Norske Skog ASA ($NSKOG)

Good morning, everyone. My name is Carsten Dybevig, Vice President of Communication and Public Affairs at Norske Skog. Welcome to this webinar, where we will present highlights from the second quarter. Presenting today are Geir Drangsland, Chief Executive Officer; Tord Torvund, CFO; and Even Lund, Senior Vice President, Corporate Finance. Also joining us from the corporate management team are Robert Wood, SVP, Commercial; Christoffer Bull, SVP, Business Development; and there is no prerecorded presentation for this quarter available on Norske Skog's website. This webinar is being recorded and will be made available on the website after the event. Following the presentation, there would be a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] With that I hand over to you, Geir.

Thank you, Carsten. Thank you for sharing time with us. If you allow me, I would like to share some thoughts and reflections for you. Can you please? My family has invested a lot of money in Norske Skog. Unfortunately, our timing in spring '23 was not so good. A lot of negative events occurred immediately after we had invested in the company. I've had the position as the CEO since September '23, entered Norske Skog at the end of the previous market cycle peak, followed by a rapid increase of fiber prices, OCC and RP, the raw material source for the mills. And we're not being able to mitigate the price increases on the raw material to customers. Following periods characterized by faltering confidence and trust in Norske Skog, further weakened by a challenging financial position due to NOK 1.5 billion increase in CapEx at Golbey. Landslides at Saugbrugs in 2023 negatively impacted operations and capacity in the group. Norske Skog is now on track for a healthy return with a strengthened competitive position and improving balance sheet. This is Norske Skog Golbey. I would like to state the flagship of Norske Skog. It's by far our most valuable assets. We invested in a new packaging paper machine. It's completed. We are very proud of that, that we made it. But the project was delayed 30 months and more than NOK 1.5 billion over budget, but the machine is now producing and supplying high-quality, light-weight recycled containerboard. However, this overspending of shareholders' money created lack of trust to the company, a great value destruction occurred. And there is no one to blame but Norske Skog itself. Poor planning, poor execution made this happen. So I'm very happy we made it, and we're now offering high-quality products from the machine to our customers. As part of the portfolio, we also were shareholders in Norske Skog Boyer, which is a paper mill in Australia. It was the last remaining non-European asset held by Norske Skog, sold in 2025 at an enterprise value of NOK 180 million. It was old machines. The steam was by coal, shrinking market. So I'm pleased to transfer the assets in Boyer to cash to pay bills in Golbey. In April 2023, there was a landslide in our mill in Saugbrugs, in Halden, in Norway, damaging the building and the paper machine 6. The machine has been repaired and studies for the potential repair of the paper machine are ongoing as we speak. Currently, we are supplying customers with 200,000 tonnes of SC magazine paper from paper machine 4 and paper machine 5. I identified possibilities to transfer assets also in Saugbrugs to money. Next to Norske Saugbrugs, we have a nuclear plant been established there in 1987. And State of Norway decided to dismantle then decommission this nuclear plant and has granted a lot of money for that task. And I took the initiative to have meetings with the Managing Director of NND, which is the company to do this job for the state of Norway. And if there could be a possibility that they could use some of our buildings and land for storage. The outcome of this was a deal with the State of Norway. And we are collecting a net amount of NOK 720 million for sale of these assets. So we're very pleased that we did the execution of this transaction. Also, parallelly, the repair has been going on for -- after the landslide. And we also took an initiative towards the insurance company to make a final settlement to giving some accounts cash of NOK 560 million and to use that cash -- and to have options to use that cash the best way we feel that should be used instead of repair of the machine and the buildings. Then we collected cash amount from the insurance company, which is also a period where there were a lot of payoffs to pay for the investment in Golbey, was very useful for us. So very pleased with that transaction. I also identified quite rapid as a CEO that there was a lack of coordination, lack of preparations for procurement procedures. So that has been established, where we now have a very focused preparation stage and the autumn where all procurement people are forced to introduce to meet the targets for coming year on their suppliers. And then we also have a debrief in February and they inform us how did it go. So this is an example for how we have the outcome of the process autumn '25 to prepare for procurement '26. You here see some of the savings we have achieved. It's NOK 25 million in Bruck, it's NOK 80 million in Golbey, it's NOK 70 million, in Saugbrugs and NOK 125 million in Skogn, total of NOK 300 million. Almost half of the savings located to Saugbrugs and Skogn is that we have used the opportunity to renegotiate the fiber sourcing of virgin fiber to Saugbrugs and Skogn with a saving of NOK 100 million, very happy about that. We have improved our competitiveness. Also, I took an initiative to look over the mills, the organization and have the hypothesis there should be possibilities to offer same amount of paper and packaging with less people. It has been a very large process involving a lot of people, but also a good process. Of course, the first stage is everybody is defending themselves. But the outcome of the process you see here where we have demand in Skogn from 380 to 360. We have demand in Bruck from 480 to 390. That's 90 people less. It's a huge improvement of the -- mitigate cash cost for that mill. And in Golbey, even if we now produce more than we did 2 years ago, we have reduced from 390 to 360. And in Saugbrugs, it's from 370 to 310. And we see it now every month when we're monitoring the salaries, it's going down compared to last year. So I'm very glad we have done this project. And it's some of 200 people left now, but we still produce the same amount with same quality. We should also always be humble during these processes because there could be an ex colleague now. For instance, for example, 29 years old, he's not a colleague anymore. And he could wonder, how can I afford to buy a Christmas present for my 3-year-old daughter this year I'm out and unemployed. So it's -- life is full of contrast, and we should be humble when we do this and also because I need my [ truths ] to be happy be and I need my [ truths ] to be motivated. And always -- and also to get through this challenging territory where people are thinking will Norske Skog manage to come through this with the weight of the debt, all the challenges, reduced prices on the products we are offering to customers. So it's been very important for us to have a clear and honest communication with all stakeholders and above all, towards the lenders. And I have great colleagues, Even and Tord, who have been very good at informing and being able to make us come through this challenging period together with stakeholders. We also have challenged the supplier portfolio by stretching payment terms. So we have done achievements there. We have had a solution where we actually gave 2 suppliers monopoly for price solution, both inbound with raw materials and outbound with the finished good to customers. It was not a good idea. So that has been closed, and we have established our own internal logistics solution where we source where it's most competitive. And with the full ramp-up of PM1, we do 850,000 tonnes of newsprint and containerboard to customers, and we do 900,000 tonnes of RP and OCC raw material, inbound freight for -- to cover the demand. It's 400 trucks per day. So this adjustment of trucks makes us able to save about NOK 160 million a year, which is a big saving for us. Also on the publication paper part of Norske Skog, we [ ANDRITZ ] paper, we do SC and newsprint supplier. We have improved our market share substantially, and I'm really proud of my colleague. I think the sales offices and the sales team is really a strong strength of Norske Skog. I can show you on the next, proof of that. So we see a development here on the market share for our fractions. In '23, we had 22.2% of the market on newsprint. It's now 24.2%. On the SC, it was 7% and it's now 12.9%. And in '23 for LVC, it was 4.6%. It's now increased to 8.7%. There has been some closures, but we have beaten competitors. We have stolen customers. We are very good at selling paper in Norske Skog. This is the proof. And I'm also proud of spending of my sales team [indiscernible]. I invited them to a sales meeting in [ Nordea ] last year. We do this every year and have one big happening where we can gain positive energy from each other and do some fun together. These are great people. It's a very, very strong team. And also in France, there are grants from the state of France, where we now can prove that the energy consumption, the Tier 1 where we transfer from newsprint to offer containerboard, we do a huge reduction of energy consumption per tonne. And then in [indiscernible] we will collect NOK 100 million cash in certificates. I think it's NOK 350 million now this November, December and second part will come in '28 when the measuring the achievement of energy savings is approved. So to summarize some of the actions that's been taking place in Norske Skog during the last years, the insurance settlement, EBITDA impact of NOK 540 million, cash impact, NOK 560 million, it's done. Sale of Boyer, no EBITDA impact, but cash impact of NOK 180 million, it's done. Procurement procedures, impact on the EBITDA during this year, not instantly, but during the year and also cash impact on the savings, NOK 300 million, it's done. Payment days stretch is giving -- you keep the money longer in the company, reduces interest and net debt, it is done. Transport system changed in Golbey, savings NOK 160 million and cash impact same, it's done. Reduced number of FTEs in the organization is still ongoing, but most of the reductions has been installed. So it's ongoing. Repayment schedules, Even is doing an excellent job. It's done. Skogn financing, we have a temporary loan in -- from DNB of NOK 400 million that will be reinstalled when we collect NOK 780 million cash from the state of Norway for sale of assets in Saugbrugs, it's done. Energy certificates, it's ongoing, but it will be -- we will make it. We quite -- we see that. And the NND transaction has an EBITDA impact of NOK 650 million and the cash impact is NOK 720 million. That's done even if the cash has not been collected. So still to collect of this sums of EBITDA impact and cash is -- the cash for energy certificates and NND is NOK 1.5 billion to be collected -- the transaction money from the state of Norway will be collected in -- probably in June this year. Also, I would like to share with you some of my thoughts for risk factors. Yes, some of you think that it's the same to have money in the bank and to have money in Norske Skog. You're wrong. There are risk factors here, which you should be aware of. It's very high fluctuation on energy supply and prices. It has a huge impact on our business. Also the fiber sourcing is a risk. I remind you that the price for virgin fiber in Norway increased 150% during 3 years. So very, very pleased that it is now over to decrease, and we have this savings both Skogn and Saugbrugs for approximately NOK 150 million this year. And also, we are in a territory for declining demand for publication paper grades. So my solution is to put pressure on the sales team to sell more to customers and be last mile standing and be the preferred supplier in that territory, and we are doing a great job to keep -- to fill the machines still with orders, profitable orders. Also political risk, EU Emission Trading System and the tariffs, we know what Trump has been doing late this year and also uncertain geopolitical situation. Flow of oil supply has impact, has a sunny side for us because we are not fossil fuel for drying the paper and run the machines. It's -- so that's kind of more a lot of competitors for Norske Skog, has been hit by the increased prices of energy. We are not influenced by that so much. Good hedging there, and we have -- for dry paper, we do biomass steam, which is not correlated so much to oil. And also, perhaps I would like to just be aware of that. I understand my own role as the main shareholder. My family holds 27% of the shares. And I'm the CEO that makes me have ultimate influence on the company. And I'm also ultimately humbled to that. Maybe I'm not good enough. I'm a very self-critical person. And trust is not a thing you take. Trust is something you're being given based on your behavior and performance. So if you don't trust me, you should not have shares in Norske Skog. You deserve to have your money invested in a company where you trust the boss. So all these actions you've been introduced to, it's not happened by itself. It's because I have very good colleagues who have made it happen. We identified the possibilities and did the job. It has been a big challenge to fix Norske Skog, but we made it. That's fine. Lights were red, now turned to green. So for the future, if we don't succeed, I'm the one to be blamed. And if we succeed because I have good colleagues. So Tord and Even l leave it to you.

So then we'll move to the highlights for the quarter. We have record deliveries and production of recycled containerboard in this quarter as Golbey PM1 is continuing the ramp-up in line with the plan. The profitability of the Containerboard segment has also improved as we have a better market mix compared to previously with a higher share of European deliveries. EBITDA came in at NOK 451 million and pretax profit of NOK 236 million. The improvement from previous quarter, both from the one-off gain related to the NND deal that Geir mentioned earlier in this presentation, the sale of -- or the agreement with the Norwegian nuclear decommissioning company [indiscernible] but also improved operational profitability on both publication paper and packaging paper. The net debt stood at NOK 4.5 billion at quarter end, but has decreased significantly during April as we have received the annual CO2 compensation in Norway for Skogn and Saugbrugs. And in May, we expect to receive the annual CO2 compensation in Golbey. And then coming to June, we, of course, expect the proceeds from the NND deal at Saugbrugs totaling NOK 770 million. We have several initiatives to improve profitability across our mills. And as Geir has mentioned, we have now started to really see the benefit of these cost saving initiatives across all mills. These are the key figures. Deliveries and production of publication paper is in line with prior quarters, while containerboard, as expected, is continuing to increase due to the ramp-up at Golbey. Golbey PM1 produced and sold 56,000 tonnes of recycled containerboard in the quarter, meaning that now Golbey has already surpassed Bruck in terms of containerboard volumes. Operating revenue is slightly down from Q4, in part due to mix effects with a higher share of containerboard compared to the higher-priced publication paper in addition to some currency effects as Norwegian krone has strengthened against all other major currencies. Other operating income is up mainly due to the one-off effect of NOK 320 million from the NND deal at in addition to some R&D-related grants at Golbey. EBITDA of NOK 451 million, which is an improvement from prior quarters, as you can see, both -- also when excluding the effects from this NND deal. Moving to the financial position. Equity ratio increased to 42% and interest coverage rate (sic) [ ratio ] stands at 2.8x. The cash balance decreased to NOK 653 million at Q1. But we stress that at the end of Q1 is the point in time of the year, we have the most CO2-related receivables in our balance sheet. And so far in April, we have already received NOK 370 million in CO2 compensation in Norway. We expect to receive the EUR 10 million CO2 compensation in France in May. And then, of course, it's NOK 770 million in June. So all this means that the net debt will decrease significantly coming to Q2 '26 and cash increase. Looking at the segments for publication paper deliveries are seasonally a bit lower than in Q4 and in line with Q1 last year. Average prices for the segments are slightly down on newsprint and flat on SC and LWC magazine paper. Cost of materials improved mainly due to lower pulpwood prices in Norway, and we expect the price decrease to continue in the rest of 2026. And as mentioned in sum, this resulted in an EBITDA increase for the segment in this quarter, also when excluding one-off effects. On packaging paper, Bruck PM3 delivered EBITDA of NOK 15 million in the quarter, which is an increase from negative NOK 2 million in the prior quarter, and this is despite lower containerboard prices. Fixed cost improvements and the good operations of the energy assets at the mill are the main contributing factors. Price increases announced for March and April are gradually being implemented in all markets during Q2 2026. The remaining CapEx at Golbey is about EUR 7 million and the remaining energy certificates, as mentioned by Geir, to be received in 2026 and 2028 is about EUR 75 million when applying the current market price for these certificates. The minimum value to be received due to a floor price of these certificates are unchanged from previous reporting, meaning about half of the current market price. On Golbey, we had good progress on the containerboard ramp-up as you see from production and sales figures on this slide. And we still expect to reach full utilization in about 1 year from now, meaning in the first half of 2027. I now hand over the word to Senior Vice President, Corporate Finance, Even Lund, for an update on other projects we have in the company and also the markets.

Thank you Tord. Looking at the operating footprint of Norske Skog, we have reduced our CO2 footprint significantly, and we continue to recycle waste into valuable end products, including paper and energy. Developments at Saugbrugs in the quarter, as already mentioned, we signed a property sale and transfer of a transformer station at the Saugbrugs mill during the quarter. And further, we entered into a letter of intent with Green Mountain, Norway's most experienced and largest developer and operator of cloud service data centers to explore the possibility of jointly developing a data center at Saugbrugs. In parallel, we continue to study the rebuild of PM6 to produce both SC magazine paper and TMP-based kraftliner. We will give an update on both of these projects during the second quarter. As previously announced, we have a book paper project ongoing at Skogn. The final machinery is being installed this week, following which we will start trial production and qualify with the customers during the remainder of the second quarter and starting commercial deliveries early during Q3, entering then the book paper market with 1 of the 3 paper machines at Skogn, holding a capacity of about 140,000 tonnes. At Golbey, we are now exploring a project to increase our biogas capacity from around 16 gigawatt hours per year to 70 to 90 gigawatt hours per year increasing biogas revenues from around EUR 2 million per year to about EUR 10 million per year with limited additional production cost. We will continue to update on this project as it progresses. Similarly, at Bruck, we are now exploring a battery energy storage solution project. This would contribute with around EUR 2 million to EUR 3 million of profit per year by installing a 20-megawatt battery park on the mill site. We will continue to update on this project as it progresses through 2026 and 2027. Going to the markets. Publication paper markets continue to decline. But as already mentioned by Geir, we increased our market share across all grades, being able to deliver high-quality paper to our customers, receiving excellent feedback. In addition, we continue to focus on cost, also, as mentioned by Geir, competitively positioning our mills in the bottom quartile of the cash cost curve. Saugbrugs PM4 and PM5 is unfortunately situated on the far right of the uncoated mechanical cash cost curve. However, as we continue to study the PM6 potential rebuild, we see that, that machine will be significantly more competitive in this market. Moving to the packaging paper markets. Growth continues at around GDP levels, 1% to 2% expected in the near term. And although utilization remains low on the market statistics, we see that several of our competitors are taking downtime, either maintenance or market related, thus resulting in a tighter market than what is apparent from the market statistics. On the right-hand side, you see the cash cost curve for recycled containerboard casing materials in Western Europe. Golbey PM1 is situated in the first quartile and Bruck PM3, although here situated on the right-hand side, we see that if we include revenues from the gate fees, which are related to our waste-to-energy boiler at the site, it would be positioned immediately next to Golbey PM1. Thus, we continue to view both of our packaging paper machines as very competitive assets. Raw materials, this has already been alluded to, but we continue to see volatile energy prices, both on electricity and natural gas. We have hedged close to all of our consumption in '26 and a large share of our consumption in 2027 and continue also to benefit from volatile energy markets through the flexibility systems. Recycled fiber prices have stabilized somewhat lately, but we do see a slight upward pressure on OCC and RCP going forward. Opposite direction for spruce pulpwood, we have continued to see a decline from the fourth quarter of '25 and into the first quarter of '26 and expect this trend to continue going forward. On paper prices, we saw a slight uptick in both newsprint and LWC magazine paper in April and expect this to persist through the second quarter, somewhat improving profitability for our publication paper grades. We still believe that further price increases are required to mitigate the recent cost increases, both on transportation, energy and chemicals. Looking at the recycled containerboard index for Germany, we have seen significant upticks both in March and in April. We expect this to result in higher prices being implemented through the second quarter across most countries in Western Europe, and we will benefit from this on both of our packaging paper machines. Briefly on the outlook. We continue to increase market share in an uncertain operating environment and challenging markets. We have, as already mentioned, several ongoing initiatives to reduce our production cost and working capital to maintain competitiveness. Several profitable projects, as mentioned within this presentation, are being explored across all our mills to diversify and increase our revenues. We have a significant emphasis on the ramp-up of Golbey PM1 and as mentioned by Tord expect full utilization in about 12 months' time. And final decision on the future direction for Saugbrugs is being planned for the second quarter of 2026 when we have completed both studies relating to the rebuild and the studies relating to a potential data center. So with that, I think we can open up for Q&A.

There is nobody asking for questions, feel free to raise questions. Yes. We have Henrik, you will come to raise your hand to ask the question. You should be unmute now. You should be able to unmute your microphone now Henrik.

Any further questions? You may raise your question.

You should be able to unmute now Espen. [Technical Difficulty] Seem to be having some technical issues with our webinar.

Sorry again, Espen. It seems like we're not connecting. All right. It seems like we have to conclude the seminar. We apologize for the technical issues. Hopefully, any questions could be addressed to Tord or myself by e-mail or phone during today, and we will try to answer any questions that might arise. Apologies for these issues. Thank you for joining today's webinar, and have a pleasant day.