Suzano SA

BOVESPA:SUZB3

Q2-2025 Earnings Call

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding, and welcome to Suzano's conference call to discuss the results for the second quarter of 2025. We would like to inform that all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the presentation that will be addressed by the CEO, Mr. Beto Abreu and other executive officers. This call will be presented in English with simultaneous translation to Portuguese. [Operator Instructions]

Before proceeding, please be aware that any forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Suzano's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. You should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Suzano and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements.

Now I will turn the conference over to Mr. Beto Abreu. Please, you may begin your presentation.

[João Fernandez de Abreu, executive]

Thank you, everyone, for attending our second quarter results from Suzano. I would like to start sharing a couple of highlights of our results in the second quarter, but also I would like to cover and give you more details about the relevant information that we shared last night with all of you and with the market. Regarding the results, all the numbers was quite in line with what we planned, with what we expected, mainly regarding sales, operational cash, but I want to reinforce that the trend that we saw regarding the cash cost is something that we will see in the next quarter. So we are really expecting even lower cost in the third quarter regarding the second quarter and even lower in the last quarter. Aires will be able to cover that specific topic with more details.

I also would like to share with you more details regarding the swap and the deal that was announced with Eldorado. And -- just to give you a summary about the concept here, what's going to happen is that we're going to be able, once we signed already the deal is to start harvesting their wood immediately in 2025, but also in 2026 and 2027. And we will have to give it back the same amount of volume, and they will start harvesting 2028, '29, '30 and '31. So that will allow our forest to grow during this period of time and then much more volume in terms of cubic meter will be available in our operation.

That, of course, means cost avoidance, CapEx avoidance, to be very honest, in terms of less planning and also less wood to be acquired in the market, and we will also be able to reduce on a very important way, the ratio, the a ratio for our operations, mainly in Ribas and Três Lagoas. So this is the kind of deal that we want to pursue considering the amount of value that is generating for the business. We are expecting an internal return of the deal, which will be around 20%. That's what we are expecting with this deal with Eldorado.

So I want also to mention that the deal will bring us an optionality to in the future, increase production at the Ribas mill since we have been learning that the capacity of that mill is even higher than the one that is in the plan. So that mill might be able to produce something between 100,000 and 150,000 tons per year more than was originally planned. That's what we have been learning in the mill in the last couple of months. So the deal that we are doing now, we also create the optionality for the company to increase in the future production in this mill without any investment if we decide to do it. And if the market brings the right environment to justify any kind of increase in terms of production.

So that's the rationale behind the deal, and we can also comment more detail if you want during the call. The other thing that I would like to mention is that the communication regarding the 3.5% of production of reduction in our production in the next 12 months, it's completely aligned with our objectives to produce with the right level of return. That's not only about, of course, producing with more -- with generating cash, but it's producing with the right level of return that we expect from our operation. So we are being absolutely consistent with what we have been doing in the last couple of years. Just also to give more detail regarding the process, we should reduce on a linear way in the next 12 months, the reduction in our operation.

So Leo can also comment regarding the business environment, and this is a decision that we use to accept from the finance team that is controlling all the time the profitability and the level of return of any ton of pulp that we produce in our mills. I will finish mentioning that our focus, as I have been mentioning in the other calls, will be on competitiveness. This is why I'm highlighting the trend regarding the cash cost in the next quarter and also in executing the deal that we signed with KC, firstly, making sure that the carve-out will be done on time and on budget, but also making sure that we do not bring any new distraction in terms of new initiatives on the M&A arena for the table.

We want to concentrate to execute well what we have on the table right now. So again, in the next 2 years, that will be our focus on executing our process on deleveraging and also making sure that our level of competitiveness will keep increasing in our operational side. So that's the main highlights that I would like to share with you, again, saying that sales, operational cash generation and EBITDA was absolutely in line with what the team here has planned for the quarter.

Having said that, I would like to hand over to Fabio, who will cover the Paper and Packaging business.

[Fabio Almeida Oliveira, executive]

Thank you, Beto, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to the next page of the presentation. Our second quarter results were marked by stronger sales volumes and lower costs versus Q1 with EBITDA growth from our Brazilian operations on a quarter-over-quarter and a year-over-year basis. Although Brazilian operations didn't have any planned maintenance in the quarter, as I have mentioned to you on our last call, we conducted in April our annual maintenance at the Pine Bluff mill, which was executed on time and slightly below budget, but negatively impact U.S. operations EBITDA due to the lower volumes and higher costs.

Regarding price performance in Q2 versus Q1, starting with our Brazilian operations, the 1% price hike in the domestic market was more than offset by lower export prices as a result of product mix, regional location strategy and BRL appreciation. Regarding price performance on our U.S. operations, the 3% hike quarter-over-quarter was driven by product mix and better commercial location. Now talking about demand dynamic in Q2, looking to the Brazilian market and according to IBA, print and write demand, including imports, rose 6% in the first 2 months of Q2 year-over-year. Domestic sales grew 6% and imports grew 9%, driven mainly from higher demand for uncoated paper linked to the Brazilian government textbook program. Cut size demand remained stable, while coated paper demand in Brazil shrunk in the same period.

Outside Brazil and according to PPPC, uncoated wood-free paper demand, our main exported product remained stable in North America and Latin America, but declined 10% in Europe. International markets continued to show weak demand for print and white paper grades during the quarter due to unfavorable supply-demand balance and ongoing trade war uncertainties. Turning to paperboard demand. In Brazil, we saw a 3% demand increase in the first 2 months versus last year, with domestic sales up 5% and imports down 3% in the period. In the U.S. market, a focus region for Suzano packaging operations, according to Nomura, boxboard demand was stable in the first 6 months of 2025. However, demand for SBS boards, which Suzano Pack produces has increased 1% over the same period, albeit coming 1% reduction versus Q1.

Looking ahead to Suzano's Paper and Packaging business in Q3, we expect costs in our Brazilian operations to remain stable versus Q2 as no maintenance downtimes are scheduled. At Suzano Package in the U.S., we anticipated lower costs along with higher production and sales volumes. We are confident in delivering positive EBITDA from this operation going forward. Sales volumes in Brazil are expected to increase versus Q2 given market seasonality, higher prices should remain stable. Before diving into our paper export performance, it's important to highlight that our paper exports were not exempt from the 50% import duties imposed by the U.S. government starting in August.

To mitigate the impact, Suzano has built inventories in the U.S. that are sufficient to cover most of our sales throughout the year-end, and we are now planning to redirect the majority of our exports in the U.S. to other regions. Currently, the U.S. accounts for around 20% of our total exports, and we are running different actions to mitigate the impact of the tariffs moving forward.

Now I'll hand over to Leo, who will be presenting our Pulp business results.

[Leonardo Grimaldi, executive]

Thanks, Fabio. Thanks, Fabio, and good morning, everyone. Let's now turn to our pulp business unit, where I'd like to highlight key developments for this past quarter. The second quarter was impacted by market disruptions in China following Liberation Day as announced by the U.S. government. These developments led to a temporary halt in Chinese purchases of pulp in the first half of the quarter, pressuring inventory buildup at main import hubs and triggering significant price corrections as the quarter evolved. Prices in Europe and North America followed the same downward price trend as the quarter evolved with the usual lag.

Our order intake recovered from mid-May onwards, allowing us to effectively execute our sales and regional distribution strategy and keeping inventory stable in line with our previously announced plans. The flattish price performance in our Q2 '25 results compared to the previous quarter is primarily due to the time gap between order intake and revenue recognition, combined with the fact that average prices outside China remain higher for longer during the period. Looking to the right side of our slide, the combination of higher volumes, lower costs and stable prices in U.S. dollar terms resulted in a BRL 5.4 billion EBITDA equivalent to 52% EBITDA margin.

Now looking forward, I would like to highlight the following points. In China, following a strong sales performance in June, our July order intake reached exceptionally high levels. Purchase orders from our regular customers exceeded their historic averages, and we also saw a notable purchasing level from integrated pulp and paper producers. Our sources in China indicate that such buying pattern has not only been seen by Suzano, but across the broad hardwood market, suggesting that a restocking movement seems to be underway. In July, in China, paper and board production recovered to healthy levels, contributing to a reduction in pulp inventories at Chinese ports from the peaks in mid-June.

This high operating rate, combined with the typical seasonal uptick in demand expected for most markets from late August onwards is likely to support further increases in paper production going forward. In the supply side, new unexpected developments have begun to emerge, including extended maintenance and commercial downtimes and the additional dissolving pulp production campaign in Brazil by a major BHKP player. And we believe that further driven adjustments, further supply-driven adjustments are both likely and imminent.

We are now entering the 10th consecutive month with prices below the estimated marginal cash cost of $600. This represents an equivalent of more than 7 million tons of hardwood production or 15% of global hardwood capacity underwater as we speak. Additionally, pulp prices across all regions have already converged to Chinese levels. In our view, this combination creates an unsustainable economic environment for high-cost pulp producers. In response to more favorable demand outlook and emerging supply constraints, we have announced to all Asian customers, Chinese customers included a $20 per ton price increase effective immediately for August sales orders. We are closely monitoring market dynamics in other regions where further upward pricing actions are being actively evaluated as part of our ongoing commercial strategy.

With that said, I would now like to invite Aires to address our cash cost performance for the past quarter.

[Aires Galhardo, executive]

Thank you, Leo, and good morning, everyone. Moving ahead, in the second quarter, all cash cost components declined versus first quarter 2025, mainly due to stronger operational performance as the quarter was free of scheduled maintenance downtimes, which led to lower fixed costs and higher energy exports. The reduction in average logging ranges at our Imperatriz, Aracruz and Três Lagoas operations was the main driver behind the decrease in the wood costs. Compared to the second quarter of 2024, cash costs remained virtually stable. Lower fixed costs and higher energy exports were supported by a new Ribas mill.

However, the 9% depreciation of the Brazilian reals against U.S. dollars, combined with rising price of certain chemicals such as caustic soda, negatively impact the cash cost figure. Although operational performance improved in the second quarter of 2025 compared to quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, some nonrecurring events during the quarter limited to a more significant reduction in the cash costs. Looking ahead, we continue to expect a downward trend in the cash cost over the coming quarters of 2025, supported by lower wood costs and the start-up of a new biomass power boiler in Aracruz in the fourth quarter. In this context, we maintain our outlook for average cash cost in 2024 -- 2025 to remain close to the level recorded in the fourth quarter 2024 when we reached BRL 807 per ton on an ex downtime basis.

This said, I invite Marcos to continue the presentation.

[Marcos Assumpcao, executive]

Thank you, Aires. Good morning, everyone. So on Slide 7, you can see that our net debt remained relatively stable sequentially at $13 billion. Our net leverage ticked up to 3.1x from 3.0x last quarter, namely impacted by the reduction in last 12-month EBITDA to $4.2 billion. We maintained a healthy amortization schedule with more than 6 years of average maturity and a solid cash position, which covers the company's obligations in the upcoming 3 years.

Moving to Slide 8. You can see our hedge position. We closed the second quarter of 2025 with an operational hedge position of $6.8 billion, and it's worth highlighting that our current portfolio of zero cost collars has an average put option of $5.53, which is above today's FX level and an average put option of $6.41. So we are very well protected for the scenario that we're living today. We also posted positive financial results of BRL 4.4 billion, helped by the 5% BRL appreciation, which had a positive impact on our debt position in U.S. dollars and also on the mark-to-market of our derivatives position.

Now I would like to hand it over to Beto for his final remarks.

[João Fernandez de Abreu, executive]

Thank you, Marcos. Most of the topics that we can see here in the last slide, I'm sure that I was able to cover during the introduction. So my suggestion is to go directly for the Q&A. So thank you for attending the call, and I -- we will wait for the questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Marcio Farid with Goldman Sachs.

[Marcio Farid Filho, analyst]

[Foreign Language]

[Leonardo Grimaldi, executive]

We're going to start with your second question just because of our other participants, I will translate or try to translate this question in English, which is why we're seeing the changing dynamics in the pulp scenario that allowed us to announce the $20 price increase for Asia, China including and also the effects of yesterday's recent news on about Chenming. As I mentioned in my speech, we have been seeing very high order intake levels in China since June. In July, this level reached exceptionally high levels in all kinds of customers in our portfolio. So I'm talking about the regular pulp customers, nonintegrated mills.

I'm also talking about integrated pulp and paper mills who obviously, as a consequence of this higher pattern in pulp purchases should be reducing their pulp production. And also even as per our knowledge, traders in the market already starting a restocking pattern. When we see also that cross with the production levels in China, which in July showed recovery to most grades. And as we come into what is now the highest seasonality period of the year in terms of paper production and pulp consumption, we see a scenario that is supportive. And added to that, the unexpected events that we're tracking in terms of flex capacity to dissolving pulp, extended maintenance downtimes and commercial and commercial downtimes.

And our belief that this is just the beginning of a big cycle of commercial downtimes due to the fact that 15% of all pulp production today is under water that led us to decide this price increase for China and for all other Asian markets as well. Regarding other markets, also part of your question, we are analyzing that as we speak. And we -- as this is a commodity, we believe that similar trends should follow suit in the following weeks or months. Regarding Chenming, our evaluation of the news that we read yesterday is not very different than what we were hearing before.

As we have been tracking, as of November last year, they started to halt their production and then completely by December, but there is a huge political push for the restarting or for solving the issue at the Chenming mill or mills, right, the 5 mills that are part of the Chenming Group. Our knowledge is that this financial deal that was disclosed yesterday is focused a lot on the Shouguang plant, which is a big paper producing plant. And most of it is to revamp paper machines. So in the beginning, I actually believe that this will be positive to the pulp market as they will be consuming market pulp rather than vertically integrating as they have done in the past.

Our analysis also shows that this amount of money is extremely small compared to all the finance that they need to recover or recoup all the idled machines that have stopped since December. And idling a stop machine, either paper and even more difficultly pulp is not easy. So that involves a lot of time, involves a lot of money, a lot of effort to return to the former patterns of production. Also, we're starting in a moment where paper -- new paper machines, new printing writing paper machines have started, some of them integrated is very difficult.

I think that will pose a big challenge to whatever action is taken even at the smaller fraction of what is or what used to be Chenming or what used to be Chenming. But most importantly, and this check I did today early morning prior to our call, talking to our main customers who used to compete against Chenming, our customers don't see any effect in the short term are not worried at all about yesterday's news and are confident about the short-term fundamentals that I mentioned previously.

[Marcio Farid Filho, analyst]

That's great. And sorry, my question was in Portuguese. Sorry about that.

[Marcos Assumpcao, executive]

No worries. Marcio, Marcos here. Answering your first question, which was regarding the internal rate of return of the deal that we announced with Eldorado. I'll try to explain you the rationale here and you understand where the levers are coming from. So first, we want to make sure that we have our whole harvesting base for the Mato Grosso do Sul established already. However, we were running before probably with an average life of -- average age of our forestry a little bit below the optimum level. With this deal, we can push the average life of our forestry to the optimum level, and this will optimize our CapEx and OpEx in the region.

So by having the right age when we're harvesting, we will be able to reduce our harvesting area. So we will operate also on a more concentrated area, which will reduce our logistic costs and our operating costs as well. By having -- by being able to cut wood at a more mature age, we will have the ability to reduce our specific consumption at our mills, which also reduce our industrial cost. On the CapEx avoidance side, as we are cutting less area or harvesting less area, we also reduced our planting effort, reducing our CapEx on the forestry formation, and we will be able to reduce also the amount of wood that we buy from third parties. So when we combine all those benefits, we get to an internal rate of return by reducing our CapEx and reducing our OpEx of around 20% level.

And I'd like to highlight that these returns could be even higher if we have the ability to increase the production at our Ribas mill, as Beto mentioned, that is running a little bit above what we were expecting before. And of course, we will only do that if we have a healthy price environment at the moment.

[Marcio Farid Filho, analyst]

That's great, Marcos. Just a quick follow-up. Obviously, the production cut that you announced is probably not related to Mato Grosso do Sul. But this is the third year. Can we call it the structure now, the 3%, 4% cut or you will continue to evaluate year-by-year?

[Marcos Assumpcao, executive]

Marcio, we don't disclose the regions where we are -- the regions or the plants that we are reducing production. But you can consider that we have a very detailed analysis on mill by mill and also on each type of wood that we have on every mill. So we categorize all of our costs by own land, by leased land and also by wood that we buy from third party. And also, we have clusters in each of those types of wood depending on the logistic costs.

So if we have a short distance, a medium distance and a high -- longer distance from the forestry to the mill. By doing these matrix, we get that we have today close to 3% to 4% of our production that is well above the average of our cash cost that is generating cash at this moment, but not meaningful returns for the company. And that's why we decided to -- in this type of environment, to reduce production, and this will have a minimal impact on EBITDA for the company.

[Operator]

Next question from Rafael Barcellos with Bradesco BBI.

[Rafael Barcellos, analyst]

My first question is for Beto. Beto, you mentioned in the beginning of your speech that Ribas could produce more going forward without a significant investment. So firstly, I wanted to confirm the number. I understand that you mentioned between 100,000 and 150,000 tons more. And also, I wanted to understand more about the timing of this addition. Other than that, in this context, since I understand, I mean, as Marcos just said, the company will rationalize production levels depending on market conditions.

Could you please just elaborate a bit more on what should be seen as a normalized production level going forward if we enter into a scenario of pulp prices below the $550 per ton level for a bit longer? Or in the end, I mean, if this recent production cut announcement already considers this scenario, just to understand better the assumption here. And then my second question is about your packaging business in the U.S. You mentioned that in the third Q you mentioned that the third Q should mark the first quarter of positive EBITDA.

So could you please give more color on the main opportunities that you have already identified in the U.S. packaging market? And of course, what could -- what we could consider in terms of potential profitability and organic growth in the region? And lastly, whether are you analyzing any further significant investments in the region?

[João Fernandez de Abreu, executive]

Rafael, thank you for the question. Let me cover first the question related to the capacity of Ribas. Firstly, just to be very clear, any additional production at Ribas mill does not request any CapEx. There is no bottleneck to be discussed. This is just the way that we are running the mill at this time. So the Ribas mill is already running at full capacity. Remember that the business case and the nominal capacity that we were considering for the mill was 2.55 million tons.

And we have been learning that we can produce more. And again, this is something between 100,000 and 150,000 tons per year exactly with the same mill that we have today with no further investment. This is just about a mill that's performing better than we expected. So that's the point here. And when this extra production can be executed will, of course, depend on the business environment. So we can do this in the next quarters depending on the business environment. So that's why having the optionality of extra wood in case we decide to increase production is also a very important benefit from the deal that we just announced.

[Marcos Assumpcao, executive]

And Rafael, just to complement, we don't provide a guidance on production. But what you can consider is that we were producing at full capacity. And now we announced this 3.5 production reduction, which is equivalent to 450,000 tons, and we're starting that as of now. 450,000 reduction is for 12 months.

[Fabio Almeida Oliveira, executive]

Rafael, Fabio here. I'm going to take your second question about our packaging business in the United States. As I have been mentioning to you, our main focus has been on driving our cash cost down at the mill. And after our annual maintenance shutdown, our focus now is to have lower cost moving forward. We have some projects internally that will help us to keep pushing the cost down and also better runability as we expect in the second half of the year. As in the market, we have contractual price increases that it's going to be ticking up in the second half of this year.

This has been contracted when we renew our contracts at the end of last year. So part of the price increase are going to come to life now in the second half. That's going to help. And regarding opportunities, we're expanding our markets that we serve. So this mill was mainly serving liquid packaging board. We're now growing to food service. Just to give you a number, our sales per cup stock has grown almost 200% when compared to the same period of last year. So we are trying also to broaden our product portfolio, markets that we serve. And for sure, we have opportunities that we're looking at the market as we always do in all the markets that Suzano works. And -- but we're only going to pursue anything, as Beto has mentioned at the beginning of the call, if we have the right return for the company. So that's it.

[Rafael Barcellos, analyst]

Just a quick follow-up on this U.S. packaging business. When are you expecting to capture the full benefit of all of these initiatives?

[Fabio Almeida Oliveira, executive]

We have a plan that until the end of -- it's going to be -- second half of this year is going to be much better than the first half and then full capture 2026. And then after that, we still have ways of improving our profitability there, but that's probably going to require some CapEx that we need to discuss internally here.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Leo Correa with BTG.

[Leonardo Correa, analyst]

Yes. So a couple of questions on my side. The first one more on market-related topics and the second one on more of a company-specific issue. So starting with the market question, moving back to the big discussion maybe of the day, right, Leo, on the capacity cuts, given how depressed prices have been over the past several months, which clearly seems unsustainably low, right? Suzano came out with this -- let's say, with this message, right, on cutting capacity. And as always, we're waiting for others to follow, right, Leo. Just given how needed these supply cuts are.

I just wanted to hear what you're seeing, right? I mean you mentioned about Bracell switching to dissolving. We obviously saw Suzano. But what else are you seeing in the market, right? You're talking about imminent cuts. From our side, we haven't really seen that much to justify, let's say, a V-shaped recovery in prices. So any additional color you can give us on how you're seeing the supply rationalization in the industry would be very helpful.

The second question, Beto, it caught my attention how strong the message was on your side, specifically on cost performance. going forward into the second semester, right, which makes me wonder, if I'm not mistaken, the cash cost guidance for the year in pulp is about BRL 810, BRL 815 per tonne. Would you see any room -- and Aires, I know this is your territory here, if you can elaborate as well. if you guys see any room for potentially reducing that level, let's say, below BRL 800 per tonne over the year?

[Leonardo Grimaldi, executive]

Leo, I will start with your questions related to unexpected events affecting the pulp market. And again, it's important to state this number, which I think is extremely expressive, which is that 7.4 million tons today as per inflow of tissue consultancy on the cash cost of hardwood producers is below the water as we speak. 7.4 million tons, 15% of all hardwood production capacity in the world is below water and has many -- a big part of that has been for more than -- or close to 10 months, right? So this is really shocking when you analyze that directly.

Our view is that it's -- we are still seeing a smaller part of what unexpected events and commercial shutdowns should be. And the main reason in our interpretation is that all the uncertainties on tariffs made producers take longer to decide what they would do. As there was a lot of instability and uncertainty of what would shape the world after at least the second waves of clear decisions and discussions on tariffs, even higher producers were keeping their productions going because eventually, they could end up with a favorable slot or opportunity to tackle. Now that the scenario is getting clearer and clearer, I believe personally that we should see a much more accelerated level of commercial downtimes being announced as we speak because, again, this scenario is completely unsustainable.

[Aires Galhardo, executive]

Leo, thanks for your question. It's a challenge to see any room to deliver on average a cash cost below BRL 800 per ton in this year, especially when we see our results in the first half. But to deliver our target that is roughly BRL 810 per ton, we should performance on a rate lower than BRL 800 per ton in some quarter in the second half.

And our expectation for this is that bring part of the returns that we have deal with Eldorado, as Beto mentioned that we intend that we reduce our wood consumption, wood loss and reduce the average ranges of our forest logging to the second half, especially in the last quarter and we believe that this wood will be delivered at the facilities. And this performance lower BRL 800 per ton, especially in the last quarter, the fourth quarter. We understand that will be our normal performance for coming quarters. Of course, it could be affected by FX and some cost for income, especially for some chemicals, especially caustic soda and natural gas, but remain the same conditions we are able to deliver this new performance of second half in our routine the next quarters or coming years.

[João Fernandez de Abreu, executive]

Leo, just building what Aires just said, you are completely right. We are very confident regarding the trend of cost reduction for the next quarter, as I mentioned before. I just want to mention that we are talking here about cash costs. But in the end of the day, we are looking for the whole thing. We are looking for the total operation disbursement for the company. And we are also looking ahead. We want to enter 2026 with a cost base lower than the one that we have in 2025.

At the end of the day, this is our objective. And this is absolutely in line with what we have been saying regarding our focus on increasing the level of competitiveness of the business. So that's what behind everything that we have been saying regarding cost. This is a clear priority for the company. And again, not only related to wood costs, not only related to industrial costs, but related to the total operational disbursement of the company.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Rodolfo De Angele with JPMorgan.

[Rodolfo De Angele, analyst]

So my first question is on the consequence of the transaction with Eldorado. I wanted to hear from you what to expect on the CapEx side. So I think for investors, the story of Suzano is of a company that's entering a period where it's going to basically harvest the benefits of the CapEx that was done in the past year and supposed to be a free cash flow story, which is starting to show. But of course, every time there is an additional CapEx or an M&A transaction, you kind of dent a little bit that part of the story, even though as you explained so far, everything made a lot of sense.

So my question is for 2026, -- is it reasonable to expect CapEx trending lower? And if you could elaborate a little bit on that? And my second question is a bit more, I guess, strategic, and this one is to Beto. Beto, it's been a year more or less or a little bit more, I guess, since you've been leading the company. A lot has happened, right, both on specific things that Suzano got involved with, plus the market has been quite a roller coaster ride. So looking forward, what should we expect? Can we expect a little bit of a breather and see that relax a little bit? Or is there something else in the management's agenda looking forward? That's all for me.

[Marcos Assumpcao, executive]

Rodolfo, Marcos here. So on CapEx for 2026, we haven't disclosed yet our CapEx. We will update you with the number as we run through our budget process, which will start in October, and we will give you the full disclosure of CapEx for 2026 at our Suzano Day in December. However, you're right, like we should be considering reducing our CapEx as a trend. Of course, every now and then, there could be opportunities like the one that we just announced today that might increase our CapEx, but with very decent returns. So we will update you the number, but the trend, it should be for a declining CapEx going forward.

[João Fernandez de Abreu, executive]

Rodolfo, regarding your question, I don't see any moment to relax to be very honest in the business in the future. This is the natural of the business, the natural of the environment of a global company. Geopolitical seems that will be more and more, let's say, instable in the next couple of years. So we must be awake, and we must work with different scenarios, and we want to be prepared for those different scenarios. So that's why we have to be very concentrated and doing very well, which is under our control. And again, that's why we are talking all the time about competitiveness, about making sure that everything that we can control, we can do it in the best of class way.

So we also are trying to, again, focus only on initiatives that can bring the level of return, the level of ROIC that we aim to the business. So that's why we take those kind of decisions as capacity at bringing and pursuing alternatives and deals that can bring a high level of return for the business. And the focus will be, again, as I have been saying, deleveraging.

This is a clear focus for the organization and making sure that what we have in the pipeline, which is Pine Bluff that, by the way, is going to operate with double-digit positive EBITDA during 2025, which is a clear turnaround that Fabio and the team has been able to make and making sure that the transition process of the JV with KC can be implemented on a very good way. So this is not putting any further initiatives in the pipeline. So -- but I don't think we have the right to relax because the business environment is tough. It is a roller coaster, as you mentioned, and we want to be prepared for any kind of scenarios that we can face in the future. But anyway, thank you very much for your question.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Caio Greiner. I believe he dropped the queue so I'm going to move on to Daniel Sasson with Itau BBA.

[Daniel Sasson, analyst]

My first question is related to the tariff uncertainty that we saw over the past few weeks with the potential of hardwood imports into the U.S. going to 50%. In the end, it was -- the final decision was to not increase to 50%. But as per my understanding, it's -- pulp exports to the U.S. are going to be subject to a 10% tariff that didn't exist before, right? So I guess my question is, have you seen any sort of impact in your order book, specifically in North America because of these uncertainties. Could that harm your volumes in the third quarter? Has that already been normalized? And ultimately, who will bear this 10% tariff that I think didn't exist before, right?

Are you engaging in one-on-one negotiations with your main clients in the U.S.? I know that you have some very big long-term clients there. How are these negotiations going? And my second question is just if you could give us an update on the Kimberly-Clark acquisition. Have there been any new developments there in terms of the expected time line for this deal to be closed? Or have you started working with the -- do you have already a clean team to help in the integration of those assets? Or are you going to think about that only after the deal is super close to being approved? Any new info you can give us on that front would be great.

[Leonardo Grimaldi, executive]

Daniel, this is Leo here to tackle your questions about tariffs. Just before coming into the 10% tariffs, obviously, we were leaved with the news that pulp -- Brazilian pulp, hardwood pulp was out of this new tariff to Brazilian exports into the U.S. At the same time, we trust our ability to reshuffle volumes around as pulp is a commodity, but we were leave because we have very, very long-term commitments to customers in the U.S., tissue producers who are producing the best brands in the market, the most recognized brands in the market with specific pulps being developed together with them from Suzano and previously the companies that are now Suzano to ensure that these products have the qualities that the U.S. consumers are so used to.

So this would be, I would say, harmful in that sense of having lost that commitments, and we're happy that, that didn't happen. Our order books to the U.S. are normalized. As you know, we are mainly selling to tissue producers and tissue have posted a very stable demand and sales pattern in North America. We don't see any shifts or directional moves that would bring us off our plans for Q3 or Q4 going forward. So I expect normality. Again, these are extremely long-term contracts where Suzano even manages the inventories of pulp inside each and every mill of these customers who, in most cases, are exclusive to Suzano. Regarding the 10% tariff implementation, we have successfully negotiated with customers that they are going to pay for the 10% tariff. Suzano is not going to take this burden. So going forward, unfortunately, this effect will eventually come up to American consumers, and Suzano will not be taking this toll.

[Luis Renato Bueno, executive]

Daniel, this is Luis. Thanks for your question regarding the JV with KC. Both Suzano and KC have already created dedicated teams, very senior and dedicated teams to plan the carve-out of this new JV. We had already kicked off the project, meeting all the teams together. The project is going as planned, and we look forward to close the operation on the third quarter of 2026.

[Operator]

Next question from Eugenia Cavalheiro with Morgan Stanley.

[Eugenia Cavalheiro, analyst]

Two questions on my side. The first is regarding the fiber to fiber transition. And if you can update us on what you have been seeing on that front, particularly given the higher spread between the 2 fibers that we see. So how are your customers adopting that? And how has this been evolving?

The second one would be on shareholder returns. So how are you seeing potential dividend payments and share buyback in light of the deleveraging process, the M&A transactions that you have announced, the slight increase in CapEx guidance for the year. So how have you been thinking about shareholder return in that scenario?

[Leonardo Grimaldi, executive]

Eugenia, this is Leo again, to answer your question on fiber to fiber. We are very glad to be protagonists on these movements together with our customers. There's a huge customer engagement across all regions of the world and projects are being deployed as we speak.

Obviously, the high spreads between softwood and hardwood pulp, which I expect to be even higher looking forward, will benefit us in this initiative as our customers obviously are worried and seek better margins as they also support our fiber-to-fiber initiatives. And to conclude, I expect that what we'll see for 2025 is a trend much similar to the last 3 years rather than to the past years, whereas hardwood will gain over 1 percentage point market share over softwood again this year.

[Marcos Assumpcao, executive]

Eugenia, on shareholder returns. On dividends, we will continue to respect our policy, which is the minimum between 25% of our profits or 10% of our operating cash flow generation. And on buybacks, as we are very focused on deleveraging, we will probably have a less -- lower appetite for buybacks as we would rather prefer and we will be very focused on deleveraging the balance sheet of the company at this moment.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Caio Ribeiro with Bank of America.

[Caio Ribeiro, analyst]

So my first one is on the recent announcement of higher antidumping duties and countervailing duties on top of Canadian lumber exports into the U.S., which we feel could have the potential to increase the cost of wood chips in the region, potentially raise the cost of pulp production in the British Columbia region, which has already been under a lot of pressure under current price levels, right? So I just wanted to see if you agree with that assessment and whether that could generate an opportunity for you in the region in the U.S. in terms of gaining market share from the British Columbia producers?

And then secondly, going back to the tissue assets that were part of the transaction with Kimberly-Clark, since the last call, we provided a lot of details on those assets. I imagine you've had some time to analyze those assets further. I just wanted to see if you still see those synergies of close to $175 million is still feasible to achieve and whether you have identified additional opportunities within those assets to improve profitability? And if yes, what those initiatives could be and what they could generate in terms of additional gains?

[Leonardo Grimaldi, executive]

Caio, without having and wanting to come into the merit, if I agree or not with it, we are following and monitoring several actions that are still in place and what's being done by the U.S. government as we speak, right? So we have this issue on higher tariffs for Canadian wood, which precedes President Trump. So obviously, that can benefit softwood producers in other regions of the world and to a smaller part, hardwood producers as well.

And by the end of the day, as Eugenia asked, fiber to fiber as an alternative to higher cost wood and higher cost softwood. There's also Section 232 and all the investigations being done in that sense, then wood in a much broader basis rather than only Canadian and also Section 301 investigations in place. So there's a lot of things going on. This is not -- I don't believe this is the end of all these turmoils and uncertainties. As Beto mentioned, we are in this roller coaster ride. But be assured that Suzano is well prepared, taking all actions and having all contingency plans to navigate whatever environment is in place.

[Luis Renato Bueno, executive]

Caio, this is Luis. In this next phase of the JV project, we have more time to dig deeper and analyze more data. And what we can share with you is that we maintain the 175 million cost reduction opportunities and that as we move and analyze more data, we are more comfortable with that.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Yuri Pereira with Santander.

[Yuri Pereira, analyst]

Regarding this 15% of the industry below water, just to check, it considers cash flow or cash costs only. In the case you are considering only cash costs, do you have any sensitivity about how many tons are below water in terms of cash flow? And regarding the spread between dissolving pulp and hardwood, it would be very helpful if you can provide us what's the spread now versus historical levels? And also if you have any outlook about it?

[Leonardo Grimaldi, executive]

Yuri, this is Leo. I'll take both of your questions. This number that I mentioned, the 7.4 million tons below prices -- current prices and bleeding as we speak, this is cash cost delivered to Chinese ports. There is no consultancy information on the same analysis related to cash flow as U.S. Again, this is cash cost delivered to Chinese ports.

And as we are now entering a phase where international prices all over the world are much aligned to Chinese prices, this analysis can be reflected to other zones or areas of the world as well. So that's why we believe that the situation has reached the point of being completely unsustainable. The spread of dissolving to paper grade pulp exceeds the historic average of $200. It's declining -- the price trend is also of a decline in dissolving wood pulp, but way above the historic $200 average. That is maybe the breakthrough of decision-making between one or the other.

[Operator]

The Q&A session is over. We would like to hand the floor back to Mr. Beto Abreu for his final remarks.

[João Fernandez de Abreu, executive]

Thank you. Before finishing, I want to remember all that our Suzano Investor Day this year will be on December 11. So please put it in your agenda. I also would like to thank you for being here with us on the call today and for your interest in Suzano. And as always, our IR team remains available for any additional questions that you may have, and I really wish you all a great day. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

The Suzano S.A. Second Quarter of the 2025 Conference Call is concluded. The Investor Relations department is available to answer further questions you may have. Thank you, and have a good day.