International Paper Company (NYSE:IP) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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And then there’s the wealth of areas to work on in the cost area. And what’s changed for IP is the demand that really ramped up and pulled forward was accompanied by a number of price increases that it took us longer to get them through based on the customer mix we had and contractual responsibilities. But the inflationary impact of our cost structure didn’t wait for that. So we had a classic margin squeeze that we have to undo now. So that’s really what’s got to happen. Obviously, a lot of it is a market that is not declining at the rate it started to decline. For all the reasons we talked about, maybe not the end consumer, but the destocking effect and all of that. That started about this time last year or in August of last year in earnest.

And it’s hard to get out from under that quickly when you’ve got sticky inflation that has flowed through to labor cost and all of those things in your supply chain. So I think that’s what’s got to happen in most of those efforts. We don’t control the overall demand, but we are confident in both product lines being facing a long-term growth profile. What we do control is who we sell to and at what price and how we operate our manufacturing facilities to be first quartile type cost producer of these types of products. And so we’ve got efforts and focus on all of those initiatives and I’m very confident we’ll get back to the levels of earnings and returns and then grow from there.

Cleve Rueckert: Okay. That’s – yes, that’s pretty clear, sort of a little bit of a vague question for me to ask, but thanks for the clarity and well – and just the insight into your thought process. And then maybe just one quick follow-up, just sort of sticking with the volumes in the packaging business, I think you said sequentially on the bridge, it’s sort of a $5 million tailwind into the third quarter. And we’re sort of starting to be able to figure out what’s implied for the fourth quarter. But are we just – am I correct in assuming that your expectations on volume growth in the second half are relatively low, I mean, in this flat to up slightly kind of environment that we’re talking about for July?

Mark Sutton: Are you talking about box volumes or overall…

Cleve Rueckert: Yes. One in the packaging — in the packaging business.

Mark Sutton: Well, I’ll ask Tom to comment on the box side and Jay Royalty is also here to talk about what we’re seeing on container board in our other channels – the open market and the export channel. So Tom, if you want to start?

Tom Hamic: Yes, I think we’re going to see through the third quarter and into the fourth quarter, getting back to normal. I think this destocking is a big effect. And so we expect the demand to normalize and you’ll see a much better second half of the year, substantially better second half of the year than the first half relative to year-over-year. And I think somebody pointed out that the year-over-year comps get easier, but even with that, we see continued strengthening through the balance of the year.

Jay Royalty: This is Jay Royalty. So commenting on the open market domestic channel and the export channel, I would say that, relative to the domestic channel, it’s – both of these have been a big drag on us from a demand standpoint thus far this year. But we are seeing improvement in both of those channels. From a domestic standpoint, we did see some modest improvement in the second quarter, and based on our order books, we’re continuing to see – we’re encouraged about the improvements in the third quarter. If you think about those type of customers and their orientation, they’re less orient to food customers. And so from a destocking standpoint, I think they’ve been hit harder and as that unwinds, we’ll have the opportunity for more pickup.

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