Billerud Ab (Sweden)

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Billerwood Q1 Report 2026 webcast and conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like on the conference over to your first speaker today, Lena Schafhauer, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to this presentation following the publication of our intervening report for the first quarter 2026. Billruth's President and CEO, Ivar Vatne, and our CFO, André Klee, will present. And after that, we will open up for questions. By that, I would like to hand over to Lisa.

Thank you, Lena, and good morning, everyone. And thank you all for listening in to our comments this Tuesday morning. It's been another quarter with twists and turns, and yet again, some unexpected events to navigate through. The heading on the slide is our summary of the quarter, but as you would expect, some nuances between our regions. So let's get into it, and next slide, please. As expected, it's been a tough start of 2026, fighting a challenging market, but we continue to see different realities between our two regions. And there are also some clear positives to comment on. In North America, we record another strong quarter and we continue to be well positioned with a local U.S. production to serve a broad customer base from our Midwest manufacturing footprint. Sixteen percent EBITDA margin is solid, but we were hit by some unusually heavy snowfalls and freezing temperatures that forced us to take a couple of days on planned production stop, and it drove our energy and the logistic cost higher than expected. For Region Europe, it was a quarter of incremental price pressure, currency headwind, and loss of emission rights that pushed down the profitability to a level below expectations. And having said that, we have plans in place, and we are taking further action to strengthen the situation going forward. And we are certainly more optimistic about our Q2, and we do expect a profit recovery, but more on that later. One clear positive for our Q1 was the shipment. We managed to grow volume with 9% versus Q4, and that growth came from both region and broad-based across several categories, and is a number we are happy with. Our cash conversion for the quarter was solid, and we're delivering well on our cost-saving program, and we are ahead of our plans. Some additional comments on the market sentiment. So next slide, please. So if I start with North America, we continue to meet more stable and solid conditions. Consumption seems to be okay across our core categories, and order books are solid for the foreseeable future. We produce now at approximately 80% operating rate. Another highlight is our strategic priority to grow our position within packaging materials. The start of 2026 was encouraging, and we continue to take new positions with both existing and new customers. And Q1 was, as expected, our best sales quarter in that regard. In Europe, the market continues to be difficult, but with some rays of light, We shipped better than expected and it was a clear uplift from Q4, in particular on liquid packaging board. Now, we are a bit cautious as our sense of this strong start is partly linked to three buckets. A, customers building up some inventory after a slow end of 25. B, supply chain uncertainty in the wake of the Middle East conflict. And C, some customers ordering a bit extra ahead of announced price adjustments from Q2 and onwards. For the Asia and the rest of the world, we see a mixed picture. It's mostly wheat, but we do see some encouraging sign on the liquid packaging board where we are picking up some signals that in particular demand in China is better than expected. Also in the industrial and the rest of the world has strengthened a bit during the quarter, in particular on SAC. So with that, I hand it over to André.