"Our North American business represents our largest value creation opportunity. Demand across all paper grades improved progressively during the quarter." – Tony Smurfit, President and CEO, Smurfit Westrock.
April 30, 2026 - Smurfit Westrock today announced the financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026.
Key Points:
Tony Smurfit, President and CEO, commented, "Against the backdrop of continued macro uncertainty we have delivered a solid first quarter performance, generating an Adjusted EBITDA of $1,076 million.
"Our Net Income and Adjusted EBITDA1 for the first quarter were negatively impacted by $65 million due to adverse weather events, primarily in our North American business.
"Our North American business represents our largest value creation opportunity. Demand across all paper grades improved progressively during the quarter. Reflecting this, containerboard pricing increased by a net $20 per ton in the quarter, with further price increases of $30 per ton implemented in April. Corrugated box volumes were in line with our expectations and reflect the continued evolution of our business mix and our approach to delivering value for customers. In corrugated, we onboarded over 600 new customers during the quarter.
"In our consumer and paperboard businesses, we continue to see strong customer adoption of our substrate-agnostic offering. As a result of these actions, and a generally better operating environment, we expect volume growth in the second half of the year.
"Our EMEA & APAC business continues to significantly outperform our peers with continued growth during the quarter with an improving demand profile and customer wins. Containerboard prices increased during March and April, primarily as a result of increased energy costs and better demand. Our corrugated business will be implementing this containerboard increase with the usual time-lag, which we expect to happen in the second half of the year.
"As part of our continued asset optimization program, we have entered into consultations at one of our UK mills, with capacity of approximately 200 thousand tonnes of containerboard, and at four converting facilities in the UK and the Netherlands.
"Smurfit Westrock continues to lead through innovation and sustainability, recently hosting over 200 customers at our European Innovation Event, which showcased advancements in sustainable packaging design and AI?enabled capabilities.
"Our Latin American business delivered another strong performance in the quarter with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 20%. Our unique, pan-regional offering and strong market positions, underpin our sustainable competitive advantage in this high growth region. The recent addition of a corrugated box plant in Ecuador expands our geographic reach, reinforces our position as the number one supplier in Latin America and increases our global paper integration.
"Our recently announced Medium-Term Plan targets an accelerated path to growth to 2030 and beyond through strong operational performance and disciplined capital allocation. We are focused on unlocking the full potential of North America, while continuing to outperform in EMEA & APAC, and delivering dynamic growth and strong margins in LATAM.
"Today, we see a stronger and a generally better industry operating environment. Assuming those conditions prevail, we currently expect to deliver Adjusted EBITDA2 of between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion for the second quarter and, for the full year, we re-affirm our previous expectation of delivering Adjusted EBITDA of between $5.0 billion and $5.3 billion."
Smurfit Westrock is undertaking a review of its listing on the London Stock Exchange ("LSE"). The outcome of the review may result in Smurfit Westrock delisting from the LSE. Smurfit Westrock's primary listing on the New York Stock Exchange is not within the scope of the review.
It is anticipated that this review will be completed during May 2026 and an update will be provided to shareholders on conclusion of the review.
Smurfit Westrock (NYSE: SW, LSE: SWR) is a leading provider of paper-based packaging solutions in the world, with approximately 97,000 employees across 40 countries.
SOURCE: Smurfit Westrock