Sylvamo Corporation (SLVM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

February 28, 2024

New York Stock Exchange US Materials Paper and Forest Products conference_presentation 42 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

George Staphos

analyst
#1

We are very happy to have our lightening round with 2 companies who did this for us last year as well, Clearwater Paper and Sylvamo. Thank you very much. We have Arsen Kitch, Chief Executive Officer for the company, Clearwater; as well as Chief Financial Officer, Sherri Baker, who's in the audience for Clearwater. And Sylvamo, the formal remarks will be made by John Sims, Chief Financial Officer of the company. The way we do this and did it last year, both companies are going to do a quick overview of their companies, things that you should know about them, and then we're going to get into the Q&A with both of them on stage. There will be some cross fertilization, some, hopefully, some common themes and we look forward to some really good questions from all of you. So thanks for being here. So I think Arsen is going to kick us off. Arsen, if you would take it away? Sounds great.

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#2

All right. Well, thanks for joining us today. So I'm Arsen Kitch, President and CEO of Clearwater Paper. For those of you that don't know Clearwater Paper, we're a $2.1 billion revenue paper company, about $280 million, $281 million of EBITDA last year. We have 2 businesses. The first one is our paperboard business. And we make high-quality bleached paperboard for food service and consumer packaging applications. Our other business is our at-home private branded tissue business. So those 2 businesses make up Clearwater Paper. Both businesses are well positioned, attractive end markets, stable demand profile, well-invested manufacturing footprint. They're both well positioned in their respective markets. Since 2020, we have focused heavily on deleveraging our balance sheet. We've reduced our net debt by $450 million since 2020. And our leverage is down to 1.5x at the end of 2023. So we had quite the journey since 2020.

George Staphos

analyst
#3

Arsen, do you have slides by any chance?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#4

[ Here we go ]. That deleveraging positioned us really well for what's next for Clearwater Paper. And last week, we announced an acquisition. And it's a great strategic step for Clearwater Paper. We're acquiring or we're planning to acquire Graphic Packaging, Augusta paperboard mill. It's a facility with about 600,000 tons of capacity, which raises our paperboard capacity from 800,000 approximately to 1.4 million tons or just over 70%. And our strategy is becoming pretty clear. We are -- we're building a premier independent supplier of paperboard to North American converters. We think it's a great space. We know that space very well. We're leaning into where we think we're strong and we have great potential in the future. We will look at other acquisitions as well in the future and other investments to better service those customers. But in the short to medium term, we're going to be heavily focused on deleveraging our balance sheet after this acquisition. We also announced a strategic review or looking at strategic options for our tissue business as well. And we'll keep you informed as we have news to share. We're optimistic about our future. I think we have a clear strategy and a clear focus. We have options. And we have the ability to create value for shareholders in the long run. So those are the prepared remarks.

George Staphos

analyst
#5

Thanks, Arsen. John?

John Sims

executive
#6

Thank you, George. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining today, also those that are on the webcast. I'm starting with this slide because its core to our strategy. Our strategy is to focus on uncoated freesheet, which remains the largest and most resilient graphic paper grade. Uncoated freesheet has the highest number of end-use applications that is used across all sectors of the economy and regions where we operate. For example, government, finance, health care, real estate, distribution and legal. Uncoated freesheet is sustainable, affordable and functional. And we believe paper will remain an effective vehicle for education, communication and entertainment for a long, long time. For example, paper also plays a critical role in education. Studies continue to show that students of all ages adsorb more when reading on paper versus the reading on digital screens. Just last year Sweden moved students off digital devices and back on to books and handwriting on paper. This is why the total demand of uncoated freesheet exceeds the sum of all other printing and writing grades combined. I'm going to go to the next slide. We view the uncoated freesheet really is an ocean of opportunity for us. Why? Because it will be around for a long time, as I said earlier, because the uncoated freesheet regions that we operate in are attractive to firms wanting to earn well above cost of capital returns and because we have competitive advantages. Internally, we call our strategy, the flagship strategy, which means that every dollar we retain in the business is going to go to strengthen our flagship of mills, our low-cost mills, our talented teams, our iconic brands, strategic channel partnerships and the regions that we operate in are very attractive. Executing this strategy we believe and has already generated a lot of cash, cash that we use to increase shareowner value by maintaining a strong balance sheet, returning cash to shareowners and reinvesting in our business. Let's move to the next slide. We generated substantial cash in the spin-off, which has allowed us to reduce our debt by $570 million or 38%. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was 1.2 at this time. We continue to view debt reduction and keeping a healthy balance sheet as a cornerstone of our strategy and our capital allocation framework. This allows us to return cash to shareowners to reinvest in our business to strengthen our competitive advantages in our core uncoated freesheet markets. We currently have no significant debt maturities until 2027. Turning to the next slide. We began to return cash to shareowners within the first year of being an independent company. And after returning $90 million in 2022, we deposited $60 million in escrow, which allowed us to return more than $90 million to shareowners in 2023. In 2024, we expect to return at least 40% of our free cash flow to shareowners. We have exhausted our first $150 million share repurchase authorization and have approximately $150 million on the September 2023 authorization. We bought approximately 70% of our shares back since the spin. We'll continue to look for opportunities to repurchase shares at attractive prices. I'm now on Slide 8. Maintaining a healthy financial position allows us to reinvest in our business through the cycle in order to improve our competitive position. The 3 of the most challenging industry demand cycles I personally have seen in 20 years I have been in the business was the 2008 to 2009 great recession, the 2020 COVID pandemic and 2023 printing recession we had last year, also the channel inventory corrections. Last year was the toughest of these cycles. But unlike the previous ones, we did not reduce our capital spending. In fact, we actually increased our capital spending last year to strengthen our business. That's why we have a strong balance sheet so that we can invest through the cycle so that coming out of a down cycle, we're actually stronger than when we entered that cycle. Not only did we continue to invest in our existing businesses, we seized an opportunity to acquire Nymolla mill in Sweden at a very attractive price. The advantage we have as an independent company allows us to invest in our future in a way that we couldn't do before. I'll now moving to Slide 9. Putting our capital allocation history all on 1 slide, shows a strong commitment we have in maintaining our strong balance sheet, returning cash to shareowners and reinvesting in the business. We've generated a substantial amount of cash over the past 2 years and expect to continue to do so executing our strategy. We used the cash to increase shareowner value. On the last slide, 2 weeks ago, on our fourth quarter '23 earnings call, we explained in addition to providing global competitive advantages of Brazilian forest lands has significantly increased in value. In the fourth quarter, we commissioned a third party to appraise our forest lands. In December, they valued it at about $1 billion at the current exchange rate. The updated valuation reflects an increase of about $600 million from our 2021 appraisal done by the same firm. Increasing demand for the land and wood in Brazil has driven this increase in valuation. Our forest lands are not only a source of global competitive advantage, but also an enduring repository of shareowner value. George, that concludes my remarks. Thank you.

George Staphos

analyst
#7

Thanks, John. Thanks, Arsen. Maybe a question for both of you to start off, and we're grateful that you're here. Great you're doing this session again. Packaging, we often write is a sector that to stand out as an individual producer or individual company, you've got to do that much more because the whole market cap of packaging paper and forest is, I think the number is something like 0.3% of the S&P 500. Sylvamo and Clearwater performing well are arguably smaller cap names even within packaging paper and forest, which is in itself kind of a mid-cap sector. So what additional elements do you try to bring to your strategy with investors to raise your profile, to raise your visibility aside from conferences, right? And what might you plan for the future in that regard such that you get the visibility and hopefully, the appropriately the lower cost of capital. Otherwise, we know what happens as you lose visibility, float goes down -- volume goes down, cost of capital goes up. So any thoughts in that regard?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#8

You're right. It's -- these are -- we're small companies, and we're a small company in our space. For us, what we believe in the long run, will create value and get investors to focus on us is our performance and strategic clarity for the future. Fundamentally, we do reach outs, we go to conferences, we do those things. But in the long run, if we perform well, we have a clear strategy, we think investors will show interest in us. And last week, we provided some of that strategic clarity to the market, where we announced a large acquisition for a small company like us, which is very strategic. It fits us really well. We also announced looking at strategic options for our other business. So we're getting strategic clarity. And I think what you saw over the last 7 days in the market reflects -- is a good response from our shareholders.

John Sims

executive
#9

Yes, George, I think my response is going to be very similar to ours, and only complication we have, of course, is that we're viewed in serving a market that's declining. And as a result of that, you get some misconceptions, views and biases against businesses as they service in the market. So the important thing for us is to be very clear on our strategy and also to help educate investors that most important in terms of the ability to earn well above cost of capital has generated a lot of cash is -- does the industry structure you operate in, so how attractive is the industry that we're operating in? We believe that we operate in very attractive markets in the regions we're in, in North America, Europe and Latin America. And that we have a competitive advantage in our low cost, and that we have a very simple strategy. That strategy is that we're going to focus just on improving our competitive positions in the uncoated freesheet and not to be diverted for other strategies. So it's absolutely a -- from our perspective, it's a very low risk, high return strategy that -- and the challenges for us to be able to communicate. That's why we appreciate to be able here and be able to talk about that.

George Staphos

analyst
#10

John, I'll push back a little bit on that, not because investor believe but just to get the debate going. So an average investor -- there are no average investors in this audience right now, but your average investor will say, it's uncoated freesheet, it's declining. Why is this actually a good business? So to that uninformed investor who says that or analysts, what makes your business a good business? And how will that answer vary between North America, Europe and South America? Similarly, Arsen, your key products aren't declining, they seem to be stable to growing. But nonetheless, the average investor might say, stable. I'm interested in something else where there's more growth. What would you convey about why tissue and why paperboard, bleach board are good businesses where people should want to invest to get the return that you'll accrue to them? So John, then Arsen.

John Sims

executive
#11

George, thanks for asking that question, too, because that's why we start out with one is the core belief with our strategy is the uncoated freesheet is going to be around for a long, long time. It's going to have a long tail. But clearly, it would be following the wrong strategy if it's going to 0, but we just don't believe that, and there's no indication that it's going to do that. So then it comes to is how can this be an attractive business? And it's not very dissimilar from growth industries and what really determines whether is business is attractive or not is one, is it in an industry that's hospitable to earning profits, earning better than cost of capital returns, and do you have a competitive advantage? And we believe we can check both of those with the uncoated freesheets. So that allows us the opportunities to reinvest, and which we believe low risk, high-return projects in our core business and make us stronger and not have to take risky bets on that. And the other thing with the industries that we're in, over time, naturally, the industry gets more and more hospitable as players exit. And unlike growth industries where you got to spend a lot of money and buy things at premiums to make that happen, and a declining industry or stagnant industry a lot of times, and we're seeing this in uncoated freesheet, it happens naturally.

George Staphos

analyst
#12

Just one point there before we go to Arsen. So you made a comment that uncoated freesheet is not going to 0, and you can prove that. I forget exactly how you phrased it, John. We use a lot of paper. Certainly, I do. I'm doing what I can to help the industry. Not am I rating, just that you know, okay? Having said that, somebody again, skeptically could say, that sounds great, John. But by the way, industry declined like 15% plus in North America last year. So I do that a few years and 0 is in the horizon. So tell me why that's the wrong analysis, wouldn't be the first time you tell me I'm wrong. So tell me why that's incorrect.

John Sims

executive
#13

Well, you're going to get -- and we are in a cyclical business and so you're going to get episodics where demand will be worse than average and sometimes it will better. Last year was driven by anomaly of an inventory correction. So more than half of the industry decline was due to inventory correction. The other part, it was what we call the printing recession. There was a pullback in advertising both in Western Europe and North America, that was really drew to a fear of recession coming. So they pulled back advertising. Some was actually real. For example, real estate and loan organization was in a recession. People, because of high interest rates, they weren't. That's going to come back. Our view, though, is that if you average it out, it's still going to be around the 3.5% to 4% decline in North America and Western Europe that we seen in the past, okay?

George Staphos

analyst
#14

Interesting stuff. One thing I want to come back to later in that -- in our discussion on that. Arsen how would you answer the question?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#15

So we're fortunate to participate in a couple of markets that have good, stable and growing demand. So these have historically been the bright spots in the paper industry both tissue and paperboard. They're strong markets. They're stable. There's modest growth in both markets that tracks generally speaking, with population and GDP. Both, especially in paperboard, very strong sustainability trends in packaging and food service. So we believe that, that could be a growth engine for the paperboard space in the future. And then talking about us, we have a history of strong cash flow generation. We have good strategic options ahead of us. And we have a good track record of deleveraging, generating cash and being disciplined in the way we operate. So it's a -- are these the double-digit growth plays? They're not. But these are good stable businesses that have good demand growth and strong cash flow generation.

George Staphos

analyst
#16

What do you think sustainability is added to your business, if anything at all on the paperboard side in terms of volume? Is there a way to quantify? We just had a well-attended lunch in many of the folks in this room. We're at that lunch and where the plastic-based companies understandingly and rightly argued their case. So how would you sort of put the props up for paperboard on that...

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#17

It's hard to put a number on it. Just let me start with that. The COVID years were also a bit disruptive. There was more demand than supply in paperboard. So even if customers were looking to trade, they'd have a hard time getting the supply. So I think we'll see the story play out over the next 5 to 10 years, but it's really hard to quantify here in the last few years.

George Staphos

analyst
#18

Thank you. Maybe we'll keep moving along with Clearwater in just a second. First, we will see. Are there any questions in the audience for our esteemed panel, and I mean that. We'll keep moving forward. So Arsen, as we talked about, there are some things I can and can't go into in my Q&A right now. But what are you talking to your investors about in terms of the strategic review in tissue? And why does that make sense now versus in the past?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#19

Let me start with this. We have a great tissue business. It's performing very well. Fantastic team. $150 million of EBITDA last year. We doubled our EBITDA from '22 to '23. Good set of assets, great customer relationships, very well-run business. We have these 2 businesses under our roof, and they're different. They're both paper businesses, but they're different from each other.

George Staphos

analyst
#20

And when was doubling in the EBITDA, what time period again it was?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#21

'22 to '23. So a very good tissue business, and we have a great paperboard business. And as we look to grow in paperboard through the acquisition that we announced and some other options that we'll -- we may have in the future, it makes sense for us at this time for us to look at what options we have for that business. An option could very well be to keep the business and run it. But we'll -- we owe to ourselves and our shareholders to look at those options as we've stated our strategy of growing in paperboard.

George Staphos

analyst
#22

And as you evaluate your two segments, how do you see them, if at all, different in terms of growth and longer-term return profile, if at all?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#23

The paperboard has been the economic engine of Clearwater for probably the last 10 years, as I've talked about tissue. It's a market that has a very aggregated buyer base. So just a handful of retailers make up the vast majority of the private branded tissue buy, and has a very disaggregated supplier base. So there is a mismatch. So what I've said before over and over again is consolidation is needed in the tissue space to create tissue manufacturers that can be competitive, that can invest in the long run to keep up with the large retailers. And I've said before we're willing to participate on both ends of that equation. We view paperboard as a very attractive space for us to grow. It's a great industry. We have great end markets, and that's where we're heading, and we'll look at options for tissue.

George Staphos

analyst
#24

A lot of fairly commentary in Q&A comes in concerns from either the sell side or the buy side in terms of, well, there's more capacity coming into the market, there's imports coming into the market. We'll talk about that in the next panel that we do with Steve [indiscernible] on boxboard trends. But to the investor who says, boxboard, paperboard it's -- I've got too much capacity coming to the market, why do I want to own this? You would answer?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#25

The answer, so let's tackle imports for 10 seconds. Imports, if you look at the data, they're actually down over 20% in 2023. Imports have been around for decades. And so this is not a new story. In terms of capacity expansion, there was capacity that was taken out of the market last year, and there's some capacity being added to the market next year. We think fundamentally, it's a stable supply market with modest growth in demand. So it's -- I think at least in the medium term, I think it's pretty stable.

George Staphos

analyst
#26

Thanks, Arsen. Any questions for Clearwater before we move to Sylvamo for a few questions. So John, what prompted the review of the timberlands valuation in Brazil? Maybe start from the obvious, but what prompted that?

John Sims

executive
#27

In the fourth quarter, there were several transactions that occurred that were public down in Brazil. And they valued the land down there pretty significantly, and we thought, well, that absolutely was in -- our areas are a little bit more attractive. And so we felt that we needed to conduct an independent assessment of that. And that's what we did. So that, as I said, the valuation ended up coming in at $1 billion, about $600 million increase from when we did the valuation back in '21.

George Staphos

analyst
#28

Now we don't cover them as closely as we used to, but in a time when we had direct coverage of the LatAm companies, they would always say there is competitive advantage clearly in having that connection to fiber and the forest, whether it's Suzano or Klabin or whomever. So we get why you think there's value there. But if you're not willing to disaggregate it, one could say, well, that's great, but they're never going to monetize it, so why does it really matter to me? So to that question, what would you say?

John Sims

executive
#29

Well, I mean, you're exactly right. I mean we feel that the way we clearly get the value of the forest right now is converting it uncoated freesheet and selling it because it makes us globally competitive. But I think it's also -- since for the -- we've been asked by investors in terms of our view of what is the terminal value of this business, since we're in a declining market is what if there was no uncoated freesheet, right? And we've tried to explain to them that we have a lot of enduring value. This is just one piece of it, but there are all the assets we have. So we think that as a result of that, we've been undervalued just from that perspective and that we personally believe that the uncoated freesheet market, as I said, is going to be around for a long, long time, but there was that sense that we're -- what's the value of Sylvamo.

George Staphos

analyst
#30

And maybe this is just down to corporate tax structure, but -- and tax rate. But why is the connection to the land so much more important in South America than it's proven to be in North America?

John Sims

executive
#31

Well, the source of competitive advantage is the eucalyptus and the cost and all that, as you know. But then there's no other market. So the other thing, too, is that you get the competitive advantage, not just by the low-cost fiber but having it close to your facilities. And in fact, this creates competition for the land with the same for the sugarcane producers or the orange growers, they want it close to processing plants, but for the paper mills and the pulp mills down their problem is that they're just not a market. And we've seen that when you do have to go and source fiber, you're paying 2 to 3x what you can -- what the cost to grow it is.

George Staphos

analyst
#32

Makes sense. Any questions for Sylvamo as we progress here in our discussion? So Arsen, back to you. You're doing the strategic review of tissue. Obviously, you've had developments in paperboard. We'll talk about this maybe a little bit later on as well in our panel. But where do you see the long-term trend for growth in paperboard? One of your esteem peers, although much more vertically integrated, puts it at 1% to 2% growth. Where do you see your growth opportunities, especially as you're reserving the independents over time?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#33

Yes, we agree. We agree. It's historically been stable to that modest growth. There is -- if there is upside to that growth number is a faster conversion from plastic to paperboard. So that's one variable that we'll be watching for. We are independent, as you mentioned, and our strategy is now clear. We want to be the leading premier independent supplier. The converters, the North American converters are a diverse group and they service many, many end markets from pharmaceutical to food service to consumer packaging. So what our goal is, is to develop products that make them successful. We are -- we will be their mill. And so -- their mills. So it is up to us to innovate and provide the right quality and service to those customers to enable them to grow.

George Staphos

analyst
#34

Should we worry about the fact that some of the -- some of their competitors are obviously tied to the larger integrated companies theoretically who might have more scale or over time, be able to acquire. And so the pie, if you will, that you're looking to serve may -- maybe the end market will grow 1% to 2%, but it might not grow 1% or 2% because the targets are being acquired from [ under ]. How do you think about that?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#35

It's a great question. It's something we've given a lot of thought to. There is a place in the industry for both the large integrators and for the converters and they serve different purposes. A family owned or a small converter will not be servicing cereal boxes, right? But they will be making higher-end pharmaceutical products, consumer products. And if you look at the trends over the last 10 years and the growth of smaller CPG brands, more targeted CPG brands, we think it's a pretty robust market and they fill a really important need. And frankly, the larger players are scaled and they care about efficiencies. That is not their sweet spot. So it's a sweet spot of some of these small- to medium-sized converters, and that those are our customers.

George Staphos

analyst
#36

What do your customers or their customers tell you about where inventories are in retail at this juncture relative to tissue? I would imagine you don't really have big inventory cycles in tissue, but nonetheless, and certainly in terms of center store packaged products. Are we done with this packaging recession that we've had for basically since 2Q '22?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#37

Well, it's interesting. Tissue went through its own destocking in 2021 after COVID, and that lasted for a few quarters. But inventories at a retail level are generally pretty limited. They run pretty lean at the retail level, and we sell directly to retailers. So the pools of inventory in tissue are more limited. So you go from the consumer to the retailer, to the producer, which we are. And so we really have seen very stable, strong demand in tissue over the last couple of years. Paperboard has a lot more, what I would call, pools of inventory between the consumer's home, the -- the retailer, the CPG company, the converter, the producer and so on. So the pools of inventory, I think, were deeper than I think many folks have realized. We're starting to see normalization, and we projected volume growth for us between Q4 and Q1, but I think meaningfully -- a meaningful recovery will take place later this year. And it's really as inventories normalize and converters get back to normal ordering patterns.

George Staphos

analyst
#38

John, how about you, where you see, to the extent that you can comment inventories in the chain for uncoated freesheet, in North America in particular, but anywhere else you want to comment?

John Sims

executive
#39

Yes, we think the inventory correction is behind us. As we reported in our earnings, backlogs have strengthened across all our businesses and all markets. And so the demand is -- we're seeing already pickup in demand is stronger.

George Staphos

analyst
#40

And on the topic of supply constraints, the unfortunate shipping issues that have arisen because of what's been happening in the Red Sea and the Mid East, what has that meant for your business? What has that meant for customers wanting to restock, here maybe not so much on finished cut size, but maybe on pulp, and for that matter, what impact has there been from shipping constraints on some of the imported products, especially in Europe, either cut size or converted products relative to your customer base and your business?

John Sims

executive
#41

That's where we've seen the -- the biggest impact right now is imports into Europe. We've seen -- particularly from Asia, the lead time has increased out 4 to 6 weeks. The cost has increased. So imports are down in Europe. Shipping costs are up across the board. And I think it also -- again, it's another global disruption that gives pause to customers who depend on imports as a major source. That's a positive for both North America and for Europe. They're going to be more reliant on domestic supply because of the, frankly, the disruptions they had, even go back to 2020 and COVID. It's been a very risky proposition to rely on imports.

George Staphos

analyst
#42

Makes sense. Any questions from the audience, either Arsen or John? Now we're talking about capital allocation and strategy and a lot has been going on in Clearwater. John, for you, one of the questions that periodically comes off is should we worry much about the offtake agreements that you have with your former parent relative to Riverdale and Georgetown? And how should investors gauge that as a risk if a risk at all?

John Sims

executive
#43

Well, we've gotten quite a few of those questions even today. So we have agreements -- supply agreements with IP. We've got no indication that any of that's going to change right now. They're 10-year agreements. But suffice it to say that we, at Sylvamo, been planning since day 1 of the spin, should International Paper decide that they're going to do something with the Georgetown mill or the Riverdale and reduce the supply agreements with us, how can we change our mix, reduce our distribution costs, improve, be able to service our customers even through imports from other regions. And we've had that planning quite extensively. And so we're well prepared should any decisions be made by IP.

George Staphos

analyst
#44

Thanks for that. Any questions from the audience? Maybe one last thing for Sylvamo from me. Talk about how you're evaluating any of the individual assets in your portfolio? Not so much -- I'm talking about strategic review and you're putting a for-sale sign on any of them. But in terms of how you -- what KPIs you use? Are you using best practices to evaluate and improve performance on a going-forward basis? And related talk to us about the $110 million productivity improvement program. How that's progressing, what's embedded in that? And why should be a reason investors should think about Sylvamo?

John Sims

executive
#45

Well, I'll start with that. We announced this Project Horizon $110 million cost improvement. We want to get $110 million run rate by the end of this year. Of that, $30 million of it is in S&A area, sales and administrative. And this is part of the preparation for any decision that's made by for example, the supply agreements, we talked about, we want to make sure that we're well positioned and have the right size organizational structure. In fact, we've already identified 150 people, and they've been notified, and they'll be exiting by the third quarter. In terms of the cost reduction efforts that we have in our supply chain manufacturing, yes, we constantly look at the performance metrics, whether it's machine efficiencies, but we're also very focused on cash related type of indices. So are we running the facilities to generate the most cash for Sylvamo. That means things looking at -- we may run things and then put it in inventory, it may reduce our cost, for example, at the mill, but increase our cash requirements. Now we're looking more at what -- how do we generate the most cash at all that we do. And we're also using technology and to help improve our facilities. And in terms of portfolio, we make investments in the facilities that we believe will generate the most cash for the longest period of time. And we have quite a few of those facilities, but that's where we target our investments.

George Staphos

analyst
#46

Arsen, on your side, maybe to wrap up, what are you doing within your portfolio, whether or not tissue stays or not to improve productivity on a structural basis across the business, if you need to do that in the first place?

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#47

We do. So there's two ways to look at it. One is, call it, operational productivity. The other one is capital allocation. So we've had a an operational improvement program for several years. It's well ingrained. It's tracked. It's part of what we do. It's not just something we do for a year.

George Staphos

analyst
#48

How much is that generating annually? Or -- is there a goal in mind, forgive me for not knowing.

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#49

We haven't shared that publicly. It's part of our base business to offset margin compression and inflation, and it is pretty well ingrained. The other piece is capital allocation. In this industry, as you know, that's pretty critical to maintain competitive assets. So we're looking very closely at various capital projects, both small, medium and large, maintain as well as discretionary projects. In the long run in the capital-intensive industry, you need to operate well, but you need to make really good capital decisions. And that's how these businesses will thrive. So we look at returns on invested capital, and we look at free cash flows, which just also happened to be the key compensation metrics for the management team.

George Staphos

analyst
#50

John, I think I know the answer to this question for you. But for Arsen, let's assume pulp pricing is heading much higher. You like that world? Or do you not like that world? Assuming your portfolio is exactly as it is right now.

Arsen Kitch

attendee
#51

We do not like that world. So we buy 300,000 tons of pulp annually. We produce most of our own pulp for paperboard tissue. Tissue is the primary buyer of pulp. It's eucalyptus and hardwood. So for us, net-net, we do sell some pulp, but we're net buyers of pulp. So obviously, for us, better pulp prices are better for our bottom line.

George Staphos

analyst
#52

I'll let you and John fight that out. That's all the time we have for this presentation. Arsen, John, thank you so much for your remarks and counsel [indiscernible] your progress. Everybody join me in thanking Clearwater and Sylvamo for some great discussion.

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