Welcome back, everybody. Hope you had a nice lunch. We are very happy to have our lightning round with two companies who did this for us last year as well, Clearwater Paper and Sylvamo. Thank you very much. We have Arsen Kitch, Chief Executive Officer for the company, Clearwater, as well as Chief Financial Officer, Sherri Baker, who's in the audience for Clearwater. And for Sylvamo, the formal remarks will be made by John Sims, Chief Financial Officer of the company.
The way we do this and did it last year, both companies are gonna do a quick overview of their companies, things that you should know about them, and then we're gonna get into the Q&A with both of them on stage, where there will be some cross fertilization, some hopefully some common themes, and we look forward to some really good questions from all of you. So thanks for being here. So I think Arsen is gonna kick us off. Arsen, if you would, take it away.
Sounds great. All right, well, thanks for joining us today. So I'm Arsen Kitch, President and CEO of Clearwater Paper. For those of you that don't know Clearwater Paper, we're a $2.1 billion revenue paper company, about $281 million of EBITDA last year. We have two businesses. The first one is our paperboard business, and we make high-quality bleached paperboard for food service and consumer packaging applications. Our other business is our at-home, private-branded tissue business. So those two businesses make up Clearwater Paper. Both businesses are well-positioned attractive end markets, stable demand profile, well-invested manufacturing footprint. They're both well-positioned in their respective markets.
Since 2020, we have focused heavily on deleveraging our balance sheet. We've reduced our net debt by $450 million since 2020. And our leverage is down to 1.5x at the end of 2023. So we had quite the journey since 2020.
Arsen, do you have slides by any chance? We could go.
That deleveraging positioned us really well for what's next for Clearwater Paper, and last week, we announced an acquisition, and it's a great strategic step for Clearwater Paper. We are acquiring or we're planning to acquire Graphic Packaging's Augusta paperboard mill. It's a facility with about 600,000 tons of capacity, which raises our paperboard capacity from approximately 800,000 to 1.4 million tons, or just over 70%. And our strategy is becoming pretty clear. We are building a premier independent supplier of paperboard to North American converters. We think it's a great space, and we know that space very well.
We're leaning into where we think we're strong, and we have great, great potential in the future. We will look at other acquisitions, as well in the future and other investments, to better service those customers. But in the short to medium term, we're gonna be heavily focused on deleveraging our balance sheet after this acquisition. We also announced a strategic review or looking at strategic options for our tissue business as well. And we'll keep you informed as we have news to share. We're optimistic about our future. I think we have a clear strategy and a clear focus. We have options, and we have the ability to create value for shareholders in the long run.
So those are the prepared remarks.
Thanks, Arsen. John?
Thank you, George. Well, there you go. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining today, also those that are on the webcast. I'm starting with this slide because it's core to our strategy. Our strategy is to focus on uncoated free sheet, which remains the largest and most resilient graphic paper grade. Uncoated free sheet has the highest number of end-use applications that are used across all sectors of the economy in regions where we operate, for example, government, finance, healthcare, real estate, distribution, and legal. Uncoated free sheet is sustainable, affordable, and functional, and we believe paper will remain an effective vehicle for education, communication, and entertainment for a long, long time. For example, paper also plays a critical role in education.
Studies continue to show that students of all ages absorb more when reading on paper versus reading on digital screens. Just last year, Sweden moved students off digital devices and back onto books and handwriting on paper. This is why the total demand of uncoated free sheet exceeds the sum of all other printing and writing grades combined. I'm gonna go to the next slide. We view the uncoated free sheet really as an ocean of opportunity for us. Why? Because it'll be around for a long time, as I said earlier. Because the uncoated free sheet regions that we operate in are attractive to firms wanting to earn well above cost of capital returns, and because we have competitive advantages. You know, internally, we call our strategy the flagship strategy.
Which means that every dollar we retain in the business is gonna go to strengthen our flagship of mills, our low-cost mills, our talented teams, our iconic brands, strategic channel partnerships, and the regions that we operate in are very attractive. Executing this strategy, we believe, and has already generated a lot of cash. Cash that we use to increase shareholder value by maintaining a strong balance sheet, returning cash to shareholders, and reinvesting in our business. Let's move to the next slide. We generated substantial cash in the spin-off, which has allowed us to reduce our debt by $570 million or 38%. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio is 1.2 at this time.
We continue to view debt reduction and keeping a healthy balance sheet as a cornerstone of our strategy and our capital allocation framework. This allows us to return cash to shareholders, to reinvest in our business, to strengthen our competitive advantages in our core uncoated free sheet markets. We currently have no significant debt maturities until 2027. Turning to the next slide. We began to return cash to shareholders within the first year of being an independent company, and after returning $90 million in 2022, we deposited $60 million in escrow, which allowed us to return more than $90 million to shareholders in 2023. In 2024, we expect to return at least 40% of our free cash flow to shareholders.
We have exhausted our first 150 million share repurchase authorization and have approximately 150 million on the September 23, 2023 authorization. So we've bought approximately 70% of our shares back since the spin. We'll continue to look for opportunities to repurchase shares at attractive prices. Well, now on slide eight. Maintaining a healthy and financial position allows us to reinvest in our business through the cycle in order to improve our competitive position. You know, three of the most challenging industry demand cycles I personally have seen in the 20 years I've been in the business, was the 2008-2009 Great Recession, the 2020 COVID pandemic, and the 2023 printing recession we had last year, and, and also the channel inventory corrections.
Last year was the toughest of these cycles, but unlike the previous ones, we did not reduce our capital spending. In fact, we actually increased our capital spending last year to strengthen our business. That's why we have a strong balance sheet, so that we can invest through the cycle, so that coming out of a down cycle, we're actually stronger than when we entered that cycle. Not only did we continue to invest in our existing businesses, we seized an opportunity to acquire the Nymölla Mill in Sweden at a very attractive price. The advantage we have as an independent company allows us to invest in our future in a way that we couldn't do before. Well, now moving to slide nine.
Putting our capital allocation history all on one slide shows a strong commitment we have in maintaining our strong balance sheet, returning cash to shareholders, and reinvesting in business. We've generated substantial amount of cash over the past two years and expect to continue to do so executing our strategy. We use the cash to increase shareholder value. On the last slide, two weeks ago, on our fourth quarter 2023 earnings call, we explained in addition to providing global competitive advantages, our Brazilian forest lands have significantly increased in value. In the fourth quarter, we commissioned a third party to appraise our forest lands. In December, they valued it at about $1 billion at the current exchange rate. The updated valuation reflects an increase of about $600 million from our 2021 appraisal done by the same firm.
Increasing demand for the land and wood in Brazil has driven this increase in valuation. Our forest lands are not only a source of global competitive advantage, but also an enduring repository of shareholder value. George, that concludes my remarks. Thank you.
Thanks, John. Thanks, Arsen. Maybe a question for both of you to start off, and we're grateful that you're here, grateful that you're doing this session again. Packaging, you know, we often write, is a sector that to stand out as an individual producer, individual company, you've got to do that much more because the whole market cap of packaging paper and forest is, I think the number is something like 0.3% of the S&P 500. Sylvamo and Clearwater, performing well are, you know, arguably smaller cap names, even within packaging, paper, and forest, which is in itself kind of a mid-cap sector. So what additional elements do you try to bring to your strategy with investors to raise your profile, to raise your visibility, aside from conferences, right?
And what might you plan for the future in that regard, such that you get the visibility and hopefully appropriately, the lower cost of capital? Otherwise, you know, we know what happens as you lose visibility, float goes down, vol goes down, cost of capital goes up. So any thoughts in that regard?
Go ahead.
You're right. It's these are. We're a small company in our space. You know, for us, what we believe in the long run will create value and get investors to focus on us is our performance and strategic clarity for the future. You know, fundamentally, we do reach outs, we go to conferences, we do those things, but in the long run, if we perform well, we have a clear strategy, we think investors will show interest in us. And last week, we provided some of that strategic clarity to the market, where you know, we announced a large acquisition for a small company like us, which is very strategic.
It fits us really well. We also announced looking at strategic options for our other business. So we're getting strategic clarity, and I think what you saw over the last seven days in the market reflects is a good response from our shareholders.
Yeah, George, I think my response can be very similar to ours, and only complication we have, of course, is that, you know, we're viewed in serving a market's declining. And as a result of that, you get some misconceptions, misviews, and biases against businesses that are servicing a market. So the important thing for us is to be very clear on our strategy and also to help educate investors that most important in terms of the ability to earn well above cost of capital is generate a lot of cash is, you know, does the industry structure you operate in? So how attractive is the industry that we're operating in?
We believe that we operate in very attractive markets in the regions we're in, in North America, Europe, and Latin America, and that we have a competitive advantage in our low costs, and that we have a very simple strategy. That strategy is that we're gonna focus just on improving our competitive positions in the uncoated free sheet and not to be diverted for other strategies. So it's actually it's, from our perspective, it's a very low risk, high return strategy that. You know, the challenge is for us to be able to communicate that. That's why we appreciate to be here and be able to talk about that.
John, I, I'll push back a little bit on that, not because I necessarily believe it, but just to get the debate going. So you, an average investor, there are no average investors in this audience right now, but your average investor will say, "You know, it's uncoated free sheet, it's declining. Why is this actually a good business?" So to that uninformed investor who says that, analyst, what makes your business a good business? And how will that answer vary between North America, Europe, and South America? Similarly, Arsen, your key products aren't declining. They seem to be stable to growing, but nonetheless, the average investor might say, "You know, stable.
I'm interested in something else where there's more growth." What would you convey about why tissue and why paperboard, bleached board, are good businesses where people should want to invest to get the return that you'll accrue to them? So John, then Arsen.
George, I think, thanks for asking that question, too, because that's why we start out with one, is, you know, the core belief with our strategy is that uncoated free sheet is gonna be around for a long, long time. It's gonna have a long tail. We clearly would be following the wrong strategy if it's going to zero, but we just don't believe that, and there's no indication that it's gonna do that. So then it comes to is, how can this be an attractive business? And it's not very dissimilar from growth industries. And what really determines whether a business is attractive or not is, one, is it in an industry that's hospitable to earning profits, earning better than cost of capital returns? And do you have a competitive advantage?
And we believe we can check both of those with the uncoated free sheet. So that allows us the opportunities to reinvest in which we believe low risk, high return projects in our core business and make us stronger and not have to take risky bets on that. And the other thing in with the industries that we're in, over time, naturally, the industry gets more and more hospitable as players exit. And unlike growth industries, where you got to spend a lot of money and buy things at premiums to make that happen, in a declining industry or stagnant industries, a lot of times, and we're seeing this in Uncoated free sheet, it happens naturally.
Just one point there before we go to Arsen. So you made a comment that uncoated free sheet is not going to zero, and you can prove that. I forget exactly how you phrased it, John. We use a lot of paper. Certainly, I do. I'm doing what I can to help the industry, no matter my rating, just so you know. Okay? Having said that, somebody, again, skeptically, could say, "That sounds great, John, but oh, by the way, industry declined like +15% in North America last year. So, I do that a few years, and zero is in the horizon." So tell me why that's the wrong analysis. Wouldn't be the first time you told me I'm wrong. So, you know, tell me why that's incorrect.
Well, you know, you're gonna get. We are in a cyclical business, and so you're gonna get episodics where demand will be worse than average and sometimes even better. Last year was driven by anomaly of an inventory correction. So more than half of the industry decline was due to inventory correction.
Okay.
The other part, there was what we call the printing recession. There was a pullback in advertising, both in Western Europe and North America, that was really due to a fear of recession coming, so they pulled back advertising. Some was actually real. For example, real estate and loan organization was in a recession. People, because of high interest rates, they weren't. That's gonna come back. Our view, though, is that if you average it out, it's still gonna be around the 3.5%-4% decline in North America and Western Europe than we see in the past.
Okay. Interesting stuff. One thing I wanna come back to later in that, in our discussion on that. Arsen, how would you answer the question?
Yeah. So we're fortunate to participate in a couple of markets that have good, stable, and growing demand. So these have historically been the bright spots in the paper industry, both tissue and paperboard. They're strong markets. They're stable. There's modest growth in both markets that tracks, generally speaking, with population and GDP. Both, especially in paperboard, very strong sustainability trends in packaging and food service. So we believe that that could be a growth engine for the paperboard space, in the future. And, you know, when. Then talking about us, we have a history of strong cash flow generation.
We have good strategic options ahead of us, and we have a good track record of deleveraging, generating cash, and being disciplined in the way we operate. So are these the double-digit growth plays? They're not, but these are good, stable businesses that have good demand growth and strong cash flow generation.
What do you think sustainability has added to your business, if anything at all, on the paperboard side, in terms of volume, is there a way to quantify it? We just had a well-attended luncheon. Many of the folks in this room were at that luncheon, where the plastic-based companies understandably and rightly argued their case. So how would you, you know, sort of put the props up for paperboard on that regard?
You know, it's, it's hard to put a number on it.
Okay.
Just let me start with that. The COVID years were also a bit disruptive. There was more demand than supply in paperboard. So even if customers were looking to trade, they'd have a hard time getting the supply. So I think we'll see this story play out over the next 5-10 years, but it's pretty hard to quantify here in the last few years.
Thank you. Maybe we'll keep moving along with Clearwater in just a second. First, we will see, are there any questions in the audience for our esteemed panel? And I mean that. We'll keep moving forward. So Arsen, as we talked about, there's some things I can and can't go into in my Q&A right now, but what are you talking to your investor about in terms of the strategic review in tissue? And why does that make sense now versus in the past?
Let me start with this. We have a great tissue business. It's performing very well, fantastic team. $150 million of EBITDA. Last year, we doubled our EBITDA from 2022- 2023. Good set of assets, great customer relationships, a very well-run business. We have these two businesses under our roof, and they're different. They're both paper businesses, but they're different from each other.
When was the doubling of the EBITDA? What time period again was that?
2022- 2023.
Thank you.
Yep. So a very good tissue business, and we have a great paperboard business. And as we look to grow in paperboard through the acquisition that we announced and some other options that we may have in the future, it makes sense for us at this time for us to look at what options we have for that business. An option could very well be to keep the business and run it. But we owe it to ourselves and our shareholders to look at those options as we've stated our strategy of growing in paperboard.
Thank you. As you evaluate your two segments, how do you see them, if at all, different in terms of growth and longer-term return profile, if at all?
Yep. Paperboard's been the economic engine of Clearwater for probably the last 10 years. As I've talked about tissue, it's a market that has a very aggregated buyer base. So just a handful of retailers make up the vast majority of the private branded tissue buy, and it has a very disaggregated supplier base. So there is a mismatch. So what I've said before, over and over again, is consolidation is needed in the tissue space to create tissue manufacturers that can be competitive, that can invest in the long run to keep up with the large retailers. And I've said before, we're willing to participate on both ends of that equation. We view paperboard as a very attractive space for us to grow.
It's a great, great industry. We have great end markets, and that's where we're heading, and we'll look at options for tissue.
You know, a lot of fair commentary in Q&A comes in concerns from either the sell side or the buy side in terms of, well, there's more capacity coming into the market, there's imports coming into the market. We'll talk about that, you know, in the next panel that we do with Steve Honeyman on boxboard trends. But to the investor who says, "Boxboard, paperboard, it's, I've got too much capacity coming into the market. Why do I want to own this?" You would, you would answer?
Yep, the answer, so let's tackle imports for 10 seconds. Imports, if you look at the data, they're actually down over 20% in 2023. Imports have been around for decades, and so that this is not a new story. In terms of capacity expansion, there was capacity that was taken out of the market last year, and there's some capacity being added to the market next year. We think fundamentally it's a stable supply market with modest growth in demand. So it, it's, I think in the, at least in the medium term, I think it's pretty stable.
Thanks, Arsen. Any questions for Clearwater before we move to Sylvamo for a few questions? So John, what prompted the review of the Timberlands valuation in Brazil? You know, maybe aside from the obvious, but, you know, what prompted that?
In the fourth quarter, there were several transactions that occurred and were public down in Brazil. And, you know, they'd valued the land down there pretty significantly, and we thought, well, that's, that actually was in a, you know. Our areas are a little bit more attractive, and so we felt that we needed to, you know, conduct an independent assessment of that, and that's what we did. So that, as I said, the valuation ended up coming in $1 billion, about $600 million increase from when we did the valuation.
Yeah.
Back in 2021.
Now, we don't cover them as closely as we used to, but in a time when we had direct coverage of the Latam companies, they would always say there is competitive advantage, clearly, in having that connection to fiber and the forest, whether it's a Suzano or a Klabin or whomever. So we get why you think there's value there, but if you're not willing to disaggregate it, you know, one could, could say, "Well, that's great, but they're not going to monetize it, so why does it really matter to me?" So to that question, what would you say?
Well, I mean, you're exactly right. I mean, we feel that the way we clearly get the value out of the forest right now is converting it into uncoated free sheet and selling it because it makes us globally competitive. But I think it's also, you know, a sense for the, we've been asked by investors in terms of a view of what is the terminal value of this business, since you're in a declining market, you know, what if there was no uncoated free sheet, right? And we've tried to explain to them that we have a lot of enduring value. This is just one piece of it, but there are, you know, all the assets we have.
Yeah.
So we think that as a result of that, we've been undervalued just from that perspective, and that we personally believe that, you know, that the uncoated free sheet market, as I said, is gonna be around for a long, long time. But there was that sense that, you know, we're - what's the value of Sylvamo?
Maybe this is just down to corporate tax structure and tax rates, but why is the connection to the land so much more important to South America than it's proven to be in North America?
Well, the source of competitive advantage is the eucalyptus and the cost and all that, as you know, but then there's no other market. So the other thing, too, is that you get the competitive advantage not just by the low-cost fiber, but having it close to your facilities. And in fact, this creates a competition for the land with the same for the sugarcane producers or the orange groves. They want it close to their processing plants, but for the paper mills and the pulp mills down there, the problem is that there's just not a market. And we've seen that when you do have to go and source fiber, you're paying 2-3 x what the cost to grow it is.
Makes sense. Any questions for Sylvamo as we progress here in our discussion? So Arsen, back to you. You're doing the strategic review of tissue. Obviously, you've had developments in paperboard. We'll talk about this maybe a little bit later on as well in our panel, but where do you see the long-term trend for growth in paperboard? You know, one of your esteemed peers, although much more vertically integrated, puts it at 1%-2% growth. Where do you see your growth opportunity, especially as you're preserving the independence over time?
Yeah, we agree. We agree. It's historically been stable to that modest growth. If there's upside to that growth number, it's a faster conversion from plastic to paperboard. So that's one variable that we'll be watching for. You know, we are independent, as you mentioned, and our strategy is now clear. We wanna be the leading premier independent supplier. The North American converters are a diverse group, and they service many end markets from pharmaceutical to food service to consumer packaging. So what our goal is to develop products that make them successful. We will be their mill, and so their mills.
So it is up to us to innovate and provide the right quality and service to those customers to enable them to grow.
Should we worry about the fact that some of their competitors are obviously tied to the larger integrated companies, theoretically, who might have more scale or over time be able to acquire? And so the pie, if you will, that you're serving, maybe the end markets will grow 1%-2%, but it might not grow 1%-2% because the targets are being acquired from under you. How do you think about that?
It's a great question. It's something we've given a lot of thought to. There is a place in the industry for both the large integrated and the converters, and they serve different purposes. A family-owned or a small converter will not be servicing cereal boxes, right? But they will be making higher-end pharmaceutical products, consumer products. And if you look at the trends over the last 10 years and the growth of smaller CPG brands, more targeted CPG brands, we think it's a pretty robust market, and they fill a really important need. And frankly, the larger players are scaled, and they care about efficiencies. That is not their sweet spot.
So it's a sweet spot of some of these small- to medium-size converters, and those are, those are our customers.
What do your customers or their customers tell you about where inventories are in retail at this juncture relative to tissue? I would imagine you don't really have big inventory cycles in tissue, but nonetheless, and certainly in terms of center-of-store packaged products, are we done with this packaging recession that we've had for basically since 2Q 2022?
Well, it's interesting. Tissue went through its own destocking in 2021 after COVID, and that lasted for a few quarters. But inventories at the retail level are generally pretty limited. They run pretty lean at the retail level, and we sell directly to retailers. So the pools of inventory and tissue are more limited. So you go from the consumer to the retailer to the producer, which we are. And so we really have seen very stable, strong demand in tissue over the last couple of years. Paperboard has a lot more, what I would call, pools of inventory between the consumer's home, the retailer, the CPG company, the converter, the producer, and so on.
So the pools of inventory, I think, were deeper than I think many, many folks have realized. We're starting to see normalization, and we projected volume growth for us between Q4 into Q1, but I think meaningfully, a meaningful recovery will take place later this year, and it's really as inventories normalize and converters get back to normal ordering patterns.
John, how about you? Where do you see, to the extent that you can comment, inventories, in the chain, for uncoated free sheet?
Yeah.
North America in particular, but anywhere else you wanna comment.
Yeah, we think the inventory correction is behind us. As we reported in our earnings, backlogs have strengthened across all our businesses at all markets. And so, you know, the demand is, we're seeing already pick up and demand is stronger.
On the topic of supply constraints, the unfortunate shipping issues that have arisen, you know, because of what's been happening in the Red Sea and the Middle East, what has that meant for your business? What has that meant for customers wanting to restock? Here, maybe not so much on, on finished cut size, but maybe on, on pulp. And for that matter, what impact has there been from shipping constraints on some of the imported products, especially, in Europe, either cut size or converted products relative to your customer base and your business?
Yeah, that's where we've seen the biggest impact right now is imports into Europe. We've seen, particularly from Asia, the lead time is increased out 4-6 weeks. The cost has increased, so imports are down in Europe. Shipping costs are up, across the board. And, you know, I think it also, you know, again, it's another global disruption that gives pause to customers who depend on imports as a major source. You know, that's a positive for both North America and for, and for Europe. They're gonna be more reliant on domestic supply, because of the, frankly, the disruptions they had, and even go back to 2020 and COVID. It's been a very risky proposition to rely on imports.
Makes sense. Any questions from the audience, either for Arsen or John? You know, we're talking about capital allocation and strategy and lots going on in Clearwater. John, for you, you know, one of the questions that periodically comes up is, you know, should we worry much about the offtake agreements that you have with your former parent relative to Riverdale and Georgetown, and how should investors gauge that as a risk, if a risk at all?
Well, actually, we've gotten quite a few of those questions even today. So we have agreements, supply agreements with IP. We've got no indication that any of that's gonna change right now. They're ten-year agreements. But suffice it to say that we at Sylvamo have been planning since day one of the spin should International Paper decide that they're gonna do something with the Georgetown Mill or the Riverdale and reduce those supply agreements with us, how can we change our mix, reduce our distribution costs, improve, you know, be able to service our customers even through export, you know, imports from our other regions? And we've had that planning, you know, quite extensively, and so we're well prepared should any decision be made by IP.
Thanks for that. Any questions from the audience? Maybe one last thing for Sylvamo, from me, you know, talk about, you know, how you're evaluating the individual, assets in your portfolio. You know, how-- not so much I'm talking about strategic review and-
Yeah.
You know, you're putting a for sale sign on any of them, but in terms of how you. What KPIs you use, how are you using best practices to evaluate and improve performance on a going-forward basis? And related, talk to us about the $110 million, you know, productivity improvement program, how that's progressing, what's embedded in that, and why should be a reason investors should think about Sylvamo.
Well, I'll start with that. You know, we announced this Project Horizon, $110 million cost improvement. We wanna get 110 million run rate by the end of this year. Of that, $30 million of it is in S&A area, sales and administrative, and this is part of the preparation for any decision that's made by, you know, for example, the supply agreements we talked about. We wanna make sure that we're well-positioned and have the right size, you know, organizational structure. In fact, we've already identified 150 people, and they've been notified, and they'll be exiting by the third quarter.
In terms of the cost reduction efforts that we have in our supply chain manufacturing, yes, we constantly look at the performance metrics, whether it's machine efficiencies, but we're also very focused on cash-related type of indices. So are we running the facilities to generate the most cash for Sylvamo? That means, you know, things looking at. You know, we may run things and then put it in inventory. It may reduce our cost, for example, at the mill, but increase our cash requirements. Now, we're looking more of what's, how do we generate the most cash in all that we do? And we're also using technology and to help improve our facilities.
In terms of portfolio, we make investments in facilities that we believe will generate the most cash for the longest period of time. We have quite a few of those facilities, but that's where we target our investments.
Arsen, on your side, maybe to wrap up, what are you doing within your portfolio, whether or not tissue stays or not, to improve productivity on a very structural basis across the business, if you need to do that in the first place?
We do. So there's two ways to look at it. One is, call it operational productivity, the other one is capital allocation. So we've had an operational improvement program for several years. It's well ingrained, it's tracked, it's part of what we do. It's not just something we do for a year.
How much is that generating annually, or is there a goal in mind? Forgive me for not knowing.
you know, we haven't-
I remember.
We haven't shared that publicly.
Okay.
It's part of our base business to offset margin compression and inflation, and it is pretty well ingrained. The other piece is capital allocation. In this industry, as you know, that's pretty critical to maintain competitive assets. So we're looking very closely at various capital projects, both small, medium, and large, maintenance as well as discretionary projects. In the long run, in a capital-intensive industry, you need to operate well, but you need to make really good capital decisions, and that's how these businesses will thrive. So we look at returns on invested capital, and we look at free cash flow, which just also happen to be the key compensation metrics for the management team.
John, I think I know the answer to this question for you, but for Arsen, you know, we're, you know, let's assume pulp pricing is heading much higher. Do you like that world, or do you not like that world? Assuming your portfolio is exactly as it is right now.
We do not like that world.
Okay.
So we buy 300,000 tons of pulp annually. We produce most of our own pulp for paperboard tissue. Tissue is the primary buyer of pulp. It's eucalyptus and hardwood. You know, so for us, net, we do sell some pulp, but we're net buyers of pulp. You know, so obviously, for us, better pulp prices are better for our bottom line.
I'll let you and John fight that out later on. That's all the time we have for this presentation. Arsen, John, thank you so much.
Thank you.
for your remarks and counsel. We'll look forward to marking your progress. Everybody, join me in thanking Clearwater and Sylvamo for some great discussion.