Sylvamo Corporation

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Silvano's fourth quarter 2023 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, you will have an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, please press one then zero on your telephone keypad. To withdraw a question, please press one then zero again. As a reminder, your conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to Hans Bjorkman, Vice President, Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thanks, Greg. Good morning, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year 2023 call today. Our speakers this morning are Jean-Michel Rivieres, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and John Simms, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Slides two and three contain important information, including certain legal disclaimers. For example, during this call, we will make forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. We will also present certain non-U.S. GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of those figures to U.S. GAAP financial measures are available in the appendix. Our website also contains copies of the earnings release as well as today's presentation. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jean-Michel.

Thanks, Hans. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Let's turn to slide four, please. In 2023, we created value for shareholders by managing what we could control as we executed our three-point strategy commercial excellence, operational excellence, and financial discipline to strengthen our competitive advantages in our core unquoted fishing market. First, we allocated cash to improve our financial position by repaying 76 million in debt, achieving a net debt adjusted a bit of 1.2 times. Second, we continue to deliver on our investment thesis We earned 607 million adjusted EBITDA, generated 294 million in free cash flow, and returned 127 million in cash to shareholders. Third, we invested to strengthen our low-cost assets. We invested 210 million and continued to accelerate investments in high-return capital projects. We also acquired the 500,000 ton New Mala mill in Sweden for 167 million. This is a great asset with a talented team. The mill is performing well, and we are benefiting from the $40 million bulk mill modernization project that was completed just before the acquisition. In a tough market, the mill generated about $50 million in cash before any allocated overhead.