Stora Enso Half-Year Report 2023

January-June result

• Sales were EUR 5,095 (5,852) million.
• Operational EBIT was EUR 271 (1,008) million.
• Operating result (IFRS) was EUR 5 (793) million.
• Earnings per share (EPS) were EUR -0.05 (0.75) and EPS excl. fair valuations (FV) was EUR -0.04 (0.77).
• Cash flow from operations amounted to EUR 400 (806) million. Cash flow after investing activities was EUR -69 (471) million.
• Operational ROCE excluding the Forest division (LTM1) decreased to 10.7% (21.7%).

Weak financial performance in difficult market conditions

The demand slowdown continued for all our businesses except for Packaging Solutions and Forest division. For our largest divisions Packaging Materials, Biomaterials and Wood Products, we continue to experience destocking in the supply chain and weakening demand, in combination with margin pressure due to high input costs.

Some raw material costs have come down from their peak, however most of them, such as wood and chemicals, were still elevated compared to historic levels. For our Biomaterials division especially, we faced the fastest ever decline in global market pulp prices. A significant amount of new capacity is entering the market at a time when demand is low and the global market pulp inventories are on very high levels.