Glatfelter Corporation (NYSE:GLT) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Consumer wipes, business is relatively stable. Critical cleaning, we increased our volume there, but this is probably based on our initiative, which I mentioned in our Q1 call, that this is the focus we have, so we have seen, we are seeing first successes here. And the last business I would say our metallized business, sorry, Josh, the metallized business has been relatively stable month-over- month, but overall demand is down in a big way. So that’s kind of, this is — question is, are they using a different product? But if I also look at the base paper industry, they’re also suffering because of the labeling business. I mean, the labeling business is also down and we are hit as well. So this hopefully, sorry, but I think you really have to look at the single [Ph] segment.

So…

Josh Wool: No, the color is actually helpful. And I know the destocking has been an industry wide phenomenon from everything from food, essential consumable products like what you sell. Maybe two more brief questions on the volume side. How much of the destocking in some of your channels is driven by customers wanting to buy at lower raw material prices because you obviously sell some products that are pulp based. Pulp prices have been coming way down, so strategic decisions on the part of customers to wait. And then, the second question is how much is the mix of private label change over the last, let’s call it, year, year and a half, and how has this impacted your margins, if at all?

Thomas Fahnemann: Yes, okay. To your first question, Josh, yes, I mean what we’re seeing is the raw material prices are coming down. The energy prices are kind of, I would say normalizing, although they are not back to where we were pre-inflation. So, customers are sure looking at the following quarter where we have quarterly pricing and what’s happening in the next quarter. Absolutely, I mean this is happening, but this is not a loss of volume. So, we are catching up and it’s always a question of how to kind of schedule and all this. But yes, I mean absolutely right. Customer said I’ll wait until July because I’m expecting July prices will be lower than June prices. So that’s very clear. Your question on branded business, what we’re seeing right now and is that the U.S. is mainly unchanged.

The branded business in the U.S. is pretty much what it was the same with the — with the white label business in Europe. However, we are seeing a shift branded business is losing and non-branded is picking up and that’s probably based on price consciousness of the European consumers, but we haven’t seen that yet in the U.S.

Josh Wool: But I guess your volumes are relatively unchanged by that because you’re selling into both channels, but does it have an impact on the profit margin?

Thomas Fahnemann: Correct, correct.

Josh Wool: Okay, and then moving over to the margin side, I guess I’m going to give you kind of the big picture before I give you my detailed questions. But I’m trying to kind of understand the core margin performance and the trend exiting the second quarter. And maybe the way I’ll ask the question is if I look at Slide 11 and I give you credit for that bridge which is theoretical and I say 52 million of run rate EBITDA, it’s around a 7% implied margin. If I look back to the first half of last year, I think the margin was around, call it 6.7%, So very similar margin and maybe destocking was 7 million, so that would be a 1% impact. So, are we kind of running at 8%? Is that the level we should think about exiting Q2 and entering Q3? And just to have context, if we were at 7% last year and we’re trying to get back to 10% plus to call it historical levels, are we at 8% or are there other things in that bridge that you would point me to?

Thomas Fahnemann: Yes, Josh, I would like to maybe look at it from a different way. If you look at our second quarter performance and the 7 million I mentioned which is really market driven the weak market. So, these 7 million, just the loss of volume was around about 3 million, but the fixed cost absorption which we had was 4 million okay, which we didn’t have actually in last year. So if you add that up I mean that’s 7 million. And this is the biggest issue which were really impacting our earnings year plus the one time or non-recurring issue or issues we have addressed like Ober-Schmitten the vendor financing, we have addressed all that. But this is actually you have to take this into consideration that the fixed cost absorption which we had to — this is a hit of 4 million, we had to take in order to manage our working capital and our cash. So, to answer your question, I think it’s a little bit higher than that.