Stora Enso Half-Year Report 2024

Hans Sohlström President and CEO comment: In a continuous weak market, I am encouraged by Stora Enso’s sequential financial performance improvement. However, our year-on-year sales decreased by 20% to 2,164 million euro. Adjusted EBIT decreased to 156 million euro from 234 million in the same period last year, and the adjusted EBIT margin decreased to 7.2% from 8.6%. The political strikes in Finland had an adverse impact of approximately 25 million euro on our results. But we estimate the impact on our second quarter results to be lower. Net debt increased by 601 million euro to 3,518 million euro, due to the board investment at the Oulu site. We will continue our capital expenditure at 1.0 to 1.1 billion euro this year as this investment proceeds according to schedule, aiming to be back towards the average levels of 600 to 800 million euro per year from 2025. 

Highlights

• The profit improvement programme, initiated in the first quarter, has progressed well and the annual profit improvement target has been increased to EUR 120 million, from the initial EUR 80 million, driven by additional fixed cost reductions. The programme does not include site closures and may result in the reduction of approximately 1,000 employees.
• Operating working capital decreased by EUR 551 million year-on-year, driven by our continued focus to improve working capital efficiency.
• The consumer board investment at the Oulu site in Finland is progressing on schedule. Production is expected to start in the first half of 2025, with full capacity estimated to be reached during 2027.
• The plan to divest the Beihai site in China is proceeding according to plan. The site is classified as assets held for sale from the end of 2023 onwards.
• A dividend of EUR 0.10 per share for the full year 2023 was paid on 4 April 2024. The AGM has authorised the Board of Directors to decide on payment of an additional dividend up to EUR 0.20 per share, valid until 31 December 2024.
• Stora Enso was awarded “Green bond of the year – corporate-EMEA” by Environmental Finance in April.