Holmen AB (publ) (STO:HOLM.B)
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Earnings Call: Q2 2020

Jul 30, 2020

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the interim report presentation for the Holmen Group. Here in Stockholm at the office, we are the usual suspects, Anders. It's me, Henrik Sjölund, CEO, and Anders Jernhall, CFO, of course. This quarter, the second quarter, has been a very special quarter in relation to the years we have had before and also the situation with COVID-19. If we go back a few months, there was a lot of uncertainty in the market. I think all of us have been affected in different ways, all societies, also our own business.

Now, as we have proceeded during the quarter, we have a little bit better understanding of how it has affected our own business, and we can see that all over we are doing relatively well, which is also reflected in the second quarter operating profit of SEK 542 million.

We can also see that we are struggling in our paper business, which comes from a really huge drop in demand. We are happy to see that our paperboard business is back on track or is doing a little bit better. It's a strong performance in the second quarter. We are also happy that we were able, during the second quarter, to finalize negotiations to buy Martinsons, which we will come back to a bit later.

At the board meeting today, the directors of Holmen decided to propose to an Extra General Meeting to decide about a dividend of SEK 3.50 later on during September. We are a company with a very strong financial position. We are also a company that should normally be able to give dividend also in uncertain times.

But if we go back a few months, you know that we postponed or we did not have our Annual General Meeting when it was planned. And later on, we also withdrew the original proposal for dividend. Now, a few months later, just as I said, we have a better understanding of our own business and how COVID-19 is really affecting the opportunities to make money and, let's say, run the business as normal. We have looked at and considered all different aspects when it comes to our own situation. And despite the fact that we have a very strong position, we have also looked at other areas such as we are a very responsible company.

When we take everything into consideration, the Board of Directors have come to the conclusion that, yes, we should give dividend, but we should not give dividend in the same, not to the same extent as the initial proposal was, but half of what was initially proposed, which means SEK 3.50. Let's move on. We'll come back to that later on, I guess, to our forest business. Forest is a fantastic asset. We know it because we've had it for a long time. In times when things are uncertain and when things change, the strength of our forest assets becomes very clear as well.

We have a wood market right now where there is, I would say it's a bit excess of pulpwood because the industry is running with slightly lower activity than normal. We have a balanced situation when it comes to the sawlog market.

But of course, for us, the good thing with the forest is that if the industry is not consuming as much as we are used to, then we just leave the trees for some time to grow a little bit bigger and become even more valuable. This means for the moment that prices are down slightly. On the other hand, we have had a period with slowly increasing prices. So how has that transferred into our operating profit, Anders?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

Yeah, you saw a Q2 report of 370 in operating profit from the forest. That's SEK 50 million more than the previous quarter. And the difference is explained by sale of forest properties that was concluded during the quarter. Otherwise, it's roughly the same underlying result in Q2 as Q1 with unchanged prices between the quarters. Looking year -over -year, we have a SEK 90 million higher profit to a largest extent. That is more of an accounting increase in earnings due to the new value of our forest assets. We benefited from the sale of forest property, but lost a bit of revenue due to, on average, 5% lower selling prices between the years.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Thank you. I said before that COVID-19 has affected our business in different ways. To be a paperboard producer for the premium segment of consumer packaging, life has been quite okay. We see stable prices in the market, even though we see also that the pulp price, softwood pulp, is a bit lower or is really low at the moment. But as you know, for us, we are more or less neutral. We are not exposed really to the pulp market. As we produce a little bit more than we need at the Iggesund Mill, and we are buying roughly the same amount to our Workington Mill.

Not only prices have been stable, we have also seen a fairly good demand development, not only in Europe, but also if you look at the deliveries from European producers to other parts of the world, the development has been, I would say, quite okay. We have grown in line with the market, and we have also been able to improve our product mix slightly.

We had really high deliveries in the first quarter, but if you look at the first half of the year, still the deliveries are on the positive side, and we are roughly at the 550,000 tons we have promised a couple of times, Anders, and then failed if we go back one year. But now we are there, and it feels like we are on track. How does that reflect?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

We saw a good result in Q2, SEK 218 million. And this quarter, we benefited from a very good product mix, but we also saw effects of investments in the pulp mill kicking in, slightly higher pulp volumes during this year. We're also seeing lower variable costs due to these investments, and we are happy to see that. Comparing year -over- year, it's not a fair comparison. The first six months last year were affected by maintenance stop, and we also had an imbalance between production and sales, somewhat weak in market and some self-inflicted problems that we had on the production side.

So it's better to look at the performance during the last six months. That reflects an underlying performance in today's market conditions.

Then just to remind you that we have a maintenance stop this year, only one, and it will be in Q4, expected costs some SEK 120 million.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Maximum, I hope. Moving on to paper. As I said before, everyone who is producing paper in the world right now is really struggling with lower demand. It's even worse if you are into the wood-free sector, but in the graphic sector where we are, we also feel it quite a lot. The drop in consumption is something like 30%, and if you look at the prices, of course, there is a price pressure, even though it looks very dramatic on that chart, but there is a pressure in the market, which is not strange coming from overcapacity.

That's the situation we have right now. Ourselves, we have done; you can't say we have done well. We have done well given the circumstances. We have taken market shares in Europe.

We have also been extremely keen on not driving up our own stocks, but keeping a very close eye on the stock levels and keeping them at the minimum, and then we are also in the time of the year when the order intake is normally really low, which means that we have during the second quarter taken a lot of downtime or curtailments. Not only us, most of us have, and during these circumstances, Anders, it's not easy to make money, but just one more thing.

What we do now is that we, of course, we speed up everything we can when it comes to product development and finding new niches, which we have been really good at before, but we need to do it even quicker now as we have lost such big volumes in the market. Anders, over to you.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

Yeah, when you lose these kinds of sales, you're losing sales of more than SEK 300 million . Of course, it's difficult to keep up the performance. Operating profit minus 60 in this quarter. It's actually the first time in five years that we have recorded quarterly loss for the paper business. Back five years ago, the reason for the loss then was that we were running in the new rebuilt PM53. That was a very successful investment project. You have to go even further back in time to find a quarter with a negative profit. This quarter, the loss was a bit exaggerated, burdened by maintenance stop costing some SEK 30 million .

Year -over -year, of course, we have a dramatic decline in profit, not only due to the downtime that we had to take, but also due to 5% lower selling prices compared to a year ago.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

All right, continuing with renewable energy. Here we are in a situation where the electricity prices in Sweden, they have been low because it's simply lower demand for electricity right now. And we also had a period with quite high production. So, of course, it means that it's been more than enough of electricity for the ones who can consume it. We should have consumed more if we were able to run our machines full because it's cheap, but it hasn't been possible.

That means for us, even though electricity prices have been low, we are, if you look at the first half of the year, roughly on the same level as last year if we exclude the SEK 80 million we got from selling the rights to build a wind farm on our land. And then in the second quarter, there are some seasonal effects, which is quite normal.

If we continue with wood products, which is maybe the most interesting part today, it says still 900,000 cubic meters, and it should stand there this time, but next time I hope we have changed that. In the market, I had a feeling, and not only me, that when we came into this year, it looked quite difficult. But as things have gone forward, we have seen that the export market balance has become better. It's not only that we have seen during the COVID-19 times that people have actually consumed quite a lot of wood products. That's the case in some markets, but it's not the case everywhere.

But it's also that supply has not been that high. We can see that, for example, in North America, where prices now are rising quickly, sharply. It's a scarcity of wood products for the moment.

I think most of you have had some time to maybe do some redecoration at your summer house. You have seen it's not so easy actually to get hold of wood products this summer in Sweden. So we are in a situation where the balance is better. Prices are on their way up, but we have to raise a bit of a warning finger when it comes to the situation in continental Europe because there is more capacity that could be used, but it's currently not run. So slightly better prices, Anders, does it mean we make more money?

Sorry, we have one more. I've already spoken about this, but our own deliveries, they were really high in the first quarter, and also in the second quarter, they are a little bit higher than maybe we expected when it comes to what we have been able to do.

In the beginning, we were quite afraid that COVID-19 will limit our production, and it did for some time, but after that, we've been running more or less full. You can also see that from the chart here that moving 12, we are on the right track. We are also about to ramp up the Braviken Sawmill, where we have some 150,000 cubic meters to add on when we feel the time is right given the market situation.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

But we did take some downtime during the summer months now in July. Didn't that impact Q2, but it will have some impact on Q3. We actually went down in production volume during the vacation period. But Q2 saw a result of SEK 19 million . It's an improvement on the previous quarter. Also here, we have a good product mix, and we saw some price increases in the market. Nevertheless, we are behind last year, and that's predominantly due to a good start. Q1 2019 had very good prices. They started declining Q2. So Q2 this year is more or less on par with Q2 last year on the timber business.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Thank you. Then moving on to Martinsons, which is, first of all, we are really happy that we were able to buy Martinsons. It's a well-run family business with high-quality assets and also with a good potential to expand the business in the future. It integrates well, of course, with our own forest holdings. We have had a lot of forest up north for many years now without having our own industry. This is an important and a very logical step for us to take to have our own industry where we will produce planks mainly, but also some other things.

But we have not only bought two sawmills, even though that's the majority, of course, of the business. Two sawmills, one in Bygdsiljum, one further north, closer to Skellefteå in Kroksjön.

But it's also extensive refinement facilities for cross-laminated timber, glulam beams, painting factory, finger jointing, etc., wood treatment, etc. And then we have something which we have not even been close to before, which is building systems. That's a project organization selling complete wooden frames for offices, sports centers, apartment buildings, etc. And what we have in our press release said is that we have acquired 100% or we will acquire 100% of the shares of Martinsons for SEK 1 billion, and we expect to close the business in the fourth quarter.

Just to give an idea of what especially cross-laminated timber could look like and what it's used for, this is a picture showing a couple of big houses, multi-story houses. They were normally not built out of wood, but this is the future, as you understand.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

What's the other benefit besides being cost-efficient in building with wood, Henrik?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

A huge benefit comes when you look at the sustainability part of the business, of course.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

You build in carbon dioxide in the building instead of emitting carbon dioxide.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

You do. And Martinsons, they have been the pioneers and forerunners in this business for many, many years. And they have been fighting hard to find the right business model to go forward. And I feel this is something to build on for the future now. If we take a look at what they have been able to do, it's clearly that they have been able not only to develop the business, they have grown the business, but also with fairly healthy margins, which is not always the case in this part of the business.

They are also quite locally oriented, which means that a lot of the sales from these facilities, they are sold in Scandinavia. We have a slightly different mix when it comes to what comes out of our own sawmills.

That's partly because they are more into value added than what we are when you look at what we had before the acquisition of Martinsons.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

You can comment that they have been able to grow 50% the last 10 years while still they have consolidated the production. Most recently, 2018, they went from three production units to two while still retaining the growth pace that they have had.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

In all the business of Martinsons, the consumption of sawlogs corresponds to more or less our own harvest in our own forests, which is roughly 1 million cubic meters, which means that we have also bought our biggest customer when it comes to sawlogs. For us, Holmen as a company where everything we do is based on our forest holdings, and that's from that position we develop our different business areas. This is a very good step for us when it comes to growing our sustainable business. Wood products, 10 years ago, it would have been a bit different.

Today, this is part of the core of what we believe can be interesting to expand in the future. I should also mention that very close to Bygdsiljum, which is the biggest sawmill, we are actually investing SEK 1.3 billion in a wind farm.

We are waiting for an environmental permit for another wind farm, and we'll see whether we take that decision or not, which is so close it actually could be seen from the sawmill. This makes sense for us. That concludes our presentations, and we are happy to take any questions you might have.

Operator

Thank you. If you wish to take a question, please dial 01 on your telephone keypads now to enter the queue. Once your name is announced, you can ask your question. If you find it's answered before it's your turn to speak, you can dial 02 to cancel. So once again, that's 01 to ask a question or 02 if you need to cancel. Our first question comes from the line of Johannes Grunselius of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Johannes Grunselius
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Yes, hello. It's Johannes Grunselius here. You have pretty good harvesting volumes in the forestry side. Can you elaborate how we should look at the harvesting volumes for the coming quarters? I think you said in the presentation you have in Q1 that you might be a little bit more cautious on harvesting ahead because of softer prices. Any changes there?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

We are harvesting in line with our long-term plan, and we have the readiness to decrease harvesting if there is not enough demand for the wood. So far, we have had sufficient demand, but still have the preparedness to back down if we rather back down than selling the logs too cheaply.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Where we harvest a little bit more than normal is in the south of Sweden where we don't have that much forest, but in order to make sure that we take out as much of spruce bark beetle-infested volumes as possible.

Johannes Grunselius
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Okay, okay, but basically, we should assume very sort of stable harvesting for the coming quarters. Is that what you're alluding at?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

Yes, it looks right now it's stable. It was a bit more unclear three months ago.

Johannes Grunselius
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Okay, good, good. Then I have a question on the paperboard division. You did excellent results. Was there any effects from hoarding from clients that there were some specific qualities with a good margin that were particularly requested? Or was the sort of the demand very much reflecting the underlying demand? Were there any sort of hoarding effects in the second quarter?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

I think for us, we've been able to run, especially the pulp mill at the Iggesund Mill, in a better way than before, which is also a result of investments we have made. And in this quarter, we also had a quite favorable product mix.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

To the best of our knowledge, there has not been any major stock buildup at any of our customers, but it's very difficult to see through that, but we have no reason to believe that there has been a stock buildup.

Johannes Grunselius
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Okay. And then I have a final question. And if you can help me with the breakdown of your sort of overseas sales from the paperboard business, because as I remember it, there is quite a big volume being shipped outside Europe, Asia, the U.S. Could you talk a little bit about that and also how the dollar is affecting this business going forward?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

The split of Europe and overseas is pretty much in line with the previous year, and you can find that in the annual report, the exact split, if you want to dig into that. And yeah.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

The dollar.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

And the dollar, yeah. Of course, we have a net exposure as a group against the dollar. And if we continue to trade around 8.70 as we do today, we will not see an effect in Q3, but net negative in Q4 maybe on a group level, SEK 30 million, if you take into account other currency movements that we have.

Johannes Grunselius
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Okay, okay. But the dollar exposure, I mean, let's say the overseas market for your paperboard business, is that priced in dollar or could it be a combination?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

It's a combination of dollar and other Chinese renminbi or whatever you call them.

Johannes Grunselius
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Yes. Okay. Thank you very much.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Christian Kopfer of Nordea. Please go ahead while the line is open.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

Yeah, thanks, operator, and good afternoon, Henrik Sjölund. Two questions from my side. Firstly, if I start with forest, we have heard from a certain competitor of yours that we've seen transactions in a certain part of Sweden going up on forest assets. And I just wanted to touch base if you have heard something similar in your neighborhoods, so to speak, that transaction prices are starting to be above the book values that you have currently.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

Adds to a little tale. You have to look at this from our perspective over a bit longer period. There was one transaction that you read about in the papers. That was in the northern part of Sweden that was way above our book values. And of course, it was a larger transaction, 800 hectares, but still, that's one transaction. And that's.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

We'll come back on that later on when we do our own summary.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

Yeah. And.

Right. And how does your reasoning go if you look forward in terms of how you will value it, I mean, in terms of what happens on the market and how that could impact your book values?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

We come back to that in the Q4, then we look at the valuation of the forest holding as a whole and do mark-to-market for our forest value, and then we take into account the last three years' forest transactions.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

Okay. And then my second question is on the paper division. And I think you have previously said that over time, this is obviously a cash cow that's something that you're looking at from a cash flow perspective. Of course, maybe that's also what you're looking for on other business divisions, but maybe even more on paper. And now, obviously, okay, Q2 was an extraordinarily weak quarter volume-wise, but if you look at cash flows, they were clearly negative, even if you adjust for the maintenance stop. So if you look ahead, just wanted to see if you can talk a little bit about how tolerant you will be and what kind of, I mean, how long you can wait until cash flows get positive again, until taking decisions to considering to close down machines.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

I think, first of all, nobody knows exactly what's going to happen in the market, but I think we all agree on that it will never be as it was before again. This is something we have to live with. And there will be a haircut when it comes to capacity in Europe sooner or later. That's clear. But we have a strategy where we make the best use of our fresh fibers, and we have not changed the strategy. We have a lot of initiatives going on when it comes to product development, etc. So we are giving that a good chance, and then we will see what we will be able to achieve.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

And just one clarification on the EBITDA level for paper. We are in positive territory, not by a wide margin. That cash flow is sufficient to cover the necessary maintenance CapEx in our business. Right now, we are in the middle of an investment program for the paper business. Therefore, investment levels are higher. But this investment program will enable us to produce better products, find new niches. And so it's part of the transition.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Take the next step in product development.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

Right. Yeah.

Right. And a follow-up there, Anders, if you could just, you said that the sustainable CapEx is covered by EBITDA. Can you just approximately what is the sustainable CapEx in the paper division?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

You are the maintenance CapEx in the paper division, that's somewhere around SEK 100 million-SEK 150 million per year.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

Okay.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

Right now, we are investing more because we do believe in the assets, and there are good opportunities to find new product niches for us.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

But that's also to keep them going for a long period. To just keep them for some years, of course, is lower, but that's not our ambition.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

Right. Okay. Thank you very much, guys.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Lars Kjellberg of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Lars Kjellberg
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Thank you. A couple of questions starting again with Iggesund or paperboard, I should say. You did comment that you had a good product mix. Is this the product mix that you're where you want to be? And should we consider this as normalized or were there any particular exceptional changes in the mix that you benefited from? You also talked about the development of new products that you're accelerating. Did that cause any incremental costs? And going forward, what are you looking at? Are you finding new niches again that you've been very successful in doing in the past? That was my first two questions.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

I might comment on product mix first. Normal variation, I used to usually say on paperboard, is SEK 50 million between a good and a poor production quarter, and that is the variation between Q2 and Q1. Product mix is good. It's very good, and we might be able to keep it, but remember, it's also about production costs, so the Q2 report is on the higher end of what you can perform in paperboard in today's market conditions, and the product initiatives, Henrik.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

The second question was about paper or paperboard?

Lars Kjellberg
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Paper.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Paper. Like Anders said before, we're taking some investments in order to be able to take the next step when it comes to product development. But it's a little bit early stages to say something that you can use for calculating in the future. That's too early. But we have proven before that we can change our product mix quite rapidly when it's needed. We have also closed down a number of machines over the years. But where we are right now, we feel that we have a good chance to come out with something that might work because we need a lot of new order intake. That's clear, like everyone else in this market.

Lars Kjellberg
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Sure. Just two follow-ups. You mentioned, of course, the forest property sales gain. Can you actually give us the number, what the impact was in the second quarter? And then also, when you have acquired Martinsons, what sort of self-sufficiency will you have in terms of what you can produce from your own forest and what you consume in your industrial activities?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

On a net basis. Yeah. If you look at the forest result, the one-offs in Q2 explains the deviation between the quarters. And we have a number of items that are a bit of one-off, but it's forest sales that are the dominant one.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

When it comes to Martinsons.

Lars Kjellberg
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Around SEK 50 million then.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

Yeah.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

When it comes to Martinsons, remember that we have bought a very well-run family business which works in all aspects. We are also happy that we have been able to buy the forest organization. They have done also a really good job in order to buy raw material to the sawmills, etc. And that completes Holmen. That's a good combination with what we have. Sure, there are synergies, but that will be a question for a later stage. Now, we are concentrating on making sure that we, together with Martinsons, when we take over, we do the best possible business we can.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

Your question was a lot about the self-sufficiency, and before this transaction, we were on an economic basis, 100% self-sufficient. Now we go down in timber. Now we go down to somewhere around 60%-65%. But on the other hand, we use our own logs from a physical perspective. And then we get hold of, from a trading perspective, pulp wood and ships that actually, when you do run the business, increase our self-sufficiency for the paper and board business. So I would say, on the whole, this strengthens our self-sufficiency from a purely practical perspective.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

And the possibility to source also not the least pulpwood to our mill in Iggesund and also partly Hallsta.

Lars Kjellberg
Analyst, Credit Suisse

So just to be clear then, you go from 100 to 60-65 in the timber side and on the pulp wood side and as a group as a whole.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

It's from an economic perspective, no impact.

On the pulp side.

Lars Kjellberg
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Robin Santavirta of Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Thank you very much. In terms of the paper business, the average, the ASP in H1 seems to have declined some 4%-5%. What is the outlook in terms of pricing now when we go to H2 and 2021? And can you also sort of comment on the average time span of your price intervals in paper so that we get an idea of when sort of price changes are visible for you guys in the market?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Price change is a difficult comment on. More than that, we are negotiating right now because some businesses have a new price from 1st of July. Some have from 1st of October. Our price length is normally somewhere between three months and a year, and there is a split in between.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

Your first question, Robin, if I understood it correctly, when you do the math between Q2 and Q1, you see that average selling prices on paperboard seem to be lower. Was that correct, Robin?

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

No, just in paperboard. In paperboard at H1, I can see that the ASP, the average selling price is down some 4%-5% compared to H1 last year. I was just wondering sort of what the outlook is now for H2 and next year. I understand that you negotiate now prices and something will be, as of July, some new prices as of October, etc. But are the prices going up or down? I would assume down now with market prices.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

I think that's a fairly good guess. But remember also, it's a quite big difference between which products we talk about. The lower you come in terms of grade quality, normally the bigger changes in price you have because there are more competing for the same business. And we are in both ends. We try to go the other way, of course, to go for more value added in graphic paper.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

I understand. Now, just sort of a follow-up on a previous question. Clearly, you are operating, and again, in paper in a fairly nice niche. Your deliveries are performing better almost every year now for a few years than the market. And I assume now, based on what you say, that you try to sort of just continue with this path with innovative products. But if that doesn't work and if the market sort of isn't there, any chances that you're looking at structural sort of measures to either right size sort of capacity to convert or just simply to shut?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

I think the.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

In your toolbox?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

That's not the ambition, but the history speaks for itself. You know what we have done over the years. If everything comes to the worst, of course, we are prepared to take any measures that's needed. But that's not what we're aiming at. Not at all.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

I understand. In terms of Martinsons, the deal seems to make perfect logic. I was just wondering if you could sort of guide a little bit about the earnings impact, looking at the numbers for Martinsons' numbers for 2019, actually roughly in line with your profitability when it comes to EBITDA margin, EBIT margin. Now, how should we sort of model this going forward? Any synergies, first of all, and what is sort of the underlying performance of Martinsons' now this year and the outlook for the second half and next year?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

We'll come back to that. But as you noticed, they generate roughly the same EBITDA as we did last year. And it's sort of that's where they are trading right now. But we'll come back with more guidance in the Q3 report.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Yeah. All right. Fair enough. And then just finally, on this Blåbergsliden basically in a wind farm investment, could you just provide an update on the timing and the CapEx spend sort of this year, next year, 2022? I assume the plan is still to start up production by the end of 2021. And also in terms of that investment, what is the production cost now when we have power prices at fairly low levels? So could you just update sort of what is the production cost for that wind farm?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

We are right now constructing the roads, etc., on the site, preparing the site. We'll spend some SEK 200 million this year. The remaining SEK 900 million will be spent during 2021. We will start to erect the windmills somewhere in Q3 next year. That's when the bulk of the cash outflow will be. The cost for production has not changed because the electricity prices have gone down. We'll see what the profitability will be when the wind farm is up and running. It all depends on the market balance at that point in time.

We have no reason to believe that the long-term selling prices of electricity have changed fundamentally due to the COVID-19 event that we have experienced or the temporary collapse in oil prices. On the other hand, you can see that the EU is quite firm on moving into clean energy.

The pricing on carbon dioxide, that is the driver of electricity prices, a long-term driver. It's actually up. They're higher now than they were a few months ago. So it's sort of no change to the big picture from our perspective. But of course, it would be nice to make sure that there are no bottlenecks in Sweden when it comes to being able to move the electricity from where it's currently produced to where it's needed. That's why we have such a strange situation in Sweden as we have right now.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Sure. Thanks. But just to check, I would assume that even though with the current low prices, it would be a profitable project or earnings would be simply profitable with the current low prices?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

It depends on what you define as current, not the July prices, but if you look at the forward curve a few years out, yeah, it's still a profitable project.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

All right. Thank you very much.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Linus Larsson of SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Thank you very much. On the paper business, in terms of volumes, it did relatively well in the quarter compared to some industry average. But as you said, it's a very challenging market, 21% down year- on- year on volumes in the quarter. Could you please share with us how the third quarter has started? If you look at July, August, what rate of year on year change are we seeing now?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

It's a bit early to say, but in the paper business, normally you have two periods during the year when you kind of fill up your order books, and then you live from that for a number of months. And that's before Easter, and then it's after the summer. So it's a very important period that comes now, end of August, September, October. That's normally when demand picks up. And we will see. As you know, nobody knows exactly what's going to happen. It's totally dependent on what happens in Europe, if people consume, if they're allowed to go to the retailers to buy things, etc. And also, nobody knows how much we have changed our behavior forever.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Sure. I'm just thinking that you have some sort of visibility in the order book and how that has changed when we compare the ordering flow with the typical seasonality at this time of the year.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Yes, we do follow it from week to week. And it doesn't look worse than the period we have behind us. But it's too early to say where it's going.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Okay. That's fine. Then I'm just curious, maybe it's still a very early base. You haven't even closed the deal, but Martinsons, like you have already talked about, it provides you with forward integration. You're buying a customer, well-invested sawmills, but you're also entering into the CLT business. And I'm just curious to hear your thinking. If you look a few years down the road, is this something that you would be interested to grow, maybe at other sites of yours to organically allocate capital into this business?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

We have looked into this business before, and we have made a couple of investigations to see whether we should invest ourselves a few years ago. But we came then to the conclusion that we have some more work to do in order to change our own, I'd say, our own offer to the retail business. And we needed to invest in some things, especially at the Braviken sawmills and also partly at Iggesund before that step would have made sense. Now we got a chance to acquire something where they have come a lot further in cross-laminated timber, for example. But I think we need to learn a bit more about this market before we say anything.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

And to add to that, the production capacity at the CLT factory that Martinsons runs, there's still a lot of spare capacity. So there is a lot of room for us to grow in this market. And since you produce such a valuable thing, you're not really dependent upon short transport distances. So we still have plenty of room to grow that business.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Great. That's helpful. And then just finally on capital allocation, you're very clear on the dividend and the announcement today, how you think around that. But maybe after all what's happened, it could be interesting to get an update on capital allocation overall. I mean, what's the CapEx guidance for 2020? How do you look at 2021? I understand that Blåbergsliden is increasing in terms of CapEx, but are you still open to take on more wind farms? What's your current view on buybacks, etc., now that you're basically cutting your dividend in half from the original proposal?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

CapEx-wise, if you look at the underlying business, we haven't changed our plans. We're still normally investing SEK 1 billion or just shy of SEK 1 billion in the ordinary business. Next year, as you point out, we have Blåbergsliden. We are still working on. We don't have permits for the next wind farm project. It's unlikely that there will be no decision this year. Sort of there's not time for that. It will be more likely towards the second half of next year if you're talking about decision on wind farms. That's the investment that we are looking at organically. On buybacks, it's something we bought back shares in August, September last year.

We feel that that was good for the company as a whole. We bought more forest per share for all the shareholders. We've been looking at that and monitoring that market.

But you have to be a bit respectful. That times are still uncertain. Nobody really knows what happens with COVID-19, if it will come back. We want to have the financial strength in this company to be able to do the right decisions irrespective of market conditions surrounding us. If an opportunity comes, we don't know, then we will see. We are prepared at least.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Oskar Lindström of Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Hi. Thank you, operator. Henrik and Anders, two questions from my side left here. I mean, the first one is on the Martinsons acquisition, which I think is super interesting. I mean, you're now entering a new segment of the market, and I mean, talking about expansion opportunities, I understand you've not yet closed this transaction yet, but I mean, what kind of timeframe and size are we talking about when you mention expansion opportunities?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Mainly, what we know already now is there is a possibility to increase or should be a possibility to increase production at the sawmills, especially one of the sawmills. That's what we know right now. Then we have to go through. We have to own it and run it for a while to see really what the potential is. But clearly, the bigger sawmill has the potential to increase production.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

We have 20% production potential, but it will take some time to deliver on that in terms of that potential in the sawmills. But we also are ramping up or will ramp up our own Braviken sawmill, which will add some when we have finalized that, some 100,000-150,000 cubic meters in volumes. So there are expansions that we already have invested in the timber business.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Talking about, I mean, now you're talking about expansions of volume in sawmills. As you mentioned, the Martinsons acquisition also adds sort of forward integration into cross-laminated timbers and building systems even. I mean, are these parts of the business that you look forward to expanding? Is that why you acquired it, that you want to expand those parts as well? Or is it more on the sort of integration and synergy side?

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

But I think building in wood as such has the future. There's no doubt about that. And what they do when it comes to cross-laminated timber and also with the group in building system that enables the production unit actually to have somewhere to ship the cross-laminated timber parts that is produced. The building system part is extremely important because that's the prolonged sales arm of the business, so to say. But we need to learn first. But the way the market looks and the interest, clearly this is interesting for the future.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

All right. Thanks. My second and final question is on the paperboard market. Now, in the second quarter, we didn't see any or there didn't seem to be any distribution chain turbulence or inventory buildup as there sometimes is when there is sort of turbulence in end markets. Does that mean that the sort of threat of this is over, or could there still be sort of this type of buildup and turbulence in the distribution chain coming during the second half of the year? What's your view on this?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

There has still been some issues on distribution, but they have not been significant in Q2, so there was more of an issue in Q1, but you can't rule out that it can come back. It's too early.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

All right. Okay. Very good. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. And the final question to you so far comes from the line of Markku Järvinen of Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Hi. Good afternoon. I had a few more questions. You mentioned that you achieved price increases in wood products in Q2, and I guess the question is, what kind of magnitude do you see for increases in Q3, or do the increases from Q2 at least go fully in Q3, or how does it look right now?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

To be honest, to give a guidance, we normally don't guide on it. But as you can do the math from the report, there were some 2-3% higher selling prices on average in Q2. But we also did have quite a good product mix in Q2. That's what we see is no significant shift in Q3.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. Very good. Then just on Martinsons, you mentioned that it doesn't really have any impact on pulp, but I was just wondering if Martinsons sells any chips and pulp producers, and were you buying those in the past, or do you intend to buy those in the future, or how does it go?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

We had part of those flows in the past, but of course, we did not have all the flows in the past. So this gives us a better portfolio to trade with, and it is not insignificant when you're talking about market positioning.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

It's also something you can use to trade.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Magnitude here.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

No, we don't go into that detail.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Then just on energy, prices are now lower. Could you just remind us what your sort of net power purchasing position is as a group in sort of normal circumstances?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

More or less, we consume three terawatt hours in our paper business, and we produce 1.2 terawatt hours in our energy business. And then we have hedges on top of that for the paper, the purchases for the paper.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Once Blåbergsliden is up and running, it's roughly 0.4 TWh coming on stream.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

So 50% self-sufficient, but we don't really look at it. We look at it as two different positions that we manage.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Sure. Sure. Good. Thanks. Then finally, I had a few questions on FX. In Q2, sorry, in Q1, you said FX had a positive impact of SEK 70 million on the EBIT. Do you have a number for H1 or Q2 for that?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

No, it had slightly in Q2 over Q1. It's no currency effect. And I don't have the number for year -over -year.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. So similar to Q1, I guess.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

Yeah.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

And then on just hedging, your EUR/ SEK is hedged at 10.60. Is that for the 100% of the flows for the next two and a half years or?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen AB

Yeah, 100%. More or less 100% of our net flows. Yeah.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. Very good. Thank you very much.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, and if there are no further questions at this time, I'll hand back to our speakers for the closing comments.

Henrik Sjölund
CEO, Holmen AB

All right. Thank you very much. Thanks for taking your time. And good questions, good discussions. And see you soon again. Thank you.

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