Good morning, this is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Mondi plc trading update conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, then they signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Andrew King, Group CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, and good morning to everyone, and welcome to this call to discuss Mondi's trading update. I'm Andrew King, your Group's CEO, and with me is Mike Powell, our CFO. I'll just spend a couple of minutes summarizing the announcements before we'll obviously welcome to take your questions. I'm pleased to report that we delivered very strongly in the first quarter of 2022. Demand was good across the business, supported by our broad range of innovative, sustainable packaging paper solutions, product quality and of course, our clear customer service. We continued to experience cost pressures, notably in energy, resins, transport, wood and chemicals. However, with the higher average selling prices, these more than offset these effects.
As a consequence, underlying EBITDA for the first quarter was EUR 574 million, up 63% compared to the prior year period, and up 41% on a sequential basis. This performance is testament to the continued dedication of our people, and again, I would like to express my thanks in these volatile times to all our people. Our strong customer relationships and the strength of our integrated business model. In the current context, as we mentioned in the release, it's appropriate, I think, to report the underlying EBITDA for the first quarter, excluding the Russian operations. This amounted to approximately EUR 460 million, up 70% compared to the prior year period. Importantly, we made great progress on our expansion and capital investment program.
As you know, the program is designed to capture growth across our packaging businesses in structurally growing markets, underpinned by demand for e-commerce and sustainable packaging solutions. As previously outlined, our pipeline includes around EUR 1 billion of expansionary projects already approved or under advanced evaluation, which we anticipate will generate mid-teen returns when in full operation. We continue to actively consider further capital investment opportunities. Sale of our PCC business, which will simplify our portfolio and deliver greater focus, remains on track for completion in the second half of the year. At the end of March 2022, given the strong performance, our group net debt to underlying EBITDA was approximately one times. If I turn then to updates on our Russian businesses. Mondi, of course, remains profoundly concerned about the war in Ukraine and is shocked by the humanitarian impact.
We express our deepest sympathy to all those affected by the ongoing hostilities, reiterating our call for urgent cessation and a peaceful resolution. Since the announcement we made on the tenth of March in this regard, we have assessed all options for the group's interests in Russia. In recognizing our corporate values and stakeholder responsibility, the board has decided to divest the group's Russian assets. The divestment process for these significant assets is operationally and structurally complex and is of course being undertaken in an evolving political and regulatory environment. Accordingly, there can be no certainty when a transaction will be completed or as to the structure of this possible transaction. As mentioned, as at 31st December 2021, the net asset value of the Russian operations was EUR 687 million. The Russian businesses have to date managed supply chain constraints.
However, the situation does remain extremely fluid, with interruptions to pulp and paper production possible going forward. All significant capital expenditure projects in Russia have been suspended. Turning briefly then to the outlook. As you can see, we delivered very strongly in the first quarter of 2022. While we do expect to realize the full benefits of the price increases implemented in 2021 and 2022 as we go through the second quarter, we do also anticipate continued inflationary pressures on our cost base. Clearly, the full year will benefit from shorter planned maintenance shuts compared to 2021 and the contribution from our capital investment program. While it is early in the year and significant geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties do remain, the group expects to deliver a year of good progress. Mondi remains very well placed to deliver sustainably into the future.
With that, I thank you and very happy now to turn to questions.
Excuse me, this is the conference operator. We will now begin the Q&A session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question is from Lars Kjellberg with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning. Just wanna come back to Russia a bit. I appreciate this is complicated. I really sincerely appreciate that you provided a comparable, i.e. ex Russia. Is that something that you will do going forward and or should you account for this as discontinued operations now? Just get some clarity on that. If you could indeed provide comparables for 2021, that'd be helpful. In the corrugated business, you talked about normalized demand. It would be of some interest to see what that really means. Is that a 2%, 3%, 4% number that you're talking about? Or what does that really mean in the context? Then finally, your sort of wording has changed from expect to make progress to good progress.
You know, is it all about the strong Q1 delivery that is making that directional change to that guidance? Or is it cost inflation that I'm not saying that it's abating, but incremental cost inflation may be not necessarily adding incremental burden. Those are my questions. Thank you.
Lars, thanks. Yeah, no, listen, on Russia, we'll continue to give, you know, helpful information as we move forward as hopefully, you know, we have this time. The accounting is yet to be sorted. It was only yesterday, clearly the board discussed and made the intention to divest that you've seen, yesterday evening. There's lots to be sorted out, including the accounting. Depending on how the journey unfolds, the accounting will match that. We'll do the right thing first and clearly the accounting will follow. Then, last just on the second few questions on the corrugated market when you. What does normalized mean? I think, you know, clearly one saw last year an extremely strong demand environment.
I think if you look at the full year on an industry-wide basis, corrugated demand is up something like 8%. I think I mentioned at the time, I don't see this as an 8% compound growth sort of industry. That was an exceptional period for all sorts of reasons, both the recovery post-pandemic and also the ongoing extremely strong e-commerce picture that one was seeing. I think all we're saying is if one looks at the first quarter, and of course we don't have the industry-wide data yet for the first quarter, but it's very clear that the demand has come off from those sort of levels. I, you know, we stress it's demand growth. The rate of growth has slowed down.
I would guess that we'll see the first quarter is probably on an industry-wide basis of 2%-3% demand growth, which is hopefully still very good in a historic context. It's simply not as strong as it was this time last year. The market remains in good shape. As we mentioned, you know, the containerboard price momentum continues upward, and the market is still in a very good position. It's simply not quite as hot as it was over the course of last year, particularly on the demand side. I think that's really what we're implying there. In terms of the subtleties of progress versus good progress, I think clearly the first quarter was I think you'll all agree, a very strong quarter.
I think that is testament to both good market conditions, the ability to probably get pricing through faster than one might have anticipated a few months ago, which has gone to offset the inflationary pressures we see everywhere. I think that expectation has, you know, that has been very strongly fulfilled. Most importantly, in my view, we've been able to deliver into these strong markets and, you know, that in the current world is an extremely strong achievement because, as I'm sure you hear from everyone and across different industries, you know, the supply chain issues, logistics, both inbound and outbound and all the like remains a big challenge both for us and our customers, in a number of sectors as well.
I think the fact that our teams have been able to deliver in what is an extremely volatile operating environment is a fantastic achievement, and that gives me every confidence, you know, that we'll continue to do well here. The structural drivers that we, you know, continue to talk about around e-commerce, around sustainability, that unique platform we have, particularly across our flexibles offering, supplemented also with our fantastic corrugated offering and the supply chain certainty that we bring because of our integrated position.
All of these things give me confidence, you know, that we remain in a very strong position, delivering into these markets with the necessary overlay that of course, you know, as we allude to the macroeconomic situation, I don't think I need to remind everyone here, is extremely uncertain and of course we're watching that, but we are very well placed within that and as I think evidenced by the first quarter result.
If I could, Andrew King, just a very quick follow-up. On the notion of bottlenecks and transportation issues, has that sort of incrementally worsened as you're heading to Q2? Also is there any reason, considering recent price increases, that price over cost will not continue to be a positive contributor in the near term?
I think it's very difficult to generalize on the logistics issue. I mean, things literally change almost on daily basis, as I'm sure you know, for example, the impact of Shanghai ports opened or closed at any one time can reverberate across different markets. Clearly, the whole Russian situation has also complicated things on top of what was already a complicated situation, driven by the COVID effects. I think, Lars, I would hate to generalize and say it's getting better or worse from a kind of trend perspective. It literally can change, you know, very rapidly on a daily to weekly basis.
I think all I could say is it remains complicated and it certainly hasn't got any easier. I apologize, I didn't pick up on the second part.
No. I mean, you had, of course, a strong price realization and well ahead of costs in the first quarter. Is there any reason to expect that to change? You've got incremental price increases coming through into the second quarter and costs from my vantage point does not necessarily seem to continue to escalate. It's obviously a very high level, but should we not expect that to continue an incremental positive price over cost?
Well, I think as you rightly say, we've got good price momentum going into the second quarter, but I wouldn't suggest that costs are flattening out at all. I mean, clearly in addition to the inflationary pressures we're seeing across the board, we're impacted in a large way by the energy issues and of course the knock-on effect into just about every cost category of that. But of course, we're also seeing things like wood costs needing to adjust to a new paradigm given no normal access to Russian and Belarusian wood baskets from Europe. I think that's only starting to play out. In terms of the overall effect on the European markets, I mean, we are not particularly exposed directly on that front.
I would imagine that might have an impact going forward on wood costs. All the wood costs have been going up, but there's probably more to come, I would suspect on that front. Clearly, energy and all the derivatives of energy is anyone's guess, frankly, from one period to the next. I mean, actually Q1 versus Q4 was relatively benign on that front. That's simply because Q4 had already gone up to such an extent. But I think that's impossible to predict, frankly. But that's one one has to continue to watch. You know, I would argue that also I think we've done extremely well to keep the fixed cost base under control.
Of course as time goes by and inflation becomes embedded in the system, then I suspect there will also be ongoing pressures on the fixed cost base. I don't disagree with you that at this stage we have good pricing momentum and certainly as I look into Q2, you know, I remain confident we can offset this cost inflation.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Cole Hathorn with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thanks. Take my question. I've got two, one on the flexible packaging business underlying, and then a second one on Russia. I'll take them separately. On the flexible packaging side, I'd just like to hear your view on the wider sack and specialty kraft paper markets. I mean, it seems very tight, and demand continues to be strong. If we look forward on what supply is coming into the market, I'd just like to hear your thoughts because, you know, Segezha is probably going to be impacted exporting to Europe and the Belarusian player that was gonna add capacity is, we don't quite know what's gonna happen to that capacity. It looks like your potential EUR 350 million new capacity project looks more appealing sitting today.
I'd just like to hear how you're thinking about supply going forward and when we could hear an investment decision on that project?
Yeah, thanks, Cole. I think, yes, more broadly the sack and specialty kraft market remains very tight. I mean, you focus on the supply side, but I think the demand side still remains very good, both in terms of the near term, but as you know, we keep emphasizing, I think there's some fantastic structural growth drivers there which are really, you know, have arisen over the last year or two, particularly around the whole sustainability agenda. You know, we've got numerous examples of new demand sources that, you know, I think we've done a great job in creating for these products. I mean, most recently, we've obviously expanded in the Czech Republic already on that product for paper bags for shopper bags because of the regulatory changes and the like.
I mean, that product is sold out and we're trying to do as much as we can from a production perspective simply because the demand is supply constrained rather than anything else. I think there's numerous other fantastic solutions which we've been developing, which employ this sort of specialty kraft products, which is basically increasing the overall demand for the kraft paper products from sack across to the specialties. I think, you know, one firstly shouldn't ignore the demand side, which is extremely strong.
On the supply side, yes, I'd agree with you that clearly when you look at the supply side, there has been this very limited new supply, partly because it's a difficult product to make, and you need a particular type of pulp and hence wood. This is a product that requires real know-how. We are in the fortunate position of being, you know, as you know, the global market leader in this and we have deep expertise across both the production and importantly the sales infrastructure in this area. So I think we are extremely well positioned to be continuing the expansion of this portfolio. As you rightly say, the Russian situation has exacerbated the tightness because clearly Segezha has been a big exporter of product into Europe.
It's early days in that as to how this then unfolds. Clearly it's going to be. Well, they can't sell into Europe anymore for sanctions reasons. I suspect some of that volume will go to other parts of the world, and we'll have to see how that plays out in terms of the total landscape. Obviously we're working extremely hard to try and support our customers as best we can, with our production profile, which is all within Europe. We're not accelerating. We were already working as hard as we could to be in a position to hopefully approve and proceed with that expansion project that we mentioned at the full year results.
I mean, the very fact that the markets are even tighter today than they were, you know, when we spoke six weeks ago doesn't unfortunately change the timetable. That's a function of the engineering processes and things like that we are working extremely hard to. We knew it was a good project when we last spoke, equally convinced now we invest for the long term, not necessarily for the short term dynamic. Everything points to a very favorable project, which we are very keen to accelerate as fast as possible. We also need to do these things in an orderly and disciplined way, to make sure that project execution is done perfectly.
Andrew, then Mike. Mike, I'm just wondering if you could give me a little bit more color on Russia. Just trying to work out, is there any guidance that you're giving on, you know, free cash flow, free cash flow conversion we can think about that business so that we can strip it out as well as from our EBITDA and our free cash flow numbers going forward? Then I just wanted to ask, in the divestment decision of the board, I mean, it is a very good high margin asset, but it is predominantly domestic Russian office paper.
Was a factor in the decision that you're probably not going to be able to be in a position to allocate capital into Russia for the next number of years, considering the dynamics there, and therefore, while it's high margin, it's almost pseudo CapEx growth because you wouldn't be able to do much conversion from graphic paper into packaging. Just wondering if there was that factor in the decision at all.
Yeah. Cole, I'll maybe take the second question first, and then Mike can come back to you on the disclosure question I think you raised. I mean, the decision that we arrived at yesterday, which we announced yesterday evening, took into account numerous different factors. I mean, clearly there isn't any one factor that is paramount in that. I mean, we have to consider, firstly, all our stakeholder requirements. Clearly, we, as we said in the announcement, we considered our decision in light of our corporate values and as we best understand how the situation may evolve. I wouldn't want to pick out any one issue which was decisive in that decision.
It's a combination of all those factors which one comes to. You know, I'm convinced that this is the right path to take, and we will be pursuing it aggressively from today. Maybe, Mike, you can add something on the disclosure question.
Yeah. No, we will continue to give, you know, disclosures. We only just made the decision yesterday, Cole, so we've clearly got quite a lot of work to do. I mean, as a guide, and again, it varies. CapEx for Russia is about EUR 100, you know, to try to be helpful. Again, my worry with sort of giving any numbers is those numbers vary. I know everybody's trying to be, you know, make this into precise science. It isn't, and we'll clearly give that, you know, the correct and helpful disclosure at the time. You know, I guess if you wanted a rough idea for Russia, it's about EUR 100 in CapEx.
Clearly, you know, that will all need to be considered in the light of the fact that we have now suspended all.
No, correct.
significant CapEx projects in Russia. I'm not sure what the real number will be once we've worked through all of that. I think anything we'd give you right now is taken with
Yeah.
the necessary caveats around it. We will be trying to be as helpful as we can be, making sure we give the disclosure which is appropriate for the circumstances.
Thank you.
The next question is from Joffrey Bellicha with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. My first question will be around Russia again. I was wondering how demand in Russia is holding at this stage. Can you discuss the exit rates you saw in Russia during the March month? I have a second question around demand. How are you seeing e-commerce growth in the first quarter or in the beginning of the year across relevant businesses? Thank you very much.
Yeah. Joffrey, I think we certainly are not gonna give that level of detail in terms of, I think, 'cause I think for one thing, taking one month's numbers is potentially misleading. I think, you know, as we emphasized, I mean, the Russian business clearly did well in the first quarter. The situation is extremely fluid. Literally from one month to the next or one week to the next one continues to assess all the implications around the effect of sanctions, the effect of the logistics challenges that continue to mount. Of course, the changing customer profile, given the fact that obviously we're not exporting to Europe anymore from Russia and we're effectively domesticating the business. All of these factors need to be considered. I think we're just warning that it is a very fluid situation.
Clearly, there are daily challenges from an operating perspective, and one cannot rule out operating, you know, increasing the operating disruptions going forward. But right now it continues to operate. On the e-commerce front, again, I think like I said earlier with the corrugated sort of demand picture more broadly, you know, things have come off from the highs of demand growth that we saw last year again. I mean, the e-commerce demand is still good, but it's not quite what it was last year when, as I say, we were coming out of the pandemic but at the same time, you saw, you know, huge amounts of online business.
I think it's natural that it would slow down from the extreme rates of growth that we were seeing, particularly over the last couple of years. It is still a healthy demand picture.
Great. Thank you very much for the answers.
The next question is from Justin Jordan with Exane. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I've got three quick questions, if I may. Firstly on clearly the very, very strong pricing versus cost inflation result in Q1 and commented built on that. Across your three main divisions in corrugated, flexible and uncoated fine, you know, we can see benchmark industry pricing has moved higher in corrugated and uncoated fine in April and possibly even in May as well. In flexible packaging, you commented at the full year results in early March of Q1 customer kraft paper prices up some 20%-25% year-over-year. Can you give us some indication, because that's quite an opaque market for external people to look at, what sort of price increases may be possible in Q2? Because you're talking in terms of further price increases across the business this morning.
Secondly, on the demand side, ex Russia, I wanna put that major caveat in. Clearly Mondi serves a variety of consumer and industrial markets globally. We're in an extremely nervous market, for investors are clearly second-guessing what may or may not happen macroeconomically going forward. Can you give us any indications of what you're seeing on the ground in terms of end market demand for, you know, the latter half of Q2, as it were? Have you seen any pockets of slowdown in industrial areas such as automotive, for example? Thirdly, in Russia, I guess, you know, I appreciate the clarity that the board has given yesterday, and I'm not trying to second-guess what the process and timelines will be from here.
Just operationally on the ground, you know, March tenth you talked about, challenges regarding, inputs, process materials such as chemicals and spare parts. What are you seeing on the ground, regarding those challenges? Have you been able to replace externally European source materials with domestically sourced Russian materials? And in terms of underlying uncoated fine paper demand in Russia, I assume volume demand is down year-over-year because of clearly the macro situation domestically in Russia. Thank you.
Thanks. Let myself take the Russian question first, and then Andrew can take the others. No, I mean, the demand, which I think was your last part of your question, domestic demand remains robust in Russia. The demand for paper is still good in UFP. In terms of spare parts, sure, there are Russian businesses springing up to counter the Western sanctions. There is a churn of supply and demand going on. New industries are starting up in Russia as opposed to importing product. You know, that's clearly a direct effect of sanctions and the Russian response. That is all being worked through.
It's quite hard to generalize because clearly you need every part and every widget to continue to operate. Generally, no, there are new industries being born there, for sure. We're working through that clearly with our Russian colleagues and so far successful. As Andrew says, you know, the environment remains very difficult and somewhat unpredictable. So far, we continue to operate well. Andrew.
Yeah. Thanks, Justin. On your first question on the kraft paper increases, I'm certainly not gonna be discussing with you increases that we are currently discussing with our customers. I think it's safe to say that, you know, it is an extremely tight market.
We are working extremely hard to try and fulfill all our customer requirements. At the same time, the cost pressures are there. You know, there will be further price increases that we are looking at, but as I say, I can't quantify them now because it's incumbent on us to be talking to our customers first about those. In terms of end market demand question, I think this is a question we're all asking ourselves and we try and understand, as you say, maybe the sort of canary in the cage as regards macroeconomic slowdown.
I think it's, you know, it's maybe in some ways too early, but we are, if I look at the subcategories, probably, you know, there are some industrial applications in the corrugated space which would appear to be slightly softer on a relative basis to some of the other categories. I'm not sure if that is a, you know, genuine end demand problem or if it's more a supply chain problem that our customers are experiencing. Because as I alluded to earlier, I think everyone across all industries are battling with supply chain issues. Is it that we're not making, you know, some of our customers are not making more product to sell because they don't have an end market or because they are challenged by their own supply chain problems? It's difficult to distinguish that at different times.
You know, I would say there is a bit of, you know, there's a bit softer on the call it, you know, the business to business industrial applications as opposed to the consumer applications and the like that. I think I wouldn't read a lot into that at this stage. One has to sort of keep a watch over it. outside of that, you know, as I say, I think the demand picture is still good.
Yeah.
You know, our flexibles range, the demand is extremely good. There's no particular evidence of slowdown there at this stage.
[Crosstalk]
Yeah. I think that was that. Thanks.
The next question is from [Michael] with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everybody. A couple of questions here from my side. First of all, on the sack paper or kraft paper market. Wondering if you could tell us what's the size of the brown sack paper market, in particular in Europe? What kind of a share of Russia typically has been supplying into that market? I hear that you're talking about an extremely tight market. I was wondering if you would be able to quantify a bit the impact of no Russian supply into the brown sack paper market, in particular in Europe. The second question is on the containerboard market dynamics. Now, we talked about the demand trends, still growing, but the growth seems to be normalizing.
What do you see in terms of inventory levels currently across the value chain? What do you see in terms of trade flows? There, I'm in particular thinking about kraftliner imports from the U.S., Russian exports to Europe, as well as European recycled exports outside of the region. Anything you could add on that would be helpful. Thank you very much.
I think if I get that right, your first question was how important is Russia and the European sack kraft market?
That's correct. Yes.
Roughly speaking, Europe is around 1 million-ton sort of market. We understand there was probably around 100,000 tons of exports on a sort of annual basis, so kind of 10% of supply, that order of magnitude. Clearly important in what is a tight market. I think your question on inventory levels, clearly we don't have exact sort of transparency across the value chain. I don't sense that there's a big industry inventory build taking place.
I mean, the big challenge for some time now, and of course, you know, it's different from, for each category, certainly in the product we've just been talking about in the kraft paper and the like, I don't believe that's the case at all because the challenge is securing supply right now. I certainly don't believe people are building inventory. Similarly on the containerboard front, I don't sense that there's been a big inventory build at all, and this is more driven largely by, you know, by true underlying demand. I think you can see that in the corrugated numbers, which is of course the end use demand indicator. Then as regards exports and imports, I think clearly the situation is very fluid.
Last year, you saw much less imports into Europe and similarly, fewer exports from Europe, particularly, you know, in containerboard, which is the main grade where you see a lot of intercontinental trade flows. I think this year we've seen a bit more volume from the U.S., which is normal and frankly required in Europe still, 'cause Europe is in short supply of particularly the virgin containerboard grades. It's early days in the year, and I don't believe there's a sort of clear trend one way or the other. One would anticipate over time that there would be an increase in some of the import of kraftliner into the European markets. Of course, it also depends on the currencies and the like.
With the strong dollar, it makes it pretty unattractive for the U.S. players. The U.S. market, as we understand it, remains in good shape. Of course, it's always better to sell domestically for any producer. In short, I think there has been a bit more imports into Europe from particularly North America over the first half, so first quarter then, than by comparison to this time last year. It's not particularly meaningful at this stage. I think over time what will be also apparent is Europe will restart exporting because last year was very much a year of repatriating all volume into Europe simply because Europe was just short of paper.
I suspect over time we might see a bit more export volume go increasing 'cause there's plenty of opportunity for export. I suspect that'll be the likely trend going forward.
Yeah. I mean, I would just add, [Mike], I think the day-to-day challenge at the moment is not around inventory build, it's around supply chain, both input materials and output materials. You know, do they turn up when they're supposed to, and can we dispatch when we're supposed to? Do they go from A to B as they're supposed to? That's the environment we're still in, and I think we'll be in for some time, along with other industries.
Right. Thank you very much.
The next question is from David O'Brien with Goodbody. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, just on the pace of pricing, you know that you realized pricing quicker than anticipated, I guess, through Q1. When we think about in corrugated, we've seen containerboard price increase come through in April. How quickly do you think they'll be fully realized into box given the dynamics you see at play at the moment? And in flexible similarly, I think a third of contracts typically were annually price set. Have you moved people away from them to get a more dynamic, pass-through on pricing? Or could you just help us unpack that, you know, pace of price realization, please? Secondly, just on the capital plan, we touched about everyone's supply chain issues.
You know, are you getting the CapEx in the year to date as you planned, or how much would you be expecting to be spent for 2022? Finally, a little bit more longer term in terms of the Corrugated division, I guess what is the vision for the division now going forward? You know, what are the opportunities to materially outgrow, you know, market growth? Are you looking to become more vertically integrated? Can you put down fresh capacity? Just an update please on what the vision is.
Good. Thanks, David. I mean, maybe I'll take the price pass-through questions and the vision for corrugated, and Mike can talk about the CapEx. On the pass-through, as we said, you know, we've been successfully passing on price increases through both the bag and the box. I think you know there continues to be very strong support for these price increases, partly because you know simply put it's easier to pass through big increases on the paper side than small ones. You know the pricing environment on the paper side remains strong. I suspect these price increases will go through. You know we normally sort of give the rule of thumb of three to six months.
I think in the current environment, it's at the shorter end of that range, very definitively. In some ways, the same applies to bags. As you rightly say, the bags business, there is more fixed price contract business, but that has become more fluid over time simply because the markets are so, you know, so much more volatile now. We have typically, I think we have increased the, call it the shorter dated pricing, around that. There's more index business now. We certainly expect to see a fairly rapid pass-through of some of these paper price increases, because simply put, the converters cannot absorb these sort of levels of price increases that we're seeing on the paper side.
You know, that is going through maybe faster than it would have been historically. On the future of our corrugated business, I think we have a fantastic platform there. You know, clearly, I think as the numbers demonstrate, you know, we're a world-class operator in terms of both the upstream production where, you know, we are underpinned by fantastic low cost production, and with a strong vertical integration into our corrugated box network. Clearly, the corrugated box position is very much centered around where we have strength in paper, being it's both in the Central Eastern European market.
In Turkey, we are short of paper, and have an extremely strong corrugated position, having been bolstered by the acquisition we made at the beginning of last year, which has gone extremely well, with the Olmuksan integration. We're delighted with the business. We're delighted with the colleagues that have joined us from Olmuksan, and it's been a fantastic acquisition for us and opens up further opportunities for growth in the region. I think the future growth opportunities come both from backward and forward integration, if that makes sense, in terms of paper production and corrugated production, both organically where we see ongoing opportunity to invest.
The most recent investment is the EUR 95-odd million that we're investing in our world-class Świecie operation to continue to debottleneck, because every ton we know we make out of Świecie is a fantastic value add for us. We're also investing heavily in continuing to expand and support the organic growth that we see in our corrugated converting businesses, both in that Central Eastern European region into Turkey and the like. I think, you know, we continue to look on the M&A front to see whether there's opportunity to bolster that platform further. It clearly has to be things that we believe, you know, add to the quality of our offering, add to the customer value proposition that we have, and of course, comes with a price that, you know, makes sense for both parties.
You know, I think there's a lot more we're doing already and we have to get on with from an organic perspective. If we can supplement that on selective inorganic opportunities, then we'll continue to do that. You know, I think Europe and the surrounds, Europe and adjacent markets is our heartland, and that will continue to be so. We've got a lot of opportunity on that canvas.
Thanks, Andrew. Yeah, on the CapEx, David, I mean, we guided EUR 700-EUR 800. There's no sort of change in any ambition or anything on that. In fact, I think the opportunities, as Andrew's just outlined, you know, continue to present themselves. That said, I think we're probably, you know, if I was to have to guess, I think we'll be at the lower end of that. That's really purely just getting hold of parts, you know, managing and executing the projects properly. There's a bit less in for Russia now, as you might expect.
I mean, I think EUR 700-EUR 800 is still valid, but I think here today it's probably towards the lower end. But again, I wouldn't want to think of an annual cash flow reflecting the ambition. There's no change to the CapEx program or ambition. In fact, the opportunities, you know, continue to present. Hope that's okay.
That's all really helpful. Yep, really helpful. Thanks a lot, Andrew King.
The next question is from Brian Morgan with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks very much for the time. Can I just ask a bit about Syktyvkar and long-term strategy and optionality, etc? Syktyvkar's always, you've always spoken about that as being a key part of your long-term option set and long-term strategy, and it's got a long pulp position. You've got a big uncoated fine type of business that could eventually be converted into packaging. It's always been this very long-term option set available to you. Would you be looking to replace that now with something else? Do you think that there's enough in the group to keep you busy for the next 10-15 years? That's the question really.
Brian, absolutely. It's the short answer. I mean, as we alluded, as we mentioned at the full year results, you know, we've got this EUR 1 billion CapEx pipeline. None of that is impacted by the Russian discussions. If anything, as you said, some of it has become even more imperative that we get on with it. All of that is, you know, building on the fantastic platform we have in our business. I think there's a huge amount of opportunities to continue to reinforce and grow our business. We, you know, across the pieces, we've just been speaking about the corrugated business and the opportunities there, but I would also emphasize on the flexibles offering.
We do have this unique platform where we offer everything from, you know, the upstream kraft paper and all the upgrades within that, the specialty products. We have this fantastic coating business where we can add functionality to that, and we continue to invest and expand that because of all the sustainable packaging solutions that hopefully you're now seeing on the supermarket shelf made out of paper, but with a functionality added to it. Of course, we have this great platform of converting opportunity of businesses where we can be genuinely agnostic as to the substrate we use depending on what our customer wants. I think all of that gives us huge opportunity, so we are, you know, continuing to invest hard.
Our biggest challenge is frankly finding our project managers and not exhausting them because we have so many things to get on with. You know, as I'm sure you've seen from the first quarter results, it's emphasized in there that you know we have extremely strong and profitable business outside of Russia, and we'll continue. That allows us the luxury of continuing to invest for the long term through the cycle on these businesses. Yeah, we have plenty to get on with, and we believe that a very exciting future. I think that's probably a fantastic way to end because we do have our AGM this morning, so unfortunately Mike and I are going to have to excuse ourselves and get prepared for that.
If we haven't been able to get to any other questions, obviously Clara is available at all times, and similarly Mike and I can also make ourselves available again. We do thank you for your interest as always. Those of you who might turn up at the AGM, we look forward to seeing you there. Otherwise, we will no doubt keep in touch. Thank you again for your interest, and maybe I'll hand back to the operator.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones. Thank you.