This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.
spk04: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the KP Tissue 4th Quarter 2020 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. If anyone has difficulties hearing the conference, please press star followed by zero for operator assistance at any time. Before turning the meeting over to management, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference is being recorded on Thursday, March 11, 2021. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Mike Baldessara, Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk05: Thank you, Operator, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mike Baldessara. I'm the Director of Investor Relations at KP Tissue Inc. The purpose of this conference call is to review the financial results of the fourth quarter of 2020 for Kruger Products LP, which I'll refer to as KPLP going forward. With me this morning is Dino Bianco, the Chief Executive Officer of KP Tissue and Kruger Products LP, and Mark Holbrook, the Chief Financial Officer of KP Tissue and Kruger Products LP. The following discussions and responses to questions contain forward-looking statements concerning the company's activities. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. The company does not undertake to update these forward-looking statements except if required by applicable laws. There is a page at the beginning of the written presentation which contains the usual legal cautions, including as to forward-looking information, which you should be aware of. I'd like to point out that today all the figures expressed in today's call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. The press release of reporting our Q4 2020 results was published this morning and will be accessible from our website at kptissueinc.com. Please be aware that our MD&A will be posted on our website and will also be available on CVAR. Finally, I would ask that you during the call to refer to the presentation we prepared to accompany these discussions, which is also available on our website. We would appreciate also that during the Q&A for you to limit your questions to two. Thank you for your collaboration. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll now turn the call over to Dino Bianco, our CEO. Dino?
spk01: Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on today's call. One year ago today, the world changed for all of us in ways none of us could have imagined. We have all had our lives disrupted, and the impact of businesses and the economy has been great. I trust everyone has remained safe and looking forward to moving quickly to a better time. The pandemic has had a significant impact to how we work, how we connect, and the performance of our business. We have been fortunate at Kruger Products to be a leader in a category that people need with brands they want, and our business has performed well while our people remain safe and motivated to build our business. 2020 brought more than its share of challenges along with unprecedented market conditions, which our team tackled with dedication and determination. Given this unprecedented year, I am very pleased on how our company responded and the results we delivered. Strong demand across all our consumer product categories combined with operational excellence translated into record high adjusted EBITDA. This solid performance was achieved despite the fact that away from home remained under pressure from the impact of COVID-19. Throughout the year, our execution and ability to supply customers in times of high and volatile demand were clearly enhanced by the benefits of our OpEx program. Combined with continued investments and innovation in our brands, these led to strong market share gains over the previous year. In response to COVID-19, we implemented and maintained a comprehensive program to keep our people safe and avoid major disruptions to our business. This was only possible thanks to the dedication of more than 2,700 employees across North America who displayed care and professionalism in keeping each other safe and making sure that we supply tissue products to our customers and consumers. Today, I want to personally thank you for your hard work and passion for our business. Now for a review of the numbers, starting with the year. Excluding the divested Mexico business, year-over-year revenue increased by 11.7% to reach $1.5 billion. Adjusted EBITDA was up 36.4% to $197.8 million. By geography, Canadian sales increased by 8.9%, while U.S. sales grew by 16.2%. We are quite happy with these results, especially when you consider all the reinvestments we made in our business for the future. In the fourth quarter, revenue increased by 10.6% to $385 million. Volumes remained strong in the Canadian and U.S. consumer segment, while AFH remained under pressure. By geography, Canadian sales increased by 9.9%, while U.S. sales grew by 11.8%. Adjusted EBITDA was $36.2 million, a decrease of 21.3% over last year. These results reflect our decision to reinvest in our business with a greater commitment to marketing, startup costs at Tad Sherbrooke, more outsourcing, and a one-time bonus to all our hourly workers. Moving on to market pulp prices, Q4 NBSK and eucalyptus prices in Canadian dollars remained relatively stable year over year. On a sequential basis, the declines were 1.7% and 1.8% respectively. In U.S. dollars, NBSK prices increased slightly while eucalyptus prices remained relatively stable when compared to Q3. As indicated last quarter, we did expect NBSK and BEK prices to increase moving into 2021, but certainly not as much as we saw in the past few months. Given this unprecedented increase, we are looking at all options to offset these costs, including potentially pricing. For the remainder of 2021, we fully expect the upward trend in pulp prices to continue. With regards to our COVID-19 safety protocols, we remain highly focused on employee safety and business continuity. To date, we've suffered no major disruptions to our business or supply chains, allowing us to maximize our production and distribution. As we continue to manage the pandemic's impact, we are also preparing for a post-pandemic recovery. we want to continue to carry forward some of the benefits brought to our business by COVID, such as having fewer SKUs, increased brand distribution, new advertising direction, and increased focus on e-commerce. We believe that post-pandemic consumer behaviors, such as working from home, increased focus on hygiene, and a greater shift to e-commerce will benefit consumer tissue. The past few quarters has showcased the high level of consumer trust in our brands, a fact that has helped us reinforce our leadership position in these uncertain times. We remain committed to continue to invest to support our brands for the future. Finally, in recognition of our employees who had to work differently during COVID-19 while meeting unprecedented increased tissue demand, we chose to pay a one-time bonus of $1,000 to all our hourly workers across North America in December. Let me give you a quick update now on Tad Sherbrooke. Despite the COVID-19 protocols and challenges, we were able to start up our facility on time and on budget. Our team there has done an amazing job, and we thank them for their hard work and success. As a result, our converting lines and paper machine are now tracking ahead of our projected ramp-up curves. As expected, during the fourth quarter, we incurred $4.5 million in startup costs, and additional amounts are expected in Q1 2021. What's more, we're starting our Tad Sherbrooke facility as an OpEx and AI-ready greenfield. At maturity, this Tad tissue machine will increase our annual output by approximately 70,000 metric tons of bathroom tissue and paper towels for the North American market. This new tissue capacity will allow us to build our presence in the premium tissue segment. To further support our long-term growth strategy, a few weeks ago we announced the $240 million investment in Sherbrooke. This new project calls for the addition of a bathroom paper towel tissue converting line at the existing facility and the construction of a new facility to have an LDC tissue machine as well as a facial tissue converting line. Construction will start in the summer of 2022, and the LDC machine is expected to start up in 2024. The bathroom tissue and facial lines will be commissioned in 2022 and 2023 respectfully. The project is being financed with debt and is non-dilutive. At maturity, the annual tissue output will exceed 30,000 metric tons. With this new investment, Sherbrooke will become a major tissue production hub that will work with our existing facilities to reach our North American markets. The new investment will provide us with greater product flexibility in both conventional and premium products. Let me now turn to our OpEx program. I'm pleased to say that we completed the initial two-year phase of our OpEx program ahead of our annual cost savings targets. The program also made it possible to drive more capacity and asset reliability. As previously mentioned, this program was instrumental in helping us to more effectively address the strong market demand and volatility caused by the pandemic. As we completed the first phase, our OpEx program has matured with measurable progress at all sites. We remain focused on investing more in enhanced maintenance to drive stronger and more reliable asset performance. Moving into 2021 and the future, the program will be expanded to include other assets and focus on reducing waste. Among the longer term benefits and most important aspects, this program fosters a cultural shift with a higher level of employee engagement and empowerment to drive operational excellence. Moving to our trademarks, we continue to focus on investing to build our brand and that's reflected in our financial results. As planned, we carried out more marketing investments in the second half of 2020 as we shifted spending from the first half. Spending in Q4 exceeded Q3, 2020 full year spending exceeded 2019, and 2021 spending is projected to increase versus 2020. Our unapologetically human media campaign employing purpose-driven messaging was a bold move and a huge success with consumers from coast to coast. The campaign marked a strong departure from typical and traditional tissue campaigns. We were able to run this advertising for English, French, South Asian, and Chinese consumers. We strongly believe in the power of multicultural marketing, which allows our brands to better resonate and connect emotionally with the evolving demographics of Canadian consumers. Canada wouldn't be Canada without hockey. We fully recognize that the past year has been challenging financially for many Canadian families, especially when it comes to the cost of keeping their children involved in minor hockey. As the official tissue partner of the NHL, we launched the Big Assist program with the objective of donating over $100,000 to families in need in order to help them offset hockey registration fees. As a Canadian company and true hockey fans, we felt compelled to assist Canadian hockey families during this difficult time. We are also very excited to announce that we improved the quality of our cashmere bathroom tissue to make it even softer. This new product launched in Q4 with full marketing support and is now in full distribution. Throughout 2020, we saw our White Cloud brand gain strength in the U.S. thanks to expanded distribution and new listings. To further support our brand, for the first time ever, we provided TV support with our unapologetically human campaign adapted for the U.S. market. The data presented on slides 13 and 14 is from Nielsen. It shows dollar market share and represents the 52-week period ending December 26, 2020. We delivered strong market share growth that actually began in late 2019. These gains were driven by an improving supply position, strong customer partnerships, and continued strong marketing support. Our cashmere and Purex brands are undisputed market leaders and end of 2020 with a combined share of 36.9%, up from 33.2% the previous year. Our market leading share in facial tissue remains stable at 31.5%. Our Scotties is the clear number one with the brand being synonymous with facial tissue for many Canadian consumers. We see significant growth potential in the paper towel category and made good share progress in 2020 with a 21.8 share. With tax share book gradually coming on stream, adding incremental premium paper towel capacity, we are strongly excited about the opportunity to grow in 2021. Finally, COVID-driven demand has presented us with the opportunity to further expand our distribution and sales of white cloud in the U.S., Clearly, we want to build on the 2020 sales momentum by making strong marketplace investments where we have distribution. We are working to build the brand for today and for the future. The away-from-home category continued to be challenged in Q4 given COVID-19 safety protocols. We continue to prepare the business for improved market conditions. We have implemented OpEx in away from home. We have modified our product and customer offering to take advantage of consumer-like markets. And we have implemented temporary layoffs in response software volumes where necessary. At this stage, future success of AFH depends on recovery of end markets. On a sequential basis, AFH reported a smaller EBITDA loss on slightly higher sales. We continue to buy more paper from the market for AFH as strong sales in our consumer business absorb most of our internal paper capacity. COVID-19 restrictions will continue to significantly impact sales volume in the near term. We continue to do the right things in AFH and now have a recovery plan for an expected back half turnaround in this sector. With that, I will now turn the call over to Mark who will review our quarterly results.
spk03: Thank you, Dino, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'll now ask you to turn to slide 16, which reviews our financial performance for the fourth quarter. Revenue was up 10.6% to $385 million in the fourth quarter, compared to $348.1 million for the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA decreased by $9.8 million to $36.4 million. and decreased sequentially by 10 million from 46.2 million in Q3 of 2020. From a margin perspective, adjusted EBITDA decreased to 9.4 percent from 13.2 percent last year and decreased from 12.5 percent in Q3 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2020, we recorded a net loss of 28.5 million compared to a net loss of 6.1 million last year. Increase was primarily due to lower adjusted EBITDA, a higher loss on the change in the amortized cost of the partnership unit's liability, and an impairment charge on AFH Goodwill of $8.9 million, partially offset by a foreign exchange gain. In the quarterly second to reach $333.2 million. In the away from home segment, revenue declined by 17.2% to $51.8 million. On a sequential basis, AFH revenue increased by 5.2% over Q3. Consumer segment adjusted EBITDA decreased by $3.2 million to $44.2 million and adjusted EBITDA margin decreased from 16.6% to 13.3%. For the away-from-home segment, adjusted EBITDA decreased by 1.3 million to a loss of 2.4 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin stood at negative 4.6% versus negative 1.8% for the previous year. Corporate and other costs were a loss of 5.6 million in Q3, of $0.3 million for the prior year, an increase of $5.3 million, resulting primarily from the $4.5 million of startup costs related to Tadge Sherbrooke. On slide 18, we review Q4 2020 revenue over Q4 2019, which was up by $36.9 million, or 10.6%. The increase was primarily attributable to strong volume increases in Canada and the U.S., primarily related to COVID-19 wave 2 demand. This was partially offset by lower AFH revenue, along with consumer U.S. selling prices that are contractually tied to U.S. pulp prices, moderating lower. Also, the impact of FX was unfavorable on U.S. sales. By geography, Canadian sales increased by 22 million, or 9.9 percent, and in the U.S., sales increased by 14.9 million, or 11.8 percent. Overall, it was a strong sales order for all of North America driven by the consumer business. On slide 19, we provide further insight into our Q4 2020 adjusted EBITDA, which decreased year over year by 9.8 million, Gross margin for the quarter also decreased from 15.5% to 13.7%. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA was driven by the combination of several factors. Additional manufacturing overhead costs related to COVID-19, including a one-time hourly workforce bonus, Tad Sherbrooke startup costs, lower AFH sales, higher freight and outsourcing costs, increased investment in marketing to support our brands, and higher SG&A costs. These elements were partially offset by higher consumer sales volume, slightly lower pulp costs, and the benefits of our operational excellence program. For a sequential perspective, let's turn to slide 20, where we compare Q4 2020 to Q3 2020 revenue. Quarter-over-quarter revenues increased by 15.9 million, or 4.3%. Both the consumer and away-from-home businesses in Canada drove this increase, while the U.S. consumer business was impacted by lower selling prices, contractually tied to pulp prices, and unfavorable FX. By geography, revenue in Canada or 3.4%. On slide 21, Q4 adjusted EBITDA decreased sequentially by 10 million or 21.7% compared to Q3, and gross margin declined from 16.6% to 13.7%. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to four items, increased investment in marketing, higher freight and warehousing costs, the one-time bonus previously discussed, and Tad Sherbrooke startup costs. I'll now turn to our balance sheet and financial position on slide 22. Our cash position was $128.7 million at the end of Q4 2020, an increase of $11.2 million from $117.5 million at the end of Q3. The cash position includes $32.3 million in the Tad Sherbrooke entity at the end of Q4. Not including that amount, at year-end, total liquidity was up to $316.8 million, representing cash and cash equivalents and availability under the senior credit facility within the covenant limitations. Overall net debt at quarter-end stood at $624.7 million, to EBITDA ratio increased slightly to 3.2 times. I will conclude my section by reviewing the CapEx on slide 23. 2020 CapEx totaled $310.6 million, including $274 million for Tad Sherbrooke. At quarter end, accrued and unpaid capital spending on the new facility stood at $47 million. Looking at the full year 2021, we expect regular CAPEX, including the new Sherbrooke expansion project we just announced, to be in the $45 million to $65 million range, while the CAD-Sherbrooke CAPEX is expected to total approximately $115 million once all project payments are completed. Total CAPEX for 2021 fiscal year is expected to be in the range from $160 million to $180 million. Thank you for your attention, and I'll now turn the call back over to Dino. Thank you, Mark.
spk01: Let me go to slide 24, which demonstrates our sustainability efforts. Sustainability is at the core of our company, and we have made significant progress over the past decade. All our efforts targeted a balancing of the three Ps, people, planet, and profit. In 2010, we launched our initial five-year sustainability development program, followed by a second five-year plan, which culminated in 2020. We've delivered on the four ambitious objectives we set for ourselves, reducing energy consumption, reducing water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as improving employee health and safety. Over the next few months, we'll be launching a new and more comprehensive sustainability program, which will build on the progress made over the past decade. Turning to slide 25, our plan is to build a strong future, and this requires continuous reinvestments in our brands and business, along with very initiatives to drive consumer revenue growth. This is further exemplified in our recently announced Sherbrooke expansion project. We are investing in our strong brands to build our market share leadership in Canada, while making a strong push to expand our white cloud brand in the U.S., As I mentioned a few minutes ago, Tad Sherbrooke is moving to a ramp-up and commercial phase, and the focus now is to deliver against our product and customer plans. The additional ultra-premium tissue capacity is fully committed and supported by a sales pipeline of new and existing customers in North America. We completed the first phase of our OpEx program with great success, delivering cost savings, capacity, and asset reliability. We enter the next phase of this program with new objectives and a sustainable cultural shift. While AFH faces near-term challenges, we've done all the right things to prepare for the recovery of end-user markets. We continue to develop our organizational capability, which is rooted in strong, passionate, and inclusive results-driven culture. Ensuring future growth by exceeding consumer and retailer needs with quality products is our top priority. For our shareholders, we are fully committed to reinvesting in the business to deliver strong, sustained results. In terms of our outlook for Q1, demand for our consumer products is expected to remain strong, but will be tempered by the impact of consumers and customers reducing tissue inventories given the stable tissue supply and continued lockdowns. The AFH segment will continue to see suppressed demand due to COVID-19 restrictions. Given these dynamics and increased investments in marketing, higher pulp costs, and Tad Sherbrooke startup costs, adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the same range of Q4 2020. Finally, I would like to praise our 2,700 employees for their amazing work over the past year. Their passion and dedication helped our business deliver strong results during a period of high demand and high uncertainty. A special thank you to our Tad Sherbrooke team and partners who delivered a state-of-the-art facility on time and on budget during this pandemic. I also wish to reiterate my sincere thanks to our operations, distribution, and customer-facing teams who are focused on delivering changing retailer needs across North America. Our people and our culture are a true differentiator for products. We will now be happy to take your questions.
spk04: At this time, I'd like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. And we'll pause for just a moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question is coming from the line of Hemar Patel from CIBC Capital Markets. Go ahead, please. Your line is open.
spk07: Hi, good morning. You know... In this slide, it mentioned that some of the Q4 sales in U.S. consumer were affected by selling prices falling for business that's contractually tied to U.S. pulp prices. How much of your consumer business in North America has those sort of formal pulp indexing in the contracts?
spk01: Yeah, that is mainly a U.S. comment, and it ranges from 40% to 60% of our business in the U.S. It's tied to pulp contracts.
spk07: And, you know, I guess, you know, I'm just curious your thoughts on how you're going to address the steep escalation in pulp costs. Have you started to do some desheeting, and have you seen any producers come out with price hikes?
spk01: Yeah, I mean, that's an obvious question, Amir. It's been unprecedented. I think any one of us who have been around this industry for a while, it is the degree and the speed of which pulp prices have moved has been unprecedented. And obviously, as a huge input cost for us, that has a large impact. The good news is we got on this early. A couple of things. I mean, we started extending our pulp coverage because of COVID, but also to make sure that we had security over our input costs, our input supply. So we started extending coverage on our business. We are looking at all things. I think probably the big three are potential for desheeting in some areas, productivity and looking at where we can cut waste or maybe even cut low-performing SKUs, low-profitable SKUs, and then of course pricing. When you've got this kind of movement on the business, You have to look at all elements, and we are doing that, and we'll keep watching where this market goes. But I think all indications are that it may retreat a bit in the back half, but we'll likely stay high this year. So we will be ready to initiate action as soon as we get more clarity.
spk07: That's helpful. And, Dino, could you just remind us your mix of softwood pulp versus hardwood pulp and how much of sort of office papers you buy as well?
spk01: Yeah, I won't give you a precise number. I think, you know, I'm going to be hesitant because some of that is competitive. I mean, we're probably in the 60-40 range, depends on the product, of course. As you can imagine, towel and bath are different. And as we think about the future, where towel is going, and particularly with TAD. So, you know, I would say we're not overly invested in one area or the other. And we do have the benefit of recovered recycled fiber, as you mentioned. Much of that is recycled. used in our away-from-home business, which unfortunately this year the volume is down. But we do have that option. At the end of the day, though, I want to be very clear. At the end of the day, we produce quality products, whether it's our own brand or for our customers. And, you know, we will not take action that will, you know, substitute fiber that could lead to a quality deterioration. That is not action we will take. So we need to balance anything we do on the fiber bundle with making sure that we deliver against the quality specs of our products that we produce.
spk07: Makes sense. That's all I had. Thanks, Daniel.
spk04: Our next question comes from the line of Sean Stewart with TD Securities. Go ahead, please. Your line is open.
spk10: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Dino, with respect to the Tad Sherbrooke startup costs, should we read it as they'll continue at the same level into the first quarter and that'll be it, and you wouldn't expect any further expenses post Q1?
spk01: Well, I'm going to turn it over to Mark in a second. I think the answer is you will see some of that, and I'll let Mark talk about it. But I'm very pleased with the speed of our startup. and how we're getting ahead of the curve. You know, you never know when you're doing these massive startups, particularly during a pandemic. And as I said, the team has done an incredible job. You think about the number of construction workers, suppliers, partners coming from other parts of the world to help us. And we did it, you know, safely. And we did it, I say on time and on budget. In fact, I could actually say it's ahead of time and ahead of budget. So our startup cost, and you were going to be there in Q4. We do have some in Q1. Maybe I'll let Mark take that question.
spk03: Good morning, Sean. Yes, we are expecting that the Tad Shurbrick startup costs would continue in Q1. We've had a good startup already. Certainly not quite as high as we saw in the $4.5 million that we had in Q4 2020. And then we'd see a good ramp up starting in Q2, working through Q3, and higher again in Q4.
spk10: Thanks for that. With respect to the Sherbrooke expansion, can you give us some context for the paper machine, why LDC versus TAD, and any context on how the returns for this CapEx would compare to your TAD initiatives to this point?
spk01: Yeah, why don't I start with the strategic reasons behind it. I think we've always had on the radar that we, you know, after Tattoo, there needs to be continued investment to continue to grow. I think COVID and what we anticipate will be sustained growth in the consumer tissue segment driven by more people staying at home and more focus on hygiene. I think accelerated our focus and need to put more assets earlier than we maybe were projecting. Tad Sherbrooke made lots of sense because we already have the Tad facility. And by adding a paper machine, and we are, you know, we're looking at LDC, as you mentioned. Most of the market continues to be LDC. In Canada, I'd say about 80% of the bathroom tissue is LDC. So even though, you know, it's a very good quality product and most of what this market is, By adding LDC, that gives us the greatest flexibility because we now have TAD on the premium end, we have LDC, and that gives us the option to produce a wider range of products in the market. Quite frankly, it allows us to deal with some of the outsourcing that we've had to do on paper in the mainstream area around LDC paper. It has many benefits for us, and of course, adding a facial line and another winder or VTPT line will then also give us the expanded network capacity around converting for premium and mainstream products. On the return side, maybe I'll let Mark talk a little bit about that. We won't disclose the returns, but maybe just talk a little bit about how we view this in our financials.
spk03: Typically, as you said, we don't provide specific returns, but we do have a good synergy related to using the existing Tad Sherbrooke site with the high demand and the variety of products that we're making and the financing, obviously, that we're in progress to finalize with Investment Quebec, which is excellent financing. requires strictly debt, so we're not affecting our shareholder base at all in that sense. So we look at that project as higher or higher in terms of returns as we would be receiving on our other major projects.
spk09: Okay. Thanks for that, Mark. That's all I have for now. Thanks, guys.
spk04: Thank you. And again, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Zachary Evershed with National Bank Financial. Go ahead, please. Your line is open.
spk06: Thank you. Good morning. It's actually Thomas calling in for Zach. All my questions have been answered, so maybe just one follow-up on the startup curve. Are you able to quantify how much ahead you are?
spk01: Not yet. I think we had a startup curve which we modeled after our TAD1 startup in Memphis, plus what we were seeing or hearing in the marketplace for other competitors. We had, I would say, a reasonable startup curve plan. There's two things that happened. I won't give you a number, but two things that happened. One is we started up earlier, so we were producing product earlier. Two, what we were producing earlier was we were producing faster, more of than we had expected once we did start. So we're getting the benefit of time, and we're getting the benefit of virtually a vertical startup. And I think, you know, that doesn't just happen, as you know. You've seen lots of startups, and some of them have succeeded, some have failed. You probably have never seen one during a pandemic, though. And the reason I would say that we have done well is because of our institutional knowledge, our learnings from Memphis, We had a strong team of people that were involved in the Memphis startup, strong people from the industry that helped us really to just, you know, the quote, it takes a village to start up a TAG facility, and we had a very strong village of retired people, people that have worked in different parts of our business that came on board to really make sure we were going to beat the numbers. So now the challenge is... just making sure that we get the sales curve speeded up as well, because we had planned a certain sales curve based on a capacity curve. And now that that's advanced, we want to move quicker. So that's what we're mobilizing right now.
spk06: All right. That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
spk04: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Quinn with RBC Capital Markets. Go ahead, please. Your line is open. Yeah, great.
spk02: Thanks so much. Morning, guys.
spk09: Morning, Paul.
spk02: Hey, just a higher-level question on Tad Sherbrooke. What can we expect in contribution in 21, and how does that ramp up in 22 as well?
spk01: Well, we don't normally quote profitability out of our assets or assets. Paul, so I think we said to you, you know, when you look at the output of that asset, it would probably be similar to what we had on TAD1. The ramp-up curve will be faster, but in terms of where it maximizes its level. The other piece we've always talked about is the benefit that TAD2 and Sherbrooke will have on TAD1 in Memphis. TAD1 on Memphis was being relied on to do a lot, and it was, you know, we were swinging that machine a lot more than we should have. If we had maintenance downtime, we couldn't offset it. Now we've got two in the system and we can use them complementary and produce the right products in the right location and maybe extend some runs so we're not swinging the machine as much and we'll get a collateral benefit in our whole network. Obviously Memphis, but also some of our other assets in Crabtree and Gatineau and Lenoxville, et cetera. I'm going to answer your question without giving you a direct number, which is similar number delivery to TAD1, faster than TAD1, and collateral benefits to the whole network.
spk02: All righty. And then just on working capital, that was a big benefit in 2020. Are we expecting that to reverse in 2021 here?
spk03: Paul, it's Mark here. Good morning. From a working capital perspective, obviously we had a significant impact on that due to COVID. We'll see that.
spk02: Okay. And then just lastly, just trying to offset this pulp cost pressure, should we expect you to be making some kind of announcement in the next quarter, or are you going to wait? You know, Dino, you said you're waiting until things clarify, but what's the timeframe on that?
spk01: Yeah, I mean... We want to move as soon as we can. These are common to market cost increases. I also want to say it isn't just pulp. We're seeing inflation on a lot of our inputs, whether it be energy, whether it be packaging. You're starting to see inflation. I think it's common. It's an expectation across most industries. Obviously, pulp being the big one for us. There are some predictions, Paul, that it may come down in the back half. I don't know. There's lots of fundamentals at play here from unplanned downtime to the Chinese economy moving faster. So we're in a bit of wait and see. I don't want to give you a specific date. I think if we're going to do, you know, we're starting to do some stuff already that's more invisible to the market around productivity initiatives. And I think if we're going to take action in the market, my guess is it's going to have to be during the second quarter in order to be able to provide an offset in 2021.
spk02: All right. That's all I had.
spk04: Thanks very much. Thank you. Thanks, Paul. Our next question comes from the line of Frederic Tremblay with Desjardins. Go ahead, please. Your line is open.
spk08: Good morning.
spk04: Good morning.
spk08: I have a question on the consumer segment. Just wondering what your thoughts are in terms of the volume going forward there. There's obviously a very tough comparable situation from the 2020 surge in demand, including late Q1 and Q2. But then you also have your Thatcher book ramping up. So just wanted maybe to get your general thoughts on how we should think about, you know, the evolution of consumer volume as we progress throughout 2021.
spk01: Yeah, you know, it's a very interesting look at our business because there's so many dynamics. Let me start with the base business. Again, I won't give you numbers, but I'll just give you what we're dealing with. You had, in 2020, a pantry load, which created a sudden spike in sales because of inventory being moved to consumers' homes. So you had that, and it's working its way through. You had, obviously, increased stay at home and people not traveling and not working in the office. So that had a major impact. And as we look at 2021, we don't think the spike piece will be there. People are more stable with the market and comfortable with tissue supply. In fact, we're probably expecting a deload. You're probably going to see a reduction of stay-at-home through the year, but still higher than normal. So you've got that at play. You'll start to see an AFH recovery in the back half. And then you overlay for us, you overlay Tad Sherbrooke. So we continue to see, despite all those moving pieces, that our volume is going to be strong, a lot of it driven by Tad coming on board in 2021 as we look at the dynamics that are at play. I would also say, and I mentioned in my prepared remarks, things like stay-at-home behavior, And increased hygiene, whether it be personal hygiene or surface hygiene, will continue post-pandemic. And we think this is going to be a structural shift in how people use tissue going forward. And that was related to my discussion around wanting to bring Sherbrooke on faster, the additional investment, to make sure we're able to meet that increased demand in the future.
spk08: Makes sense. Thank you very much.
spk04: Thanks, Frederick. Our next question comes from the line of Zachary Evershed from National Bank Financial. Go ahead, please. Your line is open. Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
spk00: Hi, Doc. So, could you speak to the interplay between the increased advertising spend as a potential defensive measure for your market share if you do end up increasing prices later this year?
spk01: Yeah, I, you know, I've been in the consumer business for over 30 years. I mean, I look at marketing generally as a long-term investment. You know, certainly it has some short-term benefits, particularly when you're communicating news or a promotion. But generally, it's long-term equity building of your brands where you see the benefit in years in the future. I mean, the reason why Cashmere is so strong today is because of all the advertising we did five, ten years ago. So we will continue to take an approach of investing to build our brands. We have the added innovation that's going to come out of Sherbrooke with TAD, particularly in paper towel, where we're going to ramp up our investment. I talked about our quality improvement in cashmere to be a better, softer product. We're going to invest in that. So you will continue to see increased investment in our business to support our brands. If we have to tweak it because of the marketplace dynamics on a short-term basis, we'll be prepared to do that, but it would not be a drastic solve for an escalating pulp cost, if you will. We'll make just smart decisions as we do in other things around productivity as it relates to marketing spend.
spk07: Great answer. Thanks. I'll turn it over.
spk04: And there are no further questions in queue at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Dino Bianco for some closing remarks.
spk01: Great. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on the conference call this morning. We look forward to speaking with you again following the release of our first quarter results. In the meantime, stay safe, stay healthy. Thank you. Have a great day.
spk04: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer