Norske Skog ASA

OSE:NSKOG

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q4

[Sven Ombudstvedt, CEO & President]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this presentation of Norske Skog's Fourth Quarter 2020 Results. Very briefly, the result ended with an EBITDA of NOK 146 million. This is a significant improvement from the previous quarter, but obviously still at the low level. Somewhat better volumes as markets stabilized post the main restrictions in the second quarter in Europe relating to COVID. And we can also see segment-wise that our European segment contributed significantly. Australia remained slightly EBITDA negative in the quarter. The company retains a robust balance sheet. We have a net interest-bearing debt of NOK 725 million at the end of 2020. This is before the equity raise we did in early January of this year of NOK 400 million. So pro forma for that, there is only about NOK 300 million of net interest-bearing debt on the balance sheet. We announced last year in June a significant green growth project in Europe related to renewable packaging. So Norske Skog aims to become a significant producer of recyclable renewable packaging by 2023 by converting machines in France and in Austria. This is progressing according to plan, and conditions for these projects are possibly even better than when they were launched mid last year. In addition, we have indicated to the market before and can now confirm that we are aiming to list Circa together with Circa shareholders on the Oslo Stock Exchange, Euronext growth in -- during this quarter, the first quarter of 2021. Norske Skog holds a significant majority share with just under 1/3 of the shares of this exciting new biochemical company. At the same time, COVID took a big bite out of our markets in 2020, and we have to adjust production capacity by closing capacity in Norway with 1 machine in Holland, the so called PM5. And we also converted the New Zealand mill at Tasman from newsprint, which has now ceased production of newsprint. And then we are going into something called converting grade paper, which is used in packaging, mainly in China but throughout Asia. As a direct resultant of the COVID effects on our markets, we have recognized impairments in our fixed assets of about NOK 258 million related to the Boyer mill in Australia and to the Norwegian mills. So altogether, an impairment of NOK 258 million in the quarter. The main figures, as I said, the EBITDA remains on a low level, 6% EBITDA margin for the group in the fourth quarter is certainly below the 10% that we see as more normalized margin. So COVID still has an impact negatively on the market. There are nothing to change compared to the performance in the quarter. So the underlying EBITDA is also at 6%, too low, but an improvement from the third quarter. If we look very, very briefly at the variance analysis from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, as I indicated, volumes have come up. The market is somewhat better. People are consuming more paper. Retailers are printing more from a period where they basically stopped not only in Europe but also in Australia and globally for our total industry. Pricing has weakened a little bit in the quarter, not materially compared to the third quarter. However, other costs have also come down for us. So the margins remain reasonably stable. So the volume improvement is the most significant news in the quarter. There's also, as always, some other effects. And one of the most notable one is the fact that there are some energy arrangements in France, which is booked also in the fourth quarter, improving last quarter compared to the third. Again, Europe has not necessarily returned to normal but has shown improvements. The total year's consumption of our products in Europe is down about 20%, which is 4x what we have seen as a structural decline over the last 10 years. So basically, 20% down. That is somewhat differentiated across our grades with SC paper a bit better, and light weight coated and standard newsprint in Europe a little bit weaker. However, we do see some improvements also in consumption of paper in Europe, and we see improvements in Asia, which are less affected these days by lockdowns. So in general, the market is stabilizing, but still at a relatively low level. Australia, as mentioned, is still slightly EBITDA negative. We are restructuring the New Zealand business, which impacts this. So we expect to regain a positive EBITDA trajectory for the Australian business in 2021. The strategy is now well known for most of you. We will obviously still improve the underlying business and the cash flows that we can harvest from the mature publication paper market. At the same time, we will establish ourselves as a renewable packaging company in Europe, 1 of the 10 largest in that field. And we will also develop other projects, which I will come back to briefly. If you look at the paper capacity now, we still have more than 2 million tonnes of paper. We still remain a producer of all grades for our customers. No one can say that they do not have access to the product range from us that they have been used to buying. And we still believe that over the cycle, the average EBITDA is around NOK 1 billion despite the fact that 2020 is somewhat lower than that. If we look at the pricing movements in the industry, we can see that during 2020, pricing came down. Already before COVID, there was a need for capacity reductions because of the circular demand declines. So going into 2020, pricing already came down. That was exacerbated through the year as the COVID demand impact took its toll. Also going into 2021, despite the fact that we have more than 2 million tonnes of closures announced in Europe last autumn, pricing is still coming down as some of this product is still sitting in inventory and some of it still has to work its way through the supply chain. However, we believe that demand is stabilizing now from the low points of the middle of last year, and we believe that 2021 will once again see a more balanced market. Capacities have come out. Demand is stabilizing. And we see also signals from Asia and from North America, which normally is a harbinger of news for Europe. And we believe that by mid-2021, the market is again in balance and that the price movement from the 1st of July will be upwards. However, with the present earnings, we obviously have to convert as much of the earnings into cash as absolutely possible. So in 2020, we have already had a relatively high cash conversion, higher than in 2019. And with the improvements that we have announced, NOK 250 million in terms of reduction of fixed costs, margin improvements and reduction of maintenance CapEx, we can already see that the business is generating significant cash to support growth investments. One factor for us now these days, which have become quite important is CO2. We do benefit from 2 main systems in Europe, one. And you can see on the left-hand side of this graph is the ETS, the trading system of allowances, which by design is getting tighter and tighter. And you can see the black line here is the surplus that we have of sellable quotas. This will continue for the next years into 2021 and beyond, probably until 2030. And we'll probably be in the range of 250,000 tonnes to 300,000 tonnes of CO2 net that we can sell into the market. This will be booked when we sell it. Normally, that happens in the first half of the year. The good news is that the emission price has moved up, as you can see on the middle graph here moving from a level hovering around EUR 5 for many, many years, now well excess of EUR 30. That has been in 2020, about NOK 80 million to NOK 85 million income for us. In addition to this, we also have a compensation scheme active in Norway and France, which generates about NOK 300 million, also dependent on the emission price. So we think that these are sustainable earnings potentials for us and it allows us to invest in new green technology. I will come back to that in a minute. As I've already mentioned, we will become a European renewable packaging player, 1 of the 10 largest from 2023 onwards. Two big projects. We will remove almost 750,000 to 800,000 tonnes of newsprint capacity in Europe, in the market, which is growing as opposed to the one we're leaving, which is declining. We have come quite a long way in discussion with banks and financing institutions for the financing of the projects. And we expect to make a final investment decision during the first half sometime. Expected EBITDA, importantly, from a midrange point of view, an average over many years between NOK 700 million and NOK 800 million. This picture shows the margin between the main raw material, which is old corrugated containers, used packaging paper, and the upper line is the main products in recyclable containerboard. The difference is the margin people live off, which, for many years have been relatively stable and has also expanded. What has been a positive surprise during COVID is that the drive for e-commerce drives the demand for renewable containerboard, which you can see that pricing has improved despite the fact that there is quite some capacity come into the market. So we think the fundaments for these projects are even better now than they were in June when they were first announced. Two main reasons. E-commerce is may be obvious. European sales in 2020 are estimated that all retail now about 16% is e-commerce coming up from about 6% to 8% over the last years, accelerated by COVID. In addition, there is another trend in this industry. And that is that the paper is becoming lighter. In other words, that you sell more square meters per the same tonnage. That is illustrated in the middle graph. Over many years, that trend has continued, and e-commerce is the friend of light weighting. Our machines are coming from even lower grammages and have the advantage that they will be more efficient, the lower the grammage is. Here are the 2 sites. France, we will convert. And in Austria, we will convert. In addition to this, we will also invest in energy facilities to support it, which are good stand-alone investments but we will also support packaging projects. We have a strong competence internally to do projects. We have also hired external resources. We have done these type of projects before. And obviously, there are seasoned consultants both on the technical side and in the market side who will support the projects themselves. High-level studies were done. Now the detailed studies are almost finished and the permitting processes are also ongoing as we speak. None of these have thrown up any red flags, which means that there will be a final investment decision sometime during the first half of this year. So that is the packaging. So publication paper is still the cash harvesting bottom plank. Exciting opportunities in renewable packaging. And on top of that, our competence, our infrastructure, our value chains also enables other projects. We are, as we speak, erecting a large-scale energy plant in Austria, which will burn waste. This is expected to start up in the first half of 2022, already next year, about a year from now, and will generate about EUR 20 million, NOK 200 million of EBITDA from 2022 onwards. Investment of EUR 72 million financed by local facility and our own cash. In addition, we already have done a project in New Zealand on pellets in 2020, successfully upgrading from 35,000 to 90,000 tonnes per annum, producing now EBITDA of NOK 30 million to NOK 35 million, a various sort of good, steady contributor to our business and excellent operations in the new world of renewable energy. I mentioned Circa. We aim to list Circa, where we have a big minority stake. We have already a grant from the EU in the Circa company, which will be used to build a semi-industrial pilot plant in France for a biochemical. This is a solvent that replaces toxic chemicals, possibly toxic chemicals and other harmful substances, very, very interesting project. The EU has been with us granted EUR 12 million. Now we will raise the funding up to EUR 40 million to actually build a plant. That will be the first of this kind in the world. CEBINA is one of our projects coming out of the Saugbrugs mill in Halden, Norway, where we established the first commercial sales, proof of concept for CEBINA. It can be used in epoxy for flooring, which reduces dust and other harmful effects of flooring processes efficiently. It can be used with paints. It can be used with glue. And it can also maybe over time be used in oilfield drilling fluids. And finally, also in the fourth quarter of 2020, we announced a grant from the Norwegian government to help us build a pilot plant for biocomposites, where we mix wood fibers and plastics. Quite interesting, particularly for long-lasting plastics such as pipe, pipelines. If we just delve a little bit into the projects themselves, we can see that the Bruck plant is already on stream. You can see here the construction of the waste energy plant, 50 megawatt hour capacity, quite an impressive project. And one of the key foundations for us, that we already have the permit to do this, which is quite difficult to obtain, a high value of being an industrial company active in the EU. I mentioned on a couple of occasions Circa. Circa is exciting for us. We aim to support Circa going forward, but at the same time, we also now find the opportunity to get all the shareholders in Norske Skog will remain a committed partner to Circa. But at the same time, it's now time for this development company to take the next steps. From 2006 to 2009, with a few grams produced of biochemicals solvents to now up to the new plant will be to 1,000 tonnes. It's time also for other investors to take part in a very, very exciting opportunity. I also referenced CEBINA, which is our product from Halden, a nano fibrils cellulose, which is very, very finely ground wood fibers, which have amazing abilities in terms of reducing emissions, in terms of the properties, for instance, for glue to stick things together or epoxy, which is -- it will be great floorings with CEBINA inside and only a very, very small fraction is needed. Very exciting product for us. We think that this is going to be commercialized now in the spring. And we're looking for an interview -- international distributing agreement with Brenntag, which is a large-scale chemical distributor. After that, when the commercial foundation is solid, we will invest in the capacity to produce. So all in all, we have our clear priorities laid out. Obviously, this type of business, in the commodity business, cash conversion is important even in the very, very difficult COVID era of 2020. We have the high conversion of cash, and we were still generating cash from the operations throughout the year. Australasia is a different position than Europe. We will reposition. We will finalize the strategic review of New Zealand. What happens to Tasman and Nature’s Flame, our operations in New Zealand will probably be clear by the end of the first quarter of this year. And obviously, everything done with a robust balance sheet, as proved by the capital markets transaction that we did early in January, raising NOK 400 million of equity. Then the strategy in the longer term, medium to long term, obviously being going into renewable packaging is a big step for us. I think this will be very exciting for Norske Skog, a very, very big leap for the company. Other fiber and energy projects, we will do it, but we may do it also together with partners. As you can see with Circa, we will invite other investors in when the projects are ready for commercialization and upscaling. And finally, we will remain a producer of all grades. Our customers will still have a full product range from us as they are used to with high-quality products and no hassle services. Just a final note. We have indicated that we will hold the Capital Markets Day in the first quarter of this year. We will still hold it. We would love people to be able to get together. So we have put that on hold until we have clarity around COVID restrictions. So unless that takes too much time, we will be back shortly with the new update on when you can expect the capital markets transaction. So on that note, I would like to thank you very much for your attention this morning, and have a good day.