Stora Enso Oyj

Good morning everyone and welcome to Stora Enso's first quarter 2024 result presentation. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Hans Solström, the President and CEO of Stora Enso. I'm here with CFO Seppo Parvi to take you through our performance and outlook before we take your questions. Let's start the presentation by looking at this image of the newly opened world of Volvo experience and of wooden construction where the latest mass timber techniques and materials from Stora Enso was used. For every ton of wood we use in buildings, we tie up one ton of carbon and avoid at least another ton of carbon dioxide emissions from alternative construction materials. But let's now shift our focus to the key highlights of the quarter. Before we dive into the details, let's start by reviewing some of the most important highlights for the quarter. Despite the weaker year-on-year performance compared to the relatively strong Q1 of last year, we achieved a sequential improvement in EBIT, a tripling of EBIT from Q4, which is encouraging and a good sign of progress. Unfortunately, the political strike in Finland has impacted our results negatively by about 25 million euros. I'm pleased to say that we have managed to reduce our operating working capital by a significant amount with a reduction of 551 million euros from the corresponding quarter last year. And in light of additional cost savings, we have raised our profit improvement targets and savings program to 120 million euros from 80 million euros, which will take full effect in 2025. However, this cost reduction program may unfortunately result in a reduction of around 1,000 employees. Laying off people is a last resort, but it's necessary to improve our financial performance. We are proud to have been awarded the Green Bond of the Year, Corporate EMEA, which recognizes our commitment to sustainability. And as a part of this commitment to sustainability, we are partnering with IUCN to advance positive impacts on biodiversity. During the first quarter, we focused on continuous efforts to improve profits, competitiveness and cash flow. Group sales decreased by 20% to 2.2 billion euros annually. This was largely due to the inclusion of divested paper sites and the closed mills of De Hope, Sunilam, as well as closed production lines in Australiika and Anjalan in last year's Q1 2023 results. Additionally, lower sales prices across all divisions, except for forest, contributed to decreased profitability. Our group adjusted EBIT fell to 156 million euros, with the negative impact from the Finnish political strikes of about approximately 25 million euros, being more than offset by positive one-off compensation of electricity costs in packaging materials. Excluding the structural impact, The volumes were higher supported by lower maintenance activity, which also improved fixed costs in addition to our fixed cost reduction measures. Thanks to systematic and determined sourcing and operational efficiency actions, we were able to achieve cost savings in many variable cost categories apart from fiber costs, maybe wood. Cash flow from operations amounted to 269 million euros, and we were able to improve this by reducing our operating working capital. In fact, we were able to significantly reduce it by 551 million euros compared to the same period of last year. We were able to reduce operating working capital in relation to sales by almost three percentage units from 12.6% of sales last year Q1 to 9.7% of sales this year's Q1. Through our cost-saving efforts and reductions in many variable cost categories, we were able to achieve lower costs apart from fiber costs made a good which continued to increase. Compared to last year's first quarter, the group's adjusted EBIT decreased by a third to 156 million euros, down from 234 million euros. This was primarily due to lower sales prices across all divisions, except the forest. Despite this, we did see higher volumes for continuing operations, particularly in container board and our biomaterials and packaging materials volume were also supported by lower maintenance activity. This helped to offset the negative impact of the strikes, which amounted to approximately 25 million euros in Q1. Additionally, our focus on cost savings actions and the fact that we did not have Major annual plant maintenance shutdowns during the first quarter supported the reduction of these costs. Furthermore, depreciation was lowered due to the significant impairments from last year, and Bay High being classified as an asset held for sale, which stopped the depreciation. In packaging materials, the demand started to show gradual improvements both in consumer and container products. In consumer board, the demand improved as destocking ended, and in container board, demand gradually improved with cost-driven price increases announced across the industry. Sales decreased by 15% or 200 million euros to approximately 1.1 billion euros, mainly due to production unit and line closures during 2023. Also, the lower board and paper prices and delayed shipments due to the political strikes in Finland impacted sales negatively. However, the adjusted EBIT increased from last year to 60 million euros. Valuable costs declined, except for wood costs, which continued to increase. One of the compensations of energy production costs related to CO2 emissions, more than offset negative effects of the political strikes in Finland. Regarding the fixed costs, this quarter we did, as mentioned earlier, not have any major planned annual maintenance shutdowns, which improved profitability. However, in the second quarter, we will have planned maintenance shutdowns in both Beihai China and Langeberg. Next up is our packaging solution segment, which experienced ongoing weak market conditions and rising pressure. Packaging solutions had low season in most segments. The demand stabilized at the lower level across most markets and segments. There is significant overcapacity in the market that continued to wait on the performance. Sales decreased by 19% to 224 million euros, driven by lower price levels, which have followed the lower container board prices. Adjusted EBIT decreased to minus 1 million euro, mainly impacted by high pressure on prices and margins. Ramp-up costs, such as the depreciation level, has also increased due to expansion of the new corrugated packaging production facility in the Netherlands. Moving on to biomaterials, which is on the other hand, so continuously increasing pulp prices. The biomaterials division showed improvement from the previous quarter, supported by positive price changes and global pulp inventories remaining below the five-year average. The overall demand was stable with solid demand for flat pulp. Sales decreased by 23% to Prices were significantly lower as were deliveries due to the closure of our Sumila pulp mill. However, sequentially, prices improved in all pulp grades and markets. Adjusted EBIT decreased from last year to 57 million euros, mainly due to lower sales prices, partly offset by actions to reduce fixed costs. The political strikes in Finland had a slight negative effect. We had no planned annual shutdowns, which reduced fixed costs further. However, in the second quarter, we will have planned maintenance shutdowns in Montesterplata and Skutsjärvi. Now, let's take a look at the development in our Good Products Division. The Good Products Division continues to face weak overall market demand, with margins remaining at the low levels. The market weakness continued, and especially in building solutions, as the construction market is still struggling. Low building permit and project activity led to sustained low demand for cross-laminated timber and laminated veneer lumber. Sales decreased by 23% to €349 million, mainly impacted by lower sales prices and volumes, especially for sawn wood. Adjusted EBIT increased year-on-year to minus 9 million euros, improved by lower fixed and variable costs. In order to mitigate the impact of the weak demand, cost-saving actions and market curtailments were implemented. The forest division, however, experienced a complete opposite market situation. The forest division had a strong quarter result driven by increased prices, strong good demand and good harvesting conditions. Wood prices increased compared to the same period in 2023, but remained at the same level quarter on quarter. The political strikes in Finland reduced wood consumption and challenged logistics and deliveries. Sales decreased by 4% to €659 million. Adjusted EBIT increased from last year by 24% to €70 million, reflecting a strong operational performance in the group's forest assets. Our stable forest asset fair value is currently 8.6 billion euro, equal to 10.94 euros per share, despite a quarter-and-quarter decrease of 106 million euro due to the exchange rate impact, mainly impacted by a weak Swedish krona. Important to note is that the market transaction-based forest property prices in Finland and Sweden are only updated in the second and fourth quarter. Our forests are our largest assets and we remain confident in the long-term value that we can create from them. Let's now take a look at our actions to build a more profitable and competitive company. Our actions to build a more profitable and competitive company is to deliver on our long-term strategy to position Stora Enso for current and future growth opportunities. In the current weak market conditions, we have emphasized improving profitability through more efficient sourcing, production and sales, freeing up capital, including working capital, execution and the right people in the right jobs. At the beginning of 2023, we discontinued our paper division, which had been suffering from structural market decline for a long time. Instead, we focused on expanding our business in growing segments of renewable and recyclable packaging. The acquisition of the Dutch corrugated packaging company, the Young Packaging Group, for an enterprise value of approximately 1 billion euro, was completed at the beginning of 2023. Ongoing ramp-up of a new corrugated packaging production site in Western Europe is further strengthening our position in the region and is estimated to be fully wrapped up during 2026. The estimated capacity of approximately 375 million square meters will double the capacity at the site to around 700 million square meters per year. In addition, we continued the ongoing 1.1 billion euro consumer packaging investment at our home in Finland, and production is expected to start in the first half of 2025, with full capacity estimated to be reached during 2027. Estimated annual sales at maturity is circa 800 million euros. To strengthen the group's long-term competitiveness and improve profitability, we launched a restructuring which impacted approximately 1,150 employees who unfortunately had to leave their positions. From that program, we also closed several production units with weak long-term competitiveness. Through these actions, we achieved an annual adjusted EBIT improvement of 110 million euros. This year, we launched another profitability improvement program, targeting on improving of 80 million euros annually by reducing fixed costs. The program has progressed well, and the target is now raised to 120 million euros of fixed cost reduction, thanks to additional fixed cost reduction measures. As mentioned earlier, this could unfortunately lead to about 1,000 redundancies. This plan does not include new mill closures. Rather, it is based on streamlining existing operations by focusing on what is essential for business and performance. In other words, doing more with less. In addition to these, we have moved to a new decentralized operating model and performance organization based on P&L responsible divisions and business units within them. We improve our commercial and operational excellence with a leaner organization to improve decision-making and customer orientation and to achieve faster implementation. We are also reviewing and optimizing our commercial strategies. We are freeing up capital by reducing working capital and divesting non-core business. The plan to divest the Beihai site in China is proceeding according to plan. And as mentioned earlier, the site is classified as assets held for sale from the end of 2023 onwards. I will now hand over to our group CFO Seppo Parvi to cover more detailed information on our financials. Over to you, Seppo.

Thank you, Hans. This year, our estimated complex remains at the level of about 1 to 1.1 billion euros. as the whole consumer investment is moving ahead according to the schedule. Long-term, we keep CapEx at or below depreciation over the cycle. Our aim is to quickly revert to the average range of 6 to 800 million euros after the whole investment is ready. Due to the current business environment and to protect our balance sheet and cash flow, we are continuing to be restrictive on new major CapEx initiatives. Moving to the next important topic, our cash flow. We have achieved significant reduction in operating working capital. The strong balance sheet is crucial for the future. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was four at the end of the first quarter. We recognize that this is higher than our target of remaining below two and are taking steps to improve profitability and to reduce our debt levels. Despite facing big market conditions and making strategic investments, we were able to improve our cash flow from operations by reducing our operating working capital. In fact, as Hans mentioned earlier, we were able to reduce it by €551 million compared to the previous year. We had to release capital through working capital management and divestments. These measures will help us reduce debt and increase liquidity, which remains strong. To ensure that we can fulfill our obligations and invest in growth, we are holding on to a strong liquidity position. This is also important during the time of uncertainty. This includes cash and cash equivalents of approximately 2.1 billion euros, along with unused credit facilities of up to 1.9 billion euros. We do not have any financial governance and have investment grade ratings by both Fitch and Moody's. Next, let's see how our long-term financial targets have developed. We are not meeting all of our long-term financial targets due to a challenging business environment and unsatisfactory financial performance. And as you have just heard from Hans, we are taking further actions to strengthen the business, short, medium and long-term, in order to improve our competitiveness. The distribution of dividends is one of our long-term financial targets, and we are committed to maintaining this target, even in the challenging times. Our ability to pay dividends despite the weak results demonstrates our dedication to creating long-term value to our shareholders. The Board of Directors therefore decided on a dividend of €10 per share, which was paid on the 4th of April. The AGM has also authorized the Board to decide on the payment of an additional dividend of up to €20 per share until 31st of December. Maintaining a healthy balance sheet is crucial going forward. Our target to net debt adjusted EBITDA remains below two times, although the ratio increased to four times in the previous year. One of our focus areas is releasing capital through working capital management and divestments, such as pay high. These actions are reducing leverage and increasing liquidity. Also, profitability improvement is in our focus through various actions on variable and fixed costs, as well as commercial side. All divisions, with the exception of the strong performance in the forest division, are falling behind the return on capital targets. With that, I pass back to Hans, who will provide an overview of our sustainability targets and market demand outlook. Please, Hans.

Thank you, Seppo. Our demand and growth are driven by sustainability, which is not only a strategic business enabler, but also a competitive advantage. We are committed to achieve our clear and ambitious sustainability targets on climate, circularity and biodiversity. In terms of climate, we have been enhancing our energy efficiency and using more clean energy for scope one and two emissions. Our production emissions have decreased by 44% since 2019, and we are committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2040. As for circularity, we have achieved 94% recyclability of our products and aim to reach 100% by 2030. We also monitor and report on the quality of our forestry operations to have a net positive effect on biodiversity in our own forests and plantations by 2050. Now moving on to the sequential market demand outlook. For the second quarter, we expect stronger demand for our products due to seasonal effects and other factors. However, profits are expected to be adversely impacted mainly due to the sequential cost increases for planned maintenance, higher wood costs and the recent political strikes in Finland. In Europe, we anticipate stronger demand for corrugated packaging driven by the seasonally higher demand for fruit and vegetables. Additionally, we expect slightly stronger demand for pulp in Europe and China, with stable demand for fluff pulp and hardwood pulp. Softwood pulp demand is expected to be slightly stronger in China. Demand for sawn wood is expected to be significantly stronger due to seasonal effects, while weak demand is expected to continue for building solutions from the construction segment. In Sweden, we anticipate slightly stronger demand for pulpwood, with significantly stronger demand for sawdust. In Finland, we expect significantly stronger demand for both pulpwood and sawdust, with stronger demand for pulpwood for energy use due to seasonality. Overall, we are optimistic about the long-term demand outlook for our products and remain committed to meeting our customers' needs while prioritizing sustainability and innovation. To conclude, we are powering ahead to build a more profitable and competitive Stora Enso for a stronger future. Our actions are focused on improving profits, competitiveness, and cash flow. We are achieving this through our systematic, structured and determined improvement actions in procurement, operational and commercial excellence. A healthy balance sheet is crucial for the future of our company and we are taking determined actions to free up capital by reducing working capital and divesting or closing non-core businesses. We believe that strategy and its execution are critical to our success, and we are committed to having the right people in the right jobs to make this happen. Our profit improvement program, the fixed cost reduction program, has been increased to €120 million from €80 million due to additional fixed cost savings. And we have completed last year's restructuring program, which yielded on annual adjusted EBIT improvement of 110 million euros. Based on our analysis and market trends, we expect our full year 2024 adjusted EBIT to be higher than the 342 million euros in 2023. In summary, we are making good progress in our efforts to improve profitability and cash flow through operational and commercial excellence and working capital management. Our profit and result-oriented leadership culture is based on four As, ambition, agility, analytics, and accountability. We are executing with determination and speed, and we are confident in our ability to deliver stronger results and shareholder value in the future. Now, let's open up the floor for questions.

If you'd like to ask a question, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Or if you're dialed in, please press star nine. Please only ask a maximum of two questions at a time. If you wish to ask more than two questions, please rejoin the queue. We will pause for a moment to allow questions to enter the queue. Our first question comes from Andrew Jones at EVF. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Hi, Hans. Thanks for the comments so far. Just a question on the guidance. I mean, if we adjust the one-off and we normalize the maintenance schedule, it looks like the run rate's already on track for the middle of the guidance range. You seem pretty confident in the outlook for a lot of the end products, at least going into the second quarter. So I'm wondering what holds you back from being a bit more positive on the outlook. Is it just conservatism? Are you fearful that the strike will restart? Or are there other factors such as rising wood costs that particularly concern you, that hold you back from lifting that guidance range? And just on that, could you quantify that?

be headwind you're expecting in the second quarter from uh from wood costs thank you yeah thank you andrew well you know there is still three quarters to go this year and uh and as we all know there's uh there's a lot of uh geopolitical macroeconomical of uncertainty out there in the in the full in the whole world so with a potential potential impact so That's the answer I can give, and regarding the quantification of the wood cost-related headwind, we don't give any more specific guidance regarding that.

Yeah, and maybe I can add that, like Hans said, there's a lot of uncertainty still when it comes to recovery of the global economy. Interest rate cuts seem to be moving forward in time continuously, as also we can see from the recent news news flow and yes you are right and like we also have have communicated there are some positive signals but we cannot really talk about any turnaround of the market yet so so that remains to be seen okay and just uh one follow-up on the liquid packaging i mean i noticed that your pricing was well it's a little bit better than i expected in packaging materials

Was there any major positive impact quarter on quarter on liquid packaging pricing?

Well, Andrew, we don't specify, let's say, per grade in that respect. So we can only refer to the information we have in our quarterly report. So I ask for your kind understanding, Andrew.

Understood. Thank you.

Our next question is from Charlie Muir Sands at BNP Paribas Exxon. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Hi there. Thank you very much for taking my questions. The first one is perhaps a bit of a follow-up on Andrew's. Just Overall, as we move into the second quarter, if you set aside the higher maintenance costs quarter on quarter that you're guiding to, just overall production costs, would you expect those to be going up or down per tonne, given, as you say, wood costs are rising, but you also cite some other costs are moving in the other direction?

But in general, I would say that when it comes to input costs and production costs, inflation pressures have eased, with the exception of wood, like I said earlier, so other costs are going in the right direction, meaning down. Then, of course, look at the Q2 onwards. You have to remember that there has been, in some countries, salary increases taking place late spring, and that is adding to some costs in the production as such.

And adding on that, in addition to, of course, let's say input market cost development, we are working very actively on systematic approach to sourcing-related cost savings, which basically, and also operational efficiency-related improvements, which also have a positive impact on variable costs. So there are many factors playing in here.

Great, thank you. And for my second question, obviously note the very significant reduction in working capital year on year, but quarter over quarter it rose about 70 million. From here, how much of that is of seasonal or did the strikes have an impact on the working capital movements or is it that it is getting a bit harder from here that the low-hanging fruit on releasing working capital has already been harvested in Mexico?

But it's mainly driven by seasonality. It's typical that with the first quarter, working capital goes up. I would say that the effect of working capital from the strikes was quite limited. Of course, on the other hand, the buildings, on the other hand, stocks were also going down. So it's rather worse, I would say. So no significant effect from that. We still believe that there is quite a lot of potential for further reductions of working capital as we are moving forward with the program full speed. There is excellent, very good commitment in the organization and good momentum when it comes to work on not only on working capital, but also other programs that Hans mentioned to improve our profitability.

Many thanks.

Our next question is from Lena Larson, SEB. Please unmute your line by pressing star six and ask your question.

Thank you. Hello, everyone. Coming back to packaging materials, and maybe if you could break that bridge down just a little bit for us, how profitability improved so much in the first quarter after three consecutive quarters of losses. That would be very helpful.

Thank you. Well, thank you, Linus, for the question. Well, I mean, as we have mentioned in the report, we saw some gradual recovery in the market, so we had some volume impact there. We had also the fact that there were no no planned maintenance shots in Q1. So that, of course, also had a positive impact on volumes. And so that's, I would say, explains probably the majority of that positive development.

I also would add that these projects, Sorry, just that also our mills were running quite well, so quite good operating rates and efficiencies at the mills that were running then despite the strikes. And also in other countries than Finland. And on the coast side, we were asking, so like I said, other coasts, with the exception of wood, were moving in the right direction and giving positive impact.

Right. And then likewise, bridging into Q2, then I guess there's some 30 million one-offs that is not reoccurring. And then obviously taking the maintenance schedule into account. Apart from that, what should we think around Q2 in packaging materials and maybe specifically on costs?

Like I said earlier, one major item in the cost is that fiber costs, wood costs continue to increase going to Q2, and that is one driver. Then we have this additional maintenance cost of 35 million in Q2 versus Q1 as another driver, in addition to those one-off type of CO2 compensations energy-wise.

Great. And maybe as a final one, with regards to the wood market, any thoughts how this will play out? We're just at the beginning of an upturn and wood prices are at all-time high. How do you see this playing out? How will the balance in the market be restored?

Well, without speculating too much, I mean, we are focusing on our cost efficiency. We are producing, you know, in this high wood cost environment, we produce high added value, high quality board materials, especially consumer board materials with efficient integrates, which have helped integrated pulp production as well as also supporting mechanical woodworking operations. So, with a high added value, you know, that's the way how to be successful in this type of a high-cost environment. That's how you have the highest wood-paying capability also with the highest added value products where the share of wood cost is the lowest in the total cost structure.

And one key driver, as you know, has been increasing use of energy wood. And that is competing with us, especially when it comes to pulpwood market. And that pressure continues and continues until, for instance, more electricity boilers are invested in. And that is, of course, not going to happen tomorrow. It will take some more time. So I think the market rather remains challenging is significantly better in that sense.

Our next question is from Cole Hathorn at Jefferies. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just like you've given a lot of context on the fixed cost savings and what you're doing on improving the cost base, but how are you changing your commercial approach to pricing? When I look at Store Endo and a lot of the Nordic producers, you know, what has changed is wood costs are higher for longer, and that's a concern. You know, how are you getting your sales teams to change the commercial initiative here and basically try and price up for that structurally higher cost? And could you give some color across your product grades? Because we have seen price increases in, you know, container board grades. You know, I'd just like some color of, you know, how are you seeing that across your other end markets in particular?

Yes, thank you, Cole, for the question. Yes, we are, since last autumn, we are running, you know, systematic improvement processes in five different areas. There is the fixed cost program, which we call our profit improvement program, where we have increased the fixed cost saving target to 120 million euros from their 80 million euros, and this is the one affecting potentially 1,000 people through redundancies. Then we have the working capital program where they're also running a very systematic process improvement project in order to improve the way how we manage our working capital. And we can see here in Q1 that we are 551 million euros lower in terms of working capital compared to last year corresponding period. Then we are running, as the third program, we are running a sourcing program where we, in a very systematic way, data-driven, structured, analytical approach way, we are running a program to get sourcing-related savings. And then we are running an operational efficiency improvement program where we turn every stone in our operations to improve the way how we operate in order to improve our productivity. So doing more with less. And then the fifth focus area we have is commercial excellence. And an important part of commercial excellence is exactly as you mentioned called pricing and pricing excellence. It's very much about a data-driven approach, doing much more granular analysis, also approaching pricing from a much more granular level, and then also then it's also about, let's say, timing-related questions, you know, the agility, the way how we steer our sales force, you know, on a very timely, agile way, how we set targets, follow up on a very granular, detailed level. So it's a very holistic program, you know, in commercial excellence, focusing on pricing. But there are also other parts of this in our commercial excellence program. It's also about finding new and developing new business and business opportunities. It's about optimizing the product-customer-market mix and so forth. So many different elements that we are working on.

And then maybe just as a A follow-up, could you quantify kind of the one-off energy benefit that you've called out in the packaging materials division? And then maybe one for Seppo, you talked about, you know, focus on the balance sheet. And I understand, you know, just on effectively the trough for the last 12 months, the net debt's even dollars at four times, but it didn't ever substantially as your earnings recover. But could you just talk about what the potential disposal of Bay High might do to that net debt's even dollar number? Thank you.

Okay, thanks. When it comes to these energy subsidies, it's roughly about 30 million euros. That was also mentioned in the practicing materials segment report. Then when it comes to parachute management and pay high divestment, obviously we are not going to details of the divestment and values at this stage of the process. We can only confirm what Hans also said earlier, that we are moving ahead as planned. And obviously, it will be an important step when it comes to reducing net debt ratio when the proceeds are coming and will reduce net debt of the group as part of the, or as a consequence of the deal. But I cannot be more specific now. But it's an important part of the capital release program that we are running in addition to working capital reduction where we already have concrete results, as you can see in the report.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Pilav Mittal at Barclays. Please unmute your line and ask your question. Pilav Mittal, please unmute your line and ask your question.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Firstly, on the biomaterial segment, can you help us understand the impact or the benefit that you have seen due to the ongoing Red Sea crisis? And especially what is driving the strength in China?

Yes, thank you, Pallav. Yeah, the crisis in the Red Sea area and the logistic, related logistic challenges, I mean, there are both pluses and minuses, you know, for our business from that. So I would say that in our case, when it comes to biomaterials, it's more a challenge, you know, because we are exporting some of our pulp from Europe to Asia. So the logistic changes are longer and the shipping route is longer. So that is creating some challenges. On the other hand, there has also been some reduced imports of board material from China to, let's say, to Turkey, some Eastern European countries. So that has helped a little bit balance out the European market. But I would say, all in all, there are as many pluses as minuses in this whole thing, and we manage well in this situation.

Sure. And following up on the working capital question earlier, can you outline what is driving this improvement versus last year, and how much incremental capital release do you expect through the year?

The year-on-year working capital has come down about 550 million euros, and it's coming from, let's say, all the main components, receivables, payables, and inventories, and that work continues. And we are working on all fronts. And like I said earlier, there's a good momentum at the moment. And we are, I would say, midway through when it comes to our program. So there is still a lot of potential. We are talking about significant potential still to be achieved by end of the year. And obviously, we also continue to the year after. So it's not, of course, something that you stop. So moving forward there and having a lot of more potential.

Sure. Thank you.

Our next question is from Brian Morgan at Morgan Stanley. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Thanks very much for the time. Can I just ask on your fixed cost savings, that's the first of the five programs that you're doing, would you be able to break that down into component parts for us? Give us a little bit more granularity on what goes into the 120 million euros?

Yeah, thank you, Brian. So... So we have increased the fixed cost saving target from 80 million euros to 120 million euros. And the main reason here is that, as we have said before, this may affect or cause redundancies of 1,000 employees. But we have expanded the program to look into not only redundancies, but also other fixed cost savings. You know, there are a lot of other fixed cost savings in the organization. So that's the main reason to the increase by 40 million euros from 80 to 120.

It's very, very traditional things. And also, of course, including that the less people you have, the less traveling there is, less office space is needed, et cetera. So that all is adding to the original savings because we are getting more more clear moving structure at Manitoba with the project improvement program. And also, of course, looking at the expenditures, looking at lower cost alternatives for various cost items as part of the program.

That's great. Thank you. And if I may just follow up with the second question you talk about. introducing a more decentralized approach. Could you just give us a bit more color on that in terms of what processes you'll be decentralizing, what processes you'll be keeping centralized, and what practically this means?

Yeah, thanks, Brian. A very good question. We moved into a decentralized P&L organization in November of last year. And what that meant in practice is that we established within the P&L responsible divisions, we established P&L responsible business units. So let's take Packaging Materials Division as an example. So within Packaging Materials Division, which is a P&L responsible unit, of course, there are five P&L responsible business units, which are headed by, with a senior vice president in charge of that business unit. And that business unit has the end-to-end responsibility for their business. So they are in charge of sales, customer, customer service. They are also in charge of the operations. So the middle managers are reporting directly into the senior vice president in charge of the business unit. They are in charge of related operations. procurement and the whole supply chain and operations, as well as also product development. So they are in charge of the three elementary components for P&L, which means sales, production, and development. So that's number one. Then what we also did was that we moved a lot of people in functions, a lot of jobs in functions, into the divisions and the business units, which means that now in the headquarter, in the group, we have only some 100 people, 100 jobs left, including my and Seppo's jobs, and the rest of the jobs are within the divisions, which means that the divisional heads, the BU heads, they control also their P&L. They control the fixed costs. If there is some functional jobs they don't need or they don't find necessary for driving profits and driving business, then they can also restructure. And this was also a kind of a prerequisite now for the new profit improvement program, the new restructuring program where they are taking that out We're planning to take out about 1,000 positions, 1,000 jobs without closing any capacity. So it's really about, you know, moving the accountability, the P&L accountability into the – on a more granular level into divisions and business units. And through this, you know, we get more agile decision-making. We become more customer-oriented. and more business-oriented in our way of working.

In a nutshell, you could say in general that all main processes have been decentralized, like customers, logistics, IT, operational IT, that used to run earlier very centrally, also some finance delivery, HR, service center type of. of things that were re-centralized. So it's now run by the businesses, and that means that they can right-size that to their needs.

Our next question is from Johannes Grunsellius at DMV. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Hello, everyone. It's Johannes. Hope you can hear me. Yes, Johannes, we can hear you. Yeah, a few questions from my side on On packaging materials division, apologies if I missed this information, but could you give some color on where you were on operating rates in the first quarter and how you think about volumes in the second quarter, and also how you think about the mix in this division? Because I can imagine there are some opportunities now when the markets are more normalized. Yeah, thank you, Johannes. Well, we don't disclose operating rates per se. We do report our production volumes. And basically from the report, you can see that we produced 702,000 tons of consumer board, and 379,000 tons of container board in the first quarter. And you can also see the comparisons to the corresponding quarter of last year, as well as also the last quarter of last year as a comparison there.

But what I can say, and I repeat what I said earlier, that those mills outside Finland were running very well when it comes to efficiencies during the war. Obviously, many of the Finnish mills were standing because of the strikes, and that has negative effects on the volumes.

Okay. And, I mean, we talked about input cost before, but if you think about input cost versus your selling price in the packaging materials division, would you say that you are forcing a slight margin expansion for the coming quarter, or rather a contraction, if you can elaborate on that? Well, Johannes, we don't guide on our margins for the coming quarter. So once again, I ask for your kind understanding here.

Our next question is from Charlie Muir-Sands at BNP Paribas Exxon. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Thanks very much. Two very quick follow-up questions. Just on the... the profit improvement program. Is there any change in the cost to implement this program with the 40 million increase in scope that you've identified? You remind us what that cost will be and how you're going to expense it or write it off or capitalize it. And then just on the energy rebate, can you just clarify the 30 million, was this a timing effect or did you have a similar quantum effect in 2023, either in one individual quarter or spread across the year? Thank you.

There is some timing difference in this, sorry, energy subsidies that you're referring to. So some timing difference compared to last year, and that's why it's having a bigger effect in Q1 this year than last year. because the profit improvement program and increase from 8 to 120 million that as such does not increase the costs of the program as as the headcount reduction remains still around thousand people as earlier communicated then sorry can you just remind me what what the cost will be to implement and and how it's going to be booked That we have not communicated specifically. It is, as normally also is booked as item effecting comparability, assuming that it is meeting the thresholds that we have for IACs, which I expect that it is, as it is quite a large program. It depends, of course, from country to country. We are not yet ready with the union negotiations. You know, from country to country, it depends what are the notice periods and what kind of terms and conditions there are for layoffs in various countries. And once those are negotiated and done, it's easier for us to comment on the costs.

Our next question is from Andrew Jones at UBS. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

All right, just a follow-up to one of the earlier questions. I mean, obviously, you're talking about decentralizing a lot of decision-making to some of the local business heads and so forth. I just wonder, this may be a slightly cheeky question, but I just wonder about potential future corporate action. I mean, is there any rationale behind doing this beyond just cost-saving, i.e., if there's been a lot of M&A activity in the sector more broadly? In terms of optimizing the portfolio, I mean, are you thinking about anything in that respect with regard to potential spinoffs of other units or anything like that? I mean, Congress might not be able to say much, but are you thinking about further portfolio optimization in any other area beyond Bay High?

Well, thank you, Andrew, for the question. The driver behind this organizational change is really to drive customer orientation, to build a profit and result-oriented organization, and to drive efficiency and agility in the organization. So that's the only reason. That's the main reason behind this.

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Our next question is from Felicity Jukes at Credit Science. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just on asset sales, you mentioned you can't give any details on the price expectations for Bay High, but would you be able to give any guidance on any expected timing?

Yeah, well, I mean, we are proceeding with the divestment. And the fact that in our Q4 report that we classify this as asset built for sale indicates, of course, that we are closer than before of also divestment. achieving our objectives here. However, I want to underline that it's much more important for us that we make a good deal here than that we make a quick deal. So it takes the time it will take. So we are aiming to make a proper work, diligent work here with the divestment.

That's great. Thank you.

Our last question is from Gaurav Jain at Barclays. Please press star six to unmute your line.

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. So, you know, a question just on how the biological gain on forest assets flows into your P&L. So, we are hearing clearly that wood costs are higher in Scandinavia. So look, the overall valuation of the forest assets is clearly dependent on market transactions. So that, I guess, you have less control. But the component which goes into your P&L, which is a change in net value of biological assets, which has the component of wood prices and the revenue, will it go up this year is what I'm trying to ask. Like last year, you had about 200 million euro gain. So could it be higher than that this year just because wood costs are higher? Thank you.

Okay, thanks for the question. Mine was a bit bad, but I think I got the essence of your question. When it comes to forest valuation in Finland and Sweden, we follow a practice where the valuation is based on the as done deals when it comes to buying and selling forests, so we get the statistics. I want to highlight that we do full-blown valuation end of Q2 and end of Q4. In Q1, we only update some parameters like effects, etc., etc., etc. We do not book The value change fully through profit and loss, but it is going through equity and comprehensive profit and loss calculation. And it's only the inflation factor which is relatively small in the total variation change that is going through the profit and loss. So that is a difference compared to some of our competitors.

Sure. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

So all in all, thank you very much for your participation. Thank you for your good questions. We are powering ahead to build a more profitable and competitive store. And so our actions are focused on improving profits, competitiveness and cash flow. our systematic structure, and determined improvement actions. We are executing with speed and determination. So thank you very much, and looking forward to meet with you then in next quarter. Thank you. Thank you.