Suzano S.A. (SUZ) Q1 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2022

May 5, 2022 9:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding, and welcome to Suzano's conference call to discuss the results for the first quarter of 2022. [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 floor over to the company's CEO, Mr. Walter Schalka. You may proceed.

Walter Schalka

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone. It's a great pleasure to have you all joining us for the first quarter section of discussions of our results. It's a great pleasure to be with you.

I think the main highlight that we have on the first quarter is related with the strong cash generation that we have despite the cost pressures that we have in lower volumes regarding the annual shutdowns on several of our facilities in the first quarter of this year. We in the pulp business had lower volumes since our inventory is quite low. We are not able to increase our sales, then we have to sell just the amount that we have producing that was around 2.4 million tons. We -- in the paper business, we had a very good quarter in terms of production and sales comparing with the previous quarters. And in this scenario, we had BRL 5.1 billion on adjusted EBITDA. Even considering the cost pressures of the -- in the cash cost that was over BRL 860 on cash costs, we are able to generate cash on a scenario that we invest almost BRL 1.2 billion on our Cerrado Project. And with dividends of BRL 1 billion, we kept our net debt almost at the same level than the previous quarter.

It's very important as well to mention our developments on the ESG. On the governance, now we have more than 50% of our Board with independent members and with 3 women out of 9 members that representing more than 30% on gender diversity.