Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Interfor Quarterly Analyst Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen only mode. Following the presentation, we'll conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, November 4, 2022. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Ian Fillinger. Ian, go ahead, sir. Thank you, operator, and good morning everyone. Welcome to our quarterly analyst call. With me today you have Rick Pozzebon, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Bart Bender, our Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Our agenda today will start off with myself providing a recap of our financial results, our strategic focus and our improvement efforts. I'll then pass the call to Rick, who will cover off financial matters, and then Rick will pass the call to Bart, who will cover off the markets. Turning to our financial results, our Q2 adjusted EBITDA was CAD 129 million. We are continuing to execute on our strategic plan and we're generating industry-leading lumber margins and returns on capital. I encourage you to look through the investor deck on our website. Our improvement efforts were again balanced across our North American platform. Our production was slightly below the record level of the previous quarter. Our lumber inventory was reduced during the quarter and remains within our target range. Our financial flexibility is strong. Our DeQuincy, Louisiana mill has reached its full 2-shift capacity. Our Eatonton, Georgia Sawmill rebuild is complete and is in the final stages of ramp up. Our new planer mill project at our Castlegar, British Columbia mill will be completed in Q4, and we expect a value uplift in grade returns, as this mill pulls from the very high quality fiber in this region of British Columbia. In total, our CapEx was balanced as we deployed CAD 86 million across four regions. At the beginning of October, we announced the agreement to acquire Chaleur's two mills in New Brunswick. These two quality assets, along with Woodlands' management business, will add value, scale and further geographical diversification to our portfolio. Despite persistent inflationary pressures, our SG&A expense continues to decrease quarter-over-quarter as economies of scale are being realized from our strategy. We'd also like to provide an update on how our integration is progressing with our Canadian Eastern platform. Our key focus areas in the near term are to enhance the historical operating performance, to identify further opportunities for operational improvement and synergy realization, and to assess potential long-term strategic investments. In summary, our balance sheet is in great shape and our 48% year-to-date return on capital again is very strong. That concludes my opening remarks, and I'll now hand the call over to Rick. Thank you, Ian, and good morning everyone. First off, I'll refer you to cautionary language regarding forward-looking information in our Q3 MD&A. Interfor's third quarter results were relatively strong given the normalization of lumber prices as market uncertainty dampened demand. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $ 129 million and extended our track record of generating the best returns on capital of all publicly listed lumber producers. These positive results demonstrate the significant benefits of Interfor's transformation over the past several years, with significant scale and regional diversification achieved through acquisitions, continuous investment in portfolio optimization and a focus on operational excellence. Our capital allocation in the quarter continued to be balanced and driven by our focus on maximizing shareholder value over the long term. We recognize significant value in Interfor's share price and launched a $100 million substantial issuer bid, successfully buying back 6.1% of outstanding shares at a historically attractive valuation of 0.72x book value per share. We continue to optimize our sawmills through discretionary capital investments at attractive risk-adjusted returns. We seized an opportunity to strengthen our company through the acquisition of two sawmill operations in New Brunswick with an annual capacity of 350 million board feet. These are top quartile operations with attractive fiber costs and fiber security and are expected to boost Interfor's profitability and returns through all parts of our business cycle. The renewal of our normal course issuer bid to buy back up to 10% of Interfor's free float provides us flexibility to return capital to shareholders and increase leverage to earnings for remaining shareholders. We intend to operate this buyback program under parameters ensuring we purchase shares at an attractive valuation while remaining within our conservative target leverage range. Expanding on financial results, third quarter earnings benefited from our larger scale and regional diversification. Interfor shipped a near record 1.1 billion board feet in the quarter, with positive EBITDA contributions from each of our operating regions. Earnings also benefited from $26 million of recovery recorded for softwood lumber duties previously expensed as the Department of Commerce finalized duty rates for the 2020 period at a reduced level. We continue to see transitory cost inflation across several aspects of our business and remain focused on operating decisions to maximize returns and profitability. From a balance sheet perspective, our financial flexibility remains strong with ample available liquidity on existing facilities of over $ 600 million, with substantially more financial capacity available within our financial covenants if needed. Pro forma the closing of the Chaleur Forest Products acquisition expected in the current quarter, net debt to invested capital at September 30 would have been approximately 23% and remain within our conservative target range of 5%-25%. It's also worth noting that Interfor's softwood lumber duties on deposit totaled $419 million at quarter end, representing $8 per share on an after-tax basis. To wrap up, I'll highlight that our business continues to be well-positioned operationally and financially to succeed through ongoing market volatility. Our priority will continue to be disciplined capital allocation to maximize returns on capital and shareholder returns over the long term. That concludes my remarks, and I'll turn the call over to Bart. Thank you, Rick. Good morning, everyone. I'll provide an outlook on lumber markets through quarter four 2022 and into quarter one 2023. The medium to long-term fundamentals remain favorable to overall lumber demand. Demographics support an increased level of participation in the first home buyer's market. Aging housing stocks encourage increased repair and remodel work. Household balance sheets are solid, led by equity in their homes. New home construction has lagged underlying demand for some time, increasing the pent-up demand for homes in the US In the short term, there's some macroeconomic challenges that are reducing the demand for lumber in North America. Inflation and economic uncertainty will drive conservatism in spending. Interest rate increases are impacting affordability in new home construction and simultaneously encouraging those with more affordable mortgages to stay in their existing homes. Home builders are addressing this to a certain extent through incentives and features. Some more is to be seen on that side of it. The repair and remodel is impacted, however, to a lesser degree. Those avoiding the move-up housing market will undoubtedly consider more repair and remodel work. Equity in homes will support this. However, to the extent that debt is required, affordability could still be a factor. We've been proactive in addressing the reduction in lumber demand with a reduction in production. The curtailments that we've announced for the balance of 2022 will allow us to align to our customers' needs. Switching to the supply side of the equation, it's times like these that remind us of how important diversity is in our business, making sure we have the right products in the right areas to meet the demands of our distribution partners. Interfor has always had diversification as a part of our corporate strategy, and that continues today. I'd like to highlight that since 2019, through acquisitions, we've added to that diversification. Only supplier with production in four major producing regions in North America. Our SPF capacity has increased from 8% - 25% of our production. We've added the eastern region, and once our most recent acquisition closes, increase our capacity to 1.275 billion board feet. Added dimension in timber production to our PNW regions, which prior to this was 100% studs. Also acquired three dimension mills in the southwest region, increasing our ability to service our customers further west in the south. Interfor's never been positioned better to serve our customers across North America today, which is affording us a seat at the boardroom table with any distributor in North America. Overall, we're well positioned to address short-term uncertainty in the market with diversity, and we look to markets to improve as we work our way through the balance of 2022 and through 2023. With that, I'll turn it back over to you, Ian. Okay. Thanks, Bart. Operator, we're ready to take our analyst calls now. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star key followed by the number one on your touchtone phone. You'll hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Questions will be taken in the order they are received. Should you wish to withdraw your request, simply press the star key followed by the number two. If you're using a speakerphone, please mute the handset before pressing any keys. One moment while we assemble the queue, and we'll take our first question from Sean Steuart with TD Securities. Your line is now open. Thank you. Good morning, guys. A couple questions. I wanna talk about the NCIB renewal. Rick, you mentioned that adjusted for Chaleur, your net debt to cap is up to 23%, which is towards the upper end of your stated target range. I'm wondering if Ian or Rick could comment on where buybacks fit into the capital allocation pecking order as leverage has climbed and free cash flow prospects are moderating here. How do you think about the willingness to proceed with that NCIB over the next year? Sure. Yeah. Rick, do you wanna take that? Sure. Hey, good morning, Sean. Buybacks certainly have been a priority for us when there's a disconnect between the share price and what we think is the underlying value of the shares. We'll continue to operate our NCIB program under a few parameters. One is certainly a pricing parameter to make sure we're not overpaying for our shares. The second parameter would be around leverage. We don't intend to buy shares outside of our target range in terms of leverage. We'll be following those just like we have throughout the last couple of years. Our priority in terms of capital allocation continues to be our internal investment in our sawmills, our discretionary capital program that we have well underway. Certainly growth is an objective of ours, and we'll continue to look for M&A opportunities and consider those as they come about. Okay. Just to clarify, Rick, so the 25% net debt to cap, is that a ceiling above which you would not consider buybacks or is there some wiggle room around that depending on how things are shaping up quarter to quarter? Yeah, I would say it's a guideline for us. Is it a hard stop? No, but it's something we want to target staying within that range. Okay. Second question for Ian. I wonder if you can speak to fiber costs across your various regions and I suppose specifically in the US South where we're seeing some inflation and I'm hoping you can categorize that as is this capacity build on lumber in the US South driving increased demand for fiber or is it freight surcharges and contractor cost inflation that's driving it? Your outlook with respect to that region specifically as we move ahead into next year. Yeah, for sure, Sean. Thanks. Well, the South region, first off, is one of our top performing regions and continues to be right there. Specific to your question on log costs, there have been some minor inflations, you know, that we've experienced, but, you know, I would say it's, you know, less than 5% and in some cases, you know, just generally flat. If I had to, you know, characterize the whole region from, you know, Louisiana to South Carolina, I would say they remain flat and there's pockets of, you know, where it's been higher, and then there's pockets where it's been, you know, actually lower in some cases, but generally flat across the region. Just some small pockets of dynamics depending upon where the sawmill is located. Okay. Understood. That's all I have for now. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Sean. Thanks. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, to ask a question, press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Next, we'll go to Mark Wilde with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Oh, good morning, Ian, Rick, Bart. Morning. Hey, Mark. Morning. I wanted to start off by saying, Ian Fillinger, I have a lot of regard for what you guys have done over the last 2.5 years in terms of kind of capital allocation and the balance that you have shown. You've definitely walked the talk on that. As we look ahead, though, I'm curious. We're clearly heading into what look like much more challenging markets. We've definitely seen tougher markets than we're dealing with at the moment, if you just look back over the last, you know, 4 or 5 years. I'm just curious about your preparations for more challenging markets. Yeah, for sure, Mark. I mean, you know, as long as you've been covering this industry and we've worked in it, we've seen these, you know, ups and downs. You know, our playbook is pretty refined on that. I mean, the first lever is, you know, making sure that your inventories are matching your order files and your profitability. When, you know, some of that starts to disconnect, you know, we feel obligated to make decisions like we did announcing the curtailments in Q4. That would be the first lever that we look at is just making sure we're not running for the sake of running and that we're looking at the whole value outlook, you know, from a shareholder perspective. There's that, and then, you know, then you can get a little bit more specific down to, you know, plant level, you know, numbers and be prepared, you know, for your staff or whatever to do those. We don't see that coming at us this time. You know, we obviously like others and yourself think it could be a little bit of a rough, you know, 2023. You know, the difference I think, Mark, you know, when we look at Interfor, you know, the strength of our company today compared to, you know, 10 years ago is just, you know, dramatically different. Some of that risk that, you know, we have in old playbooks is, you know, we've updated and obviously feel that we're a much stronger company if, you know, if we have some headwinds here in the next, you know, 12-18 months. You know, I would say that and then Mark there's all kinds of different levers that we can pull beyond that. The most is just making sure you're not building your inventory and taking write-downs and, you know, trying to force a product into a market that, you know, doesn't want it. So we'll monitor that pretty closely as we are right now for the next several months. Okay. Second question I had, Ian, and I know this is a sensitive one for you, but is there any way for you to give us some sense of sort of profitability by region across your portfolio right now? No, Mark. You know, we can't really do that. I mean, what we have shared is just you know the trend you know by region over you know a long period of time, I think it's 10 years or so. What we find is that you know it's balanced. There's give and take at different times. So we're you know really you know pleased with the geographical you know diversification because we do see. That is especially in lumber for us, which is you know kind of what we do, being able to have those different regions which have different log dynamics at different points and times in the cycle, you know and different you know product dynamics. I think, you know, when we think about the SPF volume that Bart talked about, that's a big change for us. We think that's a very positive, you know, contributor to Interfor as far as our strength goes as we go forward. Regionally, you know, one year, one region might be stronger than the other, but over a period of time, it's pretty balanced across North America in our portfolio anyways. Okay. Last one for me, Ian. I wondered if we just step back. I think it was about, you know, nine years ago that you bought the Rayonier mills down in the South. That was your first move into the US Can you give us some sense of what you've been able to do, both capacity-wise and profitability-wise at the Rayonier mills since that acquisition? Yeah, that was a great acquisition for us. You got it right, Mark, it was 2013. Those three operations start with Swainsboro and Baxley. We haven't had to put a lot of capital into those plants. They were well run, and they have a great product line. Those two plants contribute very well today. The Eatonton plant, which was the third of those Rayonier's, it's a top quartile, top decile plant right now that we just finished the upgrade, and it's going north of 200 million board feet. It was around 89 million when we bought it. I think even a little bit less. The purchase price that Interfor builds up and it was so attractive and we're extremely pleased with those and we're, you know, very pleased to see Eatonton in a, you know, a highly optimized technical mill, you know, best in class engineering and equipment and. I would say that would, you know, that'd be the one that we have rebuilt out of those and it'll be one of the best in our portfolio. Okay. All right. I'll turn it over. Thanks, Ian. Okay, Mark. Okay. Next we'll go to Paul Quinn with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Yeah, thanks so much. Morning, guys. Hey, Paul. Yeah, just wondering, you know, if we assume that 2023 is gonna be a very tough year, are you gonna change your operating plan from what we're seeing in Q4, or is that what we're going with next year? Well, I think, Paul, we will. I mean, we look at it, you know, on a regular basis, as you know. You know, Q4, I think is. You know, it just felt and looks like, you know, we needed to match production to the shipments. We'll see what Q1 looks like. We'll probably have a view of that, you know, mid-December-ish. We'd like to run our plants, you know, and keep our employees retained and, you know, keep the logging contractors and the supply chains to the markets, you know, fulfilled. You know, we're not shy of making decisions. We just see that building inventory is a risk that we don't wanna take beyond normal threshold limits, which I would say are, you know, tight and we wanna keep them that way. Yeah, Paul, I would say, you know, mid-December, we're probably gonna take a view of Q1, see how things are looking and talk with Bart and sit down as a group and, you know, figure out what that schedule will look like. It'll be quarter to quarter decisions. Okay. Just over on top of lumber, I mean, you've got deposits over a little under share. I understand that you're, you know, with the Chaleur acquisition, you're taking on those deposits. How much are those deposits that you have for the company, about? Works out to about, it's a moving target, Paul, as we're speaking. Give about $90 million or so US of deposits. Okay. Anything happening on that file or what's Interfor's stance on trying to get some of this money back? Yeah, Paul, I'll take that. I mean, I guess the short answer is that there's not too much happening. I mean, the CUSMA appeal process is really just getting started. We've now got the panel set up for the original investigative results. That process is now underway. Took five years to get that far. We do have a sunset review that's coming up, where they'll take a look at it and make a determination of whether injury is still possible and whether this continues. We don't expect too much to come out of that, but it is a review process that happens at the five-year mark. Beyond those two things, you know, there's really no extensive conversations beyond the normal, I think, that would point to anything changing in the near term. Okay. Just on timing, when does the injury review come up? Is that a couple of months and you're not expecting something terribly for the Canadians there? That's correct. It's always at the five-year mark. It's called a sunset review. You know, we'll see what that process brings, but we're, you know, any of the active participants in this file will be busy preparing, you know, statements and whatnot, you know, to present through that process. You know, we'll see where it goes. But again, you can't really speculate, but I can tell you that generally not many people are thinking it's gonna add up to much. Okay. The timing on the original review that's now underway, is that a year-long process, or is that longer? What is typical on that? I don't know that you can even look at what's typical. I mean, it took five years to get a panel struck. They've got a bit of a catch-up here to go on that. You know, I think, you know, I actually don't know, Paul. It's one of those things that goes real time, and I wouldn't wanna speculate on exactly how long that process will take. I'm just glad that it's underway. Okay. Bart, while I got you, just because you're pretty familiar with North American markets, if you can just give me a recap of what's going on offshore? Sure. I mean, the business offshore, you know, I would term it as average. Certainly, you know, our exports to Japan, you know, albeit it's stable I suppose quarter-over-quarter, but I would call them slightly depressed as that market works through, you know, what was a fairly significant inventory position. So we'll be looking for that market to improve as we move into 2023. When it comes to the other markets, there's just some geopolitical issues there that you have to be mindful to. So I, you know, I believe they'll be generally opportunistic markets. I think the price of lumber in North America is attractive. So that will spur on some business. However, you know, I'm not looking to the export markets to solve any of the demand side issues that we're gonna be facing in 2023. So it'll be more of the same, I suspect. Great. That's all I had. Best of luck, guys. Thanks. Thanks, Paul. Okay. Next we'll go to Hamir Patel with CIBC Capital Markets. Your line's open. Hi. Good morning. Ian, can you give us your sense of how your costs in BC would kind of change in Q4 and in Q1, just at least in terms of stumpage? Yeah. Well, Rick's got. He's pointing at me. He's got the numbers. Go ahead, Rick. Hey, good morning, Hamir. It's Rick speaking. So just looking at B.C. interior stumpage, in Q3 it was about $ 86 a cubic meter. We're expecting that to drop down in Q4 to about $45 a cubic meter. Then looking out to Q1 2023, it'll be about $ 30 per cubic meter as an estimate. Okay. Great. Thanks, Rick. That's helpful. Just the last question I had was just on CapEx. What should we expect for full year 2022, and any sense yet on 2023? Yeah. It's above 300 or so. Is that right, Rick? That's right. Looking out to 2023, we're still going through our budgeting planning process, but you can expect it to be in the same ballpark as this year, so around $ 300 million. Great. Thanks. That's all I had. I'll get back. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back over to Ian Fillinger for any additional or closing remarks. Okay. Thank you, operator. In closing, we're focused on maintaining the health, safety, and wellbeing of our employees. We continue to drive cost reductions across our company. We're matching our production rates to our order files, and we're continuing with a balanced approach to capital allocation. I'd like to thank everyone for dialing in and participating in our call this morning and your interest in our company. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to myself, Rick, or Bart at any time. Thanks, and have a great day. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.