in our own assets and growing them organically. which is why we've got a fairly full pipeline of capital projects. We still expect to make about $130 million of investments this year, including the projects in the lumber business that we announced last summer. And those are really high-return projects that we're pretty excited about. So we want to take a balanced approach to capital allocation. You talked also about some of the things that we're doing around share buybacks, which we've been active on. and debt reduction too. But the big picture for the company is that we had very strong cash generation in the quarter, and we're getting pretty close to having a net cash position, which when you look at the history of the company is a pretty good thing.

Great. I really appreciate all the detail. That's all I had. I'll turn it over.

Thanks, Kasia.

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Quinn with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. This is Matt McKellar on for Paul Quinn. Thanks for taking my questions. Hi, Matt. First, if we could get your thoughts on the sustainability of paper pricing here and how you'd expect pricing to evolve over the near and medium term given the limited supply and logistics constraints you mentioned.

Well, we think that paper prices are strong and will continue to be strong. There are, as you indicated, a number of factors involved in that. We have increased our expectations around the free cash flow generation from the paper business in the next five years. just on the basis of how tight conditions are, especially in 2022 and 2023. Paper is obviously very impacted by capacity, and we think in today's environment, Bringing additional paper capacity can be challenging. We're certainly not planning to bring additional paper capacity. If you think about the cost inflation around energy, chemicals, logistics, you know, the cost of and availability of labor, there's a lot of challenges around bringing additional capacity online. So the secular decline trend will remain. but we think that the runway for the next couple of years remains healthy, and we're still very encouraged by the free cash flow potential from that business for the next few years.

Great. Thanks very much. It's really helpful. Maybe next, just wondering if you have any sort of refreshed outlook for the engineered wood products business, including whether you're thinking about your business any differently now following the acquisition of your partner's 50% interest and maybe how you're thinking about contribution and growth there going forward.

Well, I could tell you that the business generated $12 million of EBITDA in the first quarter, so we're pretty excited about bringing the iJoyce business in the family, if you will. As you know, it was an equity pickup before, so this is the first time that we're including the EBITDA. You know, I think that the underlying fundamentals for the IJOYS business really key off of building materials forecasts. And so if you think about the underlying trends that are driving demand in the lumber market, you know, the historical underbuilding in the last decade, the demographics that are favorable to the future, we think it's a good place to be. The additional benefit for Resolute is that it allows us to integrate downstream 60 million board feet of lumber capacity in-house. So, no, we're pretty excited about the business.

Okay. Thanks very much. That's all from me. I'll turn it back.

Okay. Thanks, Matt.

There are no further questions at this time. Madame Limoges, I turn the call back over to you.

Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining us today. We wish you a great day.

Thanks.

That concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your line.