Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE:PKG) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Cashen Keeler: Great. Thanks for the details.

Mark Kowlzan: Next question please.

Operator: Our next question comes from Gabrial Hajde from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead with your question.

Gabrial Hajde: Mark, Tom, good morning. Thanks for taking the question.

Mark Kowlzan: Morning, Gabe.

Gabrial Hajde: I wanted to ask a little bit on the demand side. Historically speaking, you guys have done a good job of kind of outperforming the industry or even exceeding that kind of the GDP type growth. But this quarter was seemingly pretty pronounced relative to what we’re reading maybe in the green markets report or REFI [ph]. So, I’m just curious if there’s anything that you can talk about, I mean, I know historically, you guys haven’t talked about like a vitality index or something like that. But just maybe new business wins that you all are excited about or change incentive structure for your sales folks to go out and win new business.

Tom Hassfurther: Gabe, the majority of our increase in volume came from our existing customers. As we’ve said many, many times, I mean, that’s our main growth engine. And we tried to align with the right kind of customers who, over the long haul, will grow. And I think that’s been a big plus for us. Are we winning any new business? Yes. We win some new business, some other business goes the other way. It’s over the – over time, we do come out ahead. But as you mentioned, I mean, historically, we have outperformed the industry, and we plan to do so going forward. But we did lag as you probably know, for a number of quarters. Over the last couple of years, there were times when we did lag. And it’s because of some of the segments that we were in.

And I mentioned before, as an example, I mean, building products went crazy during COVID and then suddenly that came to a screeching halt. And so some of these segments that we’re in did hold us back, but they’re coming back now nicely and that’s a big part of our growth.

Gabrial Hajde: Okay. Thank you. And then maybe two questions on the Jackson conversion. It sounds like – I know sometimes that they’re not always directly linked in terms of when the costs flow through and the guidance that you gave us, Bob, in terms of the $0.26 and the $0.16. But is that happening? Is it straddling in March, April from a timing standpoint? And then I’ll ask a question. I don’t know if you guys will answer, but on a sequential basis, if the $70 and $100 a ton is going through, and by our math, that’s, to your point, Mark, maybe $25 a ton is being reflected in Q1, then is it fair that the extra $50 a ton incremental should be on a sequential basis embedded into the second quarter? Thank you.

Unidentified Company Representative: [Technical Difficulty]

Tom Hassfurther: Right. Well, we’re in the midst of discussing all that with our customers, especially on the box side and what the roll through will be, et cetera. So, as I mentioned, we got the increase in place for the linerboard medium. And we’ll see where things roll through, but we expect it to be a traditional roll through.

Gabrial Hajde: Thank you.

Mark Kowlzan: Thank you. Next question please.

Operator: Our next question comes from Anthony Pettinari from Citi. Please go ahead with your question.

Anthony Pettinari: Hi Good morning.

Mark Kowlzan: Good morning, Anthony.

Anthony Pettinari: Hey, following up on your earlier comments, I’m wondering, is there some percentage of your box contracts that are not on Pulp and Paper Week? And I guess, looking at other paper grades, there were some boxboard producers we didn’t feel like the index was really reflecting what was really happening in the market, and they were able to move some customers off a Pulp and Paper Week. Is that something that you potentially could do? Or you think some customers might welcome? Just wondering if you – to the extent you can discuss how you think about that?

Tom Hassfurther: Well, Anthony, as I mentioned, I mean, we do have a high level of frustration both with customers, both on the liner and on the box side. With Pulp and Paper and feel that there’s a disconnect there to what they see in the market and what’s being reported. As I’ve said for a number of years now, as this independent market continues to shrink and what we really consider to be a real open market gets into the mid-single digits. And if that’s all that’s being reported on, that becomes quite a – can cause that disconnect, in my opinion. So our customers have asked us to look at a lot of different alternatives in which we are doing, along with them, and we’ll see where we end up. Have we moved some people off of that?

We don’t really like to get into those kind of details just because that’s between us and our customers. So, I’ll leave that one aside, because we’re not going to really get into those discussions other than I just will tell you, we are looking at any and all alternatives.

Anthony Pettinari: Okay. That’s very helpful. And then just switching gears on the CapEx guidance for 2024. I think you said $470 million to $490 million CapEx. Is it possible to break that down between maintenance, discretionary and then Jackson. And is there any kind of finer point in terms of the run rate capacity add from Jackson when that conversion is completed?

Bob Mundy: Yes. As far as I would say Jackson will be $30 million to $40 million of that amount. The balance, I’d say 65% or so would be sort of that nondiscretionary must-do type maintenance-type capital spending. And Mark, you talked about?