Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Suominen Q2 Webcast. My name is Marika Väkiparta. I'm the Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at Suominen, and I'm hosting the call today. With me here I have our President and CEO, Charles Héaulmé. Good morning.
Good morning.
Kimmo Raunio, our CFO. Good morning.
Good morning.
On our agenda today, we're briefly discussing Q2 financial results, the Full Potential Program and our outlook for 2027, and obviously at the end we'll have the Q&A. The floor is yours, Charles.
Thank you, Marika, and good morning to all of you. My pleasure to welcome you for the results of the second quarter 2026 at Suominen under the title Improved Sales and Comparable EBITDA during the second quarter of the year. I'd like to give you a few highlights before Kimmo will take you through more details on the financials. As I said, improved sales during the quarter by almost 6% compared to the same period last year and also significantly increased compared to the first quarter of the year. With the sales increase also, we have increased the profitability, particularly at the level of comparable EBITDA, which is at a level of EUR 4.3 million in the second quarter. If we compare it to last year, EUR 3.2 million.
That is very much linked to the first benefits that we see from actions implemented in the frame of our Full Potential Program. I will come back to this later into this call. Third item is the cash flow. The cash flow from operations, which was slightly negative at - EUR 4.5 million for the second quarter. Those numbers put in perspective of the first semester, obviously show that the second quarter is a significant improvement compared to the first quarter. Now, it was not all about the operations and the performance during the second quarter of 2026. You might know that we have made a decision to raise capital during the second quarter, and this was a successful share rights issue oversubscribed, which is giving a gross amount in equity of EUR 28 million to the company.
That is helping us to strengthen our balance sheet but also accelerate the Full Potential Program, which we have started to move from planning to execution during the second quarter with first signals of good benefits from this Full Potential Program, particularly in our manufacturing operations where we started. Also in the margin management. Our margins have improved in the second quarter compared to the first quarter, and that is encouraging versus the plan that we have put in place. Also, we benefit from the fixed cost reduction initiative that we have engaged now exactly a year ago and which is basically completed versus the objective that we had assigned ourselves to reduce the cost by EUR 10 million.
Another important point of the quarter is that we have started, however, with some delay, but we have started the technical and commercial qualification of our new production line in Alicante, in Spain, the line called Ali 55. That was at the very end of June. We are happy to count with that additional line for ramping it up in quarter three and mainly in quarter four, then accelerating the ramp-up during 2027 for two reasons. It's additional capacity, but also it is for innovation on sustainable solutions based on pulp and fiber. Really an important line for our growth, but also for our differentiation as a sustainability leader. As I said, some early signs of improved production performance in line with our Full Potential Program deployment that we have announced on the 29th of January this year.
If you highlight also, because it's not only about the economic performance, but we want to be a great place to work, meaning a safe place to work for our employees, but also with an engaged workforce. We have some important milestones and recognitions in this. Recognition, for instance, in our factory in Finland, in Nakkila, but also in Paulínia in Brazil, where we have recently achieved a 5,000 days without a lost time accident in that factory. Actually, if we extrapolate to July, we have passed now 14 years without LTA in that factory. These are key aspects that I wanted to highlight. Now handing over to Kimmo for the financial review.
Thanks, Charles. My name is Kimmo Raunio, and I'm CFO in the company since a couple of months and now walking you through our headline financials in the second quarter. Net sales, we were growing in the second quarter 5.8 percentage points to EUR 105.6 million. That's growth both compared to Q2 last year and also compared to Q1 this year when the volume and net sales was depressed. Growth came primarily from our U.S. operations. When we break it down a little bit, we had a volume increase compared to Q2 last year, then average sales prices decreased following declining raw material cost and also especially changes in the sales mix. Currency had a minor negative impact in the second quarter.
H1 2026 was still showing a decline compared to last year, that's of course driven by the Q1 net sales, which was substantially lower than Q1 in 2025. Recapping the comparable EBITDA development, as Charles already highlighted, we posted EUR 4.3 million comparable EBITDA in the second quarter. That's +35 percentage points compared to Q2 last year. The main drivers in this positive development was basically improving volume and our cost reduction measures as part of our Full Potential Program. Having said that, we had a negative impact from our sales mix in Q2 2026. We also had a headwind from delays in adjusting some of our sales prices due to rapidly increasing some raw material costs driven by the oil price jump during the quarter. Whole first half 2026, still a little bit negative compared to last year.
Again, the Q1 performance giving that result. Next page, our consolidated statement of profit and loss. I think it is good to highlight and understand that our Q2 figures are negatively impacted by items affecting comparability. Those items amounted to -EUR 2.1 million during the quarter and EUR 4.6 million cost in the first half of 2026. When you compare Q2 last year or first half last year, these same items were -EUR 0.6. There is a significant impact coming from the items affecting comparability as part of our Full Potential Program execution. Finally, Q2 cash flow from operations -EUR 4.5 million . It is improvement from Q2 last year, and especially in the second quarter, we had a net working capital buildup influencing negatively originating from growing volume, especially in the U.S.
The whole first half of 2026 cash flow from operations at breakeven. That is clear improvement from last year. Handing back over to you, Charles.
Thank you, Kimmo. A couple of words on the Full Potential Program. Just to remind something that we have obviously presented already back on January 29, but also for the first quarter results. I would like to remind what we are doing in the company in order to reset our profitability to the level that we believe it should be, meaning that we are aiming midterm at reaching a 10% comparable EBITDA margin level. That is really the strategic focus during this period of time. We have engaged in this at the beginning of 2026. As I said before, starting to see early signs of improvement. Of course, it is early days into this journey that is engaging basically all the aspects of our operations and business. Particularly, we have three pillars that we are looking at implementing.
The first one also in terms of timing is the pillar number one, which is called operational performance. Where we are basically looking end to end at all the different chapters of our operations, looking at procurement, obviously, how to deliver and harvest more savings from the procurement, whether it is on direct material or indirect supply. The sales excellence also in terms of pricing management and margin improvement. That includes also a portfolio management product and customers. Something I mentioned, that was the first pillar that we looked at or we worked on since 2025, that is the fixed cost savings. Basically, we are in a position now to say that we have delivered on the commitments that had been given. Then a major chunk of our Full Potential Program is the manufacturing continuous improvement.
For that, we are planning some specific investments to restore some equipment to the right conditions. Also it's about the people and the methodology of working. We are deploying the very well-known TPM methodology, Total Productive Maintenance, which has been practiced with success in many industries. We have started to deploy it stepwise in different factories, not in all at the same speed. We are focusing on prioritizing where we have the main opportunities of improvement. That's a very important point. We have also implemented a new operating model, which is, we believe, bringing more expertise and effectiveness in dealing with our business. That part has been done. There are still some fine-tuning, but that part has been done basically within the first quarter.
Second pillar, which we have started slightly on some equipment, not in all the different projects that are potentially coming up for the next couple of years. We are targeting some low risk, good return investments in order to focus on profitability enhancement and, of course, marginal growth. The essence of those investments will not be to add capacity, it will be to bring better profitability in the company. We will get growth thanks to our new capacity in Alicante, in Spain, as I said in the introduction. We are not planning to invest specifically for growth, but for profitable growth.
The third pillar is some specific profitability measures which have to do with low margin volume management, increasing the utilization of our current install base, where we have room for growth, utilizing better our equipment. Also, some specific contract renegotiations, which will bring additional cost improvement. Those three pillars will contribute to bringing the profitability from where we are to where we want to be. That means 10% EBITDA. We believe that the operational performance improvement end to end will bring three points of margin, the targeted investment about one point on the full global scope, and the other structural profitability measures may bring 2%. That brings us all together to the 10% where we want to be.
In terms, this Full Potential Program, when we announced it on January 29th, we had said, this program will have some cost and investment, and we had mentioned a figure of EUR 30 million, which is still valid for our overall plan, both in investments and in direct costs. We said roughly we believe EUR 20 million investment, EUR 10 million of costs. We're still in this ballpark in terms of our planning. In order to do two things, first of all, finance that program over time, second, strengthen our balance sheet very short term because our leverage had reached a level of seven at the end of 2025, which is obviously too high. We have decided to raise capital, and this has been successfully done. Without getting into the technicalities of it was oversubscribed. The subscription happened during the month of June.
We had announced this project on May 18th, and it was closed on July 2nd with the approval of this offering and subscription. We are very happy with the success. Via this channel, like any other channel, I want to really thank our shareholders and all investors that really believe in the company and in our plan, believe in the management, and trust that we are going to make up on what we have committed to. Thanks a lot for that. This is really reassuring and helping us to accelerate the execution of the program.
That's what we wanted to share with you as an update this morning. Just one word on the outlook that has not changed. Our outlook is that we expect that to deliver in 2026 a comparable EBITDA that would be an improvement compared to 2025 as a reference. Just repeating that the comparable EBITDA for 2025 was EUR 12.6 million. With this, handing over back to you, Marika, for the Q&A session.
Thank you, Charles. I think we will first move into any phone questions that we may have.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Joni Sandvall from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Charles and Kimmo, for the presentation. A couple of questions from my side. Starting first with the overall demand situation. Have you seen any changes on this? If you could split this on Americas and then Europe.
Thank you, Joni, for the question. It's a good question because I did not mention it. I didn't mention it because there is nothing to really update on the demand. The market demand remains relatively solid. You may remember that there is overcapacity overall in Europe, more than in the U.S. There is also, in this industry, increasing imports from low-cost countries producers. The demand is still good. In the case of Suominen, the good news is that the improvement will come from us, from our operational efficiency, our manufacturing efficiency, and with this, our reliability to supply. Because I'm happy to report that the demand from our customers is exceeding what we have been able to deliver. Therefore, so critical that we continue or even accelerate the deployment of our program of improvement in our factories.
That's clear. Coming back still on the U.S., where you last year lost some volumes after this incident, I think you mentioned in Q1 that you are expecting to recover some of these volumes already in Q2, how this has played out, and what is your expectation now for H2?
Exactly in line with the answer to your first question. Actually, yes, we are. From a demand point of view, what customers are willing to get supply from us compared to alternative supply, we would be back basically at this point in time, in line with what it was before. However, we have been facing some operational issues, not of the magnitude of what happened in 2025. In terms of our efficiency is not yet where it should be. It's going to be a long journey, which we will take step by step. We are, for instance, in some lines where we have started the restoration to basic conditions. Changing or upgrading some leadership into lines and also implementing the TPM methodology. We have very clear signs. It's not early signs.
It's already six months in a specific line, for instance, of production performance, which we didn't have before. We need to deploy the same into other lines, other critical lines, in order to be able to reach the level of demand from our customers. We are under-supplying versus the demand at this point in time. That's really the key message, which may sound negative, but it's actually very positive in the sense of it's an opportunity for better output and better profit generation i n the near future.
Okay. That's clear. Lastly, on the mix impact, you mentioned some delays on this alternative cost push-through. How big of impact you had in Q2, and should we expect this to be a transitionally to Q3 then on positive note?
Yes. Maybe Kimmo will complement on this. Yes, we have some negative mix impact during the first semester, not just the second quarter. In the first quarter and in the second quarter. Some of it is linked to changes in the customer portfolio that we didn't necessarily want to happen, but that have happened. That's number one. Second is also linked to pricing mechanism that, in some cases, didn't have the agility because of applications of contract terms and conditions basically, which didn't have the agility that we wanted on a monthly basis. Therefore, some of the margin may have slipped from Q2 to Q3. We have an impact in the Q2 numbers, which is not positive from the mix. Kimmo, do you want to add something on this?
No, not really. I think this is the case.
Okay. Thank you. That's all from me.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Samu Wilhelmsson from Nordea Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for your presentation. A couple of questions from the credit research side as well. Maybe starting with the volumes in terms of bit of a clarification, continuing that a bit. To what extent the volume growth stems now from winning back the U.S. volumes after the production issues versus the underlying growth in customer demand that you touched recently? Also, do you see any restocking behavior from your customers ahead of your shift into the different pricing model?
No restocking from customers, we don't see it. We would like to be able to restock ourselves and then it's back to the first answers I was giving, because our production performance hasn't been to the level expected. We have first tried to supply the demand of the quarter, but not been able to upgrade, if I may say, our inventories, which from a cash flow point of view would not be directly positive. Would help us going forward in Q3, Q4, deliver more to our customers. That's an axis of improvement that we want to drive in the next couple of months. From a volume point of view, as I mentioned, we are recovering the situation, that negative situation, particularly in the U.S., that has been created last year. However, it's not only volume related, it's our margin increase.
It's also pricing increase and active work on our portfolio.
Okay, understood. Thank you. You mentioned there a bit on the cash flow. Despite the improvement in EBITDA cash flow, I think it was a bit on the softer side. What would you say that are currently the main constraints on the cash conversion and when we would expect the profitability to translate more consistently into the free cash flow?
Overall, our cash flow is, of course, negatively impacted by our EBITDA, which is not where we would like it to be. That's why we have launched the Full Potential Program, with the main target to lift up the profitability of the business. It's also fair to say that during first half of the year, we have been incurring items affecting comparability originating from the Full Potential Program, and the amount as such is quite substantial. Those are cash costs originating from basically necessary measures to get the Full Potential Program in place. Of course, typically in these type of exercises, you first take the measures which have some cost, and then you start to see the benefit.
Thirdly, first half of the year, our capital expenditures are more than EUR 10 million. There we still have a impact of the soon-to-be-completed equipment installations, especially in our new line in Spain, Alicante.
Okay, thank you. Perhaps the last question from my side. After the equity raise and the extension of the credit facilities, the next maturity is the senior unsecured bond in 10 months away. How do you think about the balance between refinancing the bond early, given the interest is quite low, and waiting for further improvement in your financials before accessing the market?
Yeah, that's a very good question. As we state in the report, we are currently on back of the successful rights issue completed end of June with money received in early July. We are now considering various alternatives for the bond which is maturing next June, and we expect to come back in due time then when our plans are proceeding.
Would you say that the primary objective is to secure the maturity well ahead of time, or is optimizing the financing costs more important now?
Yeah, these are the topics what we are just now considering, and of course, we need to balance between getting the refinancing completed with the reasonable cost. There are various alternatives which we are now, as we speak, currently planning for.
Okay, fair enough. Thank you very much for the questions.
Thank you.
Okay. I believe that was the last phone question.
There are no more phone questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.
Yes. There is still one chat question. Charles, you mentioned you have more demand than supply. Does that apply company-wide or some specific geographies and/or products?
Yeah. Good that it makes it more specific to what I answered. It's particularly the case in the U.S. The U.S. market is growing, particularly in the MTT category, which is the moisturized toilet tissue. Not so much into the baby wipes, which is obviously another of the biggest part of our core business. In the MTT, there is rapid growth in the U.S., and this is specifically in that area that we could be delivering more. Where we specifically need to improve our manufacturing efficiency in two factories, but particularly one factory in the U.S., which we are actively working on. Most of the program of improvement was planned for execution in Q3, Q4 in that factory, and this is now taking place as we speak. Tangible improvement on this will be visible more in 2027, but we hope already in Q4 potentially.
Thanks. There are no additional questions. It's time to close the call, before we do that, still a short reminder that our Q3 results publication is on November 5th this year. Hope you join us also then in our webcast. I want to thank everyone in this call, participators, and of course, Charles and Kimmo for the good conversation. Thank you all.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot.