Arctic Paper S.A.

Hello and welcome to today's webcast with Arctic Paper who will be presenting the report for the second quarter of 2025. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. So if you would like to ask the company any questions, you can submit them in the form to the right. And with that said, I hand over the word to you guys.

Good morning. Welcome to this quarterly presentation of financial results for the second quarter 2025 for Arctic Paper Group. I will focus in the beginning on the general situation. This was a tough quarter for the entire group. We experienced, as all segments, the global uncertainty, turbulences within the tariffs and also volatile currency situation. This all caused that the macroeconomic situation was difficult, not just for us. For the first half year of 2025, in comparison to the same period of 2025, we had lower net sales. This was mainly the impact of lower demand, but also we experienced some influences of currency volatility. As an effect of lower sales, the EBITDA was also decreased. It was significantly lower than in the same period of 2024. And within the paper segment, it was mainly lower demand for the paper product, but also price pressure. And we also experienced higher pulp prices in the second quarter. Within the pulp segment, they had still the problem with high material prices, mainly within wood, but also the volatility within currencies and weak US dollar had significant impact. The net debt to EBITDA, which shows the financial situation of the entire group, increased a little bit above one, which is still a pretty good level considering current situation. And within our sectors of operation, it's still on a good level and relatively low. If we summarize Q2 results, the situation looks pretty similar as for the first half of the year. We had somehow lower sales, lower EBITDA and net debt to EBITDA as mentioned before. In few bullet points, how we can summarize the first half. We experienced low demand for both pulp and paper products. Especially the pulp segment was affected by currency rates volatility, in particular unfavorable US dollar exchange rates. The pulp segment also was affected by high raw material costs. We noticed lower market price, both for pulp and paper, with increasing pressure on these prices. The market and supply chains was affected by both uncertainty and turbulences within tariffs from US. The second quarter results were also affected, the net results were also affected by the write-off on some assets in Rotneros Group, which amounted to close to 53 million slots. On the other hand, In the pub segment, we plan to have some significant cost reduction, which will restore the competitiveness of this segment and perform a successful share issue.

All right, and I would like to present some more details regarding the operation, the market and activities for the future. Yesterday, the Rotneros result has been presented by CEO of Rotneros, Leonel Eberle, in details, but I just make only short summary of this situation from the Arctic perspective. Still low demand and even some fluctuation regarding the demand and regarding the prices. For the beginning of the year 2025, we notice small increase month by month week by week regarding the pulp prices. But then on the end of Q1, we noticed that the market is very stable and the demand dropped significantly in Europe and even overseas. And then since April, we noticed a significant drop of the pulp prices, which affected revenues and the result of our pulp segment, which partly is offset by a positive trend for the paper sector. Now, it seems that demand for pulp globally is very low. It's mainly due to low demand of global economy and also the tariff turbulences. It's quite severe expense regarding the export to the US. It seems that export of the pulp from Canada to the US is still on the zero trend. high zero zero tariffs, and the export of the eucalyptus part from Latin America to the US would be even up to 50% fixated on the tariffs. Then significant influence regarding the currencies. We have most of the costs in Swedish krona, partly also in euros, but the total sales in our pulp segment is mainly counted in US dollars. Recently, we see some small recovery of the exchange rate between Swedish krona and dollar, but still it's a significant lower compared it was last quarter or even beginning of this year before Trump goes on duty. Operating rate is growing. We have a very good progress regarding the chemical pulp in valvic milk. I hope that it seems that probably 2025 will be the best year regarding the volume produced by valvic milk. And we have the struggle regarding low demand for mechanical pulp, which is mainly due to low demand in China. Please point out that at least 20% of our pulp size was dedicated for China. And 2025, it's affected by first of all, low export from China to US. Secondly, low domestic consumption and significant increase of the domestic pulp production. And no big changes regarding the structure of the application for our bulb. I would like to emphasize that still 25% of our business is connected with filter business, mainly automotive. And unfortunately, automotive business, especially in Europe, is quite a weak situation for them, probably even for the next quarters. Then we see a very good and positive trend regarding development of the electrical technical applications. The special quality of the part produced by Rotner's group is dedicated for the insulating paper, which is a very important part of the production of special transformers. uh development of energy globalization and energy application of different equipments means the demand for the transformer in europe is growing up and even recently we already started to make some investigation to combine our competence on the specialty part production and specialty paper production to be able to even to produce this insulating paper in our costume in poland paper segment, very low demand, very huge export of paper from China to Europe. And it's mainly due to the fact that due to the tariffs, import tariffs in US, it seems that Chinese and Korean export to US is limited. Mateusz Piorkowski- Looking for the last three months of 2025 we notice significant increase of the export from Korea of the fine paper to Europe, mainly coated means that we have, as we already see a clear competition for all good export products. And as well, the Chinese already started to use their government subsidies to cover part of the cost and logistic cost. And they are trying to locate in Europe the surplus of the paper, which is not able to be located in the US. Recently, we have seen some kind of stable paper prices. It seems that low demand, low profitability make a decision for several European paper mills to make a decision not to make a stark price war, but rather to optimize the production process to reduce the resources and even to reduce capacity. Currently, no so big changes regarding the capacities. So far this year, only two paper mills have been closed in Germany, but there are a lot of discussion about new closures in Finland and as well in Germany. And some of them will affect better balancing between supply and demand in our sector. Looking for Arctic performance we have a quite similar capacity utilization in Q2 compared to Q1 this year. Volume is also quite similar and we are expecting a small recovery after a summer period. Already in August we noticed increasing trend for order inflows And it seems that end of Q3 and beginning of Q4 could be some kind of recovery compared with what happened during Q1 and Q2 this year. They're regarding the exchange rates quite stable against dollars and against euros. Please point out that significant part of our paper operation are counted in euros, then in Swedish krona, British pounds and partly also in parish currency. Unfortunately, still, the demand on our key market, Germany, is very weak. I don't see a significant recovery of the German economy and probably for the next one or two quarters. So we have to struggle regarding oversupply for our key market means German. No big changes regarding the brands. I already mentioned that we already started to think about technical paper. And recently we did a positive test to produce a special paper dedicated for the pharmaceutical and medical business. And it seems that Arctic is able to produce a high quality paper as a base for medical tests. Unfortunately, the demand on the global is quite limited, but this is rather niche product with very high margin. No big changes regarding the global geostructure. We are focusing on Europe like during the last years. Please point out that Germany for the last years was around 25%, and due to this low performance of German economy and low deliveries, we dropped close to 21-20% in 2025. We noticed, in fact, quite positive trends regarding the sales to the US. Even during this turbulent time, then even you are not able to predict the business terms for the next quarter, we are trying to maneuver and to find a niche product application for our paper, mainly from Munkedals. And we are quite successful. If we just compare the volume of the paper, which was exported from Arctic to US last year versus this year, we have seen significant improvements. A year ago, it was roughly maybe less than 300 tons per year. But this year, already we sold to US 1,500. And it seems that even we were able to maneuver with new clients. This stable, I hope stable, term condition of 15% tariffs for the exported paper from Europe to US could create a stable business relation with our new American clients. We hope that already next year will be even better. Why? Please point out that even the American domestic paper production is quite expensive. The old, not modernized for the decades, American paper mills have to import the pulp from Canada, free of duties, and from Brazil and the rest of the Latin America, when you have an application between 15% even to 50% of the tariffs. It means that if you count all this element of the expensive pulp, tariffs, expensive labor costs in the US, in some cases, even the paper imported from Europe adding 15% tax could be very competitive compared to the domestic US production. Regarding packaging business, quite slow development regarding the craft paper. It's also connected with a slow economy development in Europe. We already completed the project of the molded pulp trace in question and we start already in summer period to deliver first trace to our customers. Hope that next year the revenues from this business and as well from the new segment means wood pellet production will contribute additional 20, means 20 million zlotys to the EBTA, which is roughly extra 50 million Swedish krones to the EBTA expected in 2026. There are some problems because it seems that this less green approach presented by American administration could affect our ambitious program to export also receivable packaging to US. But let's hope What will happen? The power power segment, which also affected by global turbulences. But as you remember, during the last years, we put a lot of efforts, a lot of activities and a lot of money to develop energy production, green energy production for our fast city production facilities. And as well, we had a plan to increase significantly to generate energy to be sold to the third parties. Recently, during the last six months of 2025, we discovered that business environment is maybe not in favour for the new project. in Poland and in Sweden as well. Fluctuation of the prices are not helping us to improve profitability and then already we decided to put on hold some projects. Now we are focusing mainly or even only on the energy efficiency for our internal production processes and as well to increase green energy production for our pulp and paper mills in Sweden and in Poland. On this screen you can see what was the layout of the site in question January 2025 when we decided to build additional 10 megawatt installation of PV in question. Then after six months we are happy to announce this project is completed and already since June 10th 2025 we are able to generate extra of 9 megawatts green energy dedicated for our Polish operation. On this screen you can see the developments between 2025-23 and the current situation regarding the energy generation, green energy consumption for our paper production. Please point out that the last bar shows only six months of 2025. and this is without this new 9 megawatt installation. When we will present our outcome of the energy segment in February next year as a summer of 2025, you will be impressed regarding development what was done by our operations. Today we are continuing our project in Grixpo. It's a modernization of the biomass boiler and this main concept is to be able to use cheaper material, cheaper fuel, instead of pellets. This project runs according to plan and according to budget. And the startup is planning for the 20th of November this year, with a full energy impact for the next 2026, roughly 30 million Swedish kronor lower energy costs. Another project which is already ongoing is the wood pellet production line also in Grygspo. The expected capacity will be roughly 50, even maybe to 55,000 tons per year. The project will be also completed by November this year. And already next year, we hope to have additional APTA from this line, roughly 15 million zlotys. Today, by the mid of 2025, the total capacity of the green energy produced by the installation in Arctic Group is over 30 megawatts.

Coming back again to the financial performance. If you compare the EBITDA evolution for a couple of last years, you can notice that 2025 is really a challenging year for us. Historically, we could benefit somehow on the hedging between the paper and pulp sector when the paper sector was doing better than the pulp sector a bit worse and the other way around. But this year in 2025, those not very beneficial factors came together at one time. But we still believe that we can act on this, and we will later on describe the activities we are taking. As for net debt to a BTA, so the indicator of the financial position, we still consider it as good. The indicator of 1.18 is a very good level, still safe. It comes mostly from the pulp segment. Paper segment is still around zero or a little below. But we also took actions to make even this good indicator lower. As I mentioned before, this indicator is still good if we consider the other companies within our branches. As Michał mentioned before, we decided to decrease CAPEX for the following years. 2025 will be the last year of increased investments. We will finish what we have started and then afterwards, we will focus on what is necessary only and see how the market develops and the market situation develops. This decrease of cap expenditures will allow us to maintain better cash flow, which can also later on increase our capability to pay dividends?

We have several actions already started and prepared for improvement of the situation. First of all, we have already developed and implemented a cost reduction across the mills, pulp and paper mills, and also we implemented efficiency improvement program to boost the results. We also decided to make some changes regarding the structure, how the meals are running. There's a plan to reduce staffing. For example, recently, this year, we will install two new sheeters, one in Munkedals and one in Kostrzyn. And this new sheeters with the same capacity like two old sheeters would be able to reduce the staff by around 16 positions. Regarding the CAPEX, what was already mentioned by Katarzyna, we are focusing to complete ongoing projects. And our plan is to go down with capex and expenditures in next year on the level close what we had already 2018-2022. This safe efficiency improvement plan will generate the saving roughly 50 million zlotys, which is 130 million Swedish kronor, starting from 2026. Our working capital program is related to reduce stock of the pulp and as well the paper across our mills and waterhouses in Europe. And it will release roughly 35 million zlotys, which means close to 90 million Swedish kronor. The revenues from the new business areas, I already mentioned this, packaging, craft, molded part trays and the pellets, are expecting to contribute up to 20 million zlotys next year, and it means roughly 50 million Swedish kronor. It seems that starting from now, we will be able to lift and to boost our financial position. Today, we have a quite strong balance sheet, after capitalization of the rock minerals. And this level of 1.1 depth to ebita, the depth to ebita is one of the lowest in our segment. Normally, it's around three and even some mills are reporting recently exceeding four. I hope that we're already on the lowest element of the business cycle, lowest moment. And all activities with expected improvement of operation and improvement demand could leave us that we will back to the normal result, which are expected by the management, the board, shareholders and employees. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for the presentation here. And as I mentioned earlier, we'll now carry on with the Q&A. So the first question here is EBITDA dropped to nearly zero in Q2 from over 70 million PLN last year. What drove this decline and when do you expect the savings program to have an impact?

The biggest impact on EBITDA, as I mentioned before, had first of all, the lower demand on paper, but also on the top side, the high material costs. So these factors were even stronger within second quarter. And that was the main reason for the lower EBITDA result. We expect that the next quarter, we will see some kind of improvement, but let's be cautious with that too.

Yeah, we see some positive trends regarding the order inflow for pulp and paper. Normally, always this summer period is quite weak. But the best season for pulp and paper operation is end of August till beginning of December. It means that we are closer, closer to the harvesting period.

Thank you. You mentioned higher costs here earlier and the pulp segment faced higher costs, currency headwinds and impairment. Will the capital increase in efficiency measures be enough to restore competitiveness, would you say?

Yes, I think so. I think that already we have a quite strong balance sheet on both elements, pulp and paper. And I don't see any reason to make a recapitulation once again. All activities which are already implemented and started in the pulp and paper segments will contribute a lot. And this additional new business area which will be contributing additional 20 million zlotys next year also helps us a lot. But savings and revenues gives us result in one, two, three quarters. But we are more focusing regarding the cash flow because the company has to improve the situation. And this all activities, which is connected to the working capital, will contribute the result already in this year. And the result of these changes regarding our ambitious in the investment activities will benefit us already in next year.

Thank you. And with the solar park completed and other investments ongoing, how do you balance long term projects with short term financial stability?

Of course, this it's better always to have a strong balance sheet today and some ambitious project for the future. But unfortunately, today we are in the very turbulent times, not only regarding the relation between US and Europe, but as well this problematic political decision could influence the global supply chains. I already mentioned that regarding the flows between Brazil and China, then from China to US, then from US to Europe, I already mentioned that we already see a significant flow of the paper from China, especially regarding tissue, to Europe. I see already the increasing flow of the copper paper from Korea to Europe. several European paper mills, which were focusing a lot on the external markets outside of Europe, especially some companies which are focusing on export to the US, they have to reconsider their sales strategy. And also for us, it's quite important to have a better understanding what will be the rules for the next two to five years. Our dimension regarding that our appetite for growing in energy sector has to be reduced, not only due to the financial situation, but as well unclear regarding the rules. Please point out that I will be not so surprised if this all green energy trend will be maybe put on hold or even to a little bit slow progress, mainly due to the decision of the US government last week that they already put on hold all support from the green energy. And they also already mentioned that energy from the black hole is okay. It will have an influence regarding competitiveness of Europe. We, as a Europe, we have a lot of rules, a lot of regulation. Since the beginning of the next year, the EODR system will be implemented as a policy to avoid deforestation. Also, the January next year, the new CBAM system, which has a concept to minimize inflow of this, not a green energy product to Europe will be in place. But I will be not so surprised if after some months of the next year, this all very ambitious EU green approach directive has to be revised.

Thank you. That was all the questions we had. So thank you so much for tuning in and thanks to Arctic Paper for presenting here today. And I wish you all a pleasant weekend.

Thank you very much. And already we invite you for our Q3 presentation, mid of November. Thank you. Bye.