Welcome to the Mondi Full Year Results 2025. Just to let you know, we do have captions on today's call, and these can be switched on and off within your Zoom settings, but please be aware they are automated and can sometimes contain errors. If you have a question today, then please use the Raise Hand function. I'm now gonna hand you over to Andrew King. Andrew, please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Mondi's 2025 full year results presentation. I'm Andrew King, your Group CEO, and I'm joined this morning by our CFO, Mike Powell. As usual, I'll begin with some highlights for the year. Mike will then take you through the financial performance in more detail. I will then return to provide an update on our business units, discussing at the same time the current trading environment, and then take you through why we believe Mondi is strongly positioned to capture the upside as markets improve. After that, Mike and I look forward to taking your questions. As you'll see on the first slide, in terms of our full year performance, I believe we did deliver a resilient outcome, EUR 1 billion of underlying EBITDA, marginally down on the prior year.
Pleasingly, cash generated from operations of EUR 1.07 billion was up on the prior year. As Mike will explain in more detail, we were also able to reduce CapEx below previously guided levels, which further supported our cash flow and balance sheet. As I mentioned, this is a resilient performance in the context of what remain challenging market conditions and reflects both the strength of our integrated asset base, the value of our unique product offering, and the impact of the self-help measures we have taken. While we remain confident in the structural drivers underpinning through-cycle growth in our sustainable packaging solutions, we're equally cognizant of the impact of the current downturn and the impact it's having on our near-term performance.
In response, we have taken deliberate and decisive actions across the group, intensifying our focus on cost discipline, on operational excellence, on proactively optimizing our production footprint, and on cash generation, while at the same time continuing to focus on delivering a great value proposition to our customers. These actions take, together with the significant competitive advantages we continue to enjoy as a business, ensure that Mondi is strongly positioned to capture the upside as market conditions improve. With that, I'll hand you over to Mike for more color on the 2025 financial performance.
Thanks, Andrew. Morning, everybody. Thank you for joining. On to our 2025 results, which demonstrate a resilient performance against a backdrop of the prolonged cyclical downturn that our industry continues to face. Underlying EBITDA of EUR 1 billion saw continued margin pressure associated with the challenging trading conditions, the makeup of which I'll come onto on the next slide. During the year, we successfully completed the build and startup phase of a number of major capacity expansion projects into our core markets. These investments, together with the Schumacher acquisition, position us strongly to capture the upside as market conditions improve. They have, however, led to a higher capital base, and as a result, you see an increase in depreciation and finance costs, which reduces the group's basic underlying EPS and return on capital in the year.
On the right-hand side, I'm pleased with the stronger cash generation from operations, increasing to EUR 1,072 million through strong working capital management. So let me take you through the main movements in underlying EBITDA when compared to the prior year of EUR 1,049 million that you can see on the left-hand side of the chart. As you can see, the performance was resilient in an environment of macroeconomic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions, with only small movements year-on-year, which is testament to the strength of the cost-advantaged and integrated assets, the quality product offering, and the targeted actions taken. Sales volumes were up on the prior year, which included additional volumes from ramping up the new capacity.
With respect to selling prices, this is mostly comprised of higher containerboard selling prices, which were more than offset by significantly lower uncoated fine paper and pulp selling prices, and Andrew will provide a little more color on that in a couple of minutes. The cost increase is mainly in relation to labor inflation, with other costs well controlled. Input costs were overall flat year-on-year against a muted economic backdrop. In the first quarter of 2026, we are seeing overall input costs remaining flat on 2025, despite some sizable headwinds related to lower energy-related income and emission credits. Lastly, the forestry fair value gain, EUR 32 million higher in the year when compared to prior year, all that adding up to the results of an underlying EBITDA of EUR 101 million for the year.
As Andrew said, we're cognizant of the impact from the current downturn, and its effect on our near-term performance, so I wanted to spend some time outlining the actions we're taking to proactively manage the fixed cost base. Andrew will touch on operational excellence and productivity later. We execute targeted cost out initiatives to drive efficiency, eliminate non-essential activities, and strengthen the core revenue-generating areas of the business. It is what we continuously do to improve. Whilst we do have targeted incremental cost in growth areas, whether that's due to new capacity or customer demand, we have reduced headcount over the last 12 months elsewhere by approximately 1,000 heads, driven from greater efficiency in our operations, plant closures, and about a 13% reduction in our group services offices.
We've also recently announced three further plant closures, which will reduce headcount by approximately another 200 in the coming year. We combined our corrugated packaging and uncoated fine paper businesses into a single business unit, and that facilitates a more streamlined organization, supporting faster decision-making, cost takeout, and delivery of operational synergies across our pulp and paper mills, while retaining our customer-focused value chain orientation. And therefore, for the 2026 year, I expect these actions to offset labor and other cost inflation. Let me now take you through the movement in net debt. We started the year with EUR 1.7 billion. You can see the EBITDA contribution I've taken you through of EUR 1 billion. In terms of working capital, I'm really pleased with our delivery since the half year.
As you'll remember, at the half, we outflowed about EUR 100 million in the first six months, which tells you we drove around EUR 200 million inflow in the second half of the year to leave the total inflow that you see on the chart of EUR 83 million. Including interest tax and other items, the net result of these three items was cash delivered of EUR 767 million, and you see that highlighted in the box on the slide. The next three columns shows how we've allocated capital in the year. We invested EUR 673 million in property, plant, and equipment, lower than the previously guided EUR 750 million-EUR 850 million, driven by our ongoing focus on cash management.
Dividends paid total EUR 352 million, and lastly, we completed the acquisition of Schumacher, which expands our geographic reach, drives greater optimization across our plant footprint, and unlocks efficiencies that support long-term growth. Integration remains on track. We're confident in the delivery of the EUR 32 million cost synergies over the 3 years from completion, and that's an increase from the EUR 22 million that we initially envisaged. So to conclude, all of that leaves the group with a net debt balance at the end of the year, EUR 2.6 billion, which is 2.6x levered. I also want to set out our robust financial position. We've investment-grade credit ratings. Our available liquidity totals around EUR 1.3 billion, and places us strongly to protect value in the short term and capture opportunities in the long term as they arise.
We've refinanced short-term debt maturities in the year and have no further debt maturities until 2028, and as a reminder, we have no financial covenants. Let me now take you through some capital allocation points, starting on slide 9. So the group has a well-invested and cost-advantaged asset base in structurally growing packaging markets. Over the past few years, we've invested in a number of major capacity expansion projects, and we're very proud of the teams for completing the build and startup phase of these projects on time and on budget. Our focus is now on delivering full productivity ramp-up, executing our commercial strategy, driving cash generation, and delivering strong returns.
In addition to these growth projects, we invest through the cycle in our asset base to maintain competitive advantage, and you can see here in the gray bars that exclude those growth projects, that this has averaged 107% of depreciation over the past 5 years. Our cash capital expenditure for 2026 is expected to be approximately EUR 550 million, lower than the EUR 650 million euros previously guided. Within the EUR 550 million is approximately EUR 50 million of cash still to flow for the growth projects, leaving a base of around EUR 500 million. This spend will focus on maintenance and targeted cost optimization opportunities, including enhancing energy efficiency, improving productivity, and strengthening the resilience of our asset base. Onto dividend. The board does recognize the importance of dividends to our shareholders.
Over the last two years, we have consciously recommended dividends in excess of our policy on each occasion, carefully reviewing expectations for the coming period. Notwithstanding our continued confidence in the resilience and competitiveness of our business, consistent with our objective of retaining financial flexibility, the board has recommended a total ordinary dividend of EUR 28.25 per share for 2025, reflecting a return to the group's stated dividend cover policy of 2-3 times underlying earnings on average through cycle. Lastly, the technical guidance slide for 2026, hopefully all relatively self-intuitive. With that, let me hand back to Andrew. Thank you.
... Many thanks, Mike. I'll now take you through the review of the business unit performance and some thoughts on the current market dynamics before coming back to our competitive positioning. Before we get into the segmental review, I remind you that in Q4 2025, we combined the Corrugated Packaging and Uncoated Fine Paper businesses to form an enlarged Corrugated, Corrugated Packaging business unit. The segmental numbers are all based on the new reporting structure. To help comparability in the appendix to these slides, we have provided unaudited numbers on the old basis of segmental reporting. Coming first to Corrugated Packaging, a highlight was very much the good volume development achieved across all segments.
Containerboard volumes were up around 15% year-on-year, against the backdrop of a flat European market demand, supported by increased export sales and the ramp-up of completed expansion projects in our Świecie, Kuopio, and Duino mills. In Corrugated Solutions, we achieved like-for-like volume growth, excluding the Schumacher acquisition of around 2%, in line with overall European market growth. In UFP, we were able to hold volumes stable despite market demand declines of around 5% in each of our key regional markets of Europe and Southern Africa, testament to our cost competitiveness and the quality and reliability of our products and services. The margin squeeze you see came through price. In Containerboard, average prices were moderately higher than the prior year, although this does mask a tale of two halves, where prices were moving up through the first half, followed by declines through the second half.
In Corrugated Solutions, margins were squeezed as higher input costs were not fully passed on to customers due to intense competition in all key markets. In Uncoated Fine Paper markets, prices came under significant pressure through the year as industry moves to reduce capacity were not sufficient to mitigate the impact of significant demand-side weakness. This was exacerbated by lower pulp prices, which gave some breathing room to the higher-cost, unintegrated producers. Our South African business, which I remind you is a net seller of pulp, was further impacted by the unusually strong rand, which negatively impacted the rand price achieved for export pulp sales. It is nevertheless encouraging to see some modest pickup in pulp prices over recent months, and we are currently implementing price increases in certain uncoated fine paper grades in Europe on stronger order books and ongoing cost support.
If I look back at where we are today in the corrugated packaging markets, margins remain under pressure due to the lingering supply-demand imbalance. Demand has clearly been impacted by the prolonged economic downturn seen in our core markets, lasting now the better part of three and a half years. That said, it is encouraging to see that even against a soft macroeconomic backdrop, box demand in Europe was still up around 2% last year. And in fact, if you look at the size of the European box market, it has still grown by around 7% since 2019, the year before COVID, for a compound annual growth average growth rate slightly above 1%.
While clearly below historic growth rates of nearer 2% per annum, it is nonetheless still growing and I believe reflects the structural support we see from demand drivers such as e-commerce and sustainability. With a healthier macroeconomic backdrop, one would certainly expect these markets to return to trend growth rates of around 2% per annum. What has clearly been a major contributor to the overhang is the supply-side response. Containerboard capacity over the same period since 2019 has expanded by around 15%. In the short term, this overhang will continue to hold back margins in the industry in the absence of meaningful capacity rationalization and/or stronger demand-side recovery. In this regard, there's clearly ample incentive for capacity closures, with a significant portion of the industry cost curve currently loss-making.
As for ourselves, we'll continue to focus on the controllables that we know will serve to strengthen and reinforce our advantaged competitive positioning in these markets, leveraging our market leadership positions, cost advantage to asset base, and integration strengths, and I'll come on to more of that a bit later. If we move then to the Flexible Packaging business, I'm very encouraged by the strong volume growth we achieved in our global paper bags business, with good contributions from all key markets that we serve. Pleasingly, in addition to the steady performance from traditional e.g., industrial end users, we are seeing an acceleration in demand growth for e-commerce solutions in both Europe and the U.S. We continue to invest behind these important growth markets that we are very well positioned to serve.
Similarly, our consumer flexibles and functional paper and film segments continue to display their defensive qualities as we drive product, product mix improvements, supported by recent investments and ongoing innovation centered around sustainable packaging solutions. As noted on the slide, volumes in kraft paper were moderately down year-on-year as we responded to a generally softer demand environment with production downtime, particularly in the second half. While there is seemingly something of a disconnect between the strong volume growth in our bags business and the relatively softer kraft paper markets, our analysis suggests this is due to, due to a combination of industry stocking and destocking effects and product mix impacts. On the back of the softer demand, kraft paper prices came under pressure over the second half of the year and into early 2026, following modest increases through the first half of 2025.
With the ongoing good demand picture in bags now seemingly translating into better order intake for our key sack kraft grades, we are currently implementing price increases across our range of sack kraft grades, reversing the declines we saw in late 2025 and early 2026. Again, if I step back briefly to understand how our industry dynamics are playing out in the context of the current challenging macroeconomic environment, unlike in the corrugated markets, we see the current margin pressure in this segment as being very much a cyclical demand side story. I remind you that sales in flexibles are split roughly 50/50 between more cyclically impacted industrial end users and the more defensive consumer end markets.
On the industrial side, if I take, for example, European industrial bag demand from 2019 until today, it is off around 7%, heavily impacted by the slowdown in cyclically sensitive markets like cement and building materials. Over the same period, European Sack Kraft capacity has actually remained relatively flat. This is clearly a cyclical demand side challenge. As already mentioned, encouragingly, industry demand is improving, albeit modestly, from the lows seen in 2023. European industrial bag demand was up around 2% in 2024 and a further 2.5% in 2025. This also excludes new applications for our bags in non-industrial applications like retail and e-commerce and consumer markets, which are also adding to demand sources and contributed to the 5% growth we achieved in our bags business.
With this backdrop, we'll continue to support the growth of our global leading paper bags franchise, supported by a strong backward integration into kraft paper and our complementary offering in functional papers. We are not waiting for the cyclical recovery, but rather continuing to develop new markets for our products, while also driving our operational excellence and cost optimization programs to enhance our competitiveness. Coming then to our competitive advantages, I just want to discuss briefly how we see Mondi positioned in these markets and reminding you of the significant advantage we have to deliver resilience in the most challenging of market conditions, and similarly, capture the upside as market conditions improve. I'll talk to each of these points over the next few slides. Our scale and market positions are a major strategic advantage.
In corrugated, we enjoy market leadership positions in the niche virgin grades, where we also enjoy significant cost advantage. In emerging Europe, which typically enjoys higher growth rates, we are the leading integrated box producer. As you know, through the Schumacher acquisition last year, we have now extended our geographic reach across Northern Europe so that we can be a genuine option for regional key account customers, while at the same time leveraging our paper integration strengths. In fine paper, we are the number two player across Europe, with real strengths in our core regional market of Central Europe, while we are the clear market leader in our other core market of Southern Africa. In flexibles, we are the clear global market leader in both upstream kraft paper and downstream paper bags, with an unmatched global reach and integration strength.
Similarly, we enjoy real strength in niche consumer flexibles markets in Europe, with, for example, the leading position in the high growth and highly demanding pet food market. These positions matter. They underpin our customer relationships, supply chain relevance, and cost competitiveness. As I've already mentioned, packaging demand is heavily influenced by macroeconomic growth in the short term. While there are many defensive end markets, such as food and beverage and other consumer non-durables, there's always an element of cyclicality in demand, even in the most defensive of markets. This is accentuated in our industrial exposures, as already noted, most notably in construction and related markets like cement and building materials.
This has clearly been the dominant theme over the past three years as the fallout from COVID, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the more recent trade wars have all served to undermine consumer confidence, particularly in our core European markets. However, as I've already mentioned, it is pleasing to see that despite this very difficult macroeconomic backdrop, we are starting to see some growth coming back into these markets, albeit off a low base. Most importantly, we remain confident that the structural growth drivers in packaging are very much intact. Key among these are the increasing importance of e-commerce and the drive for sustainable packaging solutions. We are extremely well positioned to leverage these trends. As I will show you shortly, we offer a one-stop shop for all paper-based e-commerce solutions....
While I firmly believe our expertise across different flexible packaging so substrates and our vertical integration strengths gives real advantage when developing sustainable packaging solutions for our customers. You'll see on the right-hand side of the slide, we show an example of how new applications, largely driven by sustainability requirements, are driving demand for our specialty Kraft paper products, with a significant increase in applications across e-commerce, non-food, and industrial. A trend we expect to see continue and likely accelerate, driven by both regulation and consumer preferences. We continue to seek ways to bring this differentiated product offering to our customers in a way that delivers the best value proposition for them. Last year, we combined our e-commerce sales team from across corrugated and flexible packaging to provide a single point of entry for customers. Similarly, we continued to drive innovation across our broad portfolio of packaging solutions.
I was delighted that we recently won nine WorldStar Packaging Awards for innovation, following a long tradition of success in developing innovative packaging solutions in partnership with our customers. This is, of course, all underpinned by our ongoing focus on operational excellence, which focuses on delivering right first-time performance, reducing lead times, and providing customers with the agility and flexibility that they expect from us. You'll see on the right-hand side of this slide, how our product breadth supports two of the most important end-use segments, FMCG and e-commerce, which together make up about half of our packaging portfolio. For each, we offer a full suite of corrugated and flexible solutions that are genuinely complementary and are designed around our customer needs. This is what customers value: one Mondi, comprehensive solutions and consistent quality.
Our integrated model is a fundamental competitive strength, and here we need to differentiate between what I refer to as our bulk and niche packaging grades. We firmly believe that in the bulk grades, strength in integration is key. From the paper perspective, it provides security of offtake, allowing us to run our mills as efficiently as possible, while also allowing us to optimize logistics into our converting operations. Similarly, from the converter's perspective, it offers security of supply, logistics benefits, and innovation opportunities using the combined knowledge and expertise of the whole value chain. As you can see from the charts on the left-hand side of the slide, we are highly integrated in these grades. By contrast, in the niche virgin containerboard and specialty kraft grades, we are very comfortable with our strong open market positions.
These products are sold on a global basis to a wide number of different customers, many of whom are other integrated producers who do not have these products in their portfolios. Key here is cost competitiveness, quality, reliability, and innovation, where we are again very well-placed to outperform. Coming to our cost competitiveness, which is particularly important in our upstream paper businesses, this chart illustrates that around three-quarters of our production is in the lower half of the relevant cost curves, a key determinant of long-term outperformance in these markets. We have achieved this by having the right assets in the right places to secure access to cost-competitive raw materials. We have then built on this natural cost advantage through judicious investment in the assets on a through-cycle basis.
In addition to the scale benefits that come with the capacity expansion, these investments also deliver efficiency and cost optimization through increased energy self-sufficiency and raw material efficiencies. A culture of continuous improvement, delivering operational excellence, is then key to extracting the full value from these privileged assets. On the topic of operational excellence, as Mike says, this is a continuous program and embedded in our culture. We are very proud of our long track record of continuous improvement, as you can see from the example of what has been achieved at one of our flagship operations, Świecie in Poland, over the past year, 10 years on the right-hand side of the slide.
However, we are always striving for more, and in early 2025, we initiated a multi-year program aimed at taking us to the next level of operational excellence through a zero loss mindset, embedding standardized processes and ensuring the sharing of best practice, facilitated by empowering our people and strengthening our leadership teams. While I'm being constantly reminded by colleagues that this is a long-term program and I shouldn't be expecting significant quick wins, I am nevertheless delighted by the initial results from the pilot projects. In Świecie, for example, this has already led to strong efficiency gains and reduced downtime on the machines. We are very excited by what this program can do for all of our operations as we systematically roll it out across the group. Our converting operations also have a proud track record of driving efficiency gains.
Over the past 10 years, we have closed 22 plants, while at the same time growing volumes. As our larger plants get increasingly efficient, we are able to successfully transfer volumes from smaller operations, which in turn drives further efficiencies. The chart on the right-hand side of the slide illustrates the track record of productivity gains over the past 10 years in our Corrugated Solutions and paper bags plants, respectively. After a short period of slower rates of improvement, I'm delighted by the significant productivity gains achieved in the last 12 months of 4%-5%, reflecting a renewed focus on driving this key performance indicator. The Schumacher acquisition has further strengthened our Corrugated Solutions network, enabling further optimization across our footprint and unlocking efficiencies that support our long-term growth.
As Mike mentioned, we recently announced three further plant closures, again, with the intention of transferring the volumes to other nearby plants in our network. While we fully acknowledge the challenges for those valued colleagues directly impacted by these decisions, we also recognize the critical importance of driving the ongoing optimization of our plant network. We will not hesitate to take the tough decisions on plant or mill closures when required. So let me then finish where I started. In the context of a prolonged cyclical downturn, we have delivered a resilient performance. We have taken and will continue to take decisive actions to drive value. We remain strongly positioned to deliver in the short term and capture the upside as markets improve.
Our conviction is driven by our belief in the structural growth drivers underpinning growth in our packaging businesses, our leading market positions, our well-invested and highly cost-competitive assets, our compelling customer value proposition, and most importantly, our committed and highly capable people who live and drive our culture of excellence and continuous improvement. In this context, I'd like to finish by extending my sincere thanks to all our people for their great commitment and energy in navigating the current challenging market conditions and remaining steadfast in pursuing our goal of delivering sustainable long-term value for all our stakeholders. With that, I thank you very much for your attention, and Mike and I are now delighted to take your questions.
If you have a question today, please use the Raise Hand function on your screen. We'll just wait a moment for questions to come in. Our first question comes from Reinhard of Bank of America. Reinhard, please unmute and go ahead.
Morning, folks. Can you hear me?
We can.
We can, Reinhardt. Morning.
Brilliant. Thank you for taking my questions. I just wanna go to one of your comments. You mentioned that you won't hesitate to take tough decisions on plant closures. I think, you know, you mentioned that a lot of your assets are in the bottom half of the cost curve, but some of them are obviously not. So if we think about rationalizing supply here, as you know, for on the Mondi side, where do you think that incremental closure could potentially come from?
Yeah, I think, Reinhard, it's. I mean, as I said, we've, we've got a, a track record of, of taking those decisions in order to continue to facilitate, the drive for more efficiency. Now, typically, historically, a lot of that has been facilitated by, our existing plants getting increasingly efficient, and so we are able to continue to serve our customer with a smaller fixed cost base as. And that's something we've continued to do, and we, we will- we won't hesitate to where the opportunity arises, and as I mentioned, we just recently, announced and are in the process of closing a further three plants. That is, plants in, Hungary, Germany, and, Turkey.
If the opportunity arises to drive further efficiencies while making sure we look after our, our, our customers, that is something we'll continue to do. The plant network is obviously very extensive, and it lends itself to those opportunities. I think your reference was specifically to the paper mills. Clearly, you know, the most important value driver in the paper mills is your cost position. That's why you see us talk so much about the relative cost positioning. Now, those cost curves are not precise. It's... We take the industry cost curves from the various consultants to get a sense of where we are in that space.
Quite a lot of the, 'cause people always point to the 25%, as you, I think, have alluded to, that is not in the lower half of the cost curve. Some of that, one has to acknowledge, is very much in the sort of specialty camp, which in some ways it's not appropriate to look at it on a simple cost curve analysis, and certainly, the margins that we see in those businesses are not necessarily the case. Clearly, the one asset of ours which is currently loss-making is the Duino mill in Italy for two reasons. One is it hasn't been optimized yet.
It only started this year, so we are not yet in a fully optimized position because, of course, as the capacity ramps up, so the unit costs go down, and also your input costs get optimized. So we are in the process of doing that, but undoubtedly, there's also the market dynamic that's at play there. And as I mentioned, swathes of industry capacity are currently loss-making. The big challenge in that regard is, of course, you would logically see that the more marginal assets should go first. That's at the moment happening to some degree, but one expects more to happen, frankly, if the current paradigm continues.
Duino is a mid-cost producer, by the time we are fully optimized on it, and importantly, we also require the security of supply that comes with having some recycled containerboard in our portfolio. As I pointed out in that slide on the integrated system, we actually remain short of recycled containerboard as a business. While it might not feel like it at the moment, given the oversupply in the recycled containerboard market, through the cycle, it is important to have some of your own recycled capacity for security of supply reasons into your box business. So there's always that strategic element as well. But, suffice to say that all the rest of our paper mills are extremely well-placed and are extremely cost competitive.
Got it. No, that's very clear. Thank you, Andrew. Maybe if I just flip that question on its head, and ask about your capacity at the box level, at box plants. You're driving efficiency, that seems to be a focus right now. But how do you think about maybe some countercyclical consolidation investments? I mean, dividend is down now, CapEx, you're pulling back, so there seems to be some balance sheet capacity in the next few years. How are you thinking about countercyclical investments, at the box plant level?
Yeah, I won't even ask Mike to comment on the balance sheet capacity, 'cause I know he's on set at 2.6 times leverage. I think we're very conscious that, you know, we're at the top of where we're comfortable in terms of leverage.
Agreed.
And so, our focus is very much on driving those self-help actions that we spoke about, and being as well-placed as we can to serve our customers in the current dynamic. And, you know, we've invested heavily in the business. We know that, and we have the capacity now. We have all the weapons in our armory to compete very effectively in the markets. That's the job to do right now with the assets that we invested in and the portfolio that we have. That is the focus.
Very clear. Thanks a lot. I'll pass it along.
Thanks, Reinhardt.
Our next question comes from Detlef of JP Morgan. Detlef, please unmute and go ahead.
Morning, guys. Just checking you guys can hear me?
We can.
Perfect. Morning. It's just a quick one on your CapEx. You know, if I look to 2025, coming in roughly quote, EUR 130 million below midpoint of guide, putting down 2026 by EUR 100 million. Can you run us through kind of what you've paid back, any specific projects? And has anything kind of been kicked to 2027, or is this kind of EUR 550 million-ish roughly okay, extending growth project?
Short answer is, yes, we're very comfortable with that number. Clearly in the, you know, the current low growth market environment, it's not, it's, it's not a difficult trade-off to cut back on anything of a, of a significant expansionary nature. That said, there are some pockets of growth that we are still continuing to support, but, but they're very small, and they're within that overall number. The primary focus at the moment is on, on, in terms of the CapEx program going forward, is, is investing and to make sure the asset integrity is, is not impeded, and of course, that we do retain the exposure to the upside.
But having invested significantly over the last few years, we're very confident that we can pull back on the CapEx spend while without prejudicing the asset integrity, and similarly, without prejudicing the exposure to the upside. In terms of what we might have prioritized or deprioritized, that's there's always that constant work being done to prioritize your CapEx programs and the like, but we're very confident that there's nothing we're doing now that, as I say, either prejudices asset integrity or indeed limits our exposure to the upside in the near term. Clearly, if we see markets, you know, starting to show real recovery in terms of from the demand side, there might be some other opportunities.
You know, we have a great asset base that we continue to leverage if the opportunities are there, but we're very comfortable operating in this sort of envelope for an extended period of time. We've always said maintenance CapEx, you know, and that's not just sort of holding on to what we got, but adding some opportunities in the sort of 100%-110% of depreciation. So that's what we're operating with this year.
Yeah, and Detlef, just to be explicit on your 2027 question, we're not stoking an issue for 2027. As Andrew said, we can operate at this 110%. We've got capacity that we've put on the ground that isn't yet full. And in this environment, I think we're very comfortable. We've got well-invested assets, and now we need to generate the cash and fill those assets.
Great. Thanks so much. I'll hand it over. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Lars of Stifel. Lars, please unmute and go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. I'll just start with a big question in terms of where your margins are today. They're obviously down quite a bit on the cyclical pressures and, and of course, you can reinvest it in your business with headwinds from starting up, et cetera, et cetera. Where do you think, considering what seems to be somewhat structurally higher wood costs, that your margins could, where they should be in some sort of normalized environment? And just on a short-term comments, you did say Kraft paper order books are starting to improve, and you, you reversing the, the sort of couple of quarters of price declines. What are you seeing in containerboard when it comes to demand trends?
And of course, you have spoken to Andrew and many others, of course, and in reality, there's been a distress here for a long time. Are you seeing any real signs of this cracking?
Okay, there's a few questions in there. I think on the first question, I'm not gonna, I know it's flavor of the month, but I'm not gonna give long-term forecasts. But I think, you know, yes, European wood costs are structurally higher than they were, you know, pre-Ukraine for obvious reasons, because of the restriction, well, the prohibition of supply out of Russia and Belarus, which of course, caused prices to go up. And yes, they've come down to some extent from the peak levels in 2022, but they're still above pre-Ukraine levels. So I think, you know, that is a structural change. At the same time, it clearly affects all players in Europe to a greater or lesser degree, but clearly everyone's impacted.
So the whole cost, industry cost base has gone up. That's particularly relevant for, for example, the sack kraft grades, which are primarily made, as you well know, in Northern and Central Europe. And so the relative positioning hasn't materially changed on that. Clearly, where it has changed on a global basis is in, for example, pulp, where, as a globally traded commodity, you are competing with other continents where maybe you haven't seen that same level of input cost pressure. From our perspective, we are, we are not a pulp player. I mean, the only place we make open market pulp of any significance is in South Africa, and of course, there, the wood cost situation is actually relatively improved versus the European cost base.
Clearly, that was the other reason that attracted us to Canada, where, again, in our Hinton mill, the wood costs are extremely favorable compared to Europe. So I think, you know, it's in that sort of market where you might have seen a relatively less competitive dynamic. In the kraftliner markets, which is the other big grade of virgin product that we make, again, all the European competitors have seen similar input cost inflation. I guess on a relative basis, people like the Latam producers have enjoyed a relative advantage. But as you know, they produce their kraftliner out of virgin hardwood grades.
You can't add things like recycled content into those grades, which the Europeans and ourselves, in particular, are able to benefit from, so we can offset some of those cost disadvantages on the wood front with the PFR content and the like. So I think to your point, Lars, it is a relevant consideration on a global basis, but then you have to look grade by grade, where you have to compete on a global basis versus what are more regional markets. The question on containerboard, I think you mentioned it, it was basically a twin question on pricing and sort of where's the supply-demand picture, which of course are linked. Yeah, I mean, right now, margins across the industry are heavily squeezed. Clearly, the big capacity problem is in recycled containerboard.
It's not on the virgin grades, but at the same time, we're the first to acknowledge that the overhang in the recycled grades is putting a cap on the ability to push pricing on the virgin grades, because on the margin, there is substitution. So you know, the question is how quickly this overcapacity can be absorbed into the market. I firmly believe it has to come through a combination of factors. Clearly, the demand side, albeit we're starting to see some okay demand. You know, last year, I think the box Europe box volumes were up around two percentage points. If you look at the industry statistics, that's okay in a normal environment.
Of course, it's off a low base because we saw a sharp decline in sort of 2023 into 2024, and now it's only rebuilding now. So you have seen, on a trend basis, below trend growth for the last five years. At the same time, the capacity has been coming in on historic trend rates, if you look at it. So that has caused this oversupply. I do believe it will require further capacity closures to balance it. I don't think we can assume that demand, in itself, is gonna do all the heavy lifting here. But as I said in my opening remarks, there's every incentive for that. Now, we are starting to see some movement on that front. It's not these big-ticket sort of headline-grabbing moves, but you are starting to see closures take place.
I firmly believe, as I say, there's every incentive for more closures, there must be huge pain at the high end of the cost curve. And simply put, the current margins are not sustainable. So if you believe in a structurally growing market, which we do—you know, the current incentive price is not there, certainly for new capacity, and its incentive is for closures. And you've got to believe something's gonna change on that front.
Thank you.
I hope that answers your questions, Lars.
It does. Thank you.
Thanks, Lars.
Our next question comes from Cole of Jefferies. Cole, please unmute and go ahead.
Morning. Thanks for taking my question. I appreciate the actions taken on the cost front, and, you know, Mondi has never, like many of your peers, announced separate kind of cost initiatives, but, you know, 1,000 headcount, group services, pulled back. That's all ultimately helpful for 2026. I'd just like a little bit more color on, you know, the message on costs. You're talking about stable costs, 2026 versus 2025. I'd just like some moving parts there. And then after the input costs, can you give any color on, you know, what would be the potential contribution from the Schumacher acquisition and the EUR 32 million synergies that you're trying to achieve in 2026? And, also a difficult one is the contributions from the CapEx projects.
I know prices are low, and the market is still challenging, but the contribution from the major CapEx projects would be helpful. Thank you.
Sure. Let me start, Cole, with the first couple, and then the last one sort of relates to wider market issues, which Andrew can comment on. Just in terms of costs, just so we're clear, if I take what some would call overheads, we call them fixed costs, we have taken those actions. We continue to take actions on overheads. Large part for us is people costs, some maintenance of equipment, but clearly that's around assets. Those people actions that we've taken, plus those other efficiencies that we'll drive through our overhead base, will offset, as I said in my words, will offset any inflationary pressures.
So we still have, and we like to pay our workforce that are precious to us, inflation increases. The work we have done will offset that. So I'd expect our fixed cost overhead base to be flat, given the actions that we've taken. I think you also touched on input costs, so, above the line, direct materials, others might call it. Again, within that, it's early in the year. I would guide to flat if I was sat here today. Clearly, that will change as the year goes on. But as of today, we're seeing it flat on 2025. Why is that? We're seeing some headwinds. There's less energy emissions credits in various forms from governments. I think you've heard the rest of the peer group talk about those.
For us, that's about EUR 60 million headwind on energy. We'll work hard to offset that. We've got some other cost categories coming down still, which I think reflects a sort of a pretty lackluster economy. It's things like chemicals are still coming down. And then within wood, we've got some ups, some downs. We've got Scandi wood coming down, Central Eastern European wood going up. I would say the ups and downs are much smaller than they've been. I know we're in a much more volatile world, so I don't want to diminish a sort of 20 up and a 30 down. But those movements are much smaller ups and downs than they were two years ago, or frankly, that they would be if economies recover.
So I think what the, the puts and takes to give me confidence to go to flat is, is the puts and takes are, are probably a bit either way, and we're working hard internally to offset those energy grants from governments in various forms. So, so best guidance is flat on input costs, Cole. Hope that's a bit of color within the categories that you're after. And, and, Andrew, in terms of markets and-
Yeah
... volumes.
Yeah, so, I think just adding to the cost story, we, I'd frankly prefer our procurement guys to be struggling a bit more because it generally means an economic pickup, which puts more pressure also on input costs, but that's a far more favorable environment than sadly, the one we continue to struggle with, with the geopolitical and macroeconomic backdrop that we see.
It-
But coming back to call it the self-help, Cole, which is very much also linked to the CapEx programme, I guess it can be divided into two parts. The one is what is within our control and the other, which is clearly the market dynamic that we're selling into, and of course, the two are somewhat interlinked. But if I look at it in broad terms, you know, on the big upstream capacity expansion, we've probably got another 300,000 tonnes to come this year from ramping up the projects. Now, about half of that is Duino, which I think I've already explained to you clearly in the current paradigm with the current recycled containerboard price, not seeing a big contribution on those extra tonnes at the moment.
But as I said, it's, you know, it's the focus there is very much driving the productivity improvement, and it also has benefits on cost optimization and the like. For the rest, it's obviously very valuable tons, even in the current difficult environment, because it's expanding both the virgin capacity out of Świecie and Kuopio, and also the sack kraft production out of the PM10 in Štětí. And I remind you, last year, we took down the Stolbtsy mill, so this incremental capacity for the market is readily absorbable. And, you know, again, we're excited by the underlying growth we see in our bags and other applications for our kraft paper, so very confident that that can be placed into good markets. So that's where a lot of it comes from.
In terms of the absolute contribution, the big challenge here is what is your pricing assumption, particularly on the paper grades. And which is, you know, what we're saying is this is gonna support our volume growth in 2026. We think we can, for all of those reasons, grow above market. The absolute pricing will obviously determine exactly what the contribution is from that, but this is good low-cost tonnage that we are bringing into the market. And similarly, in the converting businesses, again, there is always a much closer interplay with the market dynamics and the capacity. Putting up the capacity is the easy bit, getting it into the market at the right price is something which obviously is also a function of the overall market conditions.
Again, though, I think we've got all the tools to be able to grow above market in the key markets where we've increased capacity, and that includes the Schumacher acquisition, which as I, you know, we said at the time, also comes with effectively some latent capacity, which it's incumbent on us to grow into the market, and we're very confident we can continue to do that. I think a very exciting area for us is that e-commerce area where, you know, as I said in my opening remarks, we do have a fantastic and unparalleled port-- breadth of portfolio there that is genuinely what our e-commerce customers are buying from us across the platform. I think I've got a example of the protective mailer behind us and the like.
These are all products which are combining expertise in our corrugated and our flexibles business, which is fantastic, and that's why we brought together the sales team that can talk as one... as one voice for all our offering across our flexibles and corrugated business.
And then just as a follow-up, you know, bringing the CapEx down to EUR 550 million is, you know, it's a strong effort, considering you had commitments for the major projects as well as, you know, the recovery boilers. Could you just break down that EUR 550 million CapEx number? 'Cause reducing it to that level, I know is must have involved a lot of work. Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, just to be clear, we're not investing in any recovery boilers at the moment. Those things are properly expensive.
Mm-hmm.
We've got a few, I think you're referring to as biomass boilers.
Right. Yeah.
So firstly, just to be very clear, those are all in the numbers, so there's nothing on top or anything like that. No, I mean, as I said earlier, you know, we feel confident we can do this. Yes, I mean, as you rightly say, when you work across the organization, it's always a challenge because everyone's got essential CapEx, et cetera, and great growth opportunities and the like. But, you know, we are extremely confident that we are managing this CapEx at a level which doesn't impair the integrity of the asset base. It doesn't store up a problem for later because, you know, we're not believers in that. We believe in building a long-term sustainable business, but at the same... and similarly, doesn't prejudice the upside as and when it happens. So yeah, in short, we are very confident.
It does still allow us to make those important investments in, for example, these biomass boilers, which are very important both in terms of, because as a stand business element, the existing capacity is end of life. But as importantly as that, it also gives us upside in terms of cost opportunity and importantly, CO2 reductions and things, which are very important for our customers. You know, our Scope 1 and 2 emissions is our customers' Scope 3. They are very focused on that. It is a genuine selling point and a very important value for them. So, these are very important steps, but that's all included in the numbers we guide to.
Thank you.
Thanks, Cole.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew of UBS. Andrew, please unmute and go ahead.
Hi, gents. Can you hear me okay? We can.
Mm-hmm.
Excellent. So, yeah, you've had some relatively encouraging comments about the Kraft paper market. Can you just point to, like, which pockets of demand are sort of starting to come up at the moment? Are you seeing more growth in export markets? Is it specific customer segments within Europe? Like, what's the, what are the moving parts, and how much do you put down to kind of a restocking dynamic after last year's destock versus, like, a fundamental underlying improvement in trend? And how, and how do you see the rest of the year, given we've obviously got some infrastructure investments coming through on the cement side and things like that? I mean, can you just talk through that, that dynamic, if that's okay?
Yeah. As I said in my remarks, it, it is a bit confusing, this seeming disconnect between bag growth, because bags use Sack Kraft,
Mm-hmm
... and the relatively soft picture in the Kraft paper markets in 2025. Actually, if you recall 2024, it was a bit of a reverse. It was the other way around, as this-
Mm-hmm
... the Kraft paper markets were stronger relative to the underlying bags. But to me, first and foremost, you look at the end users and which is the bag demand, and it is encouraging that last year, as I said, we grew 5%.... If you look just at the European market, the industry numbers tell us that it was about a 2.5% growth market in Europe. North America seems to have starting to show some growth as well now, which is encouraging. Again, we were growing strongly in North America, well, the Americas, but it's mainly North America. For us, it's Mexico and the U.S.
And then, of course, important markets for us are also Middle East, North Africa, which always some volatility in those markets, in individual pockets of that, but if you take it as a whole, again, some good growth. So, you know, when I look at last year's contribution to the bags growth, it was everywhere contributed. On top of that, we obviously, as I mentioned, got these new sources of demand. So for the likes of, you know, I mentioned again, the e-commerce mailer bags and things like that, a nice extra area of growth. I mean, the core of that business remains in the industrial space, but these sort of applications are coming through, which both support the growth of our converting business, but also, of course, demand for the paper grades.
So that is, you know, that has been the picture of 2025, and it's certainly continued into 2026 in terms of a decent-looking demand environment for our bags. It seems as though, as I say, having been a bit softer into the second half of the year with the kraft paper volumes, we did see that in our order books into the Q4. I think we cautioned about that at the Q3 numbers. Certainly that did continue into January, and we shouldn't, you know, we're generally not saying it's sort of first of January, suddenly things changed. But certainly now, we are starting to see that good position in bags translating into a certainly stronger order position in the kraft paper business.
Yes, and on the back of that, we're currently in the market for price increases. You know, I hesitate to say, so remind you that this is very much recovering the pricing erosion we saw Q4 into early Q1 this year.
Yeah. No, that's clear. Just a second question, so on the ramp-up of the projects. I mean, I remember when you acquired Schumacher, it was running at roughly 50% utilization after the large plant came on. Can you give us an update as to sort of broadly where that is and maybe also where Duino is running at, just so we can understand how that kind of movement in board versus sort of board demand internally sort of evolves as we go through this year?
Yeah, Duino is easy because it's much easier to measure capacity in the paper machines. As I said earlier, you know, we could expect another 150-odd thousand tons production-
Mm
... incremental production this year out of Duino if we run-
Mm
... run full. In terms of the Schumacher capacity, I mean, again, it is also a function of the overall market. So clearly, we are confident we can grow above market, because as I say, we've got very strong base on which to believe that in terms of the asset base. So we have, we've obviously invested now in growing the commercial infrastructure to support the growth of that business in that Northern European region. But we have to also acknowledge, you know, when I mentioned that box demand growth across Europe was 2%-ish, you know, that does mask quite different regional growth rates.
Mm.
Clearly, Southern Europe, Spain was the star performer, where unfortunately, we don't have direct box exposure. We do obviously sell containerboard into there-
Mm
... so that's helpful, but it's not direct exposure. Our indirect exposure in the box business from a European perspective is very much Northern Europe and Northern Central Europe. Clearly, Germany, I think box demand was probably half a percentage point or something growth last year.
Mm.
So the overall market remains slow, and, you know, we are working in that context. So, you know, we have to be realistic about what we can do in the short term, because what we don't want to do is chase volume at the expense of margin. That would be stupid and a very short-term-
Mm
... short-sighted, 'cause we're here for the long term, so we must do it in a structured and systematic way, but we are very confident in the capability we have there to continue to grow above market. So that is the primary focus in terms of how we grow out the ... and fully utilize, as you say, the underutilized capacity we acquired as part of that acquisition.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's very clear. Thank you. Thanks, Andy.
I think we've got time for one more, and we're probably over time, but happy to take one more.
Yes, we'll take our final question from Kevin of Deutsche. Kevin, please unmute and ask your question.
Thanks very much, and morning, all.
Good morning.
If I could do the first was on your guidance for downtime and the impact on EBITDA this year. Just presumably, that's weighted very much towards the corrugated packaging segment, but I just wondered if you could sort of help us think about the sort of weighting by segment and cadence we might expect during the year. And just if I could sneak in a second quick one. There's clearly a number of elements in the numbers today addressing capital allocation decisions. And I think you signaled in your piece earlier, Mike, that it's your leverage is sort of the higher end of where you're comfortable with, I guess.
I just wondered what you're trying to signal today in terms of the timeframe you might get that leverage to a bit more of a comfortable, a more comfortable position for you guys. So any color on those two would be great.
... Sure. On maintenance, to keep it simple, it, it's about the same as last year. We've got it to about EUR 120 first half, EUR 80 second half. I think you should assume the same split. Yeah, on leverage, listen, I don't think you should use the, the phrase uncomfortable with where we are. I think it's at the top end, of where we'd like to be to have that financial flexibility. And you've seen a number of measures, that we continue to take through last year and into this year, around working capital, around cash generation off the assets, around, spend on CapEx. I think that's just prudent financial management in the current economic environment. How quick we de-lever, depends on two things. One is the net debt.
I don't want to be sort of flippant. That's the one that we can control to an extent in terms of the cash that we consume and the cash that we choose to spend as a business. And then the other one is EBITDA, which actually, on a math basis, is much more powerful in reducing your leverage. That, as Andrew has said, will be a function of both the actions we take, but also how the market operates over the coming period. Clearly, if price moves, you de-leverage very, very quickly. We're not waiting for the markets to move. We're taking control of our own actions here. And I think you've seen that today. I think you'll continue to see it. As I said earlier, it is what Mondi does.
Hopefully, that answers your question.
Yeah, that's really helpful. Thanks a lot, and, yeah. Apologies for the difference in wording, I guess, but, you, you get the point, I think.
No, that's okay. No, no, not at all. I just want to make sure I understand.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you very much.
Very helpful.
Thank you.
Very good. And with that, we've taken up more than, more than, our allotted time, so I really appreciate the interest as always. As always, Fiona and team are available for any follow-up questions. And, for those of you, we look forward to seeing you in the on-the-road shows over the next few weeks. So, again, really appreciate the interest. I think, in summary, you know, we know the world is difficult out there. We are not standing still in that environment. We are starting... We are seeing good growth in some of our core businesses. We're supporting that with the right actions, to make sure we are as com- you know, extremely competitive in any environment and, with, really good positioning for the upside when it, when it comes.
Really appreciate your interest, and thank you very much for your attention today, and goodbye from us.
Thank you.