Sylvamo Corporation (NYSE:SLVM) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jean-Michel Ribiéras: Yes. So we do expect to be at least at level of consumption. I would say maybe some inventory correction would be an upside, but our expectation is to be more at normal — normal demand consumption right now. As you mentioned, the upside. If you remember, in North America, we mention, I think it was last quarter, the one before. With the closing of the Canton mill, there was opportunity to take some new businesses for us in North America, and we did. So that’s what we mean by that.

George Staphos: Thank you. I’ll turn it over.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Matthew McKellar from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Matthew McKellar: Good morning. And thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just picking back up with Project Horizon. So any more color you can give on what kind of opportunities you’re seeing to reduce costs in the manufacturing supply chain side, in particular, including if there are any specific mills or even geographies that you call out as presenting the best opportunities? And then are there — is there a need to spend capital to achieve some of these savings?

John Sims: Yes, Matt. A couple of — first of all, some of it is realization of capital that we’ve already spent in terms of cost reduction. And then we also do have some cost reduction capital planned for next year that will yield some benefit. The other area is that we’re just continuing to work on efficiencies around energy consumption, chemical consumptions and becoming more efficient in terms of our operations.

Jean-Michel Ribiéras: I’ll add to that. We have some form of a little bit of opportunities in supply chain, especially in North America. When we spin, we kept the network we had before mostly intact. We did not look at what was the opportunities to ameliorate, optimize that network. I know that we have two years of experience and understand better the market and where we do — we think we have opportunities to significantly improve our supply chain operation efficiency, especially in North America. That’s probably where we have the biggest supply chain. We now have good opportunities there too.

Matthew McKellar: Great. That’s helpful. Thanks for that. Maybe next, it sounds like you’re expecting channel inventory correction to be largely complete by year-end. Would that be the same — similar across geographies? Or are there any areas where you call out as being a little bit different as you look from region to region? Any particular here, I’m thinking about Latin America, which I think you’ve said has kind of exhibited different demand trends and would be seasonally stronger in Q4?

Jean-Michel Ribiéras: Yes. I think Latin America, the strongest we saw was not Brazil, other Latin America. And I will say with the other pattern we have right now, we can say this is behind us. I would say both Europe and North America, especially in the last four weeks, when we see our order intake and what our customers said that give us a good indication that the inventory correction is done.

Matthew McKellar: Okay, thanks. That’s all for me. I’ll turn it back.

Jean-Michel Ribiéras: Thank you.

Operator: Next, we’ll go back to the line of George Staphos from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

George Staphos: Thanks so much. So I want to come back, I think Matthew queued it up nicely on Project Horizon. So was this a program that you developed internally either from existing learnings you had within Sylvamo or the predecessor company? Or did you bring in somebody from outside the firm to sort of teach you whatever you’re doing to get at these net savings over time? And then again, we’ve got supply chain, we’ve had efficiencies, that’s all well and good, and we wish you well in the program. But is there something sort of unique to this program relative to past cost reduction programs that you might have been associated with either at Sylvamo or prior companies that we should keep in mind and give us more or less optimism on its prospects?