Good morning, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Sylvamo's third quarter 2022 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, you will have an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, please press one then zero on your telephone keypad. To withdraw from a question, please press one then zero. If you need assistance during the call, please press star then zero. As a reminder, your conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Hans Bjorkman, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.
Thanks, Lois. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call today. Our speakers this morning are Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and John Sims, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Slides two and three contain important information, including certain legal disclaimers. For example, during this call, we will make forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. We will also present certain non-US GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of those figures to US GAAP financial measures are available in the appendix. Our website also contains copies of the third quarter earnings press release, as well as today's presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Jean-Michel.
Thanks, Hans. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. I'll begin my comments on slide four. On October one, we completed our first year as a public company. Our first year was one of significant achievements. As we built the world's paper company, we generated strong earnings per share and free cash flow, which we used to reduce debt, begin returning cash to shareholders, and reinvest in our business. We agreed to acquire the Nymölla mill in Sweden and then divested our Russian business. We repaid our Term Loan B and achieved our good debt target of $1 billion. We have also exited our transition services agreement. I'm proud of our teams and the accomplishment over the last year. More importantly, I'm pleased that we are well-positioned to navigate any macroeconomic headwinds and resulting industry challenges. Slide five highlights our third quarter results.
Our three-pronged strategy of commercial excellence, operational excellence, and financial discipline was the foundation of our success. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, we increased adjusted EBITDA by 14% to $216 million, and we grew our margin by 160 basis points. We increased adjusted earnings per share by 24% to $2.51 per share. We generated $114 million in free cash flow and repaid $88 million of debt in the quarter. These results were above the high end of our guidance. Our continued strong performance reflects our talented teams, our iconic brands, and our low-cost mills, all of which enable us to remain the supplier of choice for our customers. Slide 6 highlights our key performance metrics compared to the second quarter and to last year's third quarter.
We increased net sales by 6% to $968 million. Our adjusted EBITDA of $216 million represents a margin of 22.3%, the highest margins level we have achieved. We generated $114 million in free cash flow, which was an increase due to higher earnings, less capital spending, and a reduction in working capital. These strong performances demonstrate our ability to continue to deliver on our investment thesis. Our teams perform well, creating value for all our stakeholders. Now John Sims will discuss our third quarter performance in more detail. John?
Thanks, Jean-Michel. Good morning, everyone. Let's turn to slide seven, please. As Jean-Michel said earlier, we earned $216 million in adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter. This is a 160 basis point improvement and was driven by $60 million in price and mix improvements as realization of price increases exceeded our outlook, and we continued to drive mix optimization. Volume increased slightly by 3 million, with stronger shipments in Latin America and North America. Our order backlogs were strong in all regions in the quarter. We also had a slight increase in operations and cost, which increased by $3 million. We spent $14 million less on outages than in the second quarter, and we successfully conducted the planned maintenance outage at our Mogi Guaçu mill. Input and transportation costs increased by $46 million as costs for energy, fiber, and chemicals continued to increase.
Let's take a look at our regional results on slide eight. Each region continues to perform very well, demonstrating the strength and resilience of our talented teams, iconic brands, and low-cost mills, as well as favorable industry conditions. Each region benefited from realizing price increases, which offset escalating costs and inflation. Our volumes remained strong in all regions, and we continued to outperform the industry shipments. We operated well in all three regions. Input costs and transportation availability remained under pressure. We have seen some relief in truck availability in North America, but obtaining adequate rail service continues to be a challenge. The appendix contains additional details on our regional performance. Let's turn to slide nine. In the third quarter, uncoated freesheet industry fundamentals remained favorable across our regions.
Demand in Latin America and North America continued to rebound from pandemic levels, while demand in Western Europe declined by 2%, which in part was driven by the lack of supply in Europe. Relative to 2019, 2022 year-to-date imports were about flat in Western Europe and down about 20% in each of the Americas. As the bottom row shows, capacity is down 10%-20% in our regions relative to pre-pandemic levels. The cost curve in Europe remains quite steep, with more than 25% of the capacity being unintegrated. The nine integrated plants in Western Europe face relatively high cost. On the other hand, our South American plants generate 85% of their own energy, giving us a competitive advantage. In North America, capacity imports are limited to Slide 10.
Not only do we operate in the most attractive regions, we continue to win with key customers. We also continue to optimize our product mix and increase our positions in high-margin segments. We are growing with key customers. For example, we expect to increase our Shawmut volume with a strategic retail customer in Latin America by 25%. In all regions, we continue to focus on the evolving needs of end users. We are optimizing our mix. For example, in Europe, we will increase our brand mix to 50% in 2022 versus 30% in 2021. In North America, we are optimizing our portfolio to ensure it aligns well with our channel partners and consumer trends. Furthermore, we are updating our business practices so that we are adequately paid for the value-added services we provide, and we are segmenting our service levels.
We are growing in high-margin segments. For example, we continue to expand our e-commerce presence in North America. Our commercial excellence efforts drive higher volumes and margins, increase customer loyalty, and allow us to outperform industry demand. Now back to Jean-Michel for a discussion on our recent moves in Europe.
Thanks, John. I'm now on slide 11. First, some perspective on the recent divestiture of our Russian business. After the invasion of Ukraine, we made a principled decision to exit Russia. In October, we sold the business and received $390 million in net proceeds. The divestiture of our Russian business allowed us to avoid a $220 million recovery boiler project, reduced our exposure to the most cyclical market pulp segment by 30%, and significantly decreased our geopolitical risk and uncertainty. Completing this deal also eliminated a major distraction for our management team, which is now focused on our core business. Let's move to slide 12. We are taking a pulp mill with an upgrade that would be mostly completed before we take ownership of the mill. As you might imagine, we're excited to add this mill to our European business in the first quarter.
Slide 13, please. The Nymölla mill is one of the largest integrated uncoated freesheet mills in Europe. It is 85% energy self-sufficient and has strong environmental practices. The mill produces multiple grades for cutsize, business forms, digital papers, and offset papers. It produces iconic brands that fit well with our strategy. Let's move to slide 14. The Nymölla mill is an excellent fit with our three-pronged strategy of commercial excellence, operational excellence, and financial discipline. In addition to the complementary uncoated freesheet product mix and iconic brands, the mill maintains strategic channel partnerships and a complementary geographical mix. It also has a customer-focused culture and shares values with our company. The mill is low cost and in an attractive location.
It fits well within our portfolio and strategy. This purchase price represents an attractive price, and we expect more than $20 million in synergies and an internal rate of return greater than 25%. The deal will be immediately accretive to our earnings per share and free cash flow. Let's turn to slide 15. Using the last 12 months of adjusted EBITDA as of the end of June, the transaction multiple is 2.5x and is expected to be below 2x after $20 million in synergies, including the pulp mill project previously mentioned. We estimate $15 million one-time costs and capital to achieve the synergies and $14 million in information technology, transition services, and other integration costs. We look forward to closing as soon as we receive the required regulatory approvals and to welcoming new colleagues to Sylvamo's as soon as possible.
Now back to John for a discussion on our fourth quarter outlook and revised investment thesis.
Thanks, Jean-Michel Ribiéras. I'm now on slide 16. In the fourth quarter, we project price and mix to improve by $30 million-$35 million as we continue to realize prior price increases in all three regions. We expect volume to be flat to decreasing by 0-5 million, with seasonally weaker volume in Europe and North America. We project operations and cost to increase by $35 million-$40 million, driven by seasonally higher costs in Europe and North America, foreign exchange impacts in Brazil, and an increase in incentive compensation accruals. We expect input and transportation costs to be flat to increasing by 0-5 million, largely due to higher energy and input cost inflation. Maintenance outage expenses are projected to increase by $21 million as we conduct 2 planned maintenance outages. This will be our heaviest planned maintenance outage quarter of the year.
All in, we expect to deliver fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA of $108 million-$190 million, which would put us slightly below or at the low end of our full year guidance of $740 million-$780 million. This change is largely driven by the increase in foreign exchange impact on our Brazilian earnings and compensation accruals, which were not included in our previous guidance. We expect fourth quarter earnings per share of $2.05-$2.25, and we expect free cash flow of more than $25 million for the quarter, which increases our full year outlook to greater than $210 million. The appendix contains additional information on fourth quarter outlook.
Appendix Slide 37 shows that we have reduced our outlook for our 2022 capital expenses by $20 million to $155 million. We will be unable to complete certain projects in 2022 due to supply chain constraints and contractor delays. We project spending this $20 million in 2023. Slide 17 shows the three pillars of our capital allocation framework. This is how we think about allocating cash to create shareowner value. At the time of the spin-off, we prioritized debt reduction and returning capital spending to the levels necessary to maintain our mills. Now that we've reached our $1 billion gross debt target, we are putting greater emphasis on returning cash to shareowners. We remain a cash flow story. We will leverage our strength to drive high returns on invested capital and generate free cash flow.
We'll use that cash to increase shareowner value by maintaining a strong financial position, returning more cash to shareowners, and reinvesting in high return projects in our business. Let's move to slide 18 to review our fortified financial position. Since the spin-off, we've reduced debt by more than $560 million. We repaid the initial amount drawn from the revolving credit facility and have entirely repaid our Term Loan B. Also, we renegotiated our credit agreement to raise the limits on restricted payments prior to the final settlement of the Brazil tax dispute so that they now match the terms of our bond agreement. Under the revised agreement, our annual restricted payment limit was increased to $90 million from $75 million, as long as our gross debt is less than 2x our adjusted EBITDA. Currently, that ratio is less than 1.5x.
Appendix slide 35 provides more details. As a result of reducing our debt, our annualized interest expense will decline more, by more than $20 million at the current interest rates. Note also that our pension fund remains well-funded at more than 95%. As you can see, we head into the second year with a strong financial position. Back to you, Jean-Michel.
Thanks, John. Slide 19, please. We are well-positioned to create value for shareowners. We have reduced total debt significantly, and $128 million in 2022 spin-off related payments will not recur next year. Returning cash to shareowners is a core component of our investment thesis. We started by paying $10 million in dividends this year and by establishing the authorization to repurchase up to 150 million shares. I'm pleased that today our board has approved an increase that more than doubles our quarterly dividend to $0.25 per share, effective in the first quarter of 2023. As John discussed, we'll continue to reinvest in our business to increase returns on capital and generate free cash flow. This includes our investment in the Neenah mill and high return capital projects.
We're investing in our business to increase our cost competitiveness and to remain the supplier of choice. I'm grateful for our talented and engaged colleagues and their dedication to working safely, delivering on our promises to customers, and for creating value for shareowners. We remain committed to creating value for all of our stakeholders and are confident in our ability to achieve our vision of being the employer, supplier, and investment of choice. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Hans.
Thanks, Jean-Michel, and thank you, John. Okay, Lois, we're now ready to take any questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, press one and then zero on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw a question, please press one then zero. We would like you to limit your question to one question and one follow-up. Thank you. Again, that is one then zero per question. We have a question from Ed Brucker from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking the call. Congrats on the good quarter. Just had a couple. First one just on the guidance. It seems like it's gonna come in at the lower end of the original guidance, but the quarter was strong and it seems like even the fourth quarter might be strong too. I was just wondering if you're thinking a little conservatively given the environment right now. I guess on top of that, how do you expect, kind of given the uncertainty, you know, the go-forward outlook for your market beyond COVID boost?
Ed, this is John Sims. Yes, as we mentioned, our guidance puts us on the lower end of our full year guidance, but that's really driven by the FX impact we're seeing, you know, as the real strengthens. That's kinda questionable where that ends up. But also, it reflects the fact that we've had to take an additional accrual on our incentive plan. Just to remind everybody on the call that, you know, we really target our incentive plans to match up with the interest of our shareowners and is driven by EBITDA margins and free cash flow. The increase in the incentive compensation is the fact that a strong cash flow that we're generating this year, and I think that's a testament to the focus that we have on free cash flow.
In terms of being conservative, everything else essentially continues, you know, as we had thought in the fourth quarter. That meaning that the price increases that we've been able to realize from our prior price announcements have come in. Those are more than compensating in the input costs. In fact, we're seeing input costs kind of flatten out across all the regions. Certainly at an elevated level and a high level. We feel going in, it's hard to predict what 2023 is gonna be, I mean, given some of the uncertainty we have and that everybody, you know, I think can read about.
One of the things we feel very good about is our exit rate and how well we are positioned from a balance sheet perspective, you know, being at $1 billion of debt, and also from where we are on margins, earnings, and you know, order backlog and the strength that we have with our customers and our positions in all our markets.
Yeah, that's helpful. Yeah, I mean, it's a testament to how well you've done with the balance sheet. I guess my next question is about that. Just, if you are thinking about a potential leverage target through the cycle or if, you know, I guess a max leverage you'd be willing to take it up given your capital allocation priorities have shifted a bit given that you have paid down so much debt. Just wanna get your thoughts on, you know, where leverage kind of fits in there.
Well, you know, we set the $1 billion target because we felt that that would allow us to continue to invest through the cycle in high return projects into the business and then continue to improve our business and also, you know, return cash back to our shareowners. Now, we'll continue to have to pay down some debt because we have amortization requirements, you know, for the Term Loan B's that we do. In terms of your question is what's the max that we go, yeah, I think we're comfortable in stating where we wanna be is at that $1 billion or slightly less. We think that's a very good position for us to be in to be able to execute the rest of our strategy.
Great. Thank you for the time.
Thank you. Once again, if you do have a question, please press one then zero. We'll move to the line of Ron Gutfleish from Elm Ridge. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Last year going into the fourth quarter, you expected operations to hit $15 million because of normal seasonality. Could I assume that, I realize energy expenses are up from last year, that out of your guide $35 million-$40 million more in the fourth quarter, about half is normal seasonality and half is the incentive accrual?
Ron, this is John. Yes. The incentive, you're right, but it's also the FX. We add the FX with the incentive accrual, and you're close to that 50% of that ops cost is driven by those two items.
Okay. Going to the next quarter, whatever's the incentive accrual, let's assume they are roughly equal? Because whatever's the incentive accrual ought to go back to some normal level. I realize you were underbooking earlier in the year. The extra incentive accrual ought to go back. I guess the FX you would just hope to be flat. Roughly the incentive accrual, would it be in the $10 million range?
Yes. $10 million is correct, and about $5 million or so for the FX.
Secondly, you're gonna be way under the leverage that you're looking at by the end of next year. I realize you have $150 million going out the door, but you're generating so much free cash. Is there thought to renegotiating the terms on the agreement or really what you're gonna do is deploy it and see if you can get more? I'm gonna pronounce this wrong, Nymölla?
Ron, I guess we're looking at the options in terms of what we can do from the bond perspective to get more room on the restricted payment terms. We're analyzing that right now. Let me just add another to your comment. You know, the acquisition is not core to our strategy. We said that previously. We also said that we will opportunistically look at acquisitions that make strategic fit with us, and that certainly was the case in the Nymölla perspective.
Maybe I can add a point to John. This is Charles here, Ron. You know that we've reached our $1 billion debt target, and as John mentioned, Nymölla was a probably very unique opportunity, which is not core to our strategy. What is core to our strategy is returning cash to shareholders, and it has become even a higher priority for capital allocation. That's why we increased dividend. We more than double. At current share price, repurchasing share is very attractive. Maybe you might ask why we haven't done it before. As you might understand, in third quarter, we had blacked out due to material non-public information. We had Russia, we had Nymölla, the third quarter earnings. Really we're back to this returning cash to shareholders is really a high priority right now. That's why we put in front of.
Can I follow one quick one on that?
Yes.
$90 million a year, you haven't done any this year. Could you sort of reach forward in the fourth quarter because the $90 million starts again for 2023?
We've done $10 million in dividend out of the $90 for this year.
Right.
It starts again $90 million January first.
You have lots of room to do it in the fourth quarter this year?
We do.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question is from Paul Quinn from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. Morning, guys. Just on the increased brands in Europe from 30%-50%. What's the margin impact on that? What happens with the addition of the Sweden mill?
Well, this is John. We don't want to give specifics on the, you know, the margin difference between the brands. We do get there is a margin increase, and there is a premium. That's what drives it. But there's also other benefits as well, and mostly you can think about it in terms of brands being more sticky with customers, barriers to both imports and also to competition. There's also other values in terms of increasing our brands that we were able to realize across all the regions.
Concerning Nymölla, they have also a strong brand, which is called Multicopy. On the cutsize side of the business, it's going to continue to be Sylvamo strong brands approach.
The other thing that Nymölla brings to us that we didn't really have with the Saillat mill is strong brands in their commercial printing and forms business. That's actually an increased market segment for us, an opportunity for us to really leverage that.
Just maybe you could give us a little bit more color on this $40 million pulp mill upgrade at Nymölla, as well as when are you taking maintenance in at Saillat?
Well, I'll answer your second question. Saillat is only 18 months, so we won't have any maintenance, we won't have an annual outage this year, so it'll be next year, around April timeframe, I believe. In terms of Nymölla's, the mill modernization project, this is actually being completed, mostly completed, by Stora this year. All the benefits will begin to accrue to us next year when we finally do take ownership of the mill. What they've done is they've upgraded the back end of the mill, specifically two areas is a new digester with increasing the ability to produce softwood pulp. So that'll expand the capacity there. Also an O2 delignification, which will reduce cost. Just wait.
The mill has a somewhat different pulping process than our other mills. It's a sulfite process of increasing softwood pulp consumption and production is a positive for that mill, and that's what this mill upgrade does.
Okay, just lastly, does that upgrade affect the production or capacity of the mill at 500,000 tons?
No. What it does, it increases the pulping capacity. You have to buy less open market. It's not open market tons or pulp rather. I'm sorry.
Okay. That just begs the question, how much are you buying and how much is that mill purchasing on the open market right now? How much is all? What's the self-sufficiency on the pulp side, you know, pre and post, pulp mill upgrade?
It buys, you know, it doesn't buy a lot of market pulp. It buys hardwood pulp for a product grade. This upgrade now allows us to substitute that with softwood that we can source the fiber in Sweden.
All righty. Thanks very much. That's all I have.
Thank you. The next question is from Adam Ritser. He's a private investor. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I just had one quick question. You guys gave kind of a pro forma debt number after the Russia sale of what, $957 million I think it is. How much cash are you gonna have on a pro forma basis after the sale?
After the sale, I'd have to think about maybe we ought to get back to you. We'll probably be in about a $100 million range.
Well, let me ask.
Let us get back to you on that.
Well, if you had $390 million in proceeds from the sale and you paid down about $270 million of debt, shouldn't that difference add to the cash you had at the end of Q3? Is that the right way to look at it?
That's the right way to look at it.
Okay.
Yeah.
We could talk about it later.
Okay.
Okay. That's all I wanted to ask. Thanks very much.
We're using cash to pay for the Nymölla mill.
Right. That's not gonna be till Q1, right?
Right. Yeah. The number I gave you, I was subtracting the payment for the Nymölla mill out of that cash because we're expecting to hopefully close that early in the first quarter.
Right. Okay. Right. You take that cash minus the $150, assuming that plus whatever free cash you generate in Q4. Okay. Understood.
Yeah.
Thanks very much.
Welcome.
Thank you. I'll now turn the call back over to Hans Bjorkman for closing comments.
Thank you everyone for joining our call today. We appreciate your interest in Sylvamo, and we look forward to continued conversations in the coming days, weeks, and months ahead. Have a great rest of your day and a great week.
Once again, we would like to thank you for participating in Sylvamo's third quarter 2022 earnings call. You may now disconnect.