Billerud AB (publ) (BLRDY) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2025-02-09 06:12:00 ET

Billerud AB (publ) (BLRDY)

Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call

February 04, 2025, 03:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Lena Schattauer - Head of IR

Ivar Vatne - President and CEO

Andrei Kres - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Ephrem Ravi - Citigroup

Lars Kjellberg - Stifel

Johannes Grunselius - DNB

Linus Larsson - SEB

James Perry - Citi

Martin Melbye - ABG

Christian Kopfer - Handelsbanken

Oskar Lindstrom - Danske Bank

Cole Hathorn - Jefferies

Pallav Mittal - Barclays

Presentation

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Billerud Q4 Report 2024 Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Lena Schattauer, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Lena Schattauer

Good morning, and welcome to this presentation of Billerud's fourth quarter and full year results for 2024. The presentation will be held by Billerud's President and CEO, Ivar Vatne, and our CFO, Andrei Kres. Afterwards, there will be a Q&A session. So, by that, we would like to get started.

So over to you, Ivar.

Ivar Vatne

Thank you, Lena, and good morning everyone, and thanks for listening in.

We are excited to present another solid quarter for Billerud, and some concluding remarks for 2024. So, let's get into it, and next slide please. Now, trying to summarize 2024 in a simple manner is not easy. It has been a year with several twists and turns. And also for 2024, much of the year was in essence about navigating through uncertain and difficult market conditions. Having said that, '24 landed clearly better versus 2023.

It's also been a year with different realities between the two regions. Our Region North America has had another very solid year and delivered consistently strong results, tailwinding of a strong performing U.S. economy. It's, in particular, impressive to see our North American result when we keep in mind the operating rates are still below 70%. Our Europe region has experienced more challenging conditions with relatively slow consumer demand for many of our categories, and all-time high cost on pulpwood.

In terms of the financials, I am satisfied with improved results we see on several fronts. We ended the year with 5% net sales growth and significantly improved profitability. We have a strong balance sheet, and we'll proceed to the AGM with a dividend proposal of SEK350 per share. That is in line with our dividend policy, and is up 75% versus year ago.

Next slide please. And, for our quarter four, it was another period of robust financial performance enabling us to end 2024 on a good note. We recorded plus 20% net sales growth, plus 18% organic and currency-neutral. And encouragingly, the topline growth is broad-based, stemming from both regions and across most categories....

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