Sylvamo Corporation (NYSE:SLVM) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 15, 2024 10:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Hans Bjorkman - Vice President, Investor Relations
Jean-Michel Ribiéras - Chairman and CEO
John Sims - Senior Vice President and CFO
Conference Call Participants
George Staphos - Bank of America
Harman Dhatt - RBC
Operator
Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Sylvamo’s Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, you will have an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions]
As a reminder, your conference is being recorded. I’d now like to turn the call over to Hans Bjorkman, Vice President, Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.
Hans Bjorkman
Thanks, Greg. Good morning. And thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year 2023 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 two and three 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. We will also present certain non-U.S. GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of those figures to U.S. GAAP financial measures are available in the appendix. Our website also contains copies of the earnings release, as well as today’s presentation.
With that, I will turn the call over to Jean-Michel.
Jean-Michel Ribiéras
Thanks, Hans. Good morning and thank you for joining our call. Let’s turn to slide four, please. In 2023, we created value for share owners. By managing what we could control, as we executed our three-pronged strategy of commercial excellence, operational excellence and financial discipline, to strengthen our competitive advantages in our core uncritical market.
First, we allocated cash to improve our financial position by repaying $76 million in debt, achieving a net debt that just did a big job 1.2 times.
Second, we continue to deliver on our investment thesis. We earned $607 million adjusted a bit debt, generated $294 million in free cash flow and returned $127 million in cash to share owners.
Third, we invested to strengthen our low-cost assets. We invested $210 million and continue to accelerate investments in high-return capital projects.
We also acquired the 500,000 ton Nymolla mill in Sweden for $167 million. This is a great asset. With a talented team, the mill is performing well and we are benefiting from the $40 million pulp mill modernization project that was completed just before the acquisition. In a tough market, the mill generated about $50 million in cash before any allocated overhead.