Billerud have released its figures for the period January–March 2026. The company confirmed that although sequential sales volume growth was 9%, the EBITDA margin declined to 5%, mainly due to weak profitability in Region Europe.
Net sales decreased by 11% to SEK 9,825m (approx €960m) (Q1 25: 11,101). Adjusted EBITDA was SEK 525m (approx €48m) (Q1 25: 1,388). The operating profit/loss was SEK -229m (approx -€21m) (Q1 25: 638) including items impacting comparability of SEK -47m (approx €4m).
“The first quarter result of 2026 was once again characterised by different market realities in our two regions. Continued strong performance in North America while Region Europe was as expected weak,” said Ivar Vatne, President and CEO. “Encouragingly, we achieved significant sequential volume growth across both regions but profitability was challenging due to price pressure and cost headwinds. Geopolitical events continue to create unpredictability and uncertainty. We have managed the impact from the Middle East conflict well and have not experienced any production or delivery disturbances. Our cost-saving program is ahead of plan, and all planned staff reductions have now been completed. The cash conversion for the first quarter was solid and improved versus the same period last year.
“Region North America had another solid quarter with sequential volume uplift across all categories. Pulp prices were up while pricing remained stable for other products. Profitability reached 16% EBITDA margin. Unusually challenging weather conditions during the quarter led to unplanned production downtime, higher energy and logistics costs. Navigating through weather challenges, we once again proved our value proposition by being a local partner with predictable deliveries to our customers. We continued to make progress on our packaging materials evolution journey and reached all-time high sales.
“As expected, Region Europe’s EBITDA margin was weak (2%) with pricing pressure, currency headwind, loss of emission rights and higher maintenance cost. Our sales volumes increased significantly (+11% versus Q4) across most categories. Liquid packaging board showed particularly strong performance with a net sales growth of 17%, partly due to better-than-expected pull from Asia but also due to low Q4 deliveries. The volume increase should also be seen in the light of supply chain uncertainties linked to the Middle East conflict and inventory adjustment ahead of anticipated price increases from Q2. Despite the volume uplift, we don’t see clear evidence of a consumer-driven market recovery so far in 2026.
“It is obvious that the European paper and packaging sector is fighting deep structural imbalances. Overcapacity is now the new normal versus being a short-term cyclical phenomena. Further consolidation and capacity rationalisation seem inevitable within our sector to restore a healthier balance between supply and demand and lift profitability to a more sustainable level in our capital-intensive sector.
“Our priorities for 2026 remain. We stay firm to our Way Forward strategy and focus on items we can control. We have a strong business in North America that we continue to build on with our Evolution program to shift our portfolio towards packaging materials. We will in 2026 upgrade our machines at Quinnesec and Escanaba to further enable board production. As a domestic producer, we have an excellent position in North America to offer our customer base high-performance products with short lead times, and we see further potential to strengthen our position.
“In Europe, where the market sentiment is more challenging, we take decisive actions to improve cost competitiveness by reducing both variable and fixed costs while remaining a relevant and value-adding partner for our customers. We stay disciplined about working capital and maintain a prudent capex plan. We target to deliver fixed cost savings of around SEK 150m in the second quarter and in total SEK 550m for the full year of 2026, ahead of our ingoing plan.
“For the second quarter, we expect to restore a strong underlying profitability level (excluding maintenance shutdown impact) in North America. Our order books remain solid, and we have recently announced price increases to mitigate variable cost inflation. For Region Europe, we expect further cost reliefs from lower Nordic pulpwood prices and our cost-saving program. We have announced several rounds of broad-based price increases to mitigate cost inflation on logistics and chemicals in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East.
He concluded, “Our balance sheet remains healthy, and our financing position strengthened in the first quarter with a successful issue of new long-term financing despite geopolitical uncertainty.”
