Smurfit WestRock PLC

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Smurfit West Rock 2025 Q2 Results webcast and conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1, 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Kieran Potts, Smurfit Westrock Group VP, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Heidi. As a reminder, statements in today's earnings release and presentation and the comments made by management during this call may be considered forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to the factors identified in the earnings release and in our SEC filing. The company undertakes no obligation to revise any forwarding statements. Today's remarks also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in today's earnings release. and in the appendix to the presentation, which are available at investors.smirfordwestrock.com. Before handing over to Tony, I would ask you to limit your questions to two, and should you require any clarifications of what we are discussing today, Frank and I will make ourselves available after our call. I'll now hand you over to Tony Smirford, CEO of Smirford Westrock.

Thank you, Ciaran, and good morning, everybody. I'm joined today by Ken Bowles, our Group Executive Vice President and CFO. I am delighted to report a strong second quarter performance as we continue to deliver fully in line with our stated guidance. Ken will take you through our financial performance in greater detail. In terms of headline numbers, we are delivering adjusted EBITDA of 1.213 million and a good adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.3%. Turning to our regions. we have delivered an initial yet significant improvement within our North American business, reflecting a much sharper operational and commercial focus, together with identified synergy benefits. We are only getting started here and with significant scope for continued delivery. Our European business continues to perform in a challenging market. However, we are comfortable that we are close to a low. Our Latin American operations delivered an outstanding margin performance in a region which continues to present opportunities for growth. We see opportunity across each region, whether it's in terms of operating efficiency, a sharper commercial focus, or capitalizing on growth areas. We continue to optimize our system, which we expect to drive improved margin performance for Smurf at Westrock with our recently announced restructurings. Finally, and of note within the quarter, Fitch upgraded our long-term debt to BBB+, with a stable outlook, reflecting their confidence in the quality of our business and our longer-term prospects. As it is now one year from the conclusion of the combination between Smurfit Kappa Group and Westrock, I want to take a step back to look forward. Let me outline our key achievements and what we have found within that timeframe. First, we have very successfully and seamlessly integrated two major businesses, combining the best elements of each organization with a strong performance-led culture. Secondly, we have identified and are delivering on at least 400 million of synergies. And as we said before, we see a much greater opportunity to deliver at least equivalent value through a much sharper commercial and operating focus. For growth and increased operating efficiency, we continue to invest in a disciplined way across our regions. We are continuing and will continue to to optimize our system through the elimination of non-strategic or inefficient assets. As you know, we recently announced the permanent closure of 600,000 tons of capacity. The steps we are taking and continue to take are delivering a measurable improvement to the business performance within a relatively short timeframe. We have built strong foundations with a generally well-invested asset base, excellent market positions, and above all, the excellence of our people. You have often heard us talking about our distinct operating model that has driven our outperformance. Fundamentally, it revolves around people and the culture which exists now within the new Smurf at Westrock. Culture and values are fundamental to us and we demand the highest ethical standards. First, we devolve profit responsibility down to the individual businesses, ensuring that each manager runs their business as a fully accountable owner with responsibility for all aspects of their business with an emphasis on customer service and profitability. In order for our managers to be successful, there are a number of prerequisites, such as having a complete focus on their people within their organizations, safety at work, and a relentless focus on delivering value, innovation, and quality for our customers. In order to do that, we in corporate effectively give those managers the tools to do the job, ensuring clear strategic direction and support. Naturally, we tightly and centrally control capital and ensure structures are simplified and there is an unrelenting focus on cost takeout while at the same time eliminating unnecessary structures. Our identified synergy program is delivering at or better than planned. Importantly though, we see very significant margin enhancement opportunities through our methodology and way of working. We've already seen the benefit And to demonstrate this point, we've already cut our loss making and corrugated by approximately 40% in our U.S. operations. We've always strongly believed that as a general principle, our assets must be world-class. Within our business, in our previous incarnation of Smurfit Kappa, we continued over two strategic plan periods to develop world-class systems, world-class assets, and businesses which have a long investable future. In the new Smurf at Westrock, as always, we will be doing the same in a disciplined and measured way. We have started that journey now in the new Smurf at Westrock with $1 billion already invested in our system, roughly equally split between paper and converting assets. We have also initiated what we call our quick win programs with an amount of almost $200 million already committed for the next 18 months to rapidly take out costs with the minimum returns exceeding 20% plus. Frankly speaking, we've been doing this for decades, and seeing the opportunity in the new Smurf at Westrock is truly exciting. But of course, equipment without people is useless, because anybody can buy new equipment, and if you don't have the people with superior knowledge in their marketplace, then you will just be another average company. In the first six months, we have demonstrated, with some 39 unique awards given to us, that Smurf at Westrock has some of the most powerful, innovative tools and applications that will bring our customers' packaging to another level and help them win in their own marketplaces. With over 2,000 designers worldwide, we are in the early innings of bringing all that knowledge together for the benefit of our customers so they can reduce their own costs and drive increased revenue, giving them unique designs at the same time sharing value. The sustainability journey which a large portion of our customer base is committed to, is another area of expertise. We are becoming the innovative and sustainable packaging partner of choice for our customers, which is continually demonstrated day in and day out across our regions. And with that, I'll hand you over to Ken, who'll take you through our financials.