Sylvamo Corporation (NYSE:SLVM) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call May 11, 2022 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Hans Bjorkman - Vice President Investor Relations

Jean-Michel Ribiéras - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

John Sims - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

George Staphos - Bank of America

Paul Quinn - RBC Capital

Jonathan Luft - Eagle Capital Partners

Operator

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Sylvamo's First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent background noise. After the speaker’s remarks you will have an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] I'd now like to turn today's conference over to Hans Bjorkman, Vice President Investor Relations.

Hans Bjorkman

Thanks, Faith. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call today. Our speakers this morning are Jean-Michel Ribiéras, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and John Sims, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Slides 3 and 3 contain important information including certain legal disclaimers. For example, during this call we will make forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. It is important to note that all earnings and figures include our Svetogorsk mill and Russian business, unless otherwise noted. We will also present certain non-US GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of those figures to US GAAP financial measures are also available in the appendix. Our website contains copies of the first quarter 2022 earnings press release as well as today's presentation.

With that I will now turn the call over to Jean-Michel.

Jean-Michel Ribiéras

Thanks, Hans. Good morning and thank you for joining our call. I'll begin my comments on Slide 4. Before we discuss our first quarter results, allow me to share some thoughts on 2022. We are well positioned to continue to create value this year. Given all the moving parts in our business, I want to share guidance on our full year 2022 key metrics. We expect to generate strong results, despite input cost inflation, supply chain challenges and the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In fact, we're on a path to achieve pre-pandemic EBITDA levels in 2022, even if we exclude our Russian business for the full year. We expect to generate $725 million to $775 million in adjusted EBITDA and $160 million to $180 million in free cash flow this year, if we exclude our Russian business for the full year.

Slide 5 provides an update on Russian business. Our path forward in Russia is driven by our primary value to always do the right things, in the right ways, for the right reasons. We will not operate in an environment that is inconsistent with our values. We have made the decision to exit Russia and will do so in an orderly manner. That said, we are not implementing a full suspension of operations, primarily because we want to maintain full control of our assets as we work to exit Russia.