Smurfit Westrock - Q4 2025

Transcript

Ciarán Potts (Director of Investor Relations)

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. As a reminder, statements in today's press releases and presentations, and the comments made by management during this call, may be considered forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in the earnings release and in our SEC filings, as well as those discussed in our investor update presentation on our medium-term plan. The company undertakes no obligation to revise any forward-looking statements. Today's remarks also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Where applicable, reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in today's earnings release and in the appendix to the accompanying presentation, which are available at investors.smurfitwestrock.com.

In addition, today's remarks include statements about Smurfit Westrock's medium-term financial goals and capital allocation priorities. These goals are aspirational, and actual performance may differ, possibly materially, and no guarantees are made that these goals will be met. For additional information, please refer to our medium-term plan related presentation. Tony will now present an abridged version of our fourth quarter results, after which we will take some questions before moving on to the medium-term plan. You'll note the additional level of disclosure in the appendix to the fourth quarter results presentation, facilitating that shorter discussion. In the interest of time, I'd request those asking questions to restrict themselves to one. I'll now hand you over to Tony Smurfit, CEO of Smurfit Westrock.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Thank you, Ciarán, and good morning or good afternoon to everyone from a warming-up New York City. Today, I'm joined by Ken Bowles, our Executive Vice President and Group CFO, along with Saverio Mayer, Laurent Sellier, and Alvaro Henao, who run our regions, as we'll be presenting, as you know, the medium-term plan later. Before I get into the quarter, you'll have seen our recent announcement on the closure of our SBS machine in La Tuque, Quebec, which is another step in our portfolio optimization. Decisions such as this, while always difficult, are always carefully considered, and any further portfolio optimizations will be done in an equally considered manner. In the context of what were difficult market conditions across many of our countries, I am very pleased with the performance we have delivered during the quarter and, of course, for the year.

In the quarter, we reported $1.172 billion of Adjusted EBITDA and an Adjusted EBITDA of $4.939 billion for the year. This is by far the largest outturn by any packaging company in the world, and I'm incredibly proud of the performance of everyone in the company who's contributed towards this. In addition, in our first full year of operation, we have focused on cash, generating $679 million of adjusted free cash flow for the quarter and over $1.5 billion for the year. I view this as a key metric of our success.

Finally, while this is far away from the summit of our ambitions, our adjusted margin at 15.5% for the quarter, and a similar number for the year, provides a great launching pad for our future success. Looking now at the results by region for the quarter, our adjusted EBITDA in North America was down modestly year-on-year at $651 million and a margin of 14.7%. Conversely, our European margins expanded during the quarter to over 16% and an adjusted EBITDA of $438 million. And lastly, but by no means least, once again, we had a very strong performance in our Latin American region, with margins of over 24% and an adjusted EBITDA of over $130 million.

With regard to raw volumes, you will see a sharp fall in our North American volume, with stable volumes in Europe and a stronger growth in our Latin American region. I will talk to these figures in a few moments as I go through the regions. Turning now to the group and regional highlights, I am very proud of the medium-term plan that we have created and will be presenting to you very shortly. This has been the culmination of a year-long effort that has been done bottom up. While all of us here steered the direction of the plan, every individual operating unit within the company has developed their ideas for the future, and the outcomes of which you'll see shortly.

During our first full year, the group continued to put its balance sheet on an ever more positive footing, with successful refinancings and associated redemptions of bonds, pushing the next maturity out to 2028, with an average interest rate of 4.64%. It is a fundamental philosophy of all of us in the group to have balance sheet strength, and you will see at year-end, we've reduced our leverage to 2.6x, moving towards our target of 2x. Reflecting the confidence we have, we continue to have a progressive dividend. And again, as was noted last week, we have increased our dividend by a further 5%. Smurfit Westrock, as was the case in Smurfit Kappa, continued to see the dividend as a key pillar of our capital allocation framework.

This was evidenced quite clearly during the COVID years when others cut or delayed their dividend, but we paid in full. Turning now to the regions, let me start with North America. When we arrived in the legacy WestRock organization, and following our first six months, we identified there was business in our portfolio that was heavily loss-making for the company and for the individual operating units. Our fundamental philosophy, and that is why we have successfully stood the test of time, is that every unit must be able to justify its own existence. As such, we have shed uneconomic business, which will be replaced. To give you and me confidence, half of the 1.2 billion sq m we have lost has already been replaced and is in the process of being implemented in our system.

Our prospects in what we call our pipeline significantly exceed the business that has been lost, both in terms of volume and quality. The short-term effect of the low volume loss is the need for us to take additional downtime in the mill system, which we've taken in Q4, amounting to a cost of about $85 million. A hallmark of this company, our company, has always been working capital management and cash generation, so this action has been necessary to make sure we optimize our system. In the year gone by, we have significantly reduced the number of loss makers already within the organization. We have also optimized our footprint with some closures, which we will continue to proactively evaluate, reflecting our recent announcement and other closures during 2025.

We have already started implementing our investment programs, and most importantly, we've been putting in place the right people to take our North American business forward. With regard to EMEA and APAC, we have a very, very good business in this region, and our margins reflect that. If you consider how the rest of the whole industry is performing, and you see where we currently sit, I'm sure you'll recognize that our positioning in this area is indeed very strong. What is also very interesting is that our consumer business is adding a lot to our offering, to our strong customer base, and we'll talk about this shortly, as we see nothing but opportunities to continue to progress this business alongside our strong corrugated business.

Of course, in light of the current paper market situation, we are looking at our footprint with a continuing focus on portfolio optimization. Our Latin American business remains incredibly strong, with great margins and a seamless integration achieved between both legacy Smurfit Kappa and WestRock. I'll let Alvaro reflect on this in a few moments. As I stated at the outset, our first full year of operation, integration, and development as Smurfit Westrock has been truly outstanding. Notwithstanding that the general economic environment has been as difficult as I have seen in my lifetime for such an extended period of time. Our significant achievements, which everyone in the company is proud of, as it sits within our vision, is that we have been recognized by Forbes, Fortune, and Time Magazine as a leader and one of the world's great companies.

Our designers continue to meet and exceed our customers' needs, and our operations continue to deliver superior performance in quality and service, and this is regularly recognized with over 230 awards received by customers and suppliers. Our consistent improvement in quality, productivity, and utilization, and on-time and full delivery for customers, it is what is driving many of the recognitions and awards we have received. In closing out the year, we recognize that we have well overachieved our initial synergy target of $400 million, and while this is, much of this is masked by the general economic activity we see, we believe this sets us up to be a much more efficient and leaner organization into the future.

And lastly, as I mentioned, our improved balance sheet of 2.6 times levered has been recognized by Fitch with an upgrade to BBB+. Finally, turning to our outlook, notwithstanding that we've had significant weather events, both in Europe and of course here in the United States, and we're continuing to work through the impact of these, the year has begun with a generally better industry operating environment. Given our progress of developing new and high-quality business, the enthusiasm of our teams, and our expectation for an improving economy in the second half of the year, we currently expect a first quarter Adjusted EBITDA of between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion, with a full year 2026 Adjusted EBITDA between $5 billion and $5.3 billion.

With the plan that we have in place to invest and grow our business, we remain extremely confident in the future of Smurfit Westrock as the go-to paper and packaging company for customers, for talented employees, for suppliers, and of course, for shareholders in the years ahead. In summary, full year 2025 has been about establishing a strong foundation for future performance and for future success. I thank you all for your attention, and now Ken and I will take any questions on the results before moving on to the medium-term plan. Thank you. Start at the front and work that way.

George Staphos (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning, Jose. Tony, in terms of the outlook for this year, can you talk to the extent that pricing is already baked in to your forecast or not? And then ultimately, recognizing you don't manage the business week by week, month by month, what is the expectation for volume progressions, especially within corrugated, but in box board over the course of the year? Thank you.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

... No, we don't do it week by week, it's day by day. But Ken, I'll let you take the pricing piece. Our expectation, George, is that we saw a firming up of order books in the latter part of December. We felt that the first part of the fourth quarter was weak, and then that sort of improved as we went through the quarter. And we were seeing a decent order books across most of the businesses in which we operate, countries in which we operate, as we progressed in January. That has been somewhat interrupted a little bit by the weather, and that will have an effect.

We've seen that the vast majority of the effects, but they're still we're still working through some of the logistics of that disruption, as we're even in middle February. It seems a little bit warmer now than it was, but, it's still. It's only last Saturday that it started to warm up a little bit. So, we would see volumes in the latter half of the year get back to more normalized levels, and certainly with regard to the stimuluses that could be happening here in the United States, we think that that could be a positive for the business here and in the rest of our businesses.

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

Hey, George, I suppose the long and the short answer is no. So for the first quarter, clearly not, because you wouldn't expect anything anyway. But for the year, no, we haven't baked in any aspect of it because our style, if you like, would be to wait until it's in before we can consider it. I think also, you know, you can focus on the price increases. There's offsets there in terms of other paper grades might happen there. So the net-net is we feel comfortable with the $5-$5.3 based on where everything is now without baking in anything else.

George Staphos (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Thanks. Philip?

Phil Ng (Managing Director)

Hey, guys, Phil Ng from Jefferies. Tony, can you give us a little feel for where you are in the process of churning some of these, lower loss-making contracts? And you talked about a robust pipeline where you could more than offset that. What does that actually mean? Have you secured contract, and how does that kind of layer in, I guess, so the puts and takes, of those dynamics?

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Phil, that's a great question. I'm going to hand that over to the guy you want to hear from on that, the guy at the coalface, which is Laurent. But basically, I think I am really happy. Most of the bad stuff is gone. We've still got a couple of contracts that we'll phase out, or we might keep, or we might lose, because we're under contract with really bad volumes there, so... But you know, the price is so bad, I would expect we'll keep it, but at much higher margin. But then I'll let you talk, Laurent, about the...

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

There's a mic.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

There's a mic there. Mm-hmm. About how successful we've been, and I'm really, really happy with how we're doing.

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

So it's something that unravels over time, as you can imagine. So, the contract, when we lose the volume, that tends to go pretty fast because we terminate the volumes, and then you need to rebuild. What Tony referred to in terms of pipeline is, you can imagine layers of conversations, one very close to happening, others one, you know, a little bit less warm, and others are more like prospects. But the overall perspective and prospect is very encouraging, and that's the reason why we've gone exactly this way. We had very underperforming contracts. We needed to stop them at some point and be ready to take on more volume, in very good margin conditions over time.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

But the way I'd rephrase it is, you know, you're not going to make an omelette unless you break an egg. So therefore, we had to get rid of this stuff, so we have now machine capacity for our people to sell. And you've got, you know, a couple of hundred salespeople across the United States who have capacity to sell now, and some of those will be incredibly successful at selling, and some of them will be less successful. Those that are less successful won't be in the company longer term, and we'll make sure that we are successful because we have capacity to sell at and get paid for it. And that's. When you lock yourself up, Phil, with really bad volume that you can't make any money on, then you're stuck.

We have to break that egg, so to speak.

Phil Ng (Managing Director)

Just a follow-up to that, Tony. In terms of the approach, I guess, going forward, how is the sales force prospecting these types of customers, perhaps differently under your watch versus a year ago? And any more perspective on these contracts that are perceived to be good? Obviously, it's focused on profitability, but any more color in terms of is it more, you know, commoditized versus non-commoditized business, regional versus national accounts? Just give us a little more perspective on-

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Sure

Phil Ng (Managing Director)

... what makes a good customer.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

A good customer is a customer you can bring value to and who you can solve their problems. Every customer has a different problem that you need to identify with, and a good salesperson is finding those problems and identifying what, how, how we can help solve our customers' problems. I mean, we'll talk about it in the medium-term plan, but our suite of tools, our suite of applications is, you know, second to none in the world, and so we're able to solve any customer's problem to make them, help, help them in their own marketplaces. And that's how we get to the point where we're not selling just a box, we're selling packaging solutions for them. It could be redesign, it can be supply chain, it can be environmental, it can be whatever they need.

It's up to us to make sure that our sales teams, both regionally and nationally, are able to sell, and that's what we've been doing for decades in North America, in Latin America, and it's something that we're just good at, frankly. That's. And we'll bring, make sure that that kind of knowledge transfer, both from, because there are some great things done here in North America. I mean, you know, you want to see some of the designs that are done in our merchandising and display business, where we have great team that's innovating. So the mix of having everything together is incredibly powerful. It doesn't mean to say that it's easy, you know, we're not gonna be successful every day, every with every customer.

But over time, with just 20% of the market here, then we can, we've got 80% to go for. And maybe some of that is lousy, and we don't want it, but a lot of it's pretty good, and we'll, we'll get it.

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

I think as well, Phil, and Tony would've spoke about, we both have spoken about across the years, that kind of key underpin of quality and service in terms out to the customer. I think it's fair to say that in the last year or so, OTIF and PPM, and all those kind of metrics that are very much part of how we do business, and goes to what we bring to the customer and how we can bring value, on time and full and quality are kind of the key underpins to that. So to enable Laurent to have the conversations that he's having, has to come back to quality and service, and I think that's been a step change, I think, in how you equally approach the customer.

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

The one thing we've changed in addition is the organization, bringing the sales force much closer to the operating units. So that gives a lot of flexibility and also much more direct contact between the sales force and the potential customers, which I think is a great plus. It's still in the making, but that's happening at pace.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Just one final point before I move off it. We also allow our salespeople to entertain our customers. Make sure that they can buy them a drink, which was nothing—nothing was allowed to be done before. They just said, "Just pure, you know, sell on, on price." And that's not what we do. We sell on making sure that we give our customers, you know, the value for what they have or we can give them.

Lewis Roxburgh (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, I'm Lewis Roxburgh from Goodbody. Just on that value over volume piece, just wondered sort of how that piece will contribute. Do you think that'll translate to, you know, pricing outperforming the benchmark or maybe cost takeout from right-sizing and efficiency? Or, in terms of volume, you know, we've seen some deliberate drop-off this year. Just seeing how you see that sort of evolve. Do you think that will sort of close, you know, more towards, as you said, normalized levels of demand towards the end of this year? Thanks.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Thanks, Lewis. We will certainly... I mean, I think if you look at our performance in Europe, for example, we've gained market share because of our real laser-like focus on our ability to serve our customers with high quality, good design, and value for the customer. So that's what we've done, and that's where we're gaining market share. If your question is, should we be lapping positively this time next year? The answer is yes. I'll be very disappointed if we're not. And I would, as I've said, and as Laurent has said, we've got a lot of irons in the fire with customers, and I would expect to land a lot of those.

We have landed a lot, and I've been very, very happy with the momentum of our business. I don't know, anyone - do you wanna add anything? No. Sorry.

Mark Weintraub (Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development)

Hi. Thanks, Mark Weintraub, Seaport Research Partners. Thank you, first of all, for the bridges, which you provided kind of on the, the look back. That's super helpful. And so get a little, ask for a little more. So as we look at the 2026 outlook, pricing, you're not using that as sort of a, a, an ingredient on the... What you have is improvement, 2026 over 2025. Presumably, inflation's gonna be working against us, as it always is. Can you help us? Is it, are these synergies cost takeouts? I'm assuming the first half of the year on volume is tough, so maybe you're gonna be better year over year in the second half. Can you help us understand how we can get to, you know, better EBITDA in 2026 than 2025 with those drivers?

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

Yeah. Mark, thank you. Yeah, the bridges were... We appreciate your patience on the bridges, but trust me, they cost us as much frustration as they did you in getting there. So it's a big organization to put together, but thankfully, I think you've got everything you need. In terms of 2026 and what's happening there, price and volume will be what it is. I'll let you know, we've talked about that. I think if you think about the synergy program, there are still some synergies to come through in 2026 in that program, and that's probably in the range of $40 million-$50 million in reality. In terms of, you know, energy is probably a net negative in the range of kind of $60 million-$70 million maybe.

And then fiber generally is probably about 50 of a tailwind. So I suppose we're at a place where generally at the start of the year, you know, there's a lot of moving parts, but in terms of certainty pieces based on forward prices, fiber, energy, and the synergy piece are probably the fixed pieces in terms of how they might trade out. Price and volume will be what it is. But I think it's also, you know, you talk about inflation, but remember, you know, Laurent, Saverio, Alvaro, have very active cost takeout programs that are designed just to offset inflation, so not part of the synergy program. Because we know that when you wake up on January 1, you're already behind in terms of wage inflation, for example, labor inflation.

So you know you've got a job to do before you start, and that's fundamentally built into the budget process and everything else. So we tend to take cost takeout and inflation as kind of one bucket at this point, say, "No, that's our job to kind of sort that out in terms of how we deal with that cost." The other moving parts are price volume for the market and those kind of discrete items that I can give you now. But the, the range of 5-5.3 is probably designed to give a, a bit of flex and latitude in terms of how we see the moving parts at early February versus how the year might trade out. I think you're probably correct. I think everybody kind of sees the second half as being progressively better than the first half, based on...

You, you'd get that anyway from the simple math. I think that's probably we're thinking the same way as you. Second half is better than the first half, but moving parts, relatively set for some things, but a lot to play for, for the rest.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Mark, I just, before you ask your second question, I just want to make a point that, you know, Smurfit, old Smurfit, was always about looking for the most optimized way to expend capital as quickly as possible to get the best return. Maybe to your point that you were making yesterday about quick wins.

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

Yeah, that's a program that we've rolled out almost at the onset of the coming together of the two companies, which is identify low-hanging fruits. It might not necessarily be a very significant amount, but you do send a message in the organization that if you guys have a good return, come up, and that will be fast-tracked in the system. And that message goes around, as you can imagine, pretty fast.

Mark Weintraub (Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development)

... Great. So actually, just a real quick follow-up is just to understand downtime, kind of in the thought process, 'cause obviously that was costly this year. Is that a big component of, you know, potential upside, or no, are we gonna potentially have a lot more potential there in 2027 and beyond because you're still embedding in a fair bit of downtime for 2026?

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

I think it's fair to say it's to be seen, Mark. I mean, we clearly proactively manage downtime. You would have seen that in the fourth quarter. And our philosophy, and Tony spoke about it very directly there, is the reality is you can ignore the reality of building stocks for no purpose, and tying up working capital and external warehouses, and the additional incremental cost that goes with that. So our preference would be to manage downtime as we see fit in the context of the external market. Not gonna predict downtime going forward yet, that's not where we are. But clearly, downtime is worthwhile when you just don't see the demand for the product on the outside, and you're building unnecessary stocks.

You don't, you don't get a working capital out inflow, or you don't get a free cash flow, which it looks like we have, without being proactive about the whole picture. And I suppose the risk sometimes is that you, you focus on one side of the equation in terms of the EBITDA side, but you have to be willing to take the brave step and say, "No, no, actually, the real job here is to manage the inventory in the system and wait for demand to come back and then fill it." So downtime, you know, quarter one is always a heavy quarter for maintenance downtime, so that could clearly be there. But beyond that, you know, we wait and see how the demand environment picks up.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

I think one of the big opportunities we have is to reduce stocks quite significantly. And, you know, we certainly didn't want to build them to then start to work on reducing them. So if you look at what Saverio is doing, and we've done in Latin America under Alvaro, and now what we're starting to do in North America under Laurent, is to really grade-optimize our system so that we don't have as many widths. I don't know, how many widths have we come down from in Latin America?

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

From 18 to three.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

We've come down from 18 widths down to three, which creates a little bit more waste in your corrugated plant, but way less working capital needs. But you also have to adjust your working capital at the same time. So that might result in some downtime that we take. In North America, we're only at the start.

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

The number of indents were very high.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Mm-hmm.

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

So probably you're starting from a position of 200 different types of options, and the objective for, as a first pass, is to bring it down to 40, and then bringing that further. But the discipline there is also what matters, and getting on board. We've had incredible support from all sides in the business, understanding how this improves the overall in a very positive manner. Anthony?

Anthony Pettinari (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hey, Anthony Pettinari from Citi. Tony, you talked about the consumer business, you know, adding a lot to the company, and I guess just with that in that regard and with the La Tuque announcement, can you just talk a little bit more about kind of the current performance of the North American consumer business, maybe expectations for 2026 that are embedded in your guide? And then just generally, kind of the dynamic between the three grades that you produce, market conditions, and what it is that you think that really, you know, adds to the company for consumer being there.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

That's a very big question, Anthony. That'll take a long time. Well, let me start by saying, we have an incredible consumer business here in the United States, with, let's say, 80% of them at our... at the very top of their market, and then the other 20%, we still have to work with. So we have a very, very strong footprint. We have very strong potential for profitability and cash generation, and so we think this is a very good business on the converting side, with very good customers. And there is a very big lean to across our customer base, where serving our customers with both consumer board and with corrugated is a very big positive for them.

And that translates across the region, so we just landed a large contract with a large drinks company, whereby we're gonna be serving them on both sides, both continents, and much more business now in our corrugated business than we had before because of our consumer relationship. And that's something that Saverio is leveraging off on heavily for the consumer business, because we're a very big business in Europe, and our consumer business was very centered on very big accounts in Europe, with the exception of the health and beauty. But the and so we have a lot of leverage that we are bringing forward to our consumer business to really very much improve those businesses in Europe. And I think we're very happy that that's a business area of expansion for us.

With regard to mills, that's a very big question. What I would say that, you know, one of the... I don't want to steal your thunder from later on, but we're grade agnostic. We have three grades that we produce. I'm gonna let Laurent do it, because I'm gonna steal his thunder for later on.

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

I'll do it twice.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Okay, go on.

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

I can do it a second time later on. But this principle that Tony just referred to of being grade agnostic is really central. I mean, a lot of the grades can be interchanged, and it's all going to be about visibility on the shelf, brightness, I mean, all sorts of different factors, basically, that you can play with. And the strength that we have is operating from a space where we can offer whatever the customer requires, as opposed to trying to feed them with something that we would have in excess or in any form or shape driven. And that has created outstanding response with our customers, addressing their needs and working with them to understand how best to fit their purpose.

It's actually, it goes beyond just within the realm of consumer packaging. In some instances, we can also offer microflute, for instance, corrugated instead of consumer. So this whole suite of options is really creating very high-quality conversations, and we're in a unique position at that standpoint.

Niccolo Piccini (Equity Research Associate)

... Wells Fargo. Tony, Ken, good to see you. A couple questions. Just on the downtime, can you remind us what it was for the full year, and if you're willing to split it out between the corrugated and the consumer business? So point of clarification there. But more importantly, you talked about $85 million of downtime. And from your vantage point, what is the optimal asset utilization on the mill side? Like, what do you, you know, think about... And if you distinguish between U.S. and Europe-

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Mm.

Gabe Hajde (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

That'd be great. And then lastly, you talked about, I think, getting half of the 1.2 billion sq m back. Give us a timeframe on that, and then does that inform your decision on future asset optimization, or are those kind of mutually exclusive decisions? Thank you.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

That's a big one. We are in the process of getting half that business back, and that will be probably all implemented, I would guess, Q1, latest early part of Q2, of the business that we've lost. We've got half of it back. I would say that the other one point two billion that we have in our pipeline, I would expect about half of that to come back in this year. And the rest will flow in through the start of next year. But then that's gonna be a moving thing. There'll be some that come in, some come off, so... And we're likely to lose some of this other business that's still under contract, that's very badly priced.

So there's always swings and roundabouts in business coming and going. With regard to-

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

Downtime.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Downtime?

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

Okay. So for the year, $220 million in real terms is the final. I can't split it out between the corrugated and consumer for segmental reasons and disclosure reasons. You were at 85% in the fourth quarter. In terms of utilization rates, I'm looking at the two men who know better than me, but in Europe, 92% and above is probably where you'd like to be. Mid-90s% for North America is where you'd like to be generally. And in Europe, clearly, that's easily achieved, given the level of integration. So we always operate way up to 92%, simply because we don't need to do anything else, but rely less on the outside. Laurent is working actively towards the mid-90s% for his system.

Gabe Hajde (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Fair.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Okay. So we'll, we'll stop right there. If anybody wants to grab a quick coffee, we'll go straight into the, the medium-term plan. If that-

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

Yep.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

If you want to grab a coffee quickly or water or whatever.

Speaker 15

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Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

Okay, thank you, all. If you could please take your seats again, we'll get stuck into the medium-term plan presentation.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Okay. Good morning again, and good afternoon to those of you looking from Europe. Thank you for your attention. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, I'm delighted to be joined by Ken Bowles, our Executive Vice President and Group CFO. Ken is a man with vast experience, and together, we saw off an attack to our independence and successfully created one of the world's largest fiber-based packaging companies. Also, in attendance is Laurent Sellier, who you've just met, who's CEO of Smurfit Westrock, North America. A man who's worked his way up during a 30-year career from Europe to Latin America, and now to North America. Saverio Mayer, our CEO of EMEA and APAC, is actually in the business longer than I am.

Xavier's career began selling boxes, and over a subsequent 40-year period, has held many senior manager positions, including 10 years ago when he became CEO of Europe. I think you'll all agree Europe's performance, and indeed its consistent outperformance during the period, speaks to his talent and leadership. And again, but last but by no means least, Alvaro Henao, our Latin American CEO, who's been with the company for over 35 years. He's held many financial and operational roles becoming, before becoming CEO of our incredible Latin American business. As you'll have gathered from earlier on today, I'm extremely proud of this proven management team, as they not only hold the values of the company close to their heart, but more importantly, they instill those values in both existing and new employees in Smurfit Westrock.

They are the best reflection of our performance-led culture, which you'll hear about later today. Thank you, guys, for being with us. We are a global leader, delivering value for customers, for our employees, and we passionately believe in delivering value for our shareholders. The team presenting today are also very significant shareholders. The plan being presented to you has not been prepared, as I mentioned earlier, top-down by myself and Ken and this team sitting in an office. It presents opportunities identified by the teams with boots on the ground, who see and want to grasp those opportunities. That does not mean to say that we'll get everything right, of course not, all the time. But given a normal market, a normal world, we believe we will execute this plan and deliver the numbers you see on this slide.

A key opportunity is significant profit growth in North America as we change and sharpen our operational and commercial focus and introduce new ideas and further investment in this region. EMEA is expected to continue to deliver strong performance against peers, remaining at the top of the tree in innovation, sustainability, and adjusted EBITDA margin. In Latin America, our goal is to continue to deliver higher margins and significant growth. This region presents significant opportunity for superior growth, both organically and inorganically. The goal of our plan is an adjusted EBITDA growth to $7 billion by the end of 2030, with an adjusted EBITDA CAGR growth of 7% per annum and margin expansion of over 300 basis points.

We expect to generate significant adjusted free cash flow of some $14 billion between 2026 and 2030, with an adjusted free cash flow CAGR of 17%. As part of the plan, subject to the usual caveats, of course, is our board's and our company's commitment to continue to return capital to shareholders. Assuming our assumptions and market conditions hold, we expect, subject to appropriate board approvals and discretion, dividends of approximately $5 billion during the period, and to commence share buybacks from 2027 onwards. It is important to note that this plan does not include any pricing momentum. When I took over as CEO of Smurfit Kappa, now Smurfit Westrock, I set out a vision for this company.

It is to dynamically deliver and sustainably deliver secure, which means a strong balance sheet. Superior, which means outperforming all or the vast majority of our competitors. And returns, which aim to deliver long-term value, not at the expense of short-term value for our shareholders. I've always set out that I want Smurfit Westrock to be one of the great companies of the world, because great companies attract great people, who deliver great performance. Our values are at the core of everything that we do in Smurfit Westrock. First, we must ensure that all of our employees go home safely from their jobs. One accident is too many, and our mantra is: No job is so important that it cannot be done safely. Loyalty is very important to us, as we see it as mutual.

We want loyal people who will bring their experience, their knowledge, their talents to the organization. We must have people with the utmost integrity, which we define as doing the right thing when, even when no one is looking. We ask for respect throughout the organization for anyone who interacts within the company, because our values guide and meaningfully contribute to our performance. Smurfit Westrock is the leader in innovation and sustainable packaging. There is no one like us in the world. With $31 billion in sales, we have approximately 97,000 employees operating in 40 countries, and our largest region being North America, representing 58% of our sales. What does being the best, the number one global player mean?

It means we are able to continuously adopt best practice, best transfer of information, best transfer of ideas, best transfer of people, best transfer of knowledge across our world in a seamless way. We can also transfer capital and capacity across regions to continually optimize our asset base and asset efficiency. We've been at this for a long time. We are multicultural, whereas many other companies are not. This is a particular skill set of our company, and it's the culture we've always had during our existence.... We operate in 40 countries, and the number one or number two player in most of those. This strong position allows our customers to work with us easily in any country, supported by clear and constant communication.

Whether it's sharing best practice or decisions around capital allocation, we aim to make sure that the lines of communication are as short as possible, not layered with bureaucracy. This is just part of our DNA. Our geographic spread and our ability to serve across regions and countries is highly valued by customers who also operate globally. This team, our team, your team, are passionate about what we do, and we have a long and proven track record of superior performance and delivery, which is why we have been around as long as we have been. Our longevity is supported by our product range in both corrugated and consumer packaging. Fiber-based packaging is essential, is growing, and is not only a transport medium, but is increasingly a merchandising medium.

Fiber-based packaging is and remains the most renewable, the most recyclable, the most biodegradable, and the most environmentally friendly, sustainable packaging medium that exists today. Smurfit Westrock has an unrivaled, geographically balanced, and highly integrated packaging solutions business, delivering value for customers. Our product range of corrugated and containerboard business covers all areas of this packaging, from heavy-duty boxes for chemicals to lightweight packaging for applications such as e-commerce. We also offer specialty printing, from digital to litho lamination to pre-print, to give our customers the widest possible choice. And we're also one of the largest producers globally in the growing and dynamic bag and box market. Our consumer packaging operations offer our customers even more breadth and depth in fulfilling their packaging needs. Our consumer business provides packaging in primarily food and beverage, and health and beauty, with bespoke machinery applications.

This direct-to-end consumer business adds another strong leg for future performance and growth. Our fiber-based products are complementary and highly valued by our customers, fulfilling both their primary and secondary packaging needs. We bring innovation to life through leading-edge technology and a global team of over 2,000 designers interlinked. Every day, they create packaging that helps our customers win in their markets, optimize their supply chains, improves their sustainability credentials. It is global intelligence available, delivered locally. Our innovation ecosystem is powered by our digital InnoTools, used nearly 1,000 times a day, and we're only starting, from Utah to Buenos Aires, from Shanghai to Warsaw, supported by a network of over 34, 34 experience centers, which operate as our innovation hubs, if you will. These AI data-fueled applications win business and ensure we better implement solutions that are possible, profitable, desirable, and better for the planet.

ShelfSmart AI is an advanced AI tool based on insights from over 400,000 shopper studies to instantly predict on-shelf impact of packaging design. SupplySmart Analyzer uses data from 160,000 supply chains to optimize packaging and logistics, reducing over-packaging and improving efficiency. Innobook, with over 2,000 designers inputting, share 9,000+ creative solutions, giving every customer access to the creative power of over 2,000 designers across our world. And Paper to Box AI, a packaging and material design engine powered by machine learning algorithms, has over 50 million data points, engineering fit-for-purpose boxes with the right materials and low environmental impact. Innovation is ultimately about delivering better solutions and ensuring they are implemented fast and right first time to create real, tangible results for our customers.

Our unique design-to-market approach combines our AI-driven InnoTools with our globally connected innovation system to deliver market-ready solutions in weeks instead of months. This approach has proven to be massively successful, with a near 50% success rate for new business. So what is our secret sauce, our winning formula in Smurfit Westrock? It begins and ends with our culture: performance-led, customer-centric, which drives both accountability and returns. The first step is attracting, retaining, and developing the right people. While you hear everyone say that people are their greatest asset, we clearly believe it, and we invest behind it.

In order to make sure we have the talent, not only for today, but for the future, our best-in-class development programs, such as our ten-year partnership, our open leadership program with INSEAD, where over 700 managers of senior leadership have participated, and they're all aimed at ensuring both our culture and our values are retained. Our company, as I hope you gathered, is completely focused on innovation and quality. This leads to a consistent and relentless focus on creating value for customers through our knowledge base and applications. Our capital allocation framework is proven, disciplined, returns-focused, with flexibility and agility built in. We invest to develop world-class assets in a step-by-step, disciplined way, avoiding grandiose projects, all the time making sure that our shareholders are rewarded through a progressive dividend policy and maintaining strength and flexibility of our balance sheet.

Finally, in order to attract, retain, and foster talent, we make sure that our long-term incentive programs are aligned with shareholders. Let me be clear, our global integrated platform is a competitive strength, delivering value for our customers and for our shareholders. I'll now hand you over to Laurent, who's going to explain to you how we're going to unlock the significant value from our North American business. Laurent?

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

Thanks, Tony, and good morning again, everyone. Without a doubt, the North American business, which I have the privilege to run, is the biggest value creation opportunity in our medium-term plan. The region has the scale to move the needle, as well as the potential to unlock even more value for shareholders and customers. We're positioning this business to lead the industry, and I feel very excited about the future. The North American region covers the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, and we're already starting from a place of leadership, either number one or number two in all of our core segments. We're supported by just under 50,000 people across more than 300 locations in the region, which gives us unparalleled geographic presence. We generate $19 billion in revenue and $3 billion in Adjusted EBITDA, representing roughly 60% of our company's earnings.

We offer an unmatched and fully integrated product, product range, from raw material to paper to converting in both corrugated and consumer packaging, as well as a series of specialty businesses, such as Machine Systems, merchandising, and display, that all contribute to an unrivaled end-to-end offering. This allows us to serve a broad customer base, and no matter what the packaging challenge is, we are best positioned to deliver a customer-centric, fiber-based solution. Separately, given our position in both paperboard and containerboard, we can support our growth in LATAM and our European business. In our first full year, we acted decisively and effectively, and have already made significant progress towards building a stronger foundation. We completed a successful integration effort, exceeding our regional synergy target. We also decluttered the organization and reduced our headcount by more than 4,600 people since the combination.

We introduced the Owner-Operator Model, which promotes a performance-led culture that empowers local teams and gives them the space and tools to be successful. Each plant is now a profit center, and intercompany transactions between paper and conversion are strictly at arm's length. Commercially, we have focused on value creation. We've made intentional choices that reduce short-term volumes from loss-making accounts, allowing us to rebuild positions at better margins over time. We brought our commercial organization closer to the customers and the plants that serve them. We bolstered the already strong innovation capabilities of the legacy companies. There is a lot of potential here, which I will expand on in a minute.

Since I arrived in North America 18 months ago, I had the opportunity to surround myself with a phenomenal new team of very experienced and determined people who deliver day in, day out, and we will continue to invest to make the team stronger and more impactful. Regarding operations, we've taken decisive actions to shut inefficient capacity, both in paper and in converting. In addition, we have significantly reduced the number of loss-making operations within the region, despite a very challenging backdrop. Finally, we invested over $1.2 billion last year in the business, which includes a number of high-return, quick wins program, with more to come. All these actions are both structural and deliberate. They've simplified how we operate, increased accountability, and positioned us for long-term value creation.

Despite the progress we've already made, North America still represents the largest opportunity region within our company, as I said. Our strategic plan outlines a path to bring our $3 billion in adjusted EBITDA to $4.2 billion over the next five years, which represents around a 7% CAGR, ending the period at over 20% margin. This is a margin enrichment of 400 basis points, 200 of which come from base business investment and 200 coming from strategic actions. We believe that innovation is core to our value creation proposition, as emphasized by Tony. The combination of our three regions offers a wealth of expertise, and we're determined to shamelessly leverage the European and Latin American knowledge, as I am sure they're determined to leverage ours.

In particular, the suite of tools that Tony indicated in his presentation is a very powerful way to deliver customer value consistently, delivering growth by solving customers' challenges... Great restructurings in paperboard and rebalancing our long position in the most exposed, most exposed grades, such as SBS, is essential. Monday's announcement of the La Tuque PM4 shutdown is a perfect example. We're present in all grades, intend to remain in all grades, but making the system stronger. I have already seen some significant wins within our SBS business. Strategic investments will cover both conversion, focusing on automation, capabilities, and quality, and on paper, focusing on operational excellence, performance packaging, and lightweighting, both of which will deliver substantial value. This, of course, is underpinned by significant investments in systems and AI tools that accelerate our progress and make it more sustainable.

Finally, we will continue to review our system to optimize our industrial footprint, which will allow us to optimize the cost base of the business. I mentioned customer value creation on the previous slides. One of the key enablers to succeed on that promise is our unique end-to-end fiber-based packaging offering, as I said. Our full suite of containerboard and paperboard grades allows us to be substrate-agnostic. In consumer packaging, for instance, we have successfully migrated some packaging from CRB to SBS, from CRB to CUK, and so on, purely responding to customer needs. Similarly, in containerboard, the availability of virgin and recycled grades, as well as the full range of white containerboard, allows us to proactively solve problems with a customer-first mindset. We can also respond to customer requests to move from corrugated to consumer packaging or vice versa.

A range of capabilities allows us to be a one-stop shop. Whether the customer is looking for primary packaging, secondary shelf-ready packaging, or tertiary logistics packaging, a display solution to increase visibility at point of sale or all of the above, we can help. We can also offer a full suite of options regarding print that allows for unrivaled product visibility, including a state-of-the-art e-commerce unpacking experience if needed. If our customers require Machine Systems to increase their packing efficiency and automation, we can do that too. Finally, and once again, we strongly believe in innovation. By increasing profit for customers via top-line growth, cost improvements, or both, we expand the room for our own margins and gain the right to win. Our innovation capabilities covers performance packaging, supply chain efficiency, plastic substitution, sustainability, and on-shelf presence.

In addition to our Dallas and Mexico City experience centers, we've recently opened a new one in Richmond next to our paper lab, with more to come. These centers are key tools to creating value-centric conversations with our customers and bring to life what makes us unique. In conclusion, I am a strong believer that all these elements make for a winning formula and will create the most compelling proposition in the industry. It will enable us to make our ambition a reality. We have a clear plan, our progress is already visible, and our momentum is building. I will now hand over to Saverio Mayer, CEO of our EMEA and APAC region. Saverio?

Saverio Mayer (CEO of EMEA and APAC)

Well, thank you, Laurent, and again, once again, good morning, everybody. I'll now cover EMEA and Asia Pacific. In EMEA and Asia Pacific, we operate as an integrated platform, which is a key competitive advantage in these markets. Our integration starts with a containerboard system covering both recycled and kraftliner, which feeds into our corrugated operation across the region. In parallel, we have now consumer packaging operations in Europe and Asia Pacific, serving a broad range of end markets with differentiated solution and allowing us to have a holistic approach on their packaging needs. In addition, we operate bag-in-box platform that is present both Europe and in the Americas, giving us scale, innovation capability, and cross-regional leverage in this high-value segment.

In 2025, the region generated approximately $11 billion of sales and $1.6 billion of Adjusted EBITDA, with around 36,000 employees across 27 countries, and holds number one position in corrugated, containerboard, and Bag-in-Box, with a proven track record of continued outperformance. We believe this level of integration allows us to optimize the system end-to-end, protect and grow margins, and respond quickly to customers and market dynamics. We have successfully integrated the consumer packaging business and harmonized in the Owner-Operator Model with P&L ownership, developing cross-selling opportunities across corrugated and consumers, where customers are valuing the combined approach between corrugated and consumer, while also delivering ahead of target on the synergy program. We are also recognized as a reference point for both our customers and the wider industry on sustainability, and we hold the highest number of innovation awards in the industry, this reinforcing our leadership position.

Over the last number of years, we have delivered on two previous strategic plans, which have helped create a structurally stronger player in the market. Even in a challenging environment, the region has grown volumes, gained market share, and increased EBITDA by focusing on functional value and differentiation. Innovation has been a key enabler. Our InnoTools are now used across all regions, supported by a network of 28 experience centers and powered by a community of around 1,000 designers and innovators across our plants in EMEA alone. Altogether, this supports our goal of adjusted EBITDA, increasing from $1.6 billion in 2025 to around $2.21 billion by 2030, with margins expanding from 14.9% to returning to over 16%, as reached in the past. And this is based on conservative market assumptions and with upside as conditions improve.

So this year, we are starting our new strategic plan for 2026-2030. Our differentiation strategy, along with the integrated model, have been key to driving our margin resilience and creating long-term value. Over the years, we have built a proven playbook that has positioned us for growth, and we will continue to adapt and develop our region into 2030, built around three pillars: To be the company of choice through disciplined capital allocation and continuous efficiency improvement in our core markets. A key differentiator here is our proven business model, which allows us to deploy capital at a regional system level rather than at the single asset level.

This means we can involve all relevant assets within a region to deliver on a given investment, a unique competitive advantage, and one which has the ability to support strong growth with an attractive returns on capital. To be the supplier of choice to our customers by accelerating proven innovation, delivering sustainable, high-performance packaging, and provide a superior functional value through quality and service. And of course, to be the employer of choice, choice to our people by strengthening engagement, inclusivity, and wellbeing, and by empowering strong local leadership across the organization. To support this strategy, we are investing in highly targeted and disciplined way. We invest in new converting technology, where we see clear opportunities to create value and strengthen our offer to customers. As an example, let me mention the Bag-in-Box, in Bag-in-Box, the greenfield investment in Anderson in the U.S.

This is a business we know very well since we already operate two bag-in-box plants in North America, and it's part of a global platform. We saw a clear opportunity to further develop the U.S. market, and the investment builds directly on existing capabilities together with our U.S. colleagues. Through this disciplined approach, we aim to make investments that are well-targeted and deliver attractive returns. In summary, EMEA and Asia-Pacific provide a stable, high-quality earnings base for the group. The region has consistently delivered margin resilience, strong cash generation, and disciplined growth, and will play a key role in supporting the group's 2030 value creation targets. Let me now hand over to my colleague, Alvaro Henao, CEO of Latin America.

Alvaro Henao (CEO of Latin America)

Thanks, Saverio, and good morning to everyone. It's really a privilege to be here with you today and have the opportunity to give you a clear, data-driven view of why Latin America is not only a strong contributor to Smurfit Westrock, but a region with extraordinary potential for long-term, profitable growth. Actually, I firmly believe we are an absolute gem, not only because of our leadership position in the region, in market share and footprint, but because we have a great assets and because we have great local management that really knows the markets and the countries in which we operate. Let me begin with our competitive advantage. We are the number one corrugated supplier across the region, with leading positions in Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina.

In the region, we also offer the broadest portfolio of paper packaging and full solutions, which includes consumer packaging, sacks, forestry, recycling, and both recycling and virgin-based papers, such as our lightweight and eucalyptus-based papers. We are in a region that has higher margins and many growth opportunities. This combination of regional reach, completely integrated process, and a broad portfolio of paper-based solutions is unique to Smurfit Westrock and very difficult to replicate. Hence, it is a source of sustainable competitive advantage. As I will explain later, we have a proven track record and what really makes us different, an experienced management team, built upon a capacity to attract the best talent in each of the countries in which we operate.

Since the combination of Smurfit Kappa and WestRock, we integrated approximately 100,000 tons of paper from North America into our Central America and Caribbean operations, basically converting the whole region into a completely integrated system. This gives us access to a secure supply of North American paper that will allow us to grow in the future in the region, organically and inorganically. From a management and sales point of view, the market now only sees Smurfit Westrock, not the legacy companies. Finally, we were able to take advantages of synergies across the mill and forestry divisions that we have in both Colombia and Brazil.

But let me tell you, the real differentiator in the region, now as Smurfit Westrock, is that we are fully leveraging on the European corrugated tools that we just, that was spoken about, and practices that have really made us successful and helped us increase our margins. And also, that we have a North American mill system that is there to support us. It's really a winning formula for the region. We have an unrivaled footprint. We have the broadest portfolio in the region, offering paper-based packaging solutions such as corrugated, consumer packaging, and sacks, which has allowed us to reach more than 4,500 customers from our 44 facilities in 10 countries. A really, really unrivaled footprint. Our current strength is built on a long track record of disciplined execution and the experience and knowledge of having been in the region for more than 80 years.

The example to our success in the last 10 years is, we have doubled our Adjusted EBITDA. We have expanded the Adjusted EBITDA margins by more than 500 basis points, reaching 23%, and we delivered steady growth with a 4% CAGR in corrugated. This performance reflects our ability to navigate economic volatility and strengthen our cost position and invest with discipline. It shows something that is crucial: when we invest, we grow, and when we grow, we deliver. Now, let's look forward. We have a clear ambition: grow our Adjusted EBITDA with a CAGR of 11%, reaching $800 million by 2030, and increase margins to 28%. We will get there through four growth engines. Organic growth and market share expansion.

Latin America offers significant opportunities in segments like agribusiness, protein, beverages, consumer goods, and export-driven industries, especially in markets where we are not yet leaders. Cost efficiency and operational discipline. We continue to strengthen our competitive cost structure through scale, automation, and logistics optimization, additional capacity. We have a well-defined CapEx roadmap aligned with high-growth geographies, particularly Brazil, the Andean region, and Central America. We will invest in consolidating our corrugated and packaging leadership, and we will also invest and continue to lower our costs, further increasing our competitive advantages in the region. Accretive acquisitions. There are meaningful opportunities for strategic acquisitions that we believe can take our number above the adjusted $800 million mark.

We want to grow in places where we are one of the leaders, but there is room to increase our market share, like Brazil, and also target regions where we're still in the process of expanding our business, like Central America, Ecuador, and Chile. Reinforcing all of this is our value-added proposition, powered by three experience centers and more than 150 designers, who co-create solutions with our customers from the earliest stages of product development. We are the only company in the region that can offer a pan-regional footprint, if that is what our customers want, or if they want local solutions, we have the knowledge and the capabilities to deliver them.

In short, we believe we have a clear plan to reach an Adjusted EBITDA of $800 million, with a margin close to 28%, and if we make some bold acquisitions not included in these numbers, we will exceed that target. The combination of local market knowledge, experienced management, access to a global network of corrugated and paper tools and knowledge, and secured paper availability coming from North America, we believe will allow us to further expand our position as the corrugated and packaging leader in the region. As I expressed before, when we invest, we grow, and when we grow, we deliver. Now, I will hand over to Ken, who will explain the financials.

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

Thank you, Alvaro. Good morning, everyone. I want to now talk to you about delivering, the path to delivering shareholder value over the medium term, and why we believe that this path is both credible and executable. What you'll see through the next few slides is not a change in philosophy, but a continuation, but most importantly, an acceleration of a business model that has proven itself over many years, now applied across a broader global platform. I want to take a step back first, though, for a few minutes, and look at the pre-combination performance of Smurfit Kappa, and most importantly, our track record. It tells a very clear story: consistent delivery. Consistent delivery in all market conditions.

A period, not unlike today, you might think, with many challenges and macro hurdles, but also a period where we outlined a medium-term plan for the business and more than delivered on that plan. This kind of performance does not happen by accident. It's the product of a proven operating model, executed by the leadership team with a deep understanding of our industry and our markets. Over this period, we delivered an adjusted EBITDA CAGR of 6.5%, more than double the peer average. This outperformance isn't the result of any single initiative, but of a disciplined and agile capital allocation strategy, our unique owner-operator culture, and a core philosophy of placing the customer at the center of everything we do. Alongside this, we expanded our adjusted EBITDA margin by over 450 basis points. Again, significantly ahead of our industry peers.

What this demonstrates is not just growth, but consistent, profitable growth through the cycle. Over these years, we believe we cemented our position as the most innovative and sustainable packaging company in the world, and this enabled us to deliver significant value for our customers. Supported by an integrated model, a relentless focus on quality and service, and an unrivaled portfolio of value-added packaging solutions. Importantly, our strong financial and operational delivery translated into meaningful returns for our shareholders. Over this period, we returned $2.8 billion to our progressive dividend policy, and all the while reducing our net leverage from 2.4x to 1.4x, reflecting our long-standing commitment to balanced, disciplined capital allocation.

With the integration of WestRock now complete, we have the platform, capabilities, and leadership team in place to replicate and build on that track record, record going forward. That sound foundation underpins the medium-term plan we're presenting today. Turning now to the plan itself, which really captures the scale of the opportunity ahead of us and how we are positioned the business to deliver on that opportunity. We are setting out specific and actionable financial goals through 2030. These goals are grounded in a detailed bottom-up plan across all our operations. As you can see, by 2030, we aim to deliver approximately $7 billion of Adjusted EBITDA and a group Adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 19%.

This goal reflects the strength of our global operations, the benefits of our performance and culture, and the earnings quality we're building, and maintaining across each of our three regions, as mentioned by Laurent, Saverio, and Alvaro. A key driver of that progress is a significant growth opportunity in North America, which is a significant lever for value creation in the Smurfit Westrock, but it is not the only one. With the operating model now firmly in place and the heavy lifting of integration complete, our teams are empowered, our assets are better aligned, and the actions we've taken already delivering higher margins and higher cash conversion.

Over the next five years, we aim to generate approximately $14 billion of discretionary free cash flow, reflecting not only the earnings power of the business under conservative top-line assumptions, but also the ongoing benefits of a relentless focus on cost control and operational excellence. This level of cash generation provides substantial flexibility to invest in the business, further strengthen the balance sheet, and make significant capital returns to our shareholders. At the same time, we see a clear path to delivering a 700 basis point improvement in Return on Capital Employed, driven by margin expansion, improved asset utilization, operating efficiency gains, and the advantages of a fully globally integrated system. Return on Capital Employed has long been a hallmark of our performance and culture, and the medium-term opportunity here is significant.

All of this is underpinned by our disciplined capital allocation framework, which I'll outline in a few moments, a framework that is flexible, agile, and returns-focused at its core. We are focused on continuing to strike the right balance between investing behind high return projects and delivering significant capital returns to shareholders, supported by our continuing strong balance sheet. So let me spend a few moments on the assumptions behind that $7 billion adjusted EBITDA target. Our 2030 targets are supported by a structurally stronger business, as our operating model and strategic investments lift the group adjusted EBITDA margin from 16% to 19%. Our plan assumes benign market growth based on third-party sources, and through the cycle pricing, broadly in line with current levels, reflecting a disciplined and conservative approach to our outlook.

I'd once again remind you, it does not include the impact of any recently announced paper price increases in North America. We've assumed market growth of 1.6% in North America, 1.7% in Europe, and 2% in Latin America. These market growth rates provide a solid foundation, but it's the actions we are taking within the business that truly drives a step change in our earnings. A key pillar of the plan is that we assume below mid-market paper pricing in Europe and no price increase in North America on paper. In other words, the margin expansion we are targeting is not dependent on a pricing cycle. It is grounded in the operational improvements, the commercial focus, and asset optimization actions already underway.

As Laurent outlined, we are already successfully executing on our creating value for our customer strategy in North America, a strategy well established in the Smurfit Kappa business. By deepening our customer partnerships, leveraging our innovation offering, and driving P&L responsibility at the mill and the box plants, we are enhancing our customer mix, improving quality and service, and driving a more resilient earnings model across the group. And as we continue to execute our creating value for our customer strategy, and with the alignment of management teams' incentives with our strategy, our plan expects all regions to contribute to profitable growth, driving meaningful margin expansion from 16% to 19% by 2030.

While we are confident in the plan as presented, there is potential upside, particularly with respect to the assumptions on growth and pricing, as well as choosing to accelerate investment if the right opportunities arise. Our capital allocation framework continues to be one of the most important drivers of long-term value creation and a core element of how we run the business... Over the next five years, we expect to deploy $13 billion of total capital expenditure, including maintenance and growth CapEx, with an average annual CapEx spend of about $2.6 billion. This level of investment is fully aligned with our strategy, enabling growth and cost takeout, improving operating efficiency, and strengthening our integrated system.

Importantly, we expect this investment to contribute to a 7 percentage point improvement in the group return on capital employed to approximately 15%, reflecting the high return nature of the projects we are targeting. As a team with deep industry experience, we continue to view internally deployed capital as the lowest risk and highest quality use of capital, an approach that remains central to the future success of our business. Alongside this, we expect to be able to allocate $10 billion towards, for example, capital returns to shareholders and accretive acquisitions. Dividends remain the cornerstone of our capital return strategy, and as part of this, we anticipate returning about $5 billion in dividends over the next 5 years, subject to the necessary board approvals and the consideration of a number of economic and other factors.

From 2027 onwards, we expect to have capacity to undertake share repurchases, as to be determined by the board, representing an additional avenue to which we can return value to shareholders and underlining our confidence in our strategy and the cash generation profile of the business. Our approach to M&A will always remain disciplined, focused now on accretive, both on opportunities that strengthen our geographic footprint and complement our product portfolio. Underpinning all of this is the balance sheet of significant strength and flexibility, one that supports investment, ensures resilience across cycles, and provides the optionality needed to pursue value-enhancing opportunities. Taken together, this framework strikes the right balance between investing for growth and delivering substantial value back to our shareholders.

What this next slide highlights is the scale of the value creation opportunity ahead of us and the significant capital we expect to have available to share for shareholders as we move through 2026 and on to 2030. Over the five-year period, the earnings power of this business has the potential to generate substantial Adjusted EBITDA, which, after funding maintenance, investment, tax, and other commitments, leaves us with a significant pool of available capital. From that starting point, we aim to invest behind, behind high return growth and efficiency projects and fund a progressive, reliable dividend stream. After doing this, we expect to generate approximately $5 billion of surplus capital. That surplus is a powerful number. It gives us the ability to accelerate investment where we see attractive returns and to introduce buybacks as an additional avenue for value creation.

In short, this waterfall speaks directly to the strategic and financial flexibility of Smurfit Westrock. It shows a business capable, capable of investing for growth, driving meaningful returns, and still generating significant excess capital. Looking more closely at capital expenditure and our, and our approach will remain disciplined and consistent. And as mentioned, we expect to deploy $13 billion in cumulative CapEx across North America, EMEA, and LATAM. Approximately $9 billion of this is expected to be allocated to maintenance CapEx with, as I mentioned previously, $4 billion invested in growth CapEx. We focus on a high volume of small, high-return projects, which translate into a projected annual CapEx spend of approximately $2.4 billion-$2.8 billion over the plan.

We have always believed in being flexible and agile when it comes to capital deployment, and as you will see from the footnote at the bottom of this page, the average CapEx project is less than $4 million, with no project larger than $200 million. Important to reiterate, as Tony mentioned earlier on, there are no grandiose projects in here. As I have mentioned, we expect our organic investments in the business to generate a 700 basis point improvement in return on capital employed. Turning now to the balance sheet. A balance sheet of significant strength and financial flexibility will remain a key underpin to our capital allocation strategy. We ended 2025 with net leverage around 2.6 times and net debt just below $13 billion, and we are firmly committed to maintaining a strong investment-grade credit profile.

Our long-term target remains net leverage below 2x, and we are pleased to receive a Fitch upgrade to BBB+ with stable outlook. As we progress towards that leverage target, the strength of our balance sheet gives us both flexibility to return excess capital to shareholders and to invest in growth when opportunities arise. It's a foundation that ensures Smurfit Westrock can continue to deliver for all of our stakeholders. Finally, for me, to wrap things up, this slide captures one of the most important elements of our value proposition: the significant and growing capital returns we expect to deliver to our shareholders. As discussed earlier, we have a proven track record of delivering progressive dividends, and that remains a core part of our equity story.

Over the 2026-2030 period, we expect to return approximately $5 billion through dividends alone, subject to necessary board approvals and depending on a number of economic and other factors. From 2027 onwards, we see an opportunity for a strong free cash flow generation to provide capacity for share buybacks, supporting our confidence in Smurfit Westrock's long-term value and strategy. In summary, this is a plan built on discipline, operational excellence, and growing capital returns, and one we believe positions Smurfit Westrock to deliver sustained value for all shareholders.... And with that, I'll pass you back to Tony for some concluding remarks.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Well, thank you, Ken. As a significant shareholder in Smurfit Westrock, what I, and I hope you, expect to see is a plan that is ambitious yet deliverable, and a plan that demonstrates a long-term future and a strong foundation to build on. This is what we have presented today. Our competitive strengths include our performance-led culture, Owner-Operator Model, with the customer being at the heart of what we are, and our global integrated platform, with short lines of communication, continually networking. We also value our leadership and experience. You'll have already heard from my colleagues. Their teams are equally strong and motivated. As a consequence of our management development programs, the next generation of leaders will foster the same culture and values that exist today. Our product portfolio and global reach is unique and unparalleled and allows us to serve customers.

We offer innovation, customer centricity, solving their pain, delivering value, and helping them win in their own marketplaces. We do this against the backdrop of continual improvement in our operations through disciplined capital expenditure, emphasizing cash flow, and ensuring that we're adequately rewarded for the capital that we have employed. For me, shareholder value and owner-operator mindset go hand in hand. It's just not philosophical. It's the person who turns the lights off to reduce the costs. It's the salespeople who makes that call at 6:30 P.M. instead of going home, and it's the manager who looks at the share price every day because he cares about it. In summary, Smurfit Westrock has been around for 90 years.

Many other companies you'll know in our sector have fallen by the wayside, yet we're still here, and we're here because we do as we say, and we say as we do. Performance is and always will be the basis of our credibility. We have delivered. We have delivered on acquisitions, we've delivered on our plans, we've delivered because we have a proven track operating model, and we've delivered because we're in a business that is a good business. It's a very resilient business. It's a business that the world needs. It's a business that our customers need, and we've also delivered because we have an unrivaled geographic footprint. The coming together of Smurfit Kappa and WestRock has given us a product portfolio that is unmatched in scale and diversity, which we continue to build on through all the unique applications we've shown you today.

This is a world-class management team with a proven track record, and our interest as shareholders are fully aligned with yours. Finally, I want to leave you with this final thought: The plan is not the summit of our ambition. There are many other opportunities to be pursued, and as we did in our previous plans, we'll continually update our thinking. I believe Smurfit Westrock is at the beginning of an incredible journey, an accelerated growth path, a journey that will take us to the decades ahead. We have the magic formula, we have the right culture, we have the right people, and we have the right products. I hope after today, you see the team, you have the right team to successfully drive this business forward in the years ahead.

I thank you all for your attention, both here in the room and on the net, and we look forward to taking any questions from you about this, our ambitious but deliverable plan. Thank you.

George Staphos (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks, Tony. Thanks, gentlemen. George Staphos, BofA. One question, right? You got it.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

But others, others have taken license, George, so you might slip in a second one if you want.

George Staphos (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

So if we look at the progression to $7 billion, $4 billion in North America, $2 billion in Europe, $1 billion roughly in South America, can you help us understand how important the evolution of consumer is relative to getting to that target across the segments? Why it seems like you see consumer being married to corrugated makes more sense than what we've seen perhaps past companies have had difficulty getting that effectiveness, and frankly, you've even had questions about that when you first put the business together, why you think it makes sense now?

And then the last one, related: Tell us why South America, even though it's the smallest, Alvaro, it's very profitable, why you're not worried about all the paper that apparently is coming in from Asia, Klabin starting up PM28, how that fits all in? Thank you very much. I'll stop there.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

So, George, I look at things quite simply. I said, "Can we be a very good business in consumer?" And the answer is yes. We have some really fantastic businesses within our consumer portfolio that are very unique, very difficult for any competitors to replicate, and we have some very good mills in the consumer business. What we have to continue to do is improve and adapt over the coming months and years to make all of our system good, because there's still some work to be done, and you'll know that our CRB mills are not necessarily the best in the world, but at the same time, they are good for purpose for us, and they're highly cash generating, and they don't take a lot of capital.

You know, we always have to continually modify our business and invest in the business to make them high-return businesses. And I believe that the consumer business, with its market positioning, together with our corrugated business, gives us a strategic advantage to sell more, to offer our customers a diversified portfolio, as Laurent has said, and allows us to get better returns over a period of time, over time. There's still work to do, but we have some really great businesses within that business. And, you know, it's a central plank for growth for us.

I mean, frankly speaking, you know, in many of the countries in Europe, for example, we can't really grow in corrugated that much because we're too big, but we can grow quite a bit in consumer if we find the right acquisition target that gives us value. So I think it's a very good business, and I don't think we should be throwing away good businesses, and it integrates well with our system.

George Staphos (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Tony, how much of the EBITDA growth is in consumer to 2024?

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

I-

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

We don't

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

We don't segment that, George.

George Staphos (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

You know, I don't think it's materially different to-

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

No

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

... to our corrugated businesses. You know, we expect all improvement across all segments and, you know, there might be a bit on one side versus the other, but probably there's a little bit more improvement to get in our corrugated business a little bit, but it's not material.

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

Yeah, probably the simplest way, George, think about it, is broadly, the kind of the profile stays the same through in terms of percentages and scale.

George Staphos (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Laurent, do you wanna take the?

Alvaro Henao (CEO of Latin America)

Um

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

... Latin American question?

Alvaro Henao (CEO of Latin America)

Sure. On Latin American and the paper side, I think that one of the big advantages that we have is that now that we have access to the North American paper, we're basically isolated from a paper point of view because we are now—we were, we used to be short, very short when we were Smurfit Kappa. Now, our system is completely integrated into North America, so that basically isolates us from any paper swings or scarcity of paper that the region every now and then has. The other issue is that notwithstanding what you have said, the region still continues to be basically supplied by the U.S. We do see every now and then, paper coming from different regions, lately from Europe.

But when you look at the import numbers into the region, the region's main supplier, the main supplier of paper into the region is the U.S.. So and then in the... Going into your comment about the growth of Klabin. Yes, Klabin invest in every now and then, in cycles, they invest in their paper mills. Let me say just in Brazil, we have a very nice operation with which is very low cost, again. And the internal Brazilian market, whenever they do invest, is able to absorb the majority of those investments. So, I mean, I don't foresee any material disruption into the overall paper supply balance and pricing in the region.

George Staphos (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

We go back, forward to back. Phil?

Phil Ng (Managing Director)

Hi, Phil Ng from Jefferies. Laurent, really appreciate you being here. You're actually a perfect person to ask this question because you came from Europe, you had the history of value selling in Europe. You know, how has that transitioned in the U.S.? Just because I think a lot of the customers aren't as accustomed to having some of these solutions that you guys are offering. So how's that journey? Are you talking to the same people in terms of negotiating? Is it procurement guys or marketing guys? Just kind of give us some context, the differences between North America and Europe, and the margin difference perhaps on that value solution versus non-value solution.

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

So, I think it's the impression that we're having altogether is that the timing to introduce that particular thinking process is really right, and that the market somehow has been expecting out there us to move or other people to move. It just happens it's us, and it. The timing is really good. And the engagement that we have, whether it's, as you rightly pointed, procurement, marketing, or other people, they're asking: What is gonna be the next way to get to the optimal packaging costs in their case, but also function and delivery to their to their system? And the type of people that we're talking to, and Tony and all of us have referred extensively to this concept of experience centers.

They're not just buzzwords, they're really places where you put the customer in a position to share with us their pain points, their aspirations, also the type of issues that they have to solve, and they really value in the U.S.. We've had great response, both in Dallas, where we have a historical presence that goes before the coming together of the two companies, but now in Richmond and same in Mexico. There's been phenomenal response from very large customers of ours, who are really appreciating the type of engagement and the type of discussion. I think really that the timing is right for us to engage in those conversations, and I think it's also feeding the pipeline conversation we were having earlier on.

Phil Ng (Managing Director)

Any color on the margin difference between the value stuff versus non-value?

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

So this is when I turn to Ken?

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

I would say, Phil, that you know, obviously, if you're giving solutions to customers and you're able to save them money, then you want to share in that benefit. So typically, if you're doing something for your customer that's winning, helping him, you tend to get some of that contribution back. So obviously, the more of these that we have, the better it is. But it's more as well that you get given more business. So you're able to optimize your system better and you know, so it's. We're only starting this in the U.S..

I mean, you know, Laurent mentioned that we have a second, and we're about to open up a third experience center in our Chicago region. Just so that we can cover the U.S. because it's a big country. And our Head of Innovation here in the United States, who's a great guy, we just hired him from... Where was it? InBev or somewhere like that.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Yeah.

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

He's only with us nine months now. So it's - we're really just at the beginning of this journey of value selling here in the U.S. And you know, there's a whole iteration to go through of training of people. But what I've heard, and I haven't experienced myself directly, but what I've heard with the customers that go to the Dallas center, they're just blown away by the opportunities for them to save money. And in that scenario, then everybody wins.

Phil Ng (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Lewis Roxburgh (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, Lewis Roxburgh from Goodbody. Just on growth CapEx, it seems pretty broad-based across sort of businesses and regions, but just sort of highlight any sort of standout focus there. Then just clarification, the $4 billion amounts to about $0.8 billion each year, and you add that onto depreciation, it's about $3.3 billion. So is the delta there just sort of depreciation coming less?

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

No, the depreciation stream will probably stay-

Lewis Roxburgh (Equity Research Analyst)

Right

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

... a little bit more than 2.6, Lewis, over the period. Simply, but remember as well, as part of our D&A at the moment, post-transaction, you've got an amortizing intangible that kind of trails off at about 140 a year. So as you, as you're getting towards the five years, you're depreciating five times 140 coming out of the base, and you're adding back in the new CapEx. So broadly, you could consider D&A to be in that kind of 2.6-2.7 space across the life of the plan as well. It's probably the simplest way to think about it.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Lewis, on the capitals, I mean, you know, one of the mantras we have in our company is adaptability. So, you know, we talk about this all the time. So Laurent or Alvaro or Saverio might say, "This is our plan for next year," in a machine in, I don't know, take it, France. And then we find out there's a little bit less growth in France, and there's a little bit more growth in Germany, so we adapt. And so there's no, as Ken said, there's no project bigger than $200 million, and that would typically be paper machine, press section, winder, or something like that, that will be... So there's no really big projects, but there's a lot, a lot of small projects.

And then, as Laurent said, the biggest opportunity we continue to see is obviously as wages have gone up and salaries have increased due to inflation, you know, there is... and robotics is gonna become a bigger thing. You know, we see a lot of opportunity to invest in, you know, machines to take away continuing labor costs. And so that's something that is very much top of mind, and as robotics continues to develop, that's something that we'll latch on to. But within this plan, you know, there'll always be some flex because we might say, "That project, we haven't seen the growth we expected to see in Brazil, so therefore we'll just go to Colombia, or we'll go from Colombia to Mexico," or so it just depends on the year.

But that's why I said in my opening or in my closing that we're always adaptable, and we're always looking, and we continue to keep the Strap Plan on our... It's hot on our plate every year. And we look at our budgets, we'll be looking at how does that sit with regard to the Strat Plan, et cetera, et cetera.

Mark Weintraub (Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development)

On the margin improvement in North America, you talk about going from about 16% to 20%, and then you also include about half of it from base business, half of it from strategic action. So if I look at kind of the column to the right, and we see footprint optimization, obviously strategic action, what else would be in the strategic action bucket? Most of it would seem to sort of be running the business, the base business better. So maybe if you could help us understand what would be in what type of bucket.

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

Yeah. I'll let Laurent elaborate a bit further, but think about the kind of the base piece, Mark, as, as kind of ongoing maintenance CapEx, which you, you will get a return for, but we're not, you know, it's not really the driver of growth there. In terms of the extra 300 basis points, that is growth CapEx, you know, where we see, back to Tony's point, where, where you can take cost, take cost out, where you, you see growth coming through, whether it's machines or customers around markets and investing behind that. And indeed, that's part of where that, you know, the single biggest project is in there too, so, in Laurent's system. But Laurent, do you want to give more color on how you see the strategic piece?

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

Sure. So basically, what we call base is being a good custodian of your assets. Basically, making sure that things are in order, what needs to be replaced is replaced. But anytime you do that, also looking at ways and manners to generate that little extra bit of capacity, money, or-

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Maybe, maybe, Laurent, talk about the latest, mill project we just approved for Hopewell, was it?

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

Yeah.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Yeah.

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

So you can do-

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

As an example.

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

Yeah, you, you can do like, refurbish, for instance, on a paper machine, your, your drive, and, and because the drive is obsolete, not maintained by the manufacturer or whatever, so you need to upgrade that. And in the process, you gain, I don't know, 3 meters per minute or 10 feet per minute on the paper machine that just generates that. So it's being good custodian of assets. And then, when you look to strategic projects, you're more thinking in terms of pockets of growth, either by segments or geography, where you think that you can line up more capacity because there is a sales backing or a sales opportunity there. And it's potentially redeveloping one particular, part in, a paper mill that will give you either different types of products or enhanced matching between the products and what the market desires.

So anything that goes beyond the simple upkeep of the assets, and usually with higher return profiles. So typically, we say 200 basis points on both, and you have 2/3 on the maintenance piece and 1/3 on the strategic piece, yielding more or less the same result.

Mark Weintraub (Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development)

Just to clarify, that is how to interpret the margin improvement, not just the use of capital, the way you were describing it?

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

That's right.

Mark Weintraub (Senior Analyst and Head of Business Development)

Okay. And then just as a very, very quick follow-up. Tony, you've talked about in the past how there was a great opportunity in the converting assets in North America, the box businesses. Can you maybe kind of update us on how that's progressing and you know-

... how big a part of the program achieving those types of goals and how you go about it?

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

It's a huge part of it. Mark, when we came into this, we had a lot of plants losing a lot of money. And as we've shed some business and adjusted the operating costs of the plants to reflect lower volume, but at the same time, you know, opportunities that have come into the plant as well, you've seen our corrugated business move as a whole from significant loss maker to not significant, but somewhat profit-making now. And as I said, we're only at the start of that, because as we implement, you know, better volume, more valued volume for our customers across our piece and getting rid of bad business, frankly speaking, that you're paying people to run, you know, you shouldn't be paying people to run bad business.

So we are bringing in better business, and that will be, you know, I've said 8%-12% margins in corrugated is our aspiration, and we will get there because we have the tools, we have the knowledge. So you go from negative $200 million to, let's say, $1 billion, you know, it's a material improvement in the business, the underlying business. I mean, you know, the best example I can give you is, you know, Saverio will talk to you about a plant we have, which was basically six or seven years ago, plus or minus breakeven in a country, and we had another competitor in that country.

It's just two of us in that country, and our competitor is now closing down, and we're making over $1.5 million a month in that country, from nothing, because we've invested, and we've brought our tools, and we've done all the things that we had to do, and our competitors just walked away. And so that's an even bigger opportunity for us. So we're not gonna be able to do that everywhere as quickly as we'd like to do it everywhere, but, you know, even in one facility we have in Chicago, which is a great, you know, well-equipped facility. When I went there the first time, Mark, I didn't, I didn't post about it because I was so ticked off about their performance.

Alexander Robinson (Company Representative)

Mm.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

And then I went back a year later, and they're now making close to $1 million a month, because they've changed some things, they've adjusted their costs, they've changed some customers, and you have a really motivated management team now who is really... But we have to do that in 100 plants. I mean, you know, it doesn't happen overnight. But that's a huge. I don't know if you want to comment.

Alexander Robinson (Company Representative)

No, I think it's exactly right. Tony talked about flexibility, and so did Ken, and I think we're there, saying there are certainly a number of box plants where there are evident issues about equipment. And, you know, there's a kind of mantra going around in the company: You need a good corrugator, and you need one solid piece of good converting equipment to match your business. And in some cases, we don't have that. So these are fairly obvious places, and it would be built in the plant. But then there's another number of plants that are not performing so well, and it's still unclear whether it's management or whether it's equipment.

Rather than rush and put in equipment, that would be complicated if you graft new equipment on a bad team, and like, you can really make a catastrophe there. We're taking our time to assess. There are the fairly obvious ones and the less obvious ones, and we'll take the time over the plan to address one and the other.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Let's go back to front because it

Oh, yeah.

Sorry, Gabe. Just you'll get next. You can have two—you can have two questions, Gabe, just, just for that.

Richard Bourke (Senior Credit Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks for the update. I'm Richard Bourke with Bloomberg Intelligence. Looking at your projections for 2030, noticed that the North American EBITDA margin is 20%, and Europe is only 16%. Being kind of more US-centric focused over my career, I just try to understand, is there structural differences that the margins won't get, in Europe won't ever get to the U.S., or are we at different point in the cycle? Or just kind of your thoughts behind that.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Yeah, Richard, it's a very good question 'cause we ask ourselves the same question. So thanks, thanks for that. I mean, the reality is that Europe has always been a couple of points behind Europe, maybe for the embedded costs in Europe. But over time, we have improved ourselves, and that number is far away from where we have been before. I mean, I think, we've been up to 19%-

Alexander Robinson (Company Representative)

Nineteen

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

... in Europe, and, you know, frankly speaking, we're putting together what the guys gave us, having obviously been reviewed at length by ourselves. And I will be very disappointed in Saverio if he is only 16% margin, so, so-

Alexander Robinson (Company Representative)

Easy. I think Richard as well-

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

But-

Alexander Robinson (Company Representative)

Sorry. I think Richard as well, if you flip that down to the balance sheet and capital allocation, you get much more bang for your buck in terms of capital going into Europe versus North America from a cost perspective. So I'd... In, in defense of my good friend, Saverio, I'd say that, you know, his return on capital employed is probably, you know, mid-teens versus where Laurent is, and that, that's been a, you know, sustaining factor for the strong balance sheet. The free cash flow generation has always been much better out of Europe. Equally, working capital, where, you know, Saverio would hang out below 10% and Laurent is slightly ahead.

So it's a, it sort of goes back to the fundamental thesis, I think, what we're speaking about, which is you take a business across three regions, and you take the pooled capital and the pooled resource around free cash flow, and you allocate and get the returns out, whether it's the returns from an EBITDA perspective and margin, or the returns from a cash flow, balance sheet, and shareholder return perspective. But it's pooled resources.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

I think another, another interesting point, and Saverio will has mentioned it in, in his presentation, he's been through two strategic processes and, in addition, that Smurfit and Kappa came together in 2005. So we've been spending the last 15 years, 20 years, nearly, 20 years-

Alexander Robinson (Company Representative)

Twenty-one.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

21. I was never good at accounting. We've been spending the last 21 years making Europe a great organization, and investing in Europe, and developing our asset base. So, you know, we have a fabulous position with fabulous people, with fabulous assets. You know, but 21 years ago, when you came to Smurfit Kappa, you would have said they weren't such great assets. But now, anybody who would look at our company in Europe would say, "Wow, these are fantastic businesses, fantastic assets, fantastic people, and certainly should earn more than 16% EBITDA margins." I agree with you. So Saverio, that's-

No, it's we've been there before. I mean, we went to 18, 19, and this is—and as said, this is not including any pricing or market condition that through the cycles will be there again. And so we expect to—that we can deliver back where we delivered. Today, the 16% mark in Europe, it's an ambitious target. It's a good target, which doesn't mean, as we did in the past, we can not go above that. I mean, as situation improves... The conditions are improving in general, so we'll get there.

I think what's, what's interesting is that Europe has been in a bit of a funk since the Ukrainian war. I mean, obviously, if you take a view that that's all gonna end, then you could see a very big rebuilding in Europe. It's 380 mi- how many million people in Europe?

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

Mm, close.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

I mean-

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

It's $400 million.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

400 million people. It's a very big economy, and we have number one and number two positions in most of the markets there, and we've got the best market position. So it's a really exciting place for us if there's any sort of economic growth. And, and, as I say, we've got an incredible mill system, we've got an incredible paper system, sorry, corrugated system, and we've got incredible specialty businesses there that are, you know, today earning, you know, 14%-15%, in a market where most of our competitors are earning next to nothing, or very low, low single digits. Gabe, sorry.

Gabe Hajde (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

No, no problem. Gabe Hajde, Wells Fargo. Thank you, Tony. First, first, give credit where it's due, initial report card, $4.9 billion of EBITDA. The guide was pretty consistent, at least with our expectations, so putting points on the board. When I try to dissect or translate the $1.2 billion in North America, and I translate from, I guess, margin to dollars, the margin profile would suggest on the current business, about $800 million of improvement. And then, the most difficult thing to lock down or pin down has been the 1.6% growth in North America. So if I do the math on that, it suggests about $300 million-$350 million of contribution from market growth. Is that about right?

And then, B, would you identify that as the most risky piece of the North American ambition? Thank you.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Listen, the market last year was not good. I mean, you know, we actually attribute about 3%-4% of our -10% to the market. You know, if you look at the FBA numbers, if you look at our two competitors that have reported, they've been -2%. You know, they're around -2%, all of them. And so if you look at that, then you'd sort of say, "Well, we've lost a little share because of the market, the business we've given up, so maybe the market...

They've gained the share, so therefore, the market is 3%-4% down. And it has specifically hit maybe a company like ours a little bit harder because a lot of the big branded goods, which is where we were selling a lot of, have been hurt during the last year. I don't think that's gonna continue, Gabe, to be honest. I think that, you know, sooner or later, there'll be more promotions by a lot of companies. There'll be more competition by a lot of our competitors to... Sorry, not competitors, by our customers, as they start to go into trying to sell more themselves. And that should actually be good for inflation in the United States, and ergo, will be good for box demand in the U.S..

So, you know, I do believe that this is still a very strong economy, United States, and I do believe that it'll get back to growth, and I do believe that. And that's what we all believe, and I think that, you know, we'll be a big beneficiary of that. So I do believe the numbers that Naveen have put out at 1.5% are doable, and so I would then think that our numbers are gonna be possible to make.

Ken Bowles (EVP and Group CFO)

I think, Gabe, maybe to help your thinking slightly, is broadly, when we think about 1% volume growth, that generally equates to somewhere around, call it $60 million of EBITDA for the group. That's probably helpful for your thinking.

Gabe Hajde (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Niccolo Piccini (Equity Research Associate)

Hi, guys. This is Nico Piccini with Truist Securities. I just wanted to dial in on rebalancing your long SBS position, and if that's gonna be derived more from, you know, converting like CRB business into SBS, or if there's further opportunities like the La Tuque closure. And with the converted business, how sticky is that, given prices will likely ultimately rebalance between SBS and CRB?

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Laurent?

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

I probably a combination of all the things that you've suggested. I think the work we're doing... First of all, SBS has undergone, you know, secular pressures, but equally, and I mentioned that in my presentation, we're seeing very interesting opportunities on that particular segment. The other thing is SBS and CRB—as we said, you know, like this, substrate agnostic is something that we've really put in motion and potentially, ultimately, as we see fit, and if required-

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

Mm-hmm

Laurent Sellier (CEO of North America)

... then further, consolidation in one form or the other, it doesn't necessarily have to be related to restructuring.

... but reducing the exposure on SBS can be part of the solution as well. So, and they're all being worked on at the moment, and whenever those projects come to fruition, then we'd come back to you with all the information. But it's gonna be essentially a combination of all the options that you've indicated.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

I think the switching, the stickiness is an important point. I think the customers that we've seen that are switching are switching for quality. Yes, SBS price coming down is helpful for sure to make them switch. And if there was a massive jump in SBS pricing versus CRB, maybe they'll switch back.

But what is fundamental is that the product ranges from CRB to SBS. It's a quality and visual issue, and it's not a price issue anymore because of the price of SBS. Once they go there, will they switch back if the price of SBS goes zooming up or not? I, I, I can't say. But, you know, they are switching because it's a better product in many instances, you know, for the fridge or for the shelf. Fridge for CUK, because it's all, it's all kraft-based, and shelf because it's brighter for SBS. So there is a quality issue. There's also a machine issue, that the machines actually run better with regard to SBS or CUK rather than CRB. That's not to say that CRB doesn't have a place, it has a very strong place too.

Niccolo Piccini (Equity Research Associate)

Mm.

Anthony P. J. Smurfit (CEO)

I mean, we're grade agnostic. We will work with our customers on exactly what they want, what their belief is. If they want recycled board, we have it. You know, we're the number two producer, despite the fact that our mills are not necessarily more modern, we're the number two producer in the United States of CRB, with acceptable mills and good quality, that our customers do not want to be locked into any single supplier. So it's a very positive position that we have, and as I say, we're grade agnostic. We say: "Listen, you want this, this, this?" Or even as Laurent said, which I think is really important to remember, you know, very microflute corrugated, which is an important opportunity as well for them. Okay, well, I think we've had our time.

I really appreciate you all making the effort to come and join us. It's been a privilege to be able to present this plan to you, and we do really thank you for your effort of being here this morning, bright and breezy. Thankfully, we've warmed up New York for you to walk home, so thank you. Thank you.