Welcome all to this presentation where Arctic Paper is presenting the interim report for Q3 2025. I am Fredrik Hansson from Finnwire. With us today are Michał and Katarzyna. Michał, the audience is yours.
Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to present to you the summary of the results and the situation of Arctic Paper Group for the third quarter of 2025. I will firstly present to you the summary of financial results for the third quarter. The net sales amounted close to PLN 800 million, which is slightly lower in comparison to the same quarter of the previous year. The main reason for that was the some drop in paper prices and also in pulp prices, but also it was accompanied by some lower currency effect. The EBITDA for the third quarter amounted close to PLN 39 million, which was somehow lower than the similar quarter of 2024. On the other hand, it was much higher than in the second quarter of this year and slightly higher than in Q1 of the year.
It proves that the company operates pretty stably in this difficult environment. Net debt to EBITDA was somehow higher in comparison to last year. The main reason was spending of cash to support the Rottneros share issue and also somehow increased loans.
I would like to present you some flavor regarding the market environment during Q3 2025. Still, there's a low demand for the pulp, paper, and packaging product, not only in Europe but across the world, and it seems that the situation probably will not improve before the end of this year. Unfortunately, regarding the paper segment, we are still affected by very high wood prices in Scandinavia. There are some positive signals. Since a few weeks, we already noticed some kind of stabilization and even first signals of correction regarding the prices due to low demand for the timber, for the pulp wood. It seems that the forest owners are more willing to accept lower prices to stabilize the business. Turbulence regarding the trade and tariff policy is a hot issue since the beginning of this year and probably it will stay as for the next three years.
It still means that we as European producers are affected regarding the tariffs. Unfortunately, sometimes it's very difficult to predict what will be the rules for the next quarter. Due to this reason, we are trying to organize and to sign the contract for the next month and maximum next quarter. In some cases, the decision implemented tariff for the pulp from Europe or increasing or decreasing tariff for the pulp imported from Canada recklessly or a few weeks ago from Brazil makes a huge impact on the profitability of our business in North America. Even despite this, we as in the paper segment, we are quite successful to develop our sales outside of Europe and especially in the U.S. Last year and 2023, the average volume was in a few hundred tons per year only.
This year, the U.S. is by far our biggest market, and we are sourcing this two, four times more compared to the previous year. It's mainly due to the fact that we well-defined a very niche product and very niche markets, which are more interesting from our perspective, like digital paper or digital printing. It's quite a growing business in the U.S. and also in Europe. Recently, there is a lot of discussion on the EU level what will be the rules regarding EUDR and deforestation regulation, which should be invalid since the 1st of January next year. This to tomorrow, there will be discussion on the commission, and mid-November, it will be the decision of the EU Parliament to implement or to put on hold maybe for six, maybe for one extra.
Please point out that already a year ago, it was decided that instead of implementing this EUDR monitoring system for entire Europe in the forest-based product, EU decided a few days before the end of last year that instead of 1st of January 2025, this system will start 1st of January 2026. Probably, it seems that it will be delayed for another six or even one year, six months or one year. This turbulence regarding global trading and turbulence regarding U.S. trade and tariff policy makes a huge impact regarding the flow of the forest-based product between China and the U.S. and as well between China and Europe. Due to low demand for the Chinese product in the U.S. and due to the tariffs, the Chinese and some other Asian producers decided to increase the export of the paper, packaging, and even tissue from Asia to Europe.
It's quite interesting to see that, especially on the tissue product, for the last quarter, we noticed significant growth by close to 300% quarter -to -quarter. We, as a, sorry, European pulp and paper producer, already started the case and sent the application to the EU Commission in Brussels to start the investigation against these anti-dumping procedures, which are now provided by the Chinese producers. Probably, it takes several months, and we will see the results not before mid-2026. Still, from the pulp supplier perspective, from the pulp producer perspective, we see unhealthy exchange rate volatility. During the eight months of this year, the Swedish krona was strong against the U.S. dollar by close to 15%. It's quite important to emphasize that roughly 85% of the pulp costs are connected with the Swedish krona, but 100% revenues are related in U.S. dollar.
We also notice quite a significant change regarding the structure of the Chinese import. During the last three years, the Chinese were able to establish on-site pulp production. There are several new pulp lines, and year by year, more and more pulp is produced domestically in China and used for the domestic production. Based on our calculation today, China is able to produce up to 5 million tons of domestic product, and it has a huge impact to reduce the demand for the export pulp from Scandinavia to China. Probably, this trend will continue for the next years. Not only Arctic, but as well, the entire industry is underperforming, and no one is satisfied regarding the financial performance of the companies in the pulp and paper sector for Q3 and for the entire 2025. Regarding the pulp.
We have noticed a significant drop of the demand due to the lower demand for the packaging and for the paper product. As well, this unfavorable costs regarding the exchange rates and the currencies make us decide to be more flexible and even to decide to reduce our capacity for some weeks or even some months to have in balance. The same is regarding several other, especially Latin American producers, who decided to put on hold their production line for several weeks just to have a better ratio between supply and demand. Probably, this situation will continue for Q4 or even the beginning of 2026. There is a big difference between short fiber and long fiber. It seems that the limited number of the long fiber producers, especially from Scandinavia.
Due to lower performance and due to lower financial results, we are able to make some kind of more discipline to reduce capacity to be closer to the reduced demand. On the eucalyptus side, on the short fiber side, on the hardwood, it seems that there is more and more competition. During the last year, we can notice that the price for the short fiber was decreased by over 25%. I already mentioned regarding these exchange rates. As mentioned, during these eight months of this year, the Swedish krona is stronger against the U.S. dollar by around 15%. It's a huge impact. During Q3, we were able to optimize the production capacity, and we were able to reduce our stock to improve cash flow situation and the difference around 3,000 tons during Q3.
Jumping to the paper sector, the paper sector is also affected by this recession or in some countries, even slowdown of the economy. The demand for the paper is lower, and we all are able to struggle between the unbalance between supply and demand. Fortunately, during the last quarter, we were able to use our more power position towards clients, and we were able to increase our volume by roughly 8%. As well, we were able to achieve close to 83% capacity utilization, which is the highest in this year, and it's even higher compared to the average in our industry. Sales prices are a bit lower. It seems that this is mainly due to the currencies, but as well, some kind of pressure from the non-European producers already mentioned.
We already see the flow of the Chinese and Indonesian paper, which is delivered by ships to European harbors. No big change regarding the product structure, but as already mentioned, we noticed a significant increase of the sales outside of Europe. Normally, during 2024 and 2023, the sales outside of Europe was a maximum of 2% of our revenue. This year, we are already at 4%, and it is mainly to the U.S., also to South Africa, to Singapore, Australia, and Latin America and Mexico as well. Recently, which is quite important, we are so proud that we win the big tender on the Polish side. One year ago, the paper from our Swedish mill, Grycksbo, was selected by the Swedish government to print out these 5 million copies of this self-defense brochure, which was delivered to all of our houses. End of last year.
Recently, a few days ago, we won the tender to deliver close to 2,000 tons of our paper to produce, to print out close to 16 million copies of the similar brochure for the Polish market. Regarding the packaging business, we are running according to the plan of our new production facility in Poland, this molded pulp trays factory, which is dedicated to the German and Austrian market. We are delivering the product to our clients, which are mainly in the food industry. Regarding paper for packaging application, it means Munken Kraft. We have a stable business. It is less fluctuated due to the currencies. We have a limited number of clients, but the volume is quite stable, and I hope that by the end of this year, we will exceed 16,000 tons for the packaging rate 2025. Some updates regarding the power segment.
As I remember, during our last discussion after Q2 and after Q1, I mentioned that I'm not so happy regarding the development and turbulences of the Polish and Swedish, and even EU regulations for the energy industry. I'm expecting some drop of the profitability. Due to this fact, we decided to focus much more on our internal production for internal consumption versus to be more offensive, to be not so offensive, and decided not to invest anymore for the next two years for the external. PV installation or wind farms dedicated to supply third party from the energy. This year, by the middle of summer, we have completed a big project in the Polish site to install an additional 10 MW of the PV installation. Altogether, on-site installation on the Polish site is, or Polish mill, is already close to 30 MW installed capacity of the
PV installation, and all energy is used internally. It means that it's a part of our decarbonization process. As well, we decided recently, a few days ago, to install a new electrical steam boiler in Kostrzyń mill to be able to use this surplus of cheap energy from the grid, and as well to use the surplus of green energy from our PV installation, and to produce carbon-free, fossil-free steam process. This is also part of our decarbonization strategy. The biggest project, which is still ongoing for the last two years, is BIO 25, connected with our Swedish mills in Grycksbo. We will complete the modernization of the biomass boiler. It will be ready by the end of this year. It will give us a benefit to reduce energy costs dedicated to produce steam for the paper production process.
In connection with this, we will also complete the project of the wood pellet production line. It will be ready by the end of this year. This project will give us a chance to use this excess heat from the paper production process to dry the wood and to produce up to 50,000 tons of pellets. These pellets, we would like to sell on the Polish, German, and Swedish market. It will be totally our new business line, which will be valid since the beginning of next year.
Some more words about the financial performance. As mentioned before, the EBITDA for the third quarter of 2025 amounted close to PLN 40 million. It was significantly higher than in the first quarter of this year and somehow higher than in the second quarter and higher than in the first quarter. This is the first year, I think.
When the pulp segment contributed negatively to our result. It seems that on the paper part, we got to some kind of stabilization despite this tough and challenging market we operate on. We hope also that the pulp business will stabilize also, mostly due to this stabilization or decrease of the wood prices that Michał mentioned before. On the net debt to EBITDA part, as I mentioned, this ratio grew somehow in the last year. The biggest reason is the increase of external loans and also the investment in the share issue of Rottneros, so our pulp segment. It is worth to mention that in October, it was last week, we managed to complete the refinancing of the Arctic Paper Group. We signed a new financing agreement. The current one was expiring in the beginning of next year.
We completed the refinancing way ahead of the term. This proves that our banks have trust in us. We are a trustful partner for them. We also appreciate very good cooperation with the banks because the consortium will stay the same.
On the summary, there is some kind of outlook for the coming weeks and coming months and beginning of 2026. It seems that we as Arctic Paper would like to maximize all opportunities, sales opportunities, market opportunities, which we already see even outside of Europe. We would like to continue with our challenge towards the American market. It seems that several of our competitors are struggling with financial problems. We already see that some competitors decided to make some long-term market-related stops, for some of them even for two, three, even four months.
Some competitors decided to close the production lines, and some even decided to close entire mills. It seems that even on this declining market, without increasing capacity on our side, our market share in Europe is growing maybe 1% and 1% per year, which is quite interesting. Just to emphasize that we will continue, and we are already continuing this cost reduction and efficiency program, which was announced during our Q2 presentation. It consists of activities in the pulp and packaging, and as well for paper and energy segment as well. We are also trying to find a solution to find a cheaper solution for the fiber. We have some kind of investigation to combine the wood fiber and the plant fiber, like, for example, the bamboo or others. We are
sure that we will achieve what we calculated, that annual savings will be roughly PLN 50 million for the 12-month period starting from 2026. This BIO 25 project will be completed by the end of this year, and it will generate an additional revenue stream to increase our EBT by roughly PLN 20 million, which is close to SEK 50 million, mainly due to the increase of the pellet production and pellet sales across Scandinavia, Germany, and in Poland. The balance sheet is very important. The cash flow is the king, and we put a lot of efforts to maximize this cash flow and cash efficiency. Even after our financing, even despite this not so successful financial result. We have a very low net debt to EBITDA ratio, 1.5x, which is one of the lowest across our industry.
We are currently on the publication season, and several of the companies across the forest-based sector published results, and they have a net debt to EBITDA between 3x, even to 5x. We would like to continue this trend to have a strong balance like today. We already decided to have a very conservative approach regarding spending money for the new project. As you remember, during 2024, the CapEx was over PLN 420 million. This year will be reduced to below PLN 300 million, and next year even below PLN 200 million, just to improve the financial stabilization. Let's just summarize that we have some kind of motto for our activities, that Arctic is big enough to be efficient, but small enough to be flexible and fast to react for market opportunities. Thank you very much.
Thank you both for this presentation.
We have a couple of questions for you. About the refinancing of the Arctic Paper Group ahead of terms, was there a window of opportunity right now, you should say?
I would say that it's a normal practice to start the refinancing process more or less one year ahead of deadline or the end of financing. We did start to think about that and to act on this sometime in May this year. It seems that the cooperation with the bank was so good and flexible, and we managed to close it ahead of the schedule. This proves that the banks trust in us, and they know that we are a reliable partner.
To follow up on that, the bond market, how does that compare to this bank opportunity?
In the current situation, it seemed that the current loans are more favorable for us.
The interest rate is lower. We are a reliable partner for our banks, which we cooperate with for a couple of years now. The risk seems lower for them, and we managed to negotiate lower interest than it would be in comparison to the bond market.
Okay, thank you. You mentioned in your presentation about the increased deliveries from you to the U.S. markets. How sustainable is that increase, and can this positive trend be developed even more?
Yes, I think so. I'm visiting the U.S. maybe four or five times per year. Always, I'm so surprised regarding how this direct marketing is still alive in the U.S. In Europe, we already noticed since three to four years that the marketing spending is more moving from the direct marketing to the electronic media, electronic marketing, but not in the U.S.
We, as a producer of high-quality paper, and even for the digital printing process, we see this as an opportunity. We already have some clients, and we would like to establish and even to develop this opportunity. Thank you. About the decarbonization strategy, how central is the energy transition to Arctic Paper's long-term competitiveness, and what are the next steps on the sustainability front? We feel, or let's say, we see us as a part of the bioeconomy society or bioeconomy industry. It seems that we are using the fiber. The fiber comes from the forest. Forests and the trees are the energy of the sun transferred to the nuclear natural polymer. We would like to continue the process of reusing this. It is quite important. Also from the energy perspective.
Fortunately, from the Swedish perspective, when the group has already four units, two pulp mills and two paper mills, our carbon emission is quite limited. We are able to run on different sourcing. We are buying grid energy from the grid, which is mostly green. We have hydro turbines, generators to produce green energy in Munkedal. We are using waste material to generate heat in Munkedal. Since already more than 10 years, we are using the pellets in our Grycksbo plant in Sweden. Now we would like to convert this process even more, that, for example, this waste heat after this drying of the paper web, which normally is not used for the NA process, since the beginning of next year, it will be used to produce dry wood, and then the dry wood will be compressed to produce the pellets.
From the Polish perspective, when we are running on the high-efficiency gas cogeneration, this 30 MW PV installation will be equal to close to 20% of the energy consumption. We have a plan to also develop. Maybe in the next two or three years, we also decide to install the biomass boiler in Kostrzyń, even to make another step of our decarbonization strategy.
Oh, thank you, Michał. About the pricing pressure and market dynamics, you have mentioned the rising imports and at least products from China and shifting U.S. trade policies. How does that increase the competitive pressure, and how is Arctic Paper differentiating itself on pricing and value to safeguard your margins?
Yes, this is a very interesting question.
The previous question regarding decarbonization is quite important because if Europe is so keen to continue this to be more green and to reduce emission, it would be also important that all products which are imported to Europe and which are used by European society should be also evaluated from the as low as possible emission connection. It means that, for example, some CBAM system, which will make some kind of additional barriers to import to Europe, the products which are produced outside of Europe but with very high CO2 content, it will be limited. From our perspective, we also see that, fortunately, we are on the more, let's say, niche market. Fortunately, we are not a copy paper producer. It's quite easy to have a huge paper machine and converting plant located in Indonesia and to put this copy paper to
the container and to distribute to Europe. In our cases, it's much more difficult because we have a very close relation with publishers and printers. Printers, normally, they need a quite fast delivery. They need the paper to be delivered to the printing shop maybe next week or within the next maximum two weeks to be able to print the books, which have been already ordered by publisher, and to be delivered to the bookstore before Christmas period. It is impossible for the Asian producers to deliver the paper with such a short period. It means that the quality is one element, but as well, the service and the fast logistics solution is even more important because in this way, we are able to help our clients to reduce their working capital.
Interesting, and thank you for that question, for that answer. A little last question about your strategy.
You mentioned that there is no recovery expected in Europe this year. Given this, how is Arctic Paper adjusting the business model to maintain profitability and growth?
Yeah, of course, me as the CEO of the company should be always, let's say, very optimistic, but I'm trying to be realistic, especially with discussions with our shareholders. In fact, I don't see any signals that the recovery will come soon, means December, January, or even probably before the end of Q1. Some kind of stabilization, some kind of more healthy balance between supply and demand, it will be great value. Already two years ago, we decided that it makes no sense to put more money for increasing capacity, but our target is that we have to spend money to be more competitive on the medium and long-term perspective.
I am strongly of the opinion that this is the proper way, and this creating long-term competitiveness position is the best way to give the future for the company and as well to deliver the value to the shareholders.
Thank you for this presentation then, Michał and Katarzyna. I wish you the best in the future and have a nice day.
Thank you.
Thank you.