Billerud Interim report January–June 2024

Back to growth, improved profitability and solid cash generation

Key highlights

  • Underlying EBITDA improvement both sequentially and versus a year ago
  • Positive pricing and mix effects more than offset sequentially higher input costs
  • Excellent financial performance in Region North America
  • Annual maintenance stops in four mills according to plan, cost impact SEK 515 million
  • Strong cash conversion through continued working capital focus

Quarterly data

  • Net sales increased by 8% to SEK 10,764 million (9,953)
  • Adjusted EBITDA* SEK 1,003 million (188)
  • Adjusted EBITDA margin 9% (2)
  • Operating profit SEK 171 million (-496), including items affecting comparability of SEK -119 million (–)
  • Net profit SEK 63 million (-481)
  • Earnings per share SEK 0.25 (-1.94)

Comments by the CEO
I am pleased with the result we were able to produce for the second quarter of 2024. We are back to net sales growth, our underlying profitability improved, both sequentially and versus the same period a year ago, and we delivered yet again a solid cash conversion for the quarter. I’m encouraged to see the progress we are doing to improve our margins as it’s such an important priority for the company. The underlying profitability, when excluding the impact of the maintenance shutdowns, improved substantially. Hard focus on pricing and portfolio management and continued delivery of our efficiency program helped us offset higher input costs.

Demand for our products improved during the quarter, partly due to supply and logistics disturbances within our industry that worked in our favor. This helps us in the short to medium term, but end consumer demand has not strengthened significantly over the past months. We remain cautiously optimistic going forward about gradually improved market conditions. We have adopted an agile mentality to adjust to fast-changing market conditions, which we consider to be the new normal.
details at: https://www.billerud.com/globalassets/cision/documents/2024/20240719-interim-report-januaryjune-2024-en-0-4870979.pdf

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