CANFOR PULP PRODUCTS INC

Good morning. My name is Kevin, and I'll be your host today. Welcome to CanForce first quarter 2026 analyst call. At this time, all participants have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. A question and answer session will be available after today's presentation. During this call, CanForce chief financial officer will be referring to a slide presentation that is available in the best relations section of the company's website. Also, the company would like to point out that this call will include forward-looking statements, so please refer to the press release for the associated risk of such statements. I would now like to turn this meeting over to Susan Yerkovich, CanForce Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Susan.

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, and thanks for joining CanForce Q1 2026 results conference call. I'm going to open with a few comments this morning before turning things over to Pat Elliott, our Chief Financial Officer. We're also joined by Stephen Mackey. CanForce Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Pankratz, our Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and Brian Ewan, our Vice President of Pulp and Paper Sales, who are going to be available and happy to take questions at the end. Our lumber business generated modest EBITDA in the first quarter with improved pricing supported by seasonally higher demand and more limited supply, partly reflecting the significant capacity reductions in our industry we've seen in the last couple of years. While supply has been somewhat constrained, lumber prices have started to moderate in recent weeks, particularly for Southern Yellow Pine, as demand continues to be impacted by the uncertainty facing the global economy. Similarly, our pulp business continues to face significant headwinds, with elevated inventories and weak global pulp demand offsetting modest cost improvements realized in the first quarter. Notwithstanding the current economic landscape, we continue to position the business to navigate the challenges facing our industry. Our goal remains to be more resilient and better able to deliver more stable returns over the cycle, and we are focused on executing our strategy, strengthening our operating platform, improving our cost competitiveness, and diversifying our business. Looking ahead, we anticipate further reductions to our cost structure as we continue to ramp up our low cost capacity in the U.S. South, and see a reduction in our anti-dumping and countervailing duties beginning in October. In Europe, while results have been challenging for several quarters, we are beginning to see modest log cost relief, higher pricing, and the benefits from our acquisition of the Carl Vadine assets last September. Following significant capital investment in recent years, we're focused on operating our low-cost sawmills efficiently as we look to optimize regional fiber supply and maximize the returns on our investments. Going forward, we are anticipating significantly lower capital requirements due to the improvements in our underlying asset base. So while markets are anticipated to remain challenging in the near term, our business is well positioned to generate strong free cash flow as the market recovers. In addition, we've maintained a solid balance sheet which provides us with flexibility to pursue strategic growth should the right opportunities present themselves. Now I'll turn it over to Pat to provide an overview of our financial results.

Thanks, Susan, and morning, everyone. In my comments this morning, as always, I'll speak to our first quarter financial highlights, which included an overview slide presentation located in the investor relations section of our website. Our lever business generated adjusted EBITDA of $29 million in the first quarter, $37 million higher than the previous quarter. These results have been adjusted to exclude a $20 million recovery of a previously recorded inventory write-down. Improved earnings in the first quarter largely reflected an increase in North American lumber pricing, particularly for Southern Yellow Pine, as well as lower unit manufacturing costs. While North American lumber prices benefited from tighter supply, global demand remains challenging. As a result, our European lumber business generated an adjusted EBITDA loss of $12 million, $4 million lower than the prior quarter. Looking ahead, we anticipate a modest improvement in European lumber prices, driven by seasonally higher demand and reduced supply. In addition, log costs are anticipated to decrease slightly through the balance of 2026, which should support improved earnings going forward. Our pulp business reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of $8 million in the first quarter, $8 million better than the prior. While our first quarter results benefited from improvements to our underlying cost structure, week demand, which we believe will persist. Following CAMFOR's acquisition of CAMFOR Pulp in March, our pulp business is better positioned to manage through the current market dynamics. Turning to our balance sheet, following a refinancing of our credit facility in March, CAMFOR ended the first quarter with available liquidity of approximately $970 million and net debt, excluding a duty loan, of approximately $530 million. We forecast capital spend of $210 million in 2026, and this includes $35 million for pulp and remaining spend associated with our Bruiser facility in Sweden and our Iron Mountain facility in Arkansas. Following completion of these projects, we expect capital spend to moderate further over the next several years, supported by our strong lumber platform. And with that, we're now ready to take questions from analysts.

Thank you. We will now take questions from financial analysts. If you have a question, please press star 11 on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you would like to withdraw your question at any time, please press star 11 again. We'll pause for a moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Ben Isaacson with Scotia. Your line is open. Thank you very much and good morning.

Susan or Pat, can you talk about where you are on your cost improvement journey on a portfolio-weighted basis? I think you mentioned you're looking to lower costs in the U.S. South, but is that to really wrap up a bigger program? How should we think about the magnitude and timing of those cost improvements going forward?

Ben, I'll get Pat to take that.

Yeah, thanks, Ben Mourning. Yeah, obviously, the last number of years with the combination of rationalization of some of the higher cost assets that we had and the new investment that we made, the significant new investment that we made, particularly in the US South, we've seen a continued drop in our operating cost footprint. I would say we're the vast majority of the way through that. As you know, we're still going to be completing the Iron Mountain project here at the end of this year, which really goes wide into next year. And there's still some doing great but are still there's still probably a little bit more squeeze there so hard to quantify them to say the majority of it is sort of baked into our results already in 2026. great thank you and then um just two more if i may on on vita Can you talk about what the parameters are to consolidate that and to kind of finalize that transaction? Is there a valuation formula that's set? Is now a good time considering the market outlook is weak? Would there be operational risk if you took full ownership of that? Can you just flesh that out a bit? Thank you. Sure, I'll keep going, Ben. Yeah, so there's a fixed mechanism for that. Both the timing and the amount are fixed. They're not impacted by current events. So that is fixed. So there's no opportunity for either side to transact before that. And I would kind of go back to the original intent with the minority ownership structure was to keep in place those sort of strong operators who have a great track record of success in our business. So We're not looking to make any change, and frankly, the agreement doesn't allow for it. Great. And then just finally, on the 25% net debt-to-cap ratio, can you just remind us how your creditors treat that duty deposit loan as it relates to covenant calculations? Do we subtract 9% or 10%? Is that the right way to put it? No, they include it, Ben. It's included in our calcs. So, yes, it's included. Okay. Thank you very much.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Sean Stewart with TDTown. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Question, follow-up question on Europe. Sounds like you have some visibility that things are going to get better gradually there. Wondering if The slump, though, that we've seen over the last three quarters, and presuming that's representative of what's going on across the industry in that part of Europe, has that changed the M&A opportunity set at all? Have more opportunities come to the fore? And is your ambition there at all tempered by what you've seen over the last few quarters?

Hi, Sean. It's Susan. Yeah, you know, we still really like and believe in Sweden. And, of course, we did make the acquisition of the three additional Hedin Mills last year, closed, I think, in September. And those are really good additions to our portfolio and also move us into Sweden. sort of middle Sweden, and we have a concentration of assets in southern Sweden, and this sort of takes us into a different region, less populated, I would say, with sawmills, so we still like that. We have seen our log costs moderate, and I think, you know, the industry there is taking maybe, in total, is taking a bit of a more disciplined approach to the purchase of fiber, so we see that coming we see those prices moderating. It's going to take some time, but we do see that coming back in line. And we still do like that market or that jurisdiction because there's just so many, you know, they've got a lot of market opportunities there. I don't know if Kevin may want to add a couple of comments, but we do have a lot of options for our products. We have a lot of different markets and a lot of opportunities to be able to reach a lot of different customers. I don't know, Kevin, if you want to add anything else. No, that's good, too.

Yeah. And the ambition would be strictly to Sweden still or broader Scandinavian interests?

Yeah, we continue to look at, you know, variety. We look at surrounding areas. We're continuing to evaluate opportunities. We like having the diversified portfolio where we've got assets in Canada and also in the U.S. and now in Europe, and we like that mix for us. So we'll, you know, we'll continue to evaluate things as we move forward.

Okay. One other one, Susan, on the trade file. I know you're close to it. Any perspective on lumber potentially being brought into the broader USMCA renegotiation? Any perspective on that front?

Yeah. So just, you know, The USMCA or KUSMA, it's not a renegotiation, it's a review. It's a 16-year agreement and we are in year six. And so this is a review of that agreement. So I know that lumber is definitely in the mix in these discussions. It's going to be, you know, it's a complicated environment to have those discussions. And so I know certainly it is one of the top issues that the government continues to raise from Canada's perspective. But it is going to take some time. I know there's a focus on not only the duties that we are paying, that we are familiar with paying, but also the 232 tariffs, which of that, of course, 10% to burden to our business and also picked up other industries. But, you know, it's going to take some time. I don't see anything imminent, but, of course, discussions are continuing on both sides of the border, and there will be a formal process that kicks off here. Well, you know, it's underway now, but the formal portion of those discussions will kick off this summer.

Okay. Thanks for that perspective. That's all I have for now.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Matthew McCullough with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. To maybe stick with trade for a moment, the preliminary AR7 results would suggest your duty rate could step significantly lower later this year with a tighter spread to the all others rate compared to today. What should we understand about what that step lower means for your business and I guess how you run your Canadian business in particular and market your lumber? Thanks.

Well, obviously, the duty is coming down. You know, our perspective, the duty shouldn't be there in the first place, but coming down is a good thing for our business, obviously. you know, at 56, 57%, it's very challenging to operate our Canadian business. We've done a really good job of focusing on alternate markets. But of course, the U.S. is still a very big market for our product. They need our product. They want our product. And so we are still selling some there. And of course, having the fees come down by 16-ish percent is going to be helpful to our Canadian business, for sure. And then, of course, As we move forward, we expect that duty rate to come down even further. So, you know, that's a good thing for our business. We are at the peak. It's been a very challenging time to operate, but we are making our way through it, and we do see a light at the end of the tunnel here.

Great. Thanks very much. Maybe next, just in North American lumber, you talked about an expectation that prices may soften as supply increases with the – run of better lumber prices we've seen. I guess we've seen Southern Yellow Pine come into some pressure over the last couple of weeks, but could you speak to the supply response that you're seeing so far at an industry level and maybe what that has looked like to this point after a pretty healthy run for Southern Yellow Pine? Thanks.

Hey, Matthew. It's Stephen here. Maybe I'll start, and then I can let Kevin talk a little bit about the market more broadly from a price perspective. I think on the supply side, it's really difficult for us to sort of comment on what others are doing or may be doing. We do still believe that the operating rates across the U.S. are lower than historical norms generally for the industry. However, within our own industry, which is really all we can comment on. You know that we have made a lot of challenging decisions over the last number of years to rationalize higher cost capacity across our operating platform and optimize our portfolio of assets, make investments in additional low-cost capacity into our focuses. What we've been working to do is maximize utilization rates across our fleet, and that was true in Q1 and will be true going forward. I think there's probably some waiting capacity that we may have seen folks add a few hours and take advantage of a little bit higher pricing in Southern Pine. But, Kev, I don't know if you want to add anything. Yeah, no, just from the – Matthew, you nailed it there with the run-up in pricing from the lows that we saw in mid-December, a real rapid increase in pricing. And what really was the big catalyst, of course, was extremely low customer inventories in the field. Coupled with a demand response that we hadn't seen in a while, like a fairly strong Q1 demand, supported by the housing start numbers that we've recently seen. And then going into Q2, we do typically see a seasonal downdrop in pricing. And of course, we're starting to see some cracks happen in that space there. And so I think what house builders and our customers are guiding to us to is just a bit more moderated demand, given the uncertainty that we're seeing.

Great. If I could maybe just sneak one last one in. Is there any differences we should understand about the implications of the Iran war as it relates to cost pressures or maybe even demand implications that would be different between your North American and European operations? Is there any difference to call out between the two segments?

Well, I mean... You know, there's a lot of cost pressures in all parts of our business, and certainly, you know, we've had uncertainty in sort of because of tariff on, tariff off, and a lot of volatility in the decisions coming out of the U.S. Of course, the Iran conflict adds additional uncertainty in the globe, and sort of that is good. That's certainly... having an impact, it's kind of hard to estimate what that would be and what the split would be between our European operations and our North American operations. But again, as Steven mentioned, the focus for us is really just running as efficiently as we possibly can. I don't know, Steven, if you want to add anything. No, I think that's good, Susan.

Great. Thanks for all the help. I'll turn it back.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Hamir Patel with CIBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning.

Pat, you referenced CapEx this year of 210 million stepping down in 27. How should we think about just how steep that decline could be in 27, and would that sort of be a new normal? Yeah, thanks, Amir. Yeah, obviously the 27 capital plan is not finalized yet, but in terms of guidance, I think you're around in that 150 plus level. So, you know, kind of another 20 to 25% lower than where we are today. Okay, great. And I guess a question for Susan, you know, now that you've taken in Canfor Pulp, how do you think about some of those sort of longer strategic decisions that you might need to do to right-size that pulp platform and, you know, where sort of maybe mid-cycle production for camphor pulp likely settles.

Yeah. Thanks, Amir. Good morning. Of course, you know, we've just concluded that in March. I guess it was about March 17th. We're obviously doing that work right now. We're looking at all the options for that business. Certainly, it's a challenging business, and that's the work that we're doing right now.

Fair enough. So, I'll turn it over. Thanks.

Thanks, Mayor.

At this time, I'm not showing any further questions. I'd like to turn the call back to Susan for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, Susan.

Thanks very much for joining us. We'll see you all next quarter.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's presentation. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.