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Suzano S.A.
5/9/2025
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding and welcome to Suzano's conference call to discuss the results for the first quarter of 2025. We would like to inform that all participants will be in a list-and-only mode during the presentation that will be addressed by the CEO, Mr. Beto Abreu, and other executive officers. This call will be presented in English with simultaneous translation to Portuguese. To change the audio, you can press the globe icon on the lower right side of your Zoom screen and then choose to enter Portuguese room. After that, you can select Mute Original Audio. Before proceeding, please be aware that any forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Susana's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and, therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. You should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of SUSANO and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forelooking statements. Now, I will turn the conference over to Mr. Beto Abril. Please, you may begin your presentation.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending the 2025 first quarter conference call. Suzana has presented a set of results for the poop and paper business, which are fully in line with our plan for the period. Inventory was rebuilt to normalize levels, despite the concentration of maintenance downtimes in the first quarter. And paper invoicing prices, cash cost performance, capex disbursement, and the main metrics of our balance sheets come as expected by the management. And the team will cover here during the call all the details regarding those points. Looking now to the current environment where the level of uncertainty escalated since April the 2nd, the focus on strengthening our competitive position became even more critical in an increasingly unpredictable global landscape. Although Suzano already has the ability to generate free cash flow in any pool price scenario, due to its resilience business model, going forward, we see room to become even more competitive, further reducing our cash costs, further reducing our SG&A cost, and also caps per ton as we move ahead in 2025. And this is fully aligned with our total operational disbursement guidance for 2027. Our conservative approach is also valid to our financial strength. So deleveraging continues to be our priority. Before handing a holder to Fabio, I would like also to reinforce that Suzano will keep its focus to well serve our customers globally, especially in a great trade turmoil. Fabio, let me hand over to you to cover the paper and packaging business.
Thanks, Beto, and good morning, everyone. Please, let's turn to the next page of the presentation. Our first quarter results were marked by price evolutions in our Brazilian and American operations. Sales volume growth on a year-over-year base, improvements in our Suzano packaging operations and results, and higher costs in Brazilian operations due to the annual maintenance downtime on line one of the Mukuri mill. As you can see in this slide, we have segregated Suzano's packaging performance to provide you a detailed and transparent view of its progress and to enable you a comparable basis analysis with previous quarter of our mainstream business from Brazilian operations. Now talking about demand, looking to the Brazilian market, according to IBA, print and write demand, including imports, increased by 21% in the first two months of the first quarter compared to the same period of last year. sales from domestic producers grew by 23%, while imports grew by 19% on the same basis. 2025 is expected to be a record year in terms of paper demand for the Brazilian government textbook program. And therefore, domestic demand growth in Q1 reflected a higher than expected demand for uncoated wood-free paper. Cut size and coated paper demands were stable year over year. Looking to other regions on a year-over-year basis and according to PPPC, demand for uncultivated free papers, our main exported products, has kept stable in North America, has shrunk 7% in Europe and grown 4.4% in Latin America. International markets continue to be oversupplied with Q1 and market dynamics could change going forward, depending on the outcome of ongoing trade discussions. Now address the newest paper board demand. In Brazil, we saw 8% decline in the first two months of the quarter compared to the same period last year. This reduction reflected the cooling of the Brazilian economy and adjustments of the supply chain after strong second semester in 2024. In the U.S. market, a focus region for Susano packaging operations, according to Numera, box board demand has shrunk 1% on a year-over-year basis. However, demand for SBS boards, which Susano packaging produces, has increased by 1% over the same period. Looking at Suzano figures, our sales volume performance in the quarter, Brazilian domestic market grew year over year with solid demand for our products. While exports from Brazil have declined due to our strategy to rebuild our inventories in Brazil and that our international warehouses. On a quarter over quarter basis, the decline in sales from our operations in Brazil is due to market seasonality. I would like to highlight the sales volumes from Susano Packaging, which increased by 62% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, driven by improved operational performance across the business. In terms of pricing, year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increases in our Brazilian operations reflect the successful implementation of price announcements in our main product lines. Additionally, a more favorable FX contributed to higher net prices from our exports when compared to Q124. Turning to Suzano package, net prices rose 15% from Q4 2024 as a result of new commercial conditions on its main contracts that took effect in January 25. The EBITDA performance for our Brazilian operations was impacted by seasonality when compared to Q4-24 and by a major annual maintenance downtime at Line 1 of Mucuri Mill when compared to Q1-2024. Although such downtime affected both volumes and costs during the quarter, significant upgrades were made to the paper machine, and we expect improved efficiency from Mucuri Line 1 going forward. I'm pleased to share further updates on Suzano Packaging, which EBITDA improved 67% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, underscoring the progress of our turnaround strategy. With operations approaching break-even, we're confident in achieving positive EBITDA in the second half of this year. Looking ahead to Suzano's paper and packaging business performance, for now Brazilian operations, we expect lower costs for Q2, with no maintenance scheduled during the quarter. During Q2, we will have the annual downtime of Suzano Package in Pine Bluff, which will impact our volumes and costs during the quarter. Due to macroeconomic uncertainty generated by the ongoing trade war, paper demand and prices in the international markets can be affected. In Brazil, we expect our prices to be stable for the rest of the year for cut size and unquote good figure rates. Price for paper board and quoted papers may follow the dynamic of international prices due to import volumes and prices in Brazil. Now I'll hand it over to Leo, who will present our poll business results.
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