SEOJF - Stora Enso Oyj (SEOJF) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-04-25 21:02:07 ET
Stora Enso Oyj (SEOJF)
Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call
April 25, 2024 04:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Hans Sohlström - President & Chief Executive Officer
Seppo Parvi - Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Andrew Jones - UBS
Charlie Muir-Sands - BNP Paribas Exane
Linus Larsson - SEB
Cole Hathorn - Jefferies
Pallav Mittal - Barclays
Brian Morgan - Morgan Stanley
Johannes Grunselius - DNB
Andrew Jones - UBS
Felicity Juckes - CreditSights
Gaurav Jain - Barclays
Presentation
Hans Sohlström
Good morning everyone and welcome to Stora Enso's First Quarter 2024 Results Presentation. Thank you for joining us today. I am Hans Sohlström, the President and CEO of Stora Enso. I'm here with CFO, Seppo Parvi to take you through our performance and outlook before we take your questions.
Let's start the presentation by looking at this image of the newly opened World of Volvo Experience Center in Gothenburg, Sweden. It's a prime example showcasing the possibilities of wooden construction where the latest mass timber techniques and materials from Stora Enso was used. For every ton of wood we use in buildings, we tie up one ton of carbon and avoid at least another ton of carbon dioxide emissions from alternative construction materials.
But let's now shift our focus to the key highlights of the quarter. Before we dive into the details, let's start by reviewing some of the most important highlights for the quarter.
Despite a weaker year-on-year performance compared to the relatively strong Q1 of last year, we achieved a sequential improvement in EBIT, a tripling of EBIT from Q4, which is encouraging and a good sign of progress.
Unfortunately, the political strike in Finland have impacted our results negatively by about €25 million. I'm pleased to say that we have managed to reduce our operating working capital by a significant amount with a reduction of €551 million from the corresponding quarter last year.
And in light of additional cost savings, we have raised our profit improvement target and program savings program to €120 million from €80 million, which will take full effect in 2025.
However, this cost reduction program may unfortunately result in a reduction of around 1,000 employees. Laying off people is a last resort, but it's necessary to improve our financial performance....
Stora Enso Oyj (SEOJF) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript