{"id":15262,"date":"2024-12-05T09:33:18","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T09:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/?p=15262"},"modified":"2024-12-05T09:33:19","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T09:33:19","slug":"smurfit-westrock-becomes-latest-to-announce-2025-price-increases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/05\/smurfit-westrock-becomes-latest-to-announce-2025-price-increases\/","title":{"rendered":"Smurfit Westrock becomes latest to announce 2025 price increases"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The company is pursuing price increases for corrugating medium and multiple other categories. It\u2019s now the fourth company to announce January price increases in recent weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Smurfit Westrock is the latest packaging company to announce fiber product price increases taking effect Jan. 1, according to reports from Fastmarkets RISI and Truist Securities.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This includes a $60 per ton increase for unbleached kraft and recycled linerboard, as well as an $80 per ton increase for corrugating medium.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Additionally, the company announced a $70 per ton increase for white top linerboard in its West region and $50 per ton in the East.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This is at least the fourth major paper packaging company in recent weeks to announce planned January increases, marking a trend heading into the new year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Packaging Corporation of America led the group with its\u00a0Nov. 20 announcement\u00a0of price increases for linerboard and medium.\u00a0International Paper and Georgia-Pacific\u00a0followed suit with their own increases for multiple categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It remains to be seen how customers will react and whether the increases will be recognized by Fastmarkets RISI\u2019s index, which has become a somewhat\u00a0contentious issue\u00a0in the industry.\u00a0Some analysts have also expressed skepticism about the sector\u2019s latest pricing moves, given that the market is still recovering from a period of lower demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Smurfit Westrock\u2019s\u00a0latest quarterly securities filing\u00a0notes the company has faced lower demand amid \u201cchallenging macroeconomic conditions, certain customer inventory rebalancing and shifting consumer spending\u201d during 2023 and 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Smurfit Westrock, like others, also recorded elevated operating costs from labor and raw materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company\u2019s filing notes an average three-to-six-month lag between when its raw material costs increase and when higher prices can be passed along to customers, and its latest results show earnings benefits from prior price increases this year. Smurfit Westrock\u00a0recently reported that\u00a0corrugated box pricing was up , versus the prior year period, but volumes were down 1.1%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe saw weaker demand in the South and Midwest region, stable volumes in the North Atlantic region and solid growth in Western states,\u201d said CFO Ken Bowles during an Oct. 30 earnings call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Smurfit, the second largest North American containerboard producer,&nbsp;is currently in a unique position relative to its peers as it works to integrate assets from the July acquisition of&nbsp;WestRock. This has included a focus on cost-cutting through layoffs and other moves, but also presents a potential opportunity as the newly combined business scales its strategy of \u201cvalue over volume\u201d to new regions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The company is pursuing price increases for corrugating medium and multiple other categories. It\u2019s now the fourth company to announce January price increases in recent weeks. This is at least the fourth major paper packaging company in recent weeks to announce planned January increases, marking a trend heading into the new year. Packaging Corporation of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[1093],"class_list":{"0":"post-15262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corrugated-folding-carton","8":"tag-smurfit-westrock"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15264,"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15262\/revisions\/15264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}