Holmen AB (publ) (HOLMB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome everybody to the Interim Report Presentation for the Holmen Group for the First Quarter of 2020. My name is Henrik Sjölund, and together with me, I have also Mr. Anders Jernhall, and we will go through the presentation for our company. And once we've finalized the presentation, we're happy to take any questions you might have. If we start with a very short summary, looking at our operating profit in the first quarter, we come out with SEK 628 million, which is actually rather good result given the circumstances with COVID-19, et cetera. We can say from the beginning that the coronavirus has had very limited impact on our business and our results in the first quarter. We'll come back to some comments regarding the different business areas later on. In a historic perspective, as you can see, the result is good. Also, the margins are stable and on a fair level. And if we then have a look at the situation, given -- looking at our cash flow in the company, it has been also rather good in the first quarter and also on a stable level compared to the previous quarters. We have a very good financial position. 75% of our balance sheet consists of forest. And then, despite a very strong and good position we have when it comes to the finances, the Board of Directors, they have today decided to propose to the Annual General Meeting to not give dividend at the upcoming Annual General Meeting in June. However, we will see what we see when we come through the summer and after the summer, if we find it appropriate to give dividend or to propose that, we will come back a bit later. Starting off then with our forest activities, and especially looking at the wood market. The situation, as it is right now, is that there's quite good availability of wood actually. And of course, also, the forest is impacted a bit or the activity in the forest is impacted a bit of the coronavirus. And with lower economic activity and lower activity in the industry, there is more wood available, both pulpwood and timber, and that has given a bit price pressure, which Anders will come back to. Overall, though, if you look at -- this is a short term effect, long term, still, the Swedish industry consumes a lot more pulpwood and actually what can be sustainable harvest. Our own harvesting levels in the first quarter, they were on a normal level. Going forward, if needed, and if we will need to go for slightly lower levels, the next coming quarters, for us, that's not a big problem as we just leave some trees to grow for a bit longer and become more valuable. Anders, what about the financials and the forest?

Yes. It's a pretty normal quarter in Q1, SEK 322 million in operating profit. As Henrik mentioned, prices are lower. And as you saw from the graph, it's roughly 5% lower selling prices than a year ago. What we see this quarter is that we have an effect of the new accounting principle for forest, which have positively contributed to the result by SEK 40 million. And that do explain the increase in earnings compared to the previous quarter. Back to you, Henrik.

Thank you. Then moving on to paperboard. If we look at the market, we have a situation where actually demand is not bad. If you look at the market development in Europe, the demand is roughly on the same level as last year, actually a little bit better, deliveries from European suppliers to European customers. And also when it comes to prices, prices are relatively stable. When it comes to demand, however, we see quite big differences between different customer segments. If you are in food, drinks, obviously, and pharma, demand is really good. If you are in graphics, it's a bit less good. Our own performance and our own situation is that we had really good deliveries in the first quarter, 147,000 tonnes is actually on a record level when it comes to deliveries in 1 quarter. Also, our order book is on a healthy level despite situation with the coronavirus we have. And that is thanks to good demand from some segments and a bit less good demand from other segments. If we look then at our financials, are we happy with what we have performed, not only the deliveries?

Financially, maybe that's not the top performance this quarter, SEK 163 million is better than a year ago. But you should recall that we had production issues a year ago that dampened the result. This quarter, as Henrik mentioned, saw very strong deliveries, but we also had somewhat higher costs connected to keep the production running at the high level, and also, solve some logistic issues. So the cost side was a bit on the high side this quarter. When comparing to Q4, you might recall that we had a bonus for renewable energy production that positively impacted the Q4 result. Looking ahead in Q4, we will have our annual maintenance stop at Iggesund Bruk, which is expected to take SEK 120 million toll on the Q4 result.

Thank you. A few words about paper. If you look at our paper business, we were in -- I would say, we were in a good shape at the end of last year before the corona struck us. The overall market, in general, we know that demand is declining a bit. And the situation we have right now with falling demand and also with societies actually closing down, of course, then it has an impact on demand, which is -- it's not easy to know exactly where it's going. It's actually quite impossible. There is some price pressure. And we have -- sorry, there is some price pressure in the market. When it comes to the first quarter, actually, our own performance was not bad at all. We had a good product mix. We delivered a good result. And quite happy about the way we were able to run the machines as we were more or less running full. However, during the latter part of the first quarter in March, we see that the order book is shrinking. And we will adjust our production capacity to the demand going forward in the second quarter. As I said, it's not easy to predict what's going to happen. At the end of the day, we are totally dependent on how markets, especially in Europe, are consuming, and whether they are opening up or not. Anders, financials in paper.

Yes, the operating profit was SEK 83 million in Q1, which is at quite a good level despite prices being lower both compared to Q4 and Q1 last year. We had good deliveries, as Henrik said, quite a good mix. And if you compare to first quarter last year, we actually do enjoy some lower wood prices in the paper division. It has had very limited impact on paperboard, the lower wood prices. But in paper, we recognize a positive impact. Comparing quarter to quarter 4, the good product mix and high delivery volumes were able to offset, to a very large extent, the price decline that we saw in Q1. Looking ahead, we have -- which is not the usual, we have a larger maintenance stop at the Braviken paper mill, where the mill will completely standstill for some major maintenance actions, and that is expected to impact the profit by SEK 50 million in Q2.

Thanks. Wood products. I would say the same as in paper, actually, when it comes to wood products. We were in a much better shape coming into the year than we were during most of 2019. And we also saw that prices were coming up a bit. And then the corona came. And where we are right now is, of course, a lot of uncertainty. There is a mixed or a split picture when it comes to the different markets. For example, in Sweden, we see that demand for wood products, especially do-it-yourself, is doing rather well. Some other segments, furniture, et cetera, is not doing that well. And if we go to other markets, like England is important for us, it's totally depending on how they are going to treat society, such if people are going to be allowed to consume in a different way than what we have right now. You have some other markets like Middle East, near Africa, it's okay. U.S. most probably slowing down. We know the situation in U.S., which is not easy. So very difficult to predict exactly what's going to happen when it comes to the wood products. We are producing at a quite normal level. We did that during the first quarter, but we will adapt our production during the summer period, during our own vacation period and take down the production a bit. It's not only demand that's difficult to predict, it's also actually supply, because right now, there is quite a lot of sawmills not running 100%. We're coming into a period where we had to take care of the spruce bark beetles down in Continental Europe. We will do that in the south of Sweden as well, but it have much less impact than the big potential spruce bark beetle problem that needs to be taken care of down there. Last year, you might remember that, that led to a lot of wood available and a lot of sawmills running full and find a lot of wood products, which had a negative effect on the prices in that year. So, so far, fairly okay for us, but very difficult to predict. Anders, in terms of money?

Yes. Not much money left at the end of the quarter, SEK 4 million in operating profit. It's quite a significant drop compared to a year ago, and that's completely due to lower selling prices. Compared to Q4, the profit bounced back slightly. Prices moved more or less sideways between the quarters, but we had higher deliveries and somewhat lower wood costs in this quarter. During the quarter, we also have finalized the investment in expansion for the Braviken sawmill, which will enable us to ramp up the production by 150,000 cubic meters. But that's, of course, on hold, the ramp-up, until market conditions improve. In the meantime, we will be able to take down costs slightly based on this investment.

Thank you. And finally, when it comes to our business areas, a few words about renewable energy. I think everybody is aware of the weather situation. We've had a mild winter, we had a lot of rain. And -- which meant that we produced a lot, but prices were quite low. Still, we came out with SEK 95 million, which is actually a rather good result when it comes to our Energy division given the weather situation. We'd also like to highlight that our investment in the wind farm, where we have said that we will invest SEK 1.3 billion, is ongoing, and still, the target is to have this commissioned by the end of next year. Then coming back to -- in the beginning, where I said, we have a very strong financial position. Anders, just a few more -- maybe more in detail when it comes to our debt and our maturity when it comes to our credit facilities.

Yes. Of course, when entering into a difficult situation, one thing you have to work with is to ensure that you have a very solid financial standing. We do have it. As Henrik mentioned, we have a good cash flow. The gearing is very low. If you compare to our asset base, it's below 10% compared to our balance sheet, which is dominated by forest. And if you measure it against cash flow, we have a very low debt level. Nevertheless, we have chosen to prolong our maturity structure during the first few months of this year at quite good terms. We were quite early out in extending the duration. We have essentially moved all the short-term maturities and replaced them with long-term bonds. And we have also extended the tenor of our committed facilities and added new committed facilities. So now we have SEK 5 billion in unused long-term credit facilities, SEK 4 billion is 5-year tenor and the SEK 1 billion is a 3-year tenor. So we are in a very strong liquidity position.

True, which is a good thing to have in these days. Finally, a few priorities going forward, and especially when it comes to how do we manage actually the COVID-19 effects, et cetera. We have, as I said before, we have no problem to adapt our own harvesting levels, if needed, to leave a few trees to grow a bit longer. They only get more valuable in next year. That's not a big problem for us. When it comes to paperboard, maybe I didn't mention, but we -- you have understood that production -- keeping our production going, that should not be a problem as we feel today. Our order books are healthy, but we do have -- I wouldn't say we are struggling, but it's a challenge sometimes to get logistics right and sometimes it's also a little bit more expensive in order to make sure that we actually can deliver what we have promised to our customers. In paper, as I said, very difficult to predict exactly where demand is going. We have a healthy stock level, and we will prioritize to have that level, keep it roughly where it is, which means we will adapt capacity going forward. And when it comes to wood products, it's a split picture, as I said, with different situations in different countries. What we can do is to redistribute a bit of the volumes, not too much, but some of it at least to be able to run a bit more full than our competitors, hopefully. And that concludes our presentation. Thank you very much for listening, and we are happy to take on any questions you might have.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Christian Kopfer from Nordea.

It's Christian Kopfer for Nordea. A few questions from my side. Firstly, on paperboard, I think, Anders, you said that you had a bit higher cost than expected, perhaps. Is it possible to quantify how much costs were to -- higher for you?

No, we don't quantify it, just that it was a bit higher than normal to ensure full production and ensure that our customers got the deliveries that we had promised them.

You saw that I mentioned, during the priorities, also logistics, which is something we have spent a bit more on.

Okay. But for like this way instead, do you expect cost to come down again?

Sometime, but it's sort of -- the first priority is to keep production running and to be able to fulfill our customer commitments. And if that costs extra, we will take those extra costs during Q2.

Okay. On the forest side, for example, on SCA, they had a quite big revision on the standing volumes. Are you having a similar revision on your standing volumes?

We have a -- we are to stock taking our forest and doing -- we are in the middle of that exercise. And we don't have anything that points into a direction that we -- that there will be any change due to how much wood we have in our forests or that there is a reason to make a significant change of our harvesting plan. But we're in the middle of those calculations, and we'll come back to you when they are finalized.

It's a huge Excel sheet we have to go through.

Okay. Do you expect to have that result before the second quarter results?

No, it will be during the second half of this year. But -- and you might -- at least from -- our plans are very long-term in nature. And that it's not -- we don't expect any significant change to the plans themselves.

Right. On the paper side, did you see good price effects in Q1? Or do you expect further price declines realized in Q2?

No. It's really, really hard to tell. I think right now, we, of course, do whatever we can in order to fill our order books. As I said, we see that when markets are closing down, more or less, it has an effect. What it will mean for prices, we don't really know. Right now, prices have been fairly stable.

Yes, but of course, not all contracts have been renewed during Q1. So from a -- it did not have full, full impact in Q1. No.

Okay. Fine. And then finally for me, on electricity, obviously, electricity prices have come down a lot. What's your net -- I mean, are you hedging your net exposure?

Yes. We do have internal hedges in place between our Energy division and Paper division that -- and which stabilize pricing for both business areas. And then we have external hedges in place for our Paper division that also stabilize their electricity cost.

So in other words, you will not feel a direct, call it, cost decline for lower electricity prices for the next few quarters, sorry?

No, and no major effect from these lower electricity prices. It will be a lag effect on that.

And our next question is from Robin Santavirta from Carnegie.

It's Robin from Carnegie. So on the paperboard, could you shed some light on the current order book length and that compares to average levels and also on the average price interval that you have in that division? I understand it's quite long.

I think if you look at the order book, first of all, the order book is on a healthy level. It's -- of course, we don't know what's going to happen in a couple of quarters, but as things are right now, the order book is fairly normal. We see some changes between customer segments, but all in all, no big changes when it comes to our order book. And prices, you know that our prices vary a lot between different customers, and that's quite a big span. So I mean, we are talking from -- it's a 50% sometimes difference between different customers.

But I was wondering about the average length on how far you set prices, is that 9 months on average, if you look at all of your customers or is it shorter or longer, just so I get an idea of what the price visibility for you guys is?

It varies a lot, Robin. And it also -- as you know, our selling prices hardly move over time. It's sort of -- they're very slow moving. We have a complete mix in duration of contracts.

If you look at our historic price development, you will see that it's fairly -- very stable, actually.

Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Now related to the harvesting plan, maybe just a follow-up on the previous question, when did you do your last harvesting plan? Did I understand correctly that the sort of first indication for you guys is that the standing volume is the same, the forest has grown according to the plan you had back when you did the last study?

Our current plan is 10 years old. And at that point in time, we did increase harvesting quite a lot up to the level that we have been on the last 10 years. So -- and we don't have any indications that, that level was wrong, the harvesting level that we have had over the last 10 years. We have harvested what is the sustainable level, and we don't have any indication that the forest has grown in another manner or in another pace than we had expected 10 years ago.

And the standing volume we have today is as expected as well and as we have informed about earlier.

Yes, good. And then just finally, on the paper segment, really strong Q1 you have, obviously, the outlook is tough. Could you just shed some light on the quarter we're talking about, one of your competitors were talking about, minus 30% deliveries in Europe in the summer. You're up year-on-year in Q1. You're in a little bit of different or niche segments. So roughly, what are we talking? What should we expect?

As you know, Robin, we never give any forward guidance and quantify those effects. That's sort of -- it's not our principle. I don't know if you have anything to add.

No. No. But like I said before, we do notice that our order book is not as strong as it was before and we are preparing to adapt our production to demand. But things are changing -- can change, so I wouldn't say overnight, but we need to find out and understand what's going to happen in Continental Europe to understand our future order book.

I understand. And finally, just briefly on the CapEx level, Anders, any kind of guidance for this year.

It will be slightly above SEK 1 billion. Part of it will be attributable to the wind farm.

Okay. So total, just about SEK 1 billion?

Yes, if it's SEK 1.2 billion or whatever, but it's in that neighborhood. Yes. But the bulk of the wind farm will be -- the CapEx of the -- for the wind farm, the bulk of it will be 2021 when the wind mills are erected.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from line of Linus Larsson from SEB.

I noticed that the number of full-time employees declined by 141 in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter, while personnel costs were flat. They were actually even up year-on-year. I wonder if you could talk a bit about that. And also talk about the background and where you are at the paperboard restructuring cost savings initiatives, and if this personnel cost is now going to go down in the second quarter or at some other point in time?

I guess that the numbers you're comparing is Q1 2020 with Full Year 2019. And that's more of a seasonal effect. We had more employees during the summer half. So we don't have an underlying change in personnel between Q1, and it's maybe slightly down, but not a significant figure.

No chance.

And the restructuring at Iggesund, is that in the numbers by now or is that to any degree still to come?

The bulk of it is in the numbers that we report.

Okay. Great. And then just coming back to paper, I don't know if I missed anything there, but the volumes were up a lot in a falling market. If you can just talk about the drivers behind that? Did you benefit from the strike in Finland, for instance? And also on the price side, sequentially, realized pricing was flat while market pricing was going down. So if you could also explain that, please?

I think for us, what you have to remember, I said in the beginning that we were doing rather well when we came into to 2020. The fourth quarter of 2019, we felt good. And if you look at what we did in the first quarter, we actually -- we took market shares, and we took it in segments where -- which improved our mix. And with the mix comes an effect on price. That was just before the coronavirus, Linus. And then it's very difficult to forecast exactly what's going to happen after that. But of course, the idea is to continue on that way and win business, which will improve our mix, which is -- that's the best way for us to go forward. I should also say when it comes to paper, there is a lot of uncertainty, of course, on the demand side. But it's also uncertainty when it comes on the supply side right now. Some of our competitors, they are running on recycled fibers. That system doesn't work for the moment, et cetera. So that's part of the uncertainty we have right now to handle.

Great. And you're taking maintenance stop in the second quarter, you say, SEK 50 million. What is that? And is that some structural improvement that you're making at the same time?

It's installation. It's a mix. It's a mix of maintenance, but also some major installations at the Braviken mill, both replacing old worn-down pieces, and also building a foundation for improvements in product quality going forward. It will -- those investments, it's part of a package. And these are the first steps that we're installing right now.

To stay ahead of competition, it's so important to also succeed in product development.

Great. Just one final question. And again, I might have missed it in the beginning, but this very strong paperboard volume development, and that just when the first quarter. Could you break that down in any way in terms of end-use areas? Where do you see the most of the strength?

I think we have to be a bit careful when we look at the deliveries we had, and look carefully when we have the possibility to see what our customers are actually doing with the paperboard we deliver. There could be some stock building at our customers as well.

And then there is also partly some volumes that moved.

Should have been in '19.

Yes. In Q4, that tipped over into Q1. But nevertheless, it's a strong number.

And our next question is from Johannes Grunselius from Kepler Cheuvreux.

It's Johannes here. Maybe I missed this one in the beginning, but I want to ask you about the harvesting volumes that you are taking down for this year and pushing that into the next year. Is it possible to sort of give any number on how much volumes we're talking about? And then I was also wondering about, I mean, if one split in -- the forest or timber market into the wood -- the pulpwood and the wood for sawmill, is there a very big difference in terms of how prices have developed over the last few months? That's my first questions.

Henrik mentioned that we can move our volumes to next-gen that the trees become a bit bigger instead. It's as everything with corona. We have a preparedness to do it. And if we come into the situation, we will do it. So it's very difficult to quantify how much it will be. It's more that we have the ability to do it.

It's an example that it's quite good actually to be a forest owner. It's not that your products become too old. They just get a little bit bigger and more valuable in the future, as long as we don't change too much, of course.

Yes, of course. But it sounds to you that you're pretty happy with the situation. And I mean, it's not no drama in this shift.

It's a difficult environment, of course to maneuver. We have customers that have a very short planning horizon. Sawmills, paper mills don't really know how they will produce 2 months from now. Of course, that is, in the end, creates uncertainty in the forestry division. We have the ability to move volumes. That's what we say here, but we will not be unaffected, of course. And your other question was on pricing. And I would say it's rather stable right now because nobody really knows what happens, what will happen a month from now or 2 months from now. So it's...

Yes. Okay. Yes.

I think it's the same as...

So if one try...sorry.

Sorry. No, please.

So if one would try to make a guess on the pricing for Q2 versus Q1 in your regions, it sounds that it's a best -- a good guess would be flat prices.

We can't comment on that.

No. Okay. Okay. Okay. Then on your sourcing side, I mean, you're buying pulp -- sorry, wood externally, obviously. You don't source everything from your own forest. So I guess this will -- could also be a positive for you as a company. Am I right or should one predict any sort of tailwind for the industry divisions here for the coming quarter because of lower prices onward?

I think you have to remember that we have quite a lot in stock standing in the forest. So there is a lag in the system on at least half a year.

And you should recall it, and when you look at this thing, when you can't plan your costs increase because you -- it's when you can plan for a longer horizon, you can plan your resources in a more efficient manner. That guarantees lowest cost. In this kind of uncertain environment, you add cost into the system.

And where we are right now when it comes to our own harvesting, we know that we have to take care of the spruce bark beetles in the south of Sweden. It's not massive, but it's something we need to do. And when you do things like that, then you also increase the cost a little bit.

Yes, yes. Then my second question here is on your wind farm that you're investing SEK 1.3 billion here into new wind farm. How should one look at electricity prices there? You're talking about commissioning it 2020 or 2021. Have you hedged these prices? Or will this be exposed to market prices back when you're up and running with the wind farms?

We have not hedged them. We are a net consumer of electricity. So there is no point in hedging them.

No. Okay. Sure. Fair enough. Fair enough. Then the question came up on electricity and so forth. And can you just remind us, maybe you have done some new hedging, but how should one think about the hedging level for electricity on the group basis here for this year. I mean, is it fair to assume that you are mostly sort of naked on hedging 2021 on electricity?

Sorry?

Sorry, we were a bit distracted here. Can you repeat the question on electricity hedging?

I know you're working with electricity hedging. But can you just remind us about the hedging level for this year on electricity and also the hedging level you have at the moment for 2021, I mean, assuming you were to any new hedging?

Yes. We are quite fully hedged this year, maybe 85% and have a relatively high hedging level next year as well. So there will be some impact next year if the lower electricity prices are sustained. But it will not -- it will -- we will not have the full impact of them.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Oskar Lindstrom from Danske Bank.

Three questions from my part. The first one, I'll follow-up on the energy theme here and ask about the oil price. Is the sharply lower oil price going to have any impact on your -- meaningful impact on your costs? And what kind of magnitude should we think about and the timing of that? So that's my first question, please.

No, no meaningful impact. We hardly consume any oil. We have removed that many years ago.

That's transportation for us.

Sorry, you said something about transportation.

I said oil is mainly used in transportation.

Not something that would, for example, reduce operating costs in the forest harvesting operations in a meaningful way?

No, no, no. There are so many other factors, refining capacity, et cetera, that is in between the oil price itself.

All right. And then on paperboard, you highlight in your report that you're seeing sort of shifts between different customers and segments. And could you maybe talk about what types of shifts you're seeing between which specific segments? And then following up on that, as you mentioned, you've got a lot of different prices for different products in this segment. Should we expect any kind of mix -- price/mix effect in coming quarters from these changes?

There are no major changes, but we can see like for our paper division, graphic paper as such is taking a hit because people do not consume -- everything that goes for advertising is taking a hit. And graphics, when it comes to our paperboard business, it's also down a bit. And the rest is doing fairly well. And we have been able to compensate by selling more of other, not graphics, but other packaging.

And in terms of pricing, I mean, is that type of shift with you selling less to the graphic subsegment within paperboard? Is that a positive or negative in terms of price/mix for you?

If you look at the profitability, if you look at both the selling prices and the cost associated with taking these volumes to the market, it's not significant difference between our different product groups.

Right. And my final question is on forest valuation. I mean, you revalued your forest plans at the end of last year so that your book values now match the market value. I realize we don't get sort of market price updates for forest land at a very high frequency, but let's assume that if LRF Konsult and others, who compile these types of statistics for transaction prices of forest land in Sweden, come out and say that forest land prices have come down, let's say, 10%, would that be something that would then trigger a revaluation of your book values in a negative sense?

We -- in Q4, we will do the revaluation of the whole forest holding. We look at 3-year moving average prices on the forest land. We have different sources for this. But in the base of it, we have our own model based on all the forest transactions that have occurred, where we have our forest. And then we'll look at other sources of market information and we compile it. And of course, if the prices have fallen significantly, that will have an impact on the valuation we do in Q4. But we have to wait until Q4 to look at that.

And I'll just ask the question even though I suspect what the answer will be. I mean, are you seeing anything so far in terms of what's happening with the forest land market in your regions? And also, are there opportunities for you in this market, in that case, to buy more forest land?

It's too early to tell if corona have had an impact on pricing on forest transactions. They are a bit slow-moving transactions. And as you know, we are, as a legal entity, limited to buy only from legal -- other legal entities. We can't buy from private individuals.

And would you be interested in buying forest land in other parts of the Baltic Sea region if there's an opportunity, or are you pretty happy with sort of buying on the sort of in proximity to your existing forest land holdings?

We are looking at forest assets that we believe will add value to our shareholders. And so far, we have had -- have our asset base in Sweden.

And as there are no further questions, I will hand back to speakers for any final comments.

Okay. Thank you very much for good discussions and take your time to listen to us. And have a good day. And most of all, stay healthy.