Sylvamo Corporation produces and markets uncoated freesheet for cutsize, offset paper, and pulp in Europe, Latin America, and North America. It offers ...
Sylvamo Corporation is a global producer of uncoated freesheet paper and related pulp products, with headquarters at 6077 Primacy Parkway in Memphis, Tennessee. The company traces its operating heritage to 1898 and became an independent public company on October 1, 2021, following the separation and spin-off of International Paper's global ...Sylvamo Corporation is a global producer of uncoated freesheet paper and related pulp products, with headquarters at 6077 Primacy Parkway in Memphis, Tennessee. The company traces its operating heritage to 1898 and became an independent public company on October 1, 2021, following the separation and spin-off of International Paper's global printing papers business. Its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SLVM. John V. Sims became chief executive officer on January 1, 2026, succeeding the company's prior leadership and bringing more than three decades of experience in the paper and packaging industries.
The company's core business is the manufacture and sale of uncoated freesheet paper. This category includes cutsize office paper, offset paper, graphic paper, high-speed inkjet paper, imaging paper, commercial-printing paper, converting grades, and paper used in business forms, books, digital printing, copiers, desktop printers, and laser printers. Sylvamo also produces market pulp and operates a combination of integrated mills, where pulp and paper production are connected, and non-integrated mills. Its geographic footprint covers Europe, Latin America, and North America, allowing it to serve regional demand while marketing well-known brands internationally.
Important brands include Hammermill, REY, Chamex, Chamequinho, Chambril, Multicopy, Berga, Springhill, Williamsburg, Accent, DRM, and Postmark. Products reach end users and converters through agents, resellers, paper distributors, merchant channels, retail outlets, and e-commerce platforms. Customers include offices, commercial printers, publishers, educational institutions, retailers, distributors, and industrial converters. The product bill of materials is primarily based on wood fiber, pulp, recovered fiber where appropriate, water, energy, chemicals, coatings or additives, packaging materials, and transportation. Exact product-level costs, input contracts, and bill-of-material details are generally not publicly disclosed.
Sylvamo's economics are influenced by paper prices, pulp and timber availability, energy costs, freight, labor, mill utilization, maintenance outages, foreign exchange, environmental regulation, and demand for office and commercial printing paper. The company operates in a mature, cyclical industry in which volume trends can be affected by digitization, but paper remains important for education, packaging-related applications, communications, publishing, printing, and everyday office use. Its strategic priorities include responsible manufacturing, operational reliability, cost discipline, innovation, customer service, and stewardship of forests, water, energy, and surrounding communities.
Based on the supplied trailing-twelve-month data, Sylvamo generated a gross margin of approximately 13.8%, an EBITDA margin of approximately 8.5%, and a net profit margin of approximately 2.3%. It reported roughly $205 million of free cash flow to equity, approximately $1.63 billion of invested capital, and an enterprise value of about $2.47 billion in the supplied market snapshot. Leverage is meaningful for a manufacturing company, with net debt to EBITDA of about 3.0 times and interest coverage of approximately 4.2 times. The company also paid a trailing dividend of approximately $1.80 per share, corresponding to a dividend yield near 4.4% based on the supplied figures. These figures are snapshot metrics and can change with market prices, operating results, foreign exchange, and reporting periods.
Sylvamo employs approximately 6,500 people worldwide, with operations and colleagues across Europe, Latin America, and North America. Its stated purpose is to produce needed paper in responsible and sustainable ways while creating value for customers and stakeholders. The company's long-term aspiration is to remain an employer, supplier, and investment of choice while preserving the relevance of paper in a changing communications ecosystem.
YoYYoY means Year-over-Year. It compares the latest annual value with the previous annual value to show long-term trend strength.
QoQQoQ means Quarter-over-Quarter. It compares the latest quarter with the immediately previous quarter to show short-term momentum changes.
RevenueThe total money that came through the front door from selling things, before paying a single bill. Think of it as the grand total of every credit card swipe from customers. (YoY compares this year to last year's performance, while QoQ compares the current three months to the previous three).
$3.4B
-11.2%
+6.8%
Net IncomeThe absolute bottom line. If the company paid every single supplier, employee, banker, and tax collector, this is the actual money left in their pocket at the end of the day.
$132.0M
-56.3%
-266.7%
Gross MarginThe basic markup. If they sell a $100 pair of sneakers, this percentage tells you how much of that price tag is profit right after paying for the rubber and shoelaces, but before paying for things like store rent or TV commercials.
+21.9%
-12.0%
+47.2%
Operating MarginThe 'day job' efficiency score. Out of every dollar a customer spends, this shows how many cents the company keeps after making the product AND paying for all the everyday corporate overhead (like salaries, marketing, and keeping the lights on).
+7.4%
-36.9%
+337.1%
Net MarginThe final take-home percentage. When you strip away every conceivable cost, tax, and interest payment, this is the exact number of cents the company truly gets to keep from every dollar in sales.
+3.9%
-50.8%
-243.5%
Free Cash FlowThe holy grail of corporate cash. It's the spendable, physical money left over after the business pays for its daily operations AND buys the big, expensive upgrades (like new factories or servers) it needs to survive. This is the 'free' money they can use to pay dividends or buy back stock.
$44.0M
-82.3%
+247.5%
FCF MarginThe ultimate cash conversion rate. It shows how good the company is at turning regular sales directly into cold, hard, spendable cash. A high percentage means the business is an absolute cash-printing machine.
+1.3%
-80.0%
+238.1%
Debt / EquityThe financial risk gauge. It compares how much of the company's empire was built using borrowed money (loans) versus the owners' own money (shareholders). A high number means they are heavily leveraged and playing a riskier game; a low number means they are playing it safe.
88.3%
-7.0%
+0.7%
Current RatioThe 12-month survival check. It simply compares the cash they have right now (plus things they can quickly turn into cash) against the immediate bills they absolutely must pay this year. A score above 1 means they have enough in the wallet to cover the upcoming bills without panicking.
1.50x
-3.6%
+1.7%
Total AssetsThe absolute size of the company's empire. It bundles together absolutely everything of value they own—from the cash in the register and the inventory in the warehouse, to the software patents in the vault and the factories on the ground.
Operator: Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Sylvamo's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, your conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to Hans Bjorkman, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.
Hans Bjorkman: Thank you, Lucas. Good morning and thank you for joining our call. Our speakers this morning are John Sims, Chief Executive Officer, and Donald Devlin, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Slides 2 and 3 contain important information, including certain legal disclaimers. For example, during this call, we will make forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. We will also present certain non-U.S. GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of those figures to U.S. GAAP financial measures are available in the appendix. Our website also contains copies of the earnings release as well as today's presentation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to John.
John Sims: Thank you, Hans, and good morning, everyone. I'm glad that you're on the call and so you know, I'm on Slide 4, that's where I'm starting. Our second quarter highlights include continuing to implement the previously communicated uncoated freesheet price increases to our customers across all our regions. We also advanced our lean transformation journey to embed continuous improvement into how we run the business, so performance improvement becomes employee-driven, systematic, and self-sustaining. We kicked off our lean efforts in our Latin America business and have value stream mapping underway at our Mogi Guaçu and Três Lagoas mills to identify waste and unlock cost savings across end-to-end processes. In North America, we introduced lean at our Ticonderoga, New York, mill and our cut-size sheet plant in Sumter, South Carolina, and across corporate functions. Lastly, we continue to make very good progress on our strategic investments at our Eastover mill, which we will discuss in more detail later on this call. Let's move to the next slide. Slide 5 shows our second quarter key financial metrics. 2026 is a transition year to work through the termination of the Riverdale supply agreement and the extended outage at Eastover. Adjusted EBITDA more than doubled sequentially to $60 million with a margin of 7%. Adjusted operating earnings were $0.03 per share. Free cash flow was -$23 million, a $36 million improvement sequentially. And as in prior years, the majority of our free cash flow will be generated in the second half of this year. Now I'll turn it over to Don to review our performance in more detail, Don.
Donald Devlin: Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Slide 6 contains our second quarter earnings bridge versus the first quarter. In the second quarter, we earned $60 million of adjusted EBITDA compared to $29 million in the prior quarter. Price and mix were favorable by $32 million, reflecting the implementation of …
