Smurfit WestRock plc Ordinary Shares

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Smurfit Westrock 2025 Q3 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'd now like to hand the conference over to Ciaran Potts, Smurfett Westrock Group VP, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Sarah. 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 forward-looking statements. Today's remarks also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in today's release and in the appendix to the presentation, which are available at investors.smurfitwestrock.com. I'll now hand you over to Tony Smurfit, CEO of Smurfit Westrock.

Thank you very much, Kieran, for the introduction. Today I'm joined by Ken Bowles, our Executive Vice President and Group CFO, and we appreciate all of you taking the time to be with us. I am very happy to say that we have again delivered on guidance in what is a challenging environment with an adjusted EBITDA margin number of 1.3 billion US dollars and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.3%. The quarter was characterized by some challenging months. specifically July in our North American region and August in Europe. Nonetheless, we were able to come through with the numbers we predicted and planned. Since our combination, our North American business has shown great improvement over the course of the last 16 months on both the commercial and operational front, best reflected by an improved adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.2% for the quarter. As you will have heard us say, as we got to understand the legacy Westrock business, we have taken strong actions to remove uneconomic volume within our portfolio of businesses. This, of course, has resulted in a loss of volume as we transition and reposition our business. While there will be a time adjustment to this reposition, we believe we are clearly on the right track as we are already seeing quality customer wins. In addition to changing our customer portfolio, we're also continuing to right-size the business by closing down inefficient or loss-making operations including the recently announced closure of a corrugated facility in California, in addition to the eight previously announced closures. In paper, we have already announced approximately 500,000 tons of capacity closure in both container board and consumer board grades. These footprint optimizations will be a continuing feature as we develop and grow our business. Turning now to EMA and APAC, Our adjusted EBITDA margin of 14.8% is highly creditable given the environment that exists in the European sphere. We believe it clearly demonstrates the power of the integrated model which is producing this resilient margin in an environment of paper over capacity. Our mills continue to run optimally while at the same time our converting businesses are capitalizing on their outstanding leadership position in innovation. We believe this combined with our insights into sustainability and the significant pending regulations from the European Union should give our customers confidence to help them in navigating this environment. In our LATAM business, with an excellent EBITDA margin of over 21% due to our strong market positions, these are principally in Brazil and our central cluster. Our sequential margin showed a small fall in the last quarter as a result of some operational issues in one of our larger mills in our central cluster, which has now been resolved. The region still has significant growth opportunities for us to develop in the years ahead. Turning now to the group and regional highlights, what I'm very happy with is the initial potential of the combination is evident in our cash flow performance in the quarter. With operating cash delivered, $1.1 billion, and an adjusted free cash flow of approximately $580 million. One of the things that especially pleases me about this number is that we're really only starting to get going on working capital optimization as we continue to focus on operating excellence. I'm also very happy at how the people in the new Smurf at Westrock have come together and adapted to the culture of the company and its values of loyalty, integrity, and respect, and safety adoption by everyone in the workplace. The group has also been working effectively on the Synergy Program, which Ken will speak on further. which is exceeding our expectations, especially when one looks at the commercial improvements that we can see across the businesses. Finally, in the group, not only in North America, but also in Latin America and Europe, we continue to optimize our asset base with the recent closure of a facility in Brazil and the transfer of equipment to other operating units, together with constant trimming of our assets in our European sphere. In terms of the regions, as I've mentioned, we continue to make excellent progress across our North American system. For example, in corrugated, our loss-making units have declined by almost 50% in a one-year period, with today over 70% of our corrugated operations solidly profitable. And we expect significantly more progress to occur as we replace and swap out uneconomical volume. In our consumer business, this business is very well positioned, with substantial investments and restructuring already done. With strong positions in SBS and CUK, we're actively working to transfer customers from CRB to these grades, and have already switched about $100 million worth of business. We do, however, believe in offering all three substrates to our customer mix. Our first Global Innovation Summit was held in Virginia in September, and the rollout of our experience centers in our North American region, while in its infancy, is now happening. In EMA and APAC, our integrated model is really proving the success of our business. Our mills are well utilized and our outstanding position and innovative offering is retaining and developing customers. One of the great opportunities for us has been the effective integration of our consumer operations into our European business. We have a vastly greater customer base to introduce to our consumer operations into Europe and moving these businesses back to local sales and manufacturing accountability has already started to see some significant benefits. And finally, during the quarter, the rationalization of two of our German converting plants has been agreed. This will significantly strengthen our leading German position as we await the inevitable upturn. Turning to Latin America, I'm increasingly excited about our Brazilian operations. The Legacy Smurfit and Legacy Westrock businesses are a perfect fit, with one concentrated on recycled container board and the other on virgin craft liner. Our converting businesses have quickly adopted our value over volume focus, which is already showing significant improvements. In our Colombian business, we experienced significant growth of 8% due to our commercial offering and the market developing as a growing exporter of fruits and vegetables. Across the region, we're capitalizing on many of the growth and development opportunities we have. For example, in Chile and Peru, where our volumes grew by 15% and 25% respectively during the third quarter. I'd like to give you a sense of the excitement that exists and is building within Smurfit Westrock company today. We're a stronger and better company through the adoption of the owner-operator model. Everyone across our world is now responsible for their own P&Ls. This has unleashed a tremendous enthusiasm and internal competition to do better and lends itself perfectly into having a performance-led culture where everybody is responsible for what they do. I'm especially pleased that we have now initiated global and regional leadership programs, whereby over 300 managers will have started our group programs. In Smurfit Westrock, people are at the heart of everything we do, and we ensure that they have the tools to succeed in their job and to realize their potential. And our synergy programs and optimized asset base, together with our innovation offering and transfer of best practice will, we believe contribute to superior performance in the future. I'll now hand you over to Ken, who'll take you through the financials.

Thank you, Tony. Good morning, everyone. Thank you again for taking the time to join us. On slide 8, you'll see the business again delivered another strong performance in the third quarter, with net sales of $8 billion, adjusted EBITDA in line with our stated guidance of $1.3 billion, a very solid adjusted EBITDA margin for the group of over 16%, and a strong adjusted free cash flow of $579 million. The performance reflects the strength and resilience provided by a diversified geographic footprint and product portfolio, particularly in a challenging macroeconomic environment, and of course, the commitment and dedication of our people to delivering for all our customers. Turning now to the reported performance for our three segments, and starting with North America, where our operations delivered net sales of $4.7 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $810 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.2%, an excellent outcome. In the region, we saw continued margin improvement predominantly due to higher selling prices, our operating model in action, and the benefits of our synergy program, alongside input cost relief on recovered fiber, which combined more than offset lower volumes and headwinds on items such as energy, labor, and mill downtime. Corrugated box pricing was higher compared to the prior year, while box volumes were 7.5% lower on an absolute basis, and down 8.7% on a same-day basis, an outcome very much in line with our ongoing value over volume strategy, which we estimate accounts for about two-thirds of that volume performance. Third-party paper sales were 1% lower, while consumer packaging shipments were down 5.8%, with shipments in our smaller Mexican operations being lower than our U.S. business, which saw volumes down 3.7%. Our differentiated, innovated, innovative and sustainable approach to packaging continues to resonate with customers, which, coupled with the empowerment of our people to drop uneconomic business and the implementation of our owner-operator model, is driving continuous business improvement across the region. Looking now at a MEA and APAC segment, where we deliver net sales of 2.8 billion, adjusted EBITDA of 419 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin of 14.8%. Despite the challenging market backdrop, our operations remained resilient, with adjusted EBITDA moderately ahead of the prior year. This performance reflects the skill of our local teams in managing a highly volatile cost environment and underscores the effectiveness of our integrated operating model, where we have consistently delivered an operating rate in our container board mills in the mid-90s. Higher corrugated box prices year-on-year, alongside lower recovered fibre costs and a net currency translation benefit, were partly offset by headwinds on energy and labor and lower third-party paper prices, while corrugated box volumes remained flat on both an absolute and same-day basis. We believe we are the market leader in Europe with strong market positions and a proven operating model, supported by our best-in-class asset base, which allows our people to continue to deliver high-quality, sustainable packaging solutions for all our customers. This position is supported by our approach to innovation where we have a large data set and bespoke applications that place the customer at the center of that conversation. Our LATAM segment again remained very strong in the quarter, with net sales of half a billion, adjusted EBITDA of 116 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin of over 21%. Corrugated box volumes were flat year-on-year, or 1% higher on a same-day basis, with the demand picture in the region showing a marked improvement, with strong demand growth in Argentina, Colombia, and Chile, amongst others. all while our value over volume strategy continues to deliver strong results in Brazil, as we have now largely phased out unprofitable legacy contracts with volumes, with volumes that are moving into a more neutral position. The region successfully implemented pricing initiatives to offset higher operating costs to deliver another consistently strong performance with a small step down in EBITDA margin year-on-year due to a now resolved issue in one of our operations during the quarter. As the only pan-regional player, we believe that Latin America continues to be a region of high growth potential for Smurf and Westrock, both organic and inorganic, and one where we are well positioned to drive long-term success. Slide 10 outlines our proven capital allocation framework. I don't propose to go through each of these today, but I would note that in February we plan to provide detail on how we see capital allocation underpinning the achievement of our long-term business goals. What is new is that our CapEx target for 2026 will be between 2.4 and 2.5 billion, broadly in line with the current year. We continue to invest ahead of the appreciation, and so this level remains accretive to earnings as we invest behind identified growth, efficiency, sustainability, and cost take-out opportunities. The core tenet of our capital allocation framework is that it must be flexible and agile. This was our approach at Smurfit Capital and continues to be our approach at Smurfit Westrock. It is a proven track record of delivery and we are already seeing the benefits of it since forming Smurfit Westrock a little over a year ago. Our approach to allocating capital is disciplined and rigorous and requires that all internal projects are benchmarked against all of the capital allocation alternatives and is therefore always returns focused. On our synergy program, I'm pleased to confirm we are delivering a stand and on track to deliver 400 million of full run rate savings exiting this year. And finally from me, As noted in the release, the year to date has been characterized by a challenging demand backdrop, and as a result, we expect to take additional economic downtime in the fourth quarter to optimize our system. If you recall, we set out our guidance for the year in April. Given the impact from the above, we are now marginally adjusting that guidance range to where we now expect to deliver a full year adjusted EBITDA of between 4.9 to 5.1 billion. And with that, I pass back to Tony for some concluding remarks.

Thank you, Ken. I hope you get a sense from my earlier commentary and Ken's performance summary that we believe that Smurfit Westrock is very well positioned for continued performance as well as economic growth as it revives. I would say the company has never been in better position. Throughout the company, all of the people that are aligned with this approach, and we can already see the tangible benefits of this as many loss-making operations move into profit and thankfully with much more to come. Reflecting the generally well-invested asset base, our capital spend for full year 26 is expected to be in a 2.4 to 2.5 billion range. We believe this level enables us to accelerate cost takeout, increase operating efficiency, and capitalize in high growth areas. In parallel, we recently announced restructuring initiatives, which also allow us to continue to optimize our asset base. As a more general point, our philosophy has generally been to buy and not build. as we have typically acquired at a fraction of the replacement cost, is invariably cheaper with an enhanced returns profile. On acquisition, our objective is always to optimize through measured capital allocation decisions. We will discuss this further in February, and Ken has already touched on this. The delivery of our Synergy Program together with our ongoing capacity rationalization remains a constant focus. With a significant headcount reduction of over 4,500 people, and an unrelenting focus on the owner-operator model, we believe our performance to date is an indication of our potential. We remain confident that our footprint remains unrivaled with strong and leading market positions in the majority of the markets and grades of paper in which we operate. There is no question in our minds that since Smurfit Kappa and Westrock combined, we're building a stronger and better business with management aligned with shareholders and developing our performance-led culture. Over the last 16 months, we have taken significant steps to build this better business, and we are increasingly confident in the future prospects. While for sure the current economic outlook is somewhat muted, our view is that the steps we are taking, investments we're making, the alignment we have with shareholders, and the culture we're building within Smurf at Westrock positions us to go from strength to strength as economies improve. We end full year 25 and enter 26 as a better and stronger Smurf at Westrock. To that end, in February 26, we will be setting out our longer-term targets, which are a bottom-up approach from all of our businesses, which will be designated to identify prospects for this company as we look forward into the future. Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to taking any questions that you may have. Thank you, operator. Over to you.

Thank you. We will now go ahead with the first question. This is from Mike Roxland of Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Tony, Ken, Kieran, for taking my questions, and congrats on all the progress.

Thanks, Mike.

Tony, you mentioned, obviously, weakness in the European market from both demand and price. Is there anything you could do to expedite cost takeout? You mentioned, obviously, continuing to trim assets in Europe, rationalizing the two German plans. But given the weakness that persists there right now, can you expedite cost takeout to try to get things right-sized faster?

Yeah, I think, Mike, thanks for the question. I would say that we have done a really good job over 15 years of optimizing our capacity in Europe. Obviously, there's always little things to be done, but we're running our system pretty well, full in Europe, with the exception of August and probably December, where we'll take some downtime, because those months typically are months where the corrugated box plants close for holidays. So our system is pretty well optimized. Obviously, we continue to look at it. We're basically a low-cost producer in the European market. And when you look at our returns and you look at some of the other competitors' returns that have been publicly available, and obviously we get a sense of how some of the private guys are doing, we're far exceeding their returns in Europe. So, you know, unfortunately, it is a question. You've already seen a number of mill closures around the place. I think we're going to see more. And I think that the pain is very, very real. And you can see even some public companies with negative EBITDA margins in their container board business in a very significant way. So I think... The old saying, the worse it gets, the better it'll get. Well, it's pretty bad right now. And I think when it turns, it'll turn very sharply. And so that's what we're waiting for. Obviously, as I say, that doesn't mean we're sitting on our hands doing nothing. We're continuing to close a few facilities here and there. Not very big ones, but we've done a number of stuff. And we have a very, very active cost takeout program across all of the business to mitigate all of the wage inflation that we've had. over the last number of years. So cost reduction programs do not stop. They're continual. And we continue to look at our asset base and we'll trim if necessary.

Got it. And then just two quick follow-ups. Any call you can provide in terms of how demand trended in both North America and Europe in September and what you've seen thus far in October and any outlook for November? And then just quickly on consumer, because it was interesting, you mentioned transferring $100 million of CRB business to SBS and CUK. Can you just help us frame the logic behind those moves? Is it just a matter of wanting to run SBS more efficiently at a higher rate? And is there any margin uplift associated with that shift? Thank you.

Yeah. Taking your second question first, I mean, basically, as the SBS price has trended downwards, Because SPS you can run with a stiffer sheet and you can use a lower grammage, it's basically become competitive with CRB and there are positive qualities to SPS versus CRB in the sense of brightness and transportation costs. and runnability on printing machines. So I'm not saying that CRB is all bad, it's not. There's certain customers that would really want CRB, there's certain customers that really want SPS, and there's certain customers that want CUK. And clearly where the positioning is right now, it's just advantageous for our customers to look at SPS, and so we've taken that opportunity, as well as some of the CRB issues where, again, You've got some opportunities, especially in the freezer for frozen products, to move into CUK, which is something we're actively promoting. And I think, as I said, we've $100 million or so already transferred in the last four or five months, and I think more to come. On the first question, Mike, did you just remind me what was it?

Demand transfer.

Demand transfer. I could say that we were expecting to see an uptick in October and we did not see it. Now, you have to remember, Mike, one of the things that has happened is that we took on, as in Legacy Westrock took on business in the latter half and first half of last year that we were running in the second half of last year. And a lot of that business that was taken on was not necessarily very economic for us. So we have been addressing that. during the first half of this year, and inevitably that's when we tend to see that exiting again. Some of it will come back, as we are a good supplier, we're a very reliable and high-quality and high-service supplier, so we expect some of it to return at prices as we've seen already in Brazil, for example. We expect some of it to return at a certain point in the future. at the prices that make it economic for us. And if it doesn't, well, so be it. We'll go out and get some other business. But when you lose big chunks of business, Mike, it tends, you know, to go and get, you know, 10 chunks of smaller business, it tends to take you a little bit longer. And that's what we're seeing. But we have a huge pipeline of business in our system. We won't land at all. But certainly, our people are very comfortable and confident that we're going to get it. And As I said in my script, we're already seeing some very significant customer wins in high-quality names at levels that are going to be good for us to run at.

Tony, thank you very much, and good luck for the remainder of the year. Thanks, Mike.

Thank you. Next question is from Phil from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question here. So Tony, you mentioned you're going to be taking some economic downtime in the fourth quarter. Curious, what markets, is this North America, is this Europe? How should we quantify the EBITDA impact? And appreciating you're walking away from, you're taking a value over volume approach. But as we kind of think about how that translates, how should we think about that spread of your volume versus the market overall, call it the next 12 months?

Yeah, with regard to, I'll let Ken take the downtime question, but with regard to, you know, we're sort of figuring out that we believe that the market is down somewhere around 3% or 4%, and we're probably down, you know, 5% of our loss of volume is due to our own decision-making. That's the sort of number that we, it's not going to be 100% accurate in that. It could be 3%, it could be 4%. market down but you saw one of our larger peers was down 3% in the quarter and one would have said that they're probably winning some business in the marketplace so therefore taking that as a trend then I would say that the market is probably down a little bit more than that 3%.

Hey Philip, I think to take the second part of that question, first I think the simplest way to quantify the EBITDA impact is Broadly, if you think about where guidance was, where we're bringing it to, call it somewhere between 60 to 70 million is the incremental impact of downtime of the fourth quarter versus what we previously would have said. I think, look, if we think about operating in Europe and us in the mid-90s, you know, unlikely to see any material for the remainder of the year, any material incremental downtime in Europe, so predominantly it's going to be across the North American region because Latin America, we don't really see any downtime there either.

Ken, do you expect your inventory to be in a pretty good spot as you exit this year in North America?

It's getting there, Philip. You know, supply chains in North America differ than Europe in the sense that they're very, very long. So it takes a while to kind of get back to what you might like as kind of optimal inventories. The working capital as a percentage of sales for the group is probably around 16%, which is kind of higher than we'd like it to be. As Smurfit Capital, we're down in kind of 8, 9. Don't expect it to get there over time, but certainly somewhere in the middle there, the right answer is. You have to remember, as a third-party seller, Westrock over the years had grown into a number of different grades and a number of different widths of paper. So part of the optimization here is kind of bringing it back to not quite Henry Ford, but getting it back to a place where it's a reasonable set of grades and flute sizes and widths that we feel are optimal for not only the paper system, but the corrugated system and a need for our customers. So it all really comes back to helping our customers understand what their boxes need rather than just supplying what they think they might want. So I don't think we'll exit this year in perfect shape, Philip, but I think as we kind of move through 26, it gets incrementally better as we kind of understand supply chains a bit better and rationalize kind of external board grades.

Philip, if I can just add on to that, I'm really very excited about as we optimize our supply chain system and work through our board grade combinations that, together with the corrugated businesses in our system, that this is going to present a big opportunity for us. But, you know, it needs careful thought and planning because, as Ken has just rightly said, the distances in America are very big. And, you know, we've got to make sure that we get that right. But there's a lot of opportunity there for us to reduce stock.

Got it. And sorry, one last one for me. Tony, I thought your comment about Pivoting some of your CRB and CK business to SBS was fascinating. That sounds like a pretty attractive value prop for your customers. You gave us the CapEx guidance for 26 as well. Embedded in that, is there any mill conversions that you're possibly thinking in SBS, or do you feel pretty good about some of the opportunities you see in front of you on the SBS side? You're going to largely keep your footprint intact at this point.

If I could just ask you to hold off until February for that, because we'll give you a full answer then, because clearly we're working through some different strategies in relation to that, and then we'll give you a better, once we've organized that, we'll tell you about that. But basically, we have some very, very good assets that we will continue to look at, and obviously there's some that we will continue to evaluate and give you a better answer to those in February. Okay. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thanks.

Thank you. Next question is from Gabe Hady from Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Tony, Ben, Karen, good morning. I wanted to ask about the guidance, the CapEx guidance for 26 and maybe a little bit differently. I'm just curious if the organization for the year, if there's anything strategically that you guys are focused more on cash flow for 2026 versus EBITDA, sometimes that drives different operating behavior. I'll just stop there.

Hey, Gabe. No, not necessarily. I think it's more a case of, you know, the reality is that Smurf or Westrock should be, and if you look at this quarter particularly, a strong free cash flow generated irrespective of the capex cycle. I think what we've always done, though, is be very disciplined about when we place capital into the system and, indeed, you know, adopting a kind of portfolio approach where you don't have any, A, too many big programs in any particular year, any big systems that are taking all the impact in a particular year, and no region that kind of has that impact. But I think it's fair to say that when we, you know, we went through the cycle this year, and to Tony's earlier point to Phil, building towards February, when we look at the capital requirements for 26, the reality is that all we feel we need to keep the system going and improving and growing is somewhere between 2.4 and 2.5. And that ultimately means that we don't end up with any kind of big bills for CapEx going into 27, for example. But it's a normal phased approach. So no, there's never a case of trying to, if you like, try and get to a free cash flow number at the expense of EBITDA. That never is. I think it actually becomes more of a virtuous circle, which is you place capital into the system, we expect the returns out, which should drive return on capital employed in one sense and also drive EBITDA out. and then that capital goes back into the system. I sort of, I look backwards, look forward a little bit here, Gabe, in the sense that as Murphy Capital, you know, we placed extra capital in the system, increased ROCI, increased the dividend, delevered, and grew. So I think it's a model, if you like, from an owner-operator perspective and a philosophical perspective that's worked in the past. So no, it's not that we take that kind of, that choice. It's actually, that's the capital we think the business needs to kind of drive and grow.

Yeah, and I'll just add to that, Gabe, that, you know, The whole philosophy of our company is to remain agile, as Ken has said. We adapt to the situation that's around us, and one of the key tenets of our business is never to overinvest and have too much investment going forward that we can't back out of, so to speak, so that we're in a position to be able to flex if we need to, because that's what really hurts companies if you can't. if you can't pivot depending on the environment, either positively or negatively. And so that's been the hallmark of the success of Smurfit Group, Smurfit Kappa, and now hopefully in the future, Smurfit Westrock. Thank you.

I wanted to switch gears to Europe. You guys provide a little bit of color as to the, I know the number kind of jumps off the page, where you're underperforming the market. But over in Europe, I think up, you know, a little bit, 0.2%, is pretty impressive. You talked about the mills running mid-90s. Can you provide a little bit of color in the markets, whether it's geographic or end-use markets, where you guys are doing particularly well? And then I guess maybe a little bit on the margin side, obviously prices kind of came up quite a bit in the spring and early summer and have come down, basically kind of giving back a lot of that. How should we think about that flowing through Is that hitting Q4 or is that really more of a H126 event? Thank you.

Just on the markets, in general, I would say that there's no real change to what we've said previously, that Germany continues to be a laggard. Some of the other markets, the UK, the Benelux tend to be basically flat. with some positive movements in Eastern Europe and in Iberian Peninsula, which is growing strongly. So in general, there's no real change into how the markets are operating. We sometimes flatter to deceive in Germany, where things get really good for a couple of weeks and then go back to the norm. So I think we haven't seen any material positivity in the German market yet, but inevitably that will happen. As I mentioned in my script, we're about to close two facilities with improved facilities in the incoming plants that are receiving capital. So when Germany does turn around, we'll be in an even better position than we were before to take advantage of that.

With regard to... On pricing, actually, third quarter in Europe, we saw prices take up by another half a percent, so not quite done there yet on pricing. I suppose... Ultimately, you know, without a crystal ball and forecasting, I think, you know, where pricing goes from here is dependent on the same question we've had all day, which is where does demand go? Because ultimately that would feed into what happens with paper prices. But irrespective of that, you know, it's very much a kind of second quarter, third quarter question on 26 anyway, based on where we sit now. But I think it's fair to say that, you know, both regions have done really well in terms of pricing given the backdrop. I think particularly Europe in terms of price increases received and held, if you like, even through the third quarter. But I think it's demand dependent, really, in terms of where it goes from here.

I think as well, Gabe, if you look at where the paper price is at the moment, it's uneconomic for at least 75% of the business, I would say. And I think that we're lucky that we're very integrated. We've got our own customer. Our paper mills have our own customer, which is ourselves. And we're able to run basically full, but most of the others, you know, demand is relatively weak. And, you know, unless you're in the top quartile, you're not making any cash at this moment in time. And I would say you've seen that from the results of a number of players in the marketplace. And inevitably, that will change. The question is, is it first quarter? Is it second quarter? Is it third quarter? And how much hurt will be in the market before then? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from George Stafford from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for all the details. Congratulations on the progress. Tony and Ken, I guess I have two questions for you. First of all, regarding the North American converting operations in corrugated, I think you'd mentioned that 70% of the business now is at, and I forget exactly how you termed it, but better or acceptably profitable levels. If you could talk a bit more about what that means, recognizing that the margin in North America is maybe one of the proof points there. Can you help us quantify how you're determining the 70%, if that's the right ratio, and what else needs to occur to move the ball further, recognize you've made a lot of performance already, progress already. Secondly, on the box board side, you made a couple of interesting comments about ultimately, in essence, the customer is going to choose the substrate that makes the most sense. Each of them, whether it's CUK, SPS, CRB, have their own unique aspects. The fact that you're being able to move the SPS to a customer when in theory they would have already been in a grade that using your discussion point, they already would have liked to have been in, i.e. CRP. What's causing the move to SPS? Is it just purely where price is right now, or what else are you reminding people of in terms of SPS's performance versus the other grades? Thank you, guys.

Okay. Let me take the second one first, and I'll come back to the North American corrugated.

Thank you, Tony.

Basically, on the two, we've seen... The SBS piece is more about brightness. You know, there's a brighter sheet. Caliper, you can get the same performance from a slightly lower caliper. And then I would say printability stroke machine efficiency on the customer's lines, which the three reasons why we've been able to sell SBS versus CRB. Of course, there will be some customers, George, as I said in my thing, that will want CRB because it's a fully recycled sheet. And that's fine, too, if people want that. But we are selling SBS, and it's competitive with where SBS price has gone. It's basically competitive now with CRB. And so, therefore, we're comfortable to sell it to customers, and we make good money at it at these current prices because, as I say, the caliper is lower and You know, we have basically our two SBS mills in the United States are very good mills in Demopolis and Covington. So, you know, and then CUK has got some unique properties for the freezer and strength for the freezer. And again, a caliper issue that can help make it competitive against the CRB sheet. So, but that's, again, some customers will prefer CRB and we can offer them that too. um and so so what what we've been doing is because you know obviously we have got very very good sbs mills and very good cr cuk mills that we're we we would we would uh offer them that uh and as you know we've closed the crb mill so we have we have an open capacity to be able to sell sbs versus versus um crb and that's that's been a a big positive win for us as we look forward, and it's going to be something that's going to continue, I would say. With regard to our North American corrugated business, I think this is where you really see the owner-operator model in action. We have empowered our people to basically act locally, get involved in local markets again, think about their local customers, and to think about profitability. And, you know, a lot of business was taken on in legacy Westrock under the basis of a combined profitability. That is not the way we think. We think that's the road to perdition. That's a road to death in our business where you have two sets of capital needs and one profitability. And that's the way that we have, I suppose, continued to survive in Smurfit, legacy Smurfit, legacy Smurfit Kappa, is that we we treat capital as a very important thing. And if you want to make a capital investment, you better be able to justify it. And if you've got two operations with one profit that masks where you're making the money, then you're not making the right capital decision. So what we've done is we've spent the first six months of our tenure as a combination, making sure that the P&Ls were done correctly, that the balance sheets of each plant were put into the right order. And then we've told our managers, you're now responsible for your profitability. And of course, when you tell them that, and they see customers with negative 30 or 40% margins, based upon a fair paper price transfer, they're going to do something about it. And we expect them to do something about it. And if they don't do something about it, they won't be with us, frankly. So the reality is we are actively moving both at a national level and at a local level to make sure that accounts where you've got terrible margins are not run on our expensive, valuable, beautiful machines in our converting plants. And that's That's a process that's ongoing. It's one of the reasons why, as I mentioned to an earlier question, a lot of business was taken on prior to us coming on board, which was not economic, frankly, and we've had to address that, and that's gone away again. Sometimes it's gone back to the same homes it came from, which is kind of interesting. So that's how we've... Pardon me? No, please go ahead. Sorry. Sorry, George. So that's how we've moved very quickly from people understanding their profitability to changing a lot of the plants. So we've gone from, you know, we've cut our loss makers by 50%. And, you know, as we continue to address this, and there will be some plants that won't make it, but, you know, inevitably, I'd say the vast majority will get to profitability in the next couple of years.

Hey, Tony, just a quickie, and feel free to punt to February if you'd like. On Boxboard, recognizing it's not the majority of your business, clearly, if there's some rollback in tariffs, how might that change your overall view of the attractiveness of SPS? It was said differently, has one of the things that's changed in the calculation, your ability to move more SPS, been the fact that maybe some of the folding Boxboard that was coming to the market has been I wouldn't say tariffed out, but certainly has more cost coming into the market. How should we think about that? Thanks and good luck in the quarter. Thanks for everything.

Thank you. Thank you. I don't think tariff really comes into our thinking here. I think, you know, obviously the price comes into our thinking because, you know, the price of SPS has come down a bit. So therefore it's more competitive as a grade versus other substrates. And obviously FBB against SPS, with the tariff is making it more challenging. But I still think that the FBB is going to be sold in the United States, irrespective, because, you know, the price, there's a lot of capacity in FBB, specifically in Europe. And they're going to come anyway, I think, to the U.S. with all the added costs that's with it. So I think it's up to us to sell SPS. I think one of the things that, you know, for everyone here to understand that SPS is a myriad of different grades. I mean, you've got cup stock, you've got plate stock, you've got lottery cards, you've got cereal boxes, you've got freezer boxes. There's very, very many different grades of SBS that are sold at different price points, that are sold at different quantities to different customers. And so our hope and belief is that we can continue to develop newer grades into SBS that will allow us to earn a material return going forward. And, you know, there's no evidence to say that that should be otherwise. We've been getting new customers in lottery cards, for example, which is, you know, it's only 15,000, 20,000 tons. But, you know, every little bit helps, as they say over here. And these are good grades of highly profitable business for us to develop in the years ahead.

Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Ken. Thanks, George. Thanks, George.

Thank you. Next question is from Charlie Muir Sands from BNP Paribas Exxon. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a couple, please. Firstly, on the revised guidance, it obviously implies a fairly wide range of potential outcomes on Q4. I just wondered if you could elaborate on the main outstanding uncertainties for the range. And then previously, you've been sort of talking about beyond the operational synergies, the 400 million you talked about, at least another 400 million of opportunities. I just wondered if you had any kind of updates on that. And then finally, you mentioned that one-off operational issue in Latin America. I just wondered if you could quantify that, given it was relevant enough to call out. Thank you.

Hey, Charlie. I'll take those. Start with the last one. First, it was kind of a continuous digester issue in our county, even in Columbia, which probably costs about $10 million in the quarter, but it's six now, so that's the big impact there. In terms of the guidance range, it really, I think, you know, the more that has on the years gone past, December tends to be the swing factor here in terms of why we've kept a slightly, and I wouldn't say the range is wider, I think we just moved down the midpoint a bit to take account of the downtime piece, but really it's going to come down to where you see December, where we see December, and as Tony alluded earlier on, as we're kind of exiting the quarter, we're not necessarily seeing a much improved demand backdrop, but equally, in our natural sense, we haven't given up hope and a sense of optimism that things won't get better even before the end of the year. So I don't think we can be that negative on the outlook. So really, it's around where does December sit in that conversation. In terms of the bit in the middle, I think George actually pointed to part of this answer in his question, which is when you look at the margin performance in North America, given everything that they've been dealing with in terms of where volume is, incremental downtime, the headwinds, the performance of the margin in North America probably tells you that a chunk of that additional operational commercial improvement is coming through in the numbers already. Where that goes to, that's a kind of how long is a piece of string to answer because it really depends on how many programs we can get at. It sort of goes back to Tony's point earlier on about the owner-operator model and really putting empowerment at the hands of every single GM or mill manager to drive their own business for the best returns, their cost takeout, their improvement programs, their delivery on CapEx. So, yeah, we're still, I mean, very comfortable, if not more comfortable with the well in excess of where the synergies ended. But I think it's fair to say we are beginning, without being able to quantify it exactly, we are beginning to see the benefits of that coming through simply in the margin performance in North America alone and particularly in the corrugated division.

Great, thank you. And you've obviously given us the 2026 CapEx and elaborated on the rationale for it qualitatively, but just in terms of the returns that you're targeting beyond maintenance or one-times depreciation, what kind of thresholds are you typically setting for the investments you want to make in the business.

As a blend, Charlie, look, it won't be any different than we've had before. It sort of goes back to that portfolio approach of trying to drive the incremental return and return on capital forward. So generally, no more than the old system, we would expect that entire portfolio to kind of be in that sort of 20% IRR range, delivering kind of mid-teens at least in terms of where Rocky sits as a result. That, of course, depends on what those projects do. You know, particularly cost-take-age, you're obviously going to get higher returns from sustainability energy backend projects, you might get low returns in the early years, but history has shown us that as those projects embed and move forward, you get much better returns as they move out. So not pinning it necessarily to a target return in individual projects, but as a portfolio, it has to drive forward in terms of where Rocky is, because ultimately, that goes back to my comment earlier on, this is about capital in and cash flow out. So not at the similar profile to what we would see, you would have seen previously in terms of how we characterize the deployment of capital and allocating capital in a kind of Smurfit context.

Very thanks. Thanks, Charlie.

Thank you. The next question is from Lewis Roxburgh from Goodbody. Please go ahead.

Thanks, guys. Just my first question is on cost. You mentioned in the last quarter you expected some relief on OCC pricing. So I just wondered to see if that was playing out as expected and if you're getting any other relief from the other buckets like energy or that might just spill into next year. And then just in terms of CapEx, just wondered some more detail how much of that spend might be related to the legacy Westrock assets versus other projects as well and whether this is sort of the new normal or further increases might be needed to tie into those realization synergies.

Thanks. I'll take the second piece, Lewis, and then I'll let Ken take the first piece. Basically, you know, the capex number is slightly skewed towards the legacy Westrock assets because We're a very well-invested base in Europe and Latin America. So what we're doing is we're putting a little bit more capital into some of the box plants to improve the quality and service aspects, to improve the corrugators. So all the things that we have done over the last 10 years in Smurfit Kappa, we're now implementing over the course of years, not just next year, but the years going forward. to continue to improve the legacy Westrock business and make it even better than it is. So there's a slight skewing towards legacy Westrock, but not massively material. Because as I say, we're in very good shape in Europe. We invested for growth and we've got very good assets in our European business. And while there's always growth opportunities, like in Spain, like in Eastern Europe, and specifically plant by plant, you know, I think that as a whole, the European business is very well invested. And what we'll do over the next, you know, three to five years is continue to develop out our Westrock asset base, legacy Westrock asset.

Hey, Lewis, I'll just take... you know, some of the bigger cost buckets and just alongside fiber because it's probably useful to kind of round some of that for yourself and your colleagues. In terms of fiber, I think at the half here, we probably said that that was going to be a tailwind of about 100. We probably see that in about, you know, as you sit here today, somewhere between 130, 140 of a tailwind. Energy, I think at the half here, we might have said about 250 of a headwind probably coming in, you know, now we probably see that about the 180 space. Labor, Similarly, we probably thought about 200, probably down around to kind of 180 space as well now. Downtime is probably going the other way in that sense, where we would have thought downtime was probably going to be 150. It's probably anywhere between 180 and 200 at this space, given what we now see for the fourth quarter. So they're really the big cost buckets in terms of the incremental changes that we would have said Q2 versus where we see the year panning out. That makes perfect sense. Thanks very much. Thanks, Liz.

Thank you. Next question is from Anthony Pettinari from Citi. Please go ahead.

Good morning. You know, on the full-year EBITDA bridge, maybe, Ken, just filling in on the pricing side, can you give us an update on where you maybe thought pricing would shake out mid-year versus where you are and where you might end up with the full-year guidance?

Yeah, I think it's pricing broadly we would have thought to plug that in there. I think we probably see pricing coming out somewhere between, call it 3840 versus where it would have been about 900 at the half year. So a small call off, probably because of the fourth quarter and where demand is going, maybe a little bit of price weakness there, but not materially down versus what we would have thought.

And would North America be 700 or 750 or... between North America and Europe, how would that break out?

I will defer that to read the segmental bridges with the guys when they get into the trenches with them later on. I think if that's okay, I just have the big number with me here.

Yeah, no problem, no problem. And I guess maybe just one follow-up. You mentioned energy projects. And, I mean, from other industrial companies and paper companies, we've heard a lot about cost inflation and particularly energy electricity with demand from AI and data centers. Can you just give us kind of a quick recap of where you are with kind of current energy projects, especially in North America, and not to steal any thunder from February, but just how you think about the opportunity in energy at your mills going forward?

Where do we start?

Well, we just approved a large energy project in our Covington mill, which will actually move away from coal to natural gas. And that's going to be the IRR on that, depending on where you think the price of the commodity is, is a minimum of 20% and a maximum of 80%. Sorry, not even a maximum. It's not the maximum. It's not capped. But, you know, realistically, a 50% return for the mill is So I guess what we will be doing, Anthony, is just taking every energy project as it comes and what kind of return we can get on it. Specifically, the only one that we've approved since we've come in is that one. We use gas primarily in most of our facilities. We do a little bit of coal where we have to and obviously in other places where we can remove it, we will be. We have a large biomass project in Colombia, which is going to be coming on stream next year, a biomass boiler, which is a considerable saving for us in energy. So we continue to look at energy projects, but with regard to how these AI data centers are affecting us, I haven't heard that they're driving any major cost increases for our mill systems where our mill systems are located.

I think, you know, craft systems by their nature tend to be fairly well served from a power plant backend perspective anyway in that sense. And so not necessarily totally insulated, but, you know, generally CO2 positive, but a great source of their own energy from a kind of turbine perspective. You know, in addition to what Tony said, you know, we have a kind of progressive program. You know, we electrified some boilers in Europe over the years. we could continually invest towards the reduction of CO2. I mean, the added benefit from the project Tony talked about there in Covington is it reduces our group CO2 by 1.2%. So very important, if you like, as you look forward to where our customers need to be on scope through emissions and things like that. So there's always benefits above and beyond, you know, the pure EBITDA benefit we find from energy projects. And it sort of goes back to, you know, what we're trying to get to in terms of low-cost producer and where those mills sit, which which allows us to kind of be at the forefront where we do that. So, you know, generally it's always going to be a progression towards either, you know, less reliance on some fossils and something else and more sustainable renewable fuels. But the system in and of itself is fairly well set as we start off.

Okay, that's very helpful. I'll turn it over. Thank you.

Thank you. And the last question today is from Mark Weintraub from Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you for squeezing me in. A few quick follow-ups. First off, so with the box shipments in North America, do you have a sense as to when you think you might be inflecting more positively versus the industry? How long is the process of sort of the shedding under appreciated business likely going to persist.

Maybe over-appreciated business. We're giving them boxes for nothing, Mark. So, yeah, I would say that I would hope that from the third quarter on next year, you'll start to see some positive movements. We still have some businesses that are very poor pieces of business that are under contract that will run out during the first and second quarter of next year. And then obviously we'll have to go out and replace those. Or we'll retain them. We'll see how the customer reacts to our discussions with them at that time. But if I look at the amount of backlog and pipeline that we have for new business, it's colossal in the sense that I feel very comfortable that we're going to start landing a lot of that business. And we already have landed a lot of that business, frankly. But it just takes a little while to qualify and then get into the plant. So I would say the third quarter of next year, you'll start to see us inflecting versus this year with better quality business in all of our facilities.

And then what's your strategy? What have you been doing vis-à-vis outside sales of container board in North America into either export or domestic channels?

Yeah, the export market, as you know, is weak. And a lot of the capacity closures that have been announced in the industry have been geared toward the export market, specifically down into South American markets specifically. And, you know, so one of the things that I found out is that these people down in these countries have pretty big inventories. And I think we need some time for those inventories to shake out before we see movements in export prices to the positive, because the export prices is clearly too low for it to be viable for people to survive. We are selling some into the export market, but clearly we don't want to sell too much into the export market, that price that's there. But I would say it'll be... It'll be like a eureka moment at some point. Things will change and the price will move up very sharply in the export market because it's too low at the moment. But all of the capacity that's come out of the market isn't really affecting it at this time because the stock levels of most customers down there are very, very high.

And in the domestic channel, historically, the legacy Westrock, as I said, sold a fair bit. to independence, etc. Has that continued or has there been some change in that regard?

We do have outside customers and they're important outside customers and they're generally long-term outside customers, people that we serve for a long period of time and we continue to do that and there's been no real change on that as I can see it. Great. And one last quick one just to squeeze in.

So with the SBX from CRB, etc., I assume the customers are running that on the same machinery. And so is it pretty easy to switch back and forth between the grades depending on the variables at play?

Yes. Yeah. I mean, basically, yes. I mean, you might need a technician to run a lower caliper product on the board just to adjust the machine slightly, but there's no real One of the things that we have heard from our customers is that the SBS runs better than the CRB. But I'm sure if you talk to somebody who runs CRB, they're going to say the opposite. But that's what our people tell us from the customer. But I'm sure you can get someone else to say exactly the contrary. But I believe that to be the case because it's a cleaner sheet. Much appreciated. Good luck in 4Q. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I will now hand the conference back to Tony for closing comments.

Thank you very much, operator. I want to thank you all for joining us today. We remain very excited about the future of the Smurfit Westrock business. We're enthused about a lot of the changes that have happened and that are already happening. And we look forward to the future with great enthusiasm. So thank you all for joining us. and I look forward to seeing many of you in the months ahead. Thank you all.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.