Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, thank you for joining the Q2 2023 report of Nordic Paper. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Henrik Essén. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. My name is Henrik Essén. I'm Head of Investor Relations in Nordic Paper. My name is Anita Sjölander, I'm CEO in Nordic Paper. My name is Niclas Eriksson, CFO of Nordic Paper, and today I have a cold. To save you listeners from sudden cough attacks, the financial analysis will be presented by my colleague, Henrik Essén, and I will stay in the background if there are questions. Yeah, thank you, Niclas, for participating, even though you're not feeling so well. I have had the privilege to be CEO in Nordic Paper now since 2019, working with this team of employees in the company. It's a bit more than 700 employees, highly skilled in the specialty paper field, and dedicated to serve our customers worldwide with high quality paper. I started my journey with Nordic Paper five years ago, but I have been working a bit longer than that in the pulp and paper business. I'm starting now to count on my 29th year, actually. I made my mind up that I wanted to work with this after my first contact when I was doing a summer job during my university studies as an operator in the pulp mill, I knew that this is it. What made my heart tick at that time was many reasons, but very important for me was that this product is based on renewable resources. It's also, paper can have so many different applications and improve everyday life of people. Increasingly important is that when paper is replacing fossil-based material, we're also contributing to lower climate impact. In this way, I mean, that's why I loved my job and being a part of Nordic Paper. We can contribute to a better world in this way. That we can do together with our shareholders. We have now more than 12,000 shareholders that are joining our journey forward. That is 4 times as many as when I built in October 2020. We have shareholders that have been with us for a long time, but we also have then quite many new shareholders. I would like to start this call with just making a high level overview of Nordic Paper and who we are. We are a niche producer and a global supplier of the specialty paper. Europe is our main market, and we are providing this high quality paper to more than 800 customers all over the world. Our customers, we have low churn of customers, and we have created long-term relationships and loyalty with them. For many of the customers, we are a preferred supplier. In Nordic Paper, we have two segments. We have the kraft paper segment, and we have the Natural Greaseproof segment. In both of these segments, we are producing paper that can be used for handling, packaging, transporting, protecting goods. The majority of the paper is actually going into handling food, into food applications. That's also where we see a steadily growing demand for our paper. That's also where you might most likely will get into contact with our paper. When it comes to our unbleached strong kraft paper, you will find that when you enter into a grocery shop, and you put fruit and vegetables in a paper bag, or when you are carrying home some of your shopping, it could be either groceries or clothes. Also, if you order a pizza, and you will get it delivered in a pizza box that can be reheated. Besides food applications, we also have other applications, like paper for e-commerce and other technical and industrial end uses. When it comes to those applications, we have chosen to be less exposed to the more cyclical end uses, such as the paper for the building industry, cement sacks, for example. The greaseproof paper, that is designed for food contact. We have several certificates for different kind of food contact, and you can find this paper both for... It's also served for professionals, that they're using it when they are cooking and baking, but it's also in the retail, so that we can buy it and use it at home as well. For this segment, we have chosen the name Natural Greaseproof, and that's just we want to highlight how we differentiate ourselves to some of our competitors. We are not adding any harmful fluorochemicals to achieve the property greaseproofness. That was a short, high-level overview of the company, and now it's time to get into the results. That's results that we have achieved in a continuing volatile situation in the world. When we're looking in the rear mirror now, we have three years behind us. We've had the pandemic, with impact on global business and supply chain. We have financial uncertainty, and we also have geopolitical tension, which is triggered by the Russian war, and that has, of course, also increased the level of uncertainty in general. This is also times where we have proven the resilience of the business model of Nordic Paper, which we have done by continuing to deliver great results throughout these times. We are also in quarter two this year, we are delivering a very healthy EBITDA margin at 19.2%. This quarter has had its challenges also for Nordic Paper, as the market has remained soft. It's not soft because we have a lower end demand for our product in the long term. It's not that our business model is challenged. On the contrary, our high exposure, we have more than 65% of our net sales exposed to the food sector, where we see a stable increase over time, and also supported by the global mega trend of replacing fossil material. It's not, it's not, any disbelief in the long-term outlook. The challenge is rather in the short and midterm perspective, where our demand has been impacted by stock variations. That has been seen in several steps. Looking back in 2020 and 2021, many of our customers increased their level of inventories, they did so because they fear of losing out on their own business, fear of lacking supplies of paper, also the disruptions in the global logistics chain strengthened that trend. What we see now is destocking ongoing at our customers, they are reducing their inventory levels to more normal levels. In the short and midterm, that is impacting our business. It's doing so differently when it comes to different product groups and also in different geographies, in different geographies. What we see currently is an impact on our baking cup paper in the segment, Natural Greaseproof, for our machine glazed kraft paper in the kraft paper segment. For some other, some of the other product groups, we expect that we will return to more normal patterns. When it comes to differences in geography, we see a stronger Asia, remaining unchanged soft market in Europe and a decreasing North America. However, it's also important to emphasize that long term, of course, it is positive that we are getting back to a situation where the customer demand is the ruling factor in the market. In this softer environment, it is ensuring to see that our business model has proven resilience. Our EBITDA margin, as I said, is at a healthy 19.2%. Our net sales is modestly down to SEK 1.12 billion, and we are comparing now with a very strong corresponding quarter in 2022. A -2% is really modestly. We have a strong cash flow at SEK 245 million. Our balance sheet is remaining very strong as well. We have a low net debt to EBITDA ratio at 1.3. Earnings per share in the quarter, 2.16 SEK per share. For the rolling twelve months, it is 8.35 SEK per share. Looking into the net sales and EBITDA development on the next page here, we can see, looking back now again, under 2022, it was a really fantastic and very strong year, driven by increased product prices and also very high sales volume. Comparing year-on-year with a very strong quarter two, we see this modest decrease of net sales by 2%. Net sales ended up on SEK 1.12 billion, a result of lower, still higher prices in local currency, but lower sales volumes. EBITDA, SEK 215 million, which adds up to the healthy margin of EBITDA of 19.2%. I mentioned that the sales volumes were lower for this quarter. In this soft market, we want to protect our price level, and we have decided to reduce our sales volumes. We look here on the next slide, we can see the development of sales volumes for Nordic Paper. As a supplier of niche specialty paper, we normally have very stable sales volumes. We are comparing against a strong quarter two, as you can see, we had very good sales volumes in that quarter. We have a reduction of 11% in the sales volume. That is the result. As I said, we have seen price pressure. We want to protect our price level. We have decided to reduce the sales volumes for that reason. As we only produce against orders, that means that we have also reduced the production volumes. I said that we have two segments in the company, kraft paper segment and Natural Greaseproof segment. I will now present the results for these two segments individually. I will start with the kraft paper segment. In kraft paper segment, we are supplying our customers with unbleached kraft paper. We are producing this paper in two production units, both are situated in Sweden. All paper that we are producing here is based on our own production of unbleached pulp. When we sell this paper to our customers, they are converting it into bags and sacks and packaging for food, but also some other goods, like I mentioned, for industrial end use as well. Now, when global logistics chains are returning back to more normal situation, paper is available with shorter lead time for our customers. Also with the expectations on prices going down, our customers is lowering their inventory levels to more normal levels again. Given that then, that the demand has remained soft, the net sales has come down slightly, 2%, to SEK 614 million in quarter two this year. Product prices decreased from quarter one this year, when we are comparing to quarter two last year, we have still 3% higher product prices in local currency. We have seen for quite a long time now, great EBITDA margins in this segment. We continue to deliver a great margin also for quarter two at 30.4%. When it comes to the new production permit in Bäckhammar, the situation is unchanged. We are still waiting for the new production permit to gain legal force. We come into the other segment, Natural Greaseproof, the market in this segment has had very much the same prerequisites as for the kraft paper. The stocking ongoing as our customers in several markets, resulting in a soft market. Again, comparing with a very strong quarter two last year, net sales is down by 4% to SEK 519 million. In order to protect our price level, our decision has been to reduce sales volume. We did that in quarter one, we've also done that in quarter two. Comparing to the very strong quarter two last year, we have reduced sales volumes by 16%. Product prices decreased from Q1 to Q2, but still comparing to quarter two last year, we are on a level that is 8% higher in local currency. Looking at the graph on this slide, you can see that the 3 last quarters, we have been improving our level on the EBITDA margin. Compared to quarter two last year, we have moved from 6.8% to 12%. Of course, we're pleased to see this development, and it mainly stems from our work to increase our product prices and also reduce price and cost for freight, energy, and pulp. now I would like to hand over to my colleague, Henrik, that will lead us through the development on the financials. Over to you, Henrik. Thank you for that, Anita. Looking at the net sales bridge for the Q2, we see that net sales ended at SEK 1.12 billion, which is a slight decrease of 2% from the same quarter last year. Volume and product mix is the largest component of this bridge. Compared to the Q2 of 2022, which was a quarter with a very strong delivery, our sales volumes in ton decreased by 11%, explained by production curtailment in the quarter. Looking further in this bridge, we turn to price. Nordic Paper implemented several price increases in both segments during last year. In Natural Greaseproof, we also implemented energy surcharges on top of the prices to mitigate the increased energy prices seen on the market. Due to this development last year, our prices in the Q2 of this year were 6% higher than in 2022, in the Q2 of 2022, which gives a positive effect to the net sales of SEK 66 million. Our invoicing currencies, which is mainly euro, US dollars, and British pounds, have been stronger in 2023 compared to last year. Currencies then gives a positive impact to the net sales of SEK 71 million. From net sales, we move on to EBITDA. EBITDA has decreased somewhat from the high level of SEK 247 million in quarter two, 2022, to SEK 215 million this quarter. Also, for EBITDA, volume is the largest component of the bridge, with SEK 103 million in negative impact. The positive price impact of SEK 66 million, we recognize from the previous slide. Costs for input materials show in total a marginal change compared to the same period last year, but within the group of input materials, there is price development going in different directions. Compared to the Q2, 2022, there has been a significant increase in prices for pulpwood, about 50%, with a negative impact on kraft paper segment. While many other input materials have decreased in price, such as pulp, freights, costs, and electricity. Prices for chemicals are in a falling trend, but still higher than last year. The currency effect we saw in net sales before is on EBITDA level, offset by purchases of input materials in other currencies, and also by currency derivatives. The EBITDA impact from currency was SEK 24 million compared to Q2 2023. It's not only the end of the Q2 we have seen, it's also the end of the first half year of 2023. Looking now at net sales for the first half year of 2023, and compared to the same period last year, we see the same pattern as in the previous slides for the Q2. The difference is in the relative importance of the components of the bridge, where we have a larger positive impact from price for the first half year, which is supported by the record high price level we had at the beginning of this year, 2023. Lower sales volumes gave a negative effect, impact to the full period from the production curtailments in both Q1 and Q2 2023. In 2023, our invoicing currencies have been stronger compared to last year, and currencies gives a positive impact to net sales of SEK 144 million. EBITDA bridge for the first half year was SEK 498 million, which is slightly higher than the SEK 484 million we had in the first half year of 2022. By that, it is also the best half year ever for Nordic Paper when it comes to EBITDA in absolute terms. Looking into the components of the bridge, we see the largest impact, SEK 294 million, is from price. The lower sales volumes give a negative impact to EBITDA of SEK 165 million. Year-to-date, the variable costs have been higher than last year, with main impact from higher prices for pulpwood and for chemicals. The average market price for pulp year-to-date is similar to last year, and spot prices for energy have, on average, been lower than the same period last year. We turn to working capital and cash flow. Of course, keeping good control of working capital is part of daily work. From the graph to the left, we see that working capital was very stable compared to the end of June 2022, both in absolute terms, at the level of about SEK 620 million, and also as a percentage of sales, where we ended up in end of June 2023 at 11.9%. We increased finished goods value compared to Q2 2022, but this was balanced by a decrease in accounts receivables and increase in accrued expenses, making the net effect on working capital marginal. We report a high cash flow of SEK 245 million in the quarter, explained primarily by the decrease in accounts receivables. To the financial position. As you can see in the graph, net debt is on low levels compared to historical quarters. In the Q2, we had dividend payout of SEK 311 million, but with the strong cash flow in the quarter, our net debt only increased by about SEK 80 million over the Q2. The leverage increased slightly to 1.3, quarter from Q1, compared to 1.1 at the end of Q1 and 1.2 at the end of 2022, which is well inside the financial goal, to be below 2.5. The strong balance sheet provides us with strategic flexibility. One of our focus areas in the sustainability area is safe work environment. Now Anita will comment on the recent development in this. Yes, thank you, Henrik. To provide a safe work environment with no lost time incidents for our employees, contractors, and visitors in the facility is, of course, of highest priority, and our vision is to have zero incidents. We have not been satisfied with our position on this lost time incident frequency rate the last years, we have launched several initiatives to improve the safety culture in the company. I'm very happy when we're looking now at the first Q2 of this year, that we can report significant progress in this area. Looking at this positive development, we also believe that we are on the right track to improve in safe work environment. Of course, this is a work that never rests. It's a focus of every workday to put safety first, and we will continue to prioritize work to provide a safe work environment in Nordic Paper. That concludes our reporting on the outcome for Q 2, and we would now like to share our outlook for coming Q 3. We started Q 2 with a soft market and price pressure, and we saw a decline in prices during Q 2 compared to the average before. We assess now that what we, based on what we see, that short term, this soft market and the price pressure will remain also during Q 3. We will also in Q 3, to defend our price levels, take some market-related reductions of safe volumes. It's fair to assess that it will be in the same range as we have seen in Q2. We expect that pulp price will continue to decrease, which, like Henrik pointed out in the bridges before, that is positive for our segment, positive impact on Natural Resource segment. We also expect that the pulpwood prices will continue to increase, which will then have an impact on our kraft paper segment. When we combine all the other costs in total, we expect that we'll have a slight decrease from that level. We would also like to remind you, we are now in quarter three, and that's when we normally perform our annual maintenance stocks, and we do that in all our production units. We will have a seasonality effect in quarter three, and in our report, you can find our guidance on the direct costs, but also on the length of the stocks in the production units, where we then reduce the production output. Now that finalizes the report, and we are, of course, happy to take on and answer any questions you might have. Over back to operator. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star, followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star, followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. We have the first question from Harri Tiittanen from Nordea. Please go ahead. Yes, hello, good morning. Well, maybe a question on the, I mean, you commented you've been, you have been able to kind of protect the price levels together with the peers, and just wondering if, I mean, what is the, kind of, the price discipline in the main, for the two divisions in a way? Are you losing market share because others are selling at lower prices, or is that, or is that sort of discipline holding, sort of, throughout the market in your view? Just thinking about how this price pressure might be then sort of realized in the coming quarters. It is a price, has been a price pressure on both the segments. This is also the time when it plays out in our favor, that we have these long relationships with our customers. We are not the first ones to be reduced as our customers. That is not our belief that we are losing out on what's it called in English? Market share. Market share. Thank you, Henrik. We are still getting volumes from our customers, but as they are destocking, we are having reduced sales volumes with them. We are not losing out to competition. That's our estimate what we assess what's happening in the market. Okay. Okay, now, that's good. How about this sort of, also a general question, but if one thinks about that, there are three underlying reasons for the volume weakness. One is the underlying demand, induced demand, then it's the destocking, and then it's the sort of potential changes in imports or supply from additional capacity. Do you see, is there sort of import pressure, or is that sort of a feature in any of your trade areas that, you know, that sort of Asian supply or that might be affecting or other sort of new supply slowing down the destocking process? Well, to our experience, we have not seen competition from new competition coming in from Asia to lower our sales one. That's not what we experience in the market. I mean, we are also very niched specialty paper, it's not, I mean, it's not so easy to get into our end users with the qualifications required for food contact and et cetera. It's not that we have seen any new players coming in, taking any new market share where we are operating with our customers. That is not what we have experienced. Okay, exactly. Well, maybe just a third and final question on the sort of wood raw material market and was steep increases. If one looks at the latest sort of weekly, I mean, it seems that prices are peaking in the market itself, but when would that, if that happens, when would that start to show in your profit and loss? You are still guiding, obviously, wood cost going up, and just wondering about the lag and the dynamics. Yeah, really the only thing we can say there is our outlook for Q3. Where we see, I mean, there is a lag in the price. We do see increasing prices for, that will show up in the P&L for Q3 from pulpwood. How long that will continue, that remains to be seen. Mm. Yeah. It is an anomaly with the increasing pulpwood prices versus more or less all of the forest industry products going down. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, if there's time, one more question on the, on the I mean, you commented in the report that there are some segments that you believe that the kind of destocking has more or less come to an end, and the sort of demand is normalizing. What are the reasons for that? I mean, why do the segments differ in such a way? If you can highlight or sort of give a bit of color on the, on the ones or the segments where you see that the market is getting in a better balance. I would just like to come back to what I think we shared that when we had our Q4 report, that we saw the first sign in absorbent, for example. It's not the biggest part of our net sales, but still, that was the early signs. For example, there we see a return to more normal pattern for that product group. We also see it, I mean, initially, baking paper was a bit slower in Q1, Q2. We see more returning volumes there, and now that has shifted more to the baking cup papers for that segment. In sort of a way, we see some segments that was early, slowing down a bit, is now coming back to more normal, and now it's other product groups that are seeing a more impact, higher impact. It's coming in waves. Some is returning, some is a bit slower right now. Okay, thank you very much. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Ari. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. One moment for the next question, please. Right now, there are no further questions, and I hand back to Anita Sjölander for closing comments. Thank you. Before ending this presentation today, I would just like to get back and strengthen our main message, the results for Q2 and the outlook for Q3. In Q2, our business model again proved its resilience, as we delivered a very healthy margin of 19.2%, and we did this despite lower sales volumes due to production curtailment in this soft market. Good proof of our business model, and our balance sheet is remaining very strong. We have a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.3, and this provides us with strategic flexibility. When it comes to the outlook for Q3, that we assess that the market will remain soft, with the price pressure continuing, and we will take a voluntary reduction of sales volumes to protect our price level. We also sent to you the friendly reminder of the normal seasonality effect from the annual maintenance stops that we perform in Q3, and we will find more details on that in the report. I would like then to hand over to Henrik for final words. Yeah. Thank you very much. That concludes the presentation of our Q2 report. We look forward to seeing you again in October, end of October, for the presentation of our Q3 report. Until then, we wish you a continued nice summer. Thank you, and goodbye. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded and you may disconnect. Thank you very much for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.