All financial information in Canadian dollars.

• New CEO: On Aug. 8, Hugues Simon led his first earnings call as Cascades’ new CEO and described looking forward to next steps as the company grows. “In my eight weeks with Cascades, I've been very impressed with the passion and the commitment of every employee. People are dedicated and proud and doing everything they can to meet customers’ expectations,” Simon said. One change he plans to make is to “capture all the potential efficiencies that we have with our current assets.”
• Overview: Cascades experienced year-over-year Q2 sales upticks for all three of its business segments: containerboard, specialty products and tissue. The company is in the process of implementing price increases that started in June, similar to competitors’ pricing actions, with positive effects expected to trickle into Q3 and Q4.
• Costs: Unanticipated issues with coming back online after planned maintenance at its 11-year-old Greenpac mill in Niagara Falls, New York, and its year-old plant in Bear Island, Virginia, resulted in an additional 8,000 tons of reduced production capacity. The company also reported $10 million in restructuring costs from plant closures over the last year.
• Bear Island: “There was a breakdown” on one of the Bear Island paper machines, and crews fixed the issue, said Jean-David Tardif, president and chief operating officer of Cascades’ tissue group. The issue is not expected to affect the future of the mill. Cascades expects improved shipment numbers in Q3. Executives aim to avoid sacrificing quality but to “go as fast as we can to get to capacity” at Bear Island, Simon said. Saying he’s satisfied with what he’s seen so far, Simon added that “the next, coming quarter is going to be really important, as we have a good order file, and we need this production to be coming as planned.”
• Offloading assets: “There are some assets that we're looking to dispose of following some closures in the recent quarters, just as we did with Newtown in the second quarter,” said CFO Allan Hogg. In February, the company announced it would close its containerboard converting plants in Newtown, Connecticut, and Belleville, Ontario, by May 31, and it would not restart an idled corrugated medium mill in Trenton, Ontario.
• Outlook: Executives expect third-quarter results to be stronger sequentially. Demand early in Q3 has been solid, they said. Cascades plans for full-year net capital expenditures to be well below the $175 million initially forecasted. Q2 capital expenditures totaled $23 million, but spending is anticipated to be lower for the remainder of 2024 and into 2025 as the company focuses more on debt reduction.