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Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-22Packaging Corp Q3 Earnings Beat Estimates on Favorable Price & Mix
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Packaging Corp Q3 Earnings Beat Estimates on Favorable Price & Mix
Packaging Corporation of America PKG reported third-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $3.04 per share, up 11.4% year over year and beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.95 by 3.05%. The bottom line also exceeded the company's guidance of $2.91, driven by favorable price and mix in the Packaging segment and contributions from the acquired Greif, Inc. GEF operations. Including special items related to facility closures, the Wallula mill restructuring, acquisition and integration costs, and a corrugated products facility fire, earnings in the quarter were $2.93 per share compared with the prior-year quarter's $2.51. Net sales increased 12.5% year over year to $2.60 billion and beat the consensus estimate of $2.56 billion. Total corrugated products shipments rose 10.6% year over year, supported by the acquired operations. Packaging Corporation of America price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Packaging Corporation of America Quote Gross profit increased 19.8% year over year to $604 million. The gross margin expanded to 23.2% from 21.8% in the prior-year quarter, reflecting stronger profitability despite higher operating costs. Cost of sales increased 10.4% to $2 billion from $1.81 billion. Selling, general and administrative expenses rose 18.4% to $182.7 million. The company faced higher labor and operating expenses, increased corporate and other costs, and higher freight costs. Adjusted operating income increased 13.4% year over year to $398 million. Adjusted EBITDA advanced 14.7% to $577 million, reflecting improved Packaging segment performance and contributions from the acquired Greif business. Packaging: Sales in this segment increased 13.4% year over year to $2.41 billion, aided by contributions from the acquired Greif business, higher production and sales volumes, and favorable price and mix. The figure beat our estimate of $2.30 billion. These gains were partly offset by higher labor and operating costs. Shipments per day at legacy corrugated products plants inched up 0.5%. Containerboard production was 1,489,000 tons. Adjusted operating profit was $407.7 million compared with $347.9 million in the prior-year quarter, reflecting favorable price and mix, higher production and sales volumes, and contributions from the acquired Greif operations. Our model projected the segment's adjusted operating income to be $394 million. Paper: The segment's rev…Read full documentShow less
Packaging Corporation of America PKG reported third-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $3.04 per share, up 11.4% year over year and beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.95 by 3.05%. The bottom line also exceeded the company's guidance of $2.91, driven by favorable price and mix in the Packaging segment and contributions from the acquired Greif, Inc. GEF operations. Including special items related to facility closures, the Wallula mill restructuring, acquisition and integration costs, and a corrugated products facility fire, earnings in the quarter were $2.93 per share compared with the prior-year quarter's $2.51. Net sales increased 12.5% year over year to $2.60 billion and beat the consensus estimate of $2.56 billion. Total corrugated products shipments rose 10.6% year over year, supported by the acquired operations. Packaging Corporation of America price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Packaging Corporation of America Quote Gross profit increased 19.8% year over year to $604 million. The gross margin expanded to 23.2% from 21.8% in the prior-year quarter, reflecting stronger profitability despite higher operating costs. Cost of sales increased 10.4% to $2 billion from $1.81 billion. Selling, general and administrative expenses rose 18.4% to $182.7 million. The company faced higher labor and operating expenses, increased corporate and other costs, and higher freight costs. Adjusted operating income increased 13.4% year over year to $398 million. Adjusted EBITDA advanced 14.7% to $577 million, reflecting improved Packaging segment performance and contributions from the acquired Greif business. Packaging: Sales in this segment increased 13.4% year over year to $2.41 billion, aided by contributions from the acquired Greif business, higher production and sales volumes, and favorable price and mix. The figure beat our estimate of $2.30 billion. These gains were partly offset by higher labor and operating costs. Shipments per day at legacy corrugated products plants inched up 0.5%. Containerboard production was 1,489,000 tons. Adjusted operating profit was $407.7 million compared with $347.9 million in the prior-year quarter, reflecting favorable price and mix, higher production and sales volumes, and contributions from the acquired Greif operations. Our model projected the segment's adjusted operating income to be $394 million. Paper: The segment's revenues were $163.2 million in the July-September quarter, up 1.2% year over year. Our model projected the segment's sales to be $174 million. Sales volume declined 2.5% from the third quarter of 2025. The segment reported an operating profit of $29 million compared with the year-ago quarter's $35.6 million. The decline was primarily due to higher maintenance outage expenses, partly offset by favorable price and mix. Our model projected the segment's adjusted operating income to be $47 million. PKG ended the quarter with $762 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable debt securities, down from $807 million a year earlier. The company generated net income of $262 million compared with $227 million in the prior-year quarter. Net interest expenses increased to $32.3 million from $19.3 million, creating an additional headwind to earnings. Packaging Corp expects fourth-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $2.81 per share, reflecting anticipated maintenance expenses and seasonal cost pressures. The company expects lower seasonal volume and slightly higher prices in the Paper segment. Freight costs are also projected to increase with higher diesel fuel prices, while recycled fiber costs are expected to continue rising. These factors are expected to influence profitability despite the anticipated benefits from improved containerboard and corrugated products pricing. The company's shares have gained 14.5% in the past year compared with the industry's growth of 4.5%. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Packaging Corp currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Ball Corporation BALL is scheduled to release third-quarter 2026 results on Nov. 3. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for BALL's third-quarter 2026 earnings is pegged at $1.06 per share, suggesting year-over-year growth of 3.9%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Ball Corp's top line is pegged at $3.74 billion, indicating growth of 10.6% from the prior-year reported figure. Silgan Holdings Inc. SLGN is scheduled to release third-quarter 2026 results on Oct. 29. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SLGN's third-quarter 2026 earnings is pegged at $1.25 per share, implying a year-over-year dip of 2.5%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Silgan Holdings' top line is pegged at $2.07 billion, suggesting an increase of 3.1% from the prior-year reported figure. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Packaging Corporation of America (PKG) : Free Stock Analysis Report Silgan Holdings Inc. (SLGN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Greif, Inc. (GEF) : Free Stock Analysis Report Ball Corporation (BALL) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research
TranscriptFY2026 Q32026-10-22FY2026 Q3 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 134 paragraphs
FY2026 Q3 earnings call transcript
Thank you for joining Packaging Corporation of America's third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Your host today will be Mark Kowlzan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PCA. Upon conclusion of his narrative, there will be a question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Kowlzan. Please go ahead when you're ready.
Thank you, Jamie. Appreciate it very much. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for participating in Packaging Corporation of America's third quarter 2026 earnings release conference call. Again, I'm Mark Kowlzan, Chairman and CEO of PCA, and with me on the call today is Tom Hassfurther, our President, and Kent Pflederer, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll begin the call as usual with an overview of the third quarter results, then I'll be turning the call over to Tom and Kent, who will provide further details. After that, I'll be wrapping things up, then we'd be glad to take questions. Yesterday, we reported third quarter net income of $262 million, or $2.93 per share. Excluding special items, third quarter 2026 net income was $272 million, or $3.04 per share, compared to the third quarter 2025 net income of $247 million, or $2.73 per share.
Third quarter net sales were $2.6 billion in 2026 and $2.3 billion in 2025. Total company EBITDA for the third quarter, excluding special items, was $577 million in 2026 and $503 million in 2025. Third quarter net income included special items expense of $0.11 per share, primarily for costs and write-offs related to facilities closures, acquisition and integration-related costs, the impact of a fire at our Palmyra, Pennsylvania sheet feeder, and the Wallula restructuring charges. Details of the special items for the third quarter of 2026 and 2025 were included in the schedules that accompanied the earnings press release. Excluding the special items, our earnings increased by $0.31 per share compared to the third quarter of 2025. The contribution from the acquired Greif business was $0.24 favorable year-over-year, generating $0.13 of earnings this year versus an $0.11 loss last year in the first month of ownership.
Legacy earnings improved by $0.07 per share, driven by favorable price and mix in the packaging segment for $0.79, favorable production and sales volume in the packaging segment, which includes the impact of additional containerboard supplied to the Greif operations of $0.12, favorable price and mix in the paper segment for $0.05, and a lower share count, $0.02. These items were partially offset by higher labor and operating costs, $0.28, higher freight costs, $0.26, higher corporate and other expenses, $0.13, higher fiber costs, $0.12, higher depreciation and amortization expenses, $0.06, higher maintenance outage expenses in the paper segment for $0.04, lower sales volume in the paper segment for $0.01, and higher interest expense, excluding the Greif acquisition and debt issuance for $0.01.
As comparable quarters going forward will include the ownership of the acquired Greif business for the entire periods, we will no longer separate and state the earnings contribution from the acquisition in the future. We exceeded our guidance of $2.91 on the strength of price realization and a higher-than-expected contribution from the acquired Greif business. These items were partially offset by higher labor and operating costs, partially driven by lower-than-forecast corrugated products volume. Looking at our packaging business, EBITDA, excluding special items in the third quarter for 2026 of $578 million, with sales of $2.4 billion, resulted in a margin of 23.9%, versus last year's EBITDA of $492 million and sales of $2.1 billion or a 23.1% margin. The mills produced 1,489,000 tons during the quarter.
The legacy mills produced 1,286,000 tons of containerboard, about 77,000 tons more than the second quarter of 2026 and 31,000 tons more than the third quarter of 2025. The acquired mills produced 203,000 tons. Quite frankly, an exceptional number for a quarter in which Riverville was down for an extensive annual maintenance outage. System-wide, our inventories were up 34,000 tons from the end of the second quarter. In fact, most certainly, we need that inventory as we move into the fourth quarter. We've been able to catch up with keeping our plants adequately supplied, resume shipping via most efficient methods possible, and we're in a good position to supply our customers in the fourth quarter, even with three of our containerboard mills down for their annual maintenance outages.
Operational performance was excellent across the board, much improved from the second quarter, and we completed the first annual maintenance outage at the Riverville Mill under our own ownership safely and successfully. From the cost side, in addition to increasing freight, we saw significant increases in recycled fiber, purchased power, and chemical costs during the quarter, and we expect these input costs to continue to go up. Our mill production reflects improved output at Jackson, even ahead of the completion of the winder project coming online in the fourth quarter as we continue to maximize the performance of the paper machines. We also benefited from continued improvement and reliability out of the acquired Greif mills. I'll now be turning it over to Tom, who'll provide more details on containerboard sales and the corrugated business in general.
Thanks, Mark. Domestic containerboard and corrugated products prices and mix were $0.75 per share above the third quarter of 2025, and up $1.11 per share compared to the second quarter of 2026. We have realized substantially all of the first net $50 increase and about half of the second $50 increase. Price realization came in ahead of forecast for the third quarter. We expect to realize almost all of the remainder of the second increase in the fourth quarter. Realization of the $70 increase will be split between Q4 and Q1 and skewed more towards Q1 in terms of timing. Export containerboard prices were $0.04 above last year's third quarter and $0.03 above the second quarter of 2026. Export sales volume of containerboard was 5,000 tons higher than the second quarter of 2026 and 10,000 tons lower than the third quarter of 2025, and remains at a relatively low level.
While various factors that we've previously discussed led to lower agriculture end market volume, demand was solid throughout the quarter across the remainder of our customer base. Shipments were up around 11% in total and per day versus last year, with the legacy business down a half a percent, which is about in line with our expectations, taking into account the lower ag shipments. A silver lining is that we got ourselves back on solid footing from an inventory standpoint in time for what looks like a pretty strong fourth quarter from a volume standpoint based upon our September and October bookings. We were also able to save a lot on freight during the quarter by being able to plan and optimize our routes.
We remain in a very tight containerboard market, which based upon what we are seeing in our own system, appears to be further tightening with fourth quarter seasonal pickup. As Mark said earlier, we have three containerboard mills down for annual maintenance in the fourth quarter, including DeRidder, and we will need the mills continuing to perform at the top of their game to keep us properly supplied. The acquired corrugated business meaningfully contributed to our profitability during the quarter, though volumes took a hit from the fire at Palmyra that kept the plant down for most of September. Integration levels continue to improve, and legacy PCA mills supplied approximately 45,000 more tons of containerboard into the Greif system during the quarter than it did a year ago.
The improved integration, together with better operational performance in the mills that Mark mentioned earlier, has us well ahead of our synergy targets. All systems work will be completed during the fourth quarter, which will further improve our visibility and day-to-day management of the business. This acquisition is working out very well for us, in large part due to the quality and performance of our people, who have put in a tremendous effort integrating and running the business. I'll now turn it back to Mark.
Thanks, Tom. Looking at the paper segment, EBITDA, excluding special items in the third quarter, was $34 million, with sales of $163 million, or a 20.6% margin, compared to the third quarter of 2025 EBITDA of $40 million and sales of $161 million, or a 24.9% margin. The differences in EBITDA and margin results from the maintenance outage being in the second quarter last year and the third quarter this year. Sales volume was approximately 0.9% above the second quarter of 2026, and approximately 2.5% below the third quarter of 2025. Prices and mix were up 2.8% from the second quarter of 2026 and up 3.8% from the third quarter of 2025. Sales volume, price realization, and cost performance contributed to performance above our expectations. I'll now turn it over to Kent.
Thank you, Mark. Cash provided by operations was $472 million, and after $247 million of CapEx, free cash flow was $225 million. In addition to CapEx, the primary payments of cash during the quarter included dividend payments of $134 million, cash tax payments of $66 million, and net cash interest payments of $29 million. We did not repurchase shares during the quarter. Excluding special items, our effective tax rate during the third quarter was 25.8%. We expect our fourth quarter rate to be nearly identical to the third quarter. We now forecast $865 million-$890 million of CapEx for the year, and excluding special items, just above $705 million of depreciation and amortization. These primarily relate to timing of expenditures and assets placed in service and do not reflect changes in our overall plans.
Our special items expense for the year to date, just to remind you, through Q3, included just under $60 million of depreciation expense and write-offs, primarily associated with the Wallula restructuring. I'd now like to give you an update on the annual outage schedule and earnings impact for the rest of the year. Our outage expense was $0.28 during the third quarter. Our fourth quarter estimate is $0.72 now, totaling $1.48 for the year. The increase of $0.08 from when we last updated you is primarily due to some timing, with a couple of cents in 3Q moving into 4Q, as well as our decision to substantially increase the scope of maintenance activities at the completed third quarter Riverville outage with more costs now being amortized into the fourth quarter, and to a lesser degree, an increase in the scope of the DeRidder outage will take place next month.
I'll now turn it back over to Mark.
Thanks, Kent. As we move from the third quarter into the fourth quarter, we expect solid corrugated products demand with some seasonal improvement. Shipments per day are expected to be at or around last year's fourth quarter level, with two fewer shipping days than the third quarter, and total corrugated shipments will be higher than the third quarter. Prices for containerboard and corrugated products are expected to improve as we continue to implement earlier price increases. But corrugated products mix will be seasonally weaker with higher e-commerce volumes. Containerboard production will be lower, with annual maintenance outages at three of our mills, and mill maintenance outage expenses, including the impact on production volume from the fourth quarter outages, will be significantly higher in the fourth quarter. We expect seasonally lower volume and slightly higher prices in the paper segment.
We expect freight costs to increase across our business, with diesel fuel prices above third-quarter levels. We also expect costs for recycled fiber to continue to increase, as well as higher wood fiber cost to increase due to winter yields and wood mix, and mill mix rather. Costs for chemicals and energy will increase due to higher chemical prices and higher seasonal energy usage. Considering these items, we expect fourth quarter earnings of $2.81 per share, excluding special items. With that, we would be happy to entertain any questions, but I must remind you that some of the statements we have made on the call today constituted forward-looking statements.
The statements were based on current estimates, expectations, and projections of the company, and do involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including the direction of the economy and those identified as risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K on file with the SEC. Actual results could differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. With that, Jamie, I would like to open the call for questions.
We will begin that question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset prior to pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. Once again, that is star and then one to join the question queue. Our first question today comes from George Staphos from Bank of America. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thank you for the details. I wanted to maybe kick off on volume. You mentioned, Mark, that you expect volume to be, I am paraphrasing, even or around the volume trend from last year. Can you talk a little bit about what you are seeing in terms of bookings and billings, and how you characterize volume being at or around comparable with also a tight market as you are seeing it?
Yeah. We'll let Tom get into that as he-
Hey, George, this is Tom.
Morning, Tom. How are you?
Good morning. Good. Bookings were good in September. They're doing very well here in October as well, up a little over 5%. Billings have lagged a little bit, and we expect that'll catch up during the fourth quarter. We're forecasting right now for pretty flat for the fourth quarter, but keep in mind that's a tough comp we're talking about as well. It's easy to kind of look at October, November, and get some insight, but December is always a bit of a crap shoot. We're just going to be a little cautious in terms of that forecast. But we're pleased with the cadence of the volume. We've had some struggles, as we mentioned, with the ag business, especially related to the lettuce issues and some things like that from some of our customers. And we expect some pickup. But again, that'll be determined seasonally.
Sometimes it picks up in the fourth quarter, sometimes it tracks into the first quarter. That's kind of where we are right now. Our mix is going to be a little more concentrated towards e-com in the fourth quarter as well.
Right. Appreciate that. Related to mix and volume, perhaps again in the third quarter, given the number that you gave in terms of pricing effect in 3Q was quite strong. You said pricing is ahead of your expectations. Do you think that perhaps maybe you've lost a little bit of volume momentum at all with your pricing or not really, and why you view that to be the case? Relatedly, when we do just revenue over tons, the mix was a little bit a couple points lower than we're expecting. Is that Greif effect or is that e-commerce effect in the third quarter from what you could see? Then I had one last follow-on.
George, I'm going to remind you of something we've talked about for years. When we're in price increase mode, we're 100% focused on price increase.
Yep.
Because those opportunities don't come along that often, and that's incredibly important to our business in the long term. Relative to volume, we may lose an item or something like that, but for the most part, these are the same customers we've been dealing with for a long time, and they understand the situation we're in, and they're in the exact same situation. When you're using revenue over tons, yeah, there's some Greif effect in there, no question about it. That's a different That's a different segment of the market that we weren't in before. That's going to impact that a little bit. Hopefully that gives you your answer.
It does. Lastly, you mentioned that the CapEx increase and the maintenance spending tweaks were mostly timing. Was there anything in there that was actually required or maybe not anticipated that you had to pull forward in terms of maintenance or CapEx? Thanks and good luck in the quarter.
George, I'll give it to Mark after this, but in terms of timing, no. We were a little favorable in 3Q to what we'd put out there last time, but that rolls into the 4Q. That's really kind of timing of amortization of expenses more than anything else. In terms of activities, Mark can maybe comment a little bit more on what we're doing in the two mills.
Yeah. George, we always reserve the right for new discoveries, new opportunities. We move the capital up and down as we see fit, and some of it's just timing on engineering and deliveries of equipment for installation. But we're pretty encouraged. We just went through that annual shutdown at Riverville, and during that week of downtime, for most of that week, we had over 1,400, 1,500 contractors and people in the mill site working on that mill. We found some good opportunities, and it will lay out some really nice upside opportunity for that mill over the next few years. I'm talking about things like some headbox, some forming section work, some dryer section work, press section work, things in the back end of the mill.
We're very encouraged by the continuing opportunity that Massillon and Riverville will provide, and much in the same way that the Boise mills delivered over the years. Using that term, the gift that keeps on giving.
Understood. Thank you. I will turn it over.
Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Mike Roxland from Truist. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Thank you, Mark, Tom, and Kent, for taking my questions.
First question, it seems like the Greif assets provided most of the upside to 3Q, as price cost overall was neutral based on our estimate. First, would you agree with that assessment? If so, what drove the strong performance at Greif, and why was it better than expected?
Let me talk about Greif, then Tom and Kent can weigh in. We took some criticism last year during the first phase of our ownership of Greif, because we got heavily engaged in fixing the assets right away. We had all of our technology organization heavily involved in Massillon and Riverville right from the get-go last September, when we closed on September 2. So we took advantage of that, and very quickly were able to get the mills in a very good position to start delivering results. We talked about that on the second quarter earnings call, that we had accomplished a great deal from a reliability and a performance point of view. So, quite frankly, through the summer months into the fall now, we've seen exceptional performance coming out of both of those mills.
The same thing on the CorrChoice side of the business. They continue to make improvements. So, again, that's what we do. That's what PCA does best. We've got an incredible technology and operational group across the board. So the results speak to that. Tom, Kent, do you want to weigh in on that?
I'll just add, obviously the integration did help a lot. I would not put it all on Greif. Some of the other things that we do, and we do incredibly well, is we can utilize these Greif assets in some different ways than they were able to use it, since we have such a large system and we're positioned all across the United States. So there's some end market restructuring that took place as well within our system, which contributed. There's some puts and takes to that. You may move it over to one as opposed to the other. So, that's why I say you can't just hang it all on Greif. But it did provide a lot of opportunities for us. As Mark mentioned, that's what we do well.
We get in there, and we take advantage of it, and we figure out how to maximize these assets in a way that perhaps wasn't previously available to the previous owner. I think, when I talk about end market structure, that's not only how we're going to these end markets, but also perhaps some of the opportunities that afford themselves in terms of profitability as well. Kent, you got anything else?
No, I'm good. Thanks.
Anything else, Mike?
No, it's very helpful. Just one quick one. Can you help me understand, Tom, what happened to legacy volumes in 3Q? If you look back a couple of quarters, you were outperforming the industry by a few hundred basis points. In 3Q, legacy box volumes declined 0.5%. Obviously, you had the ag issue, but I think the 0.5%, when all is said and done, when we get the industry numbers, you'll probably be in line with the industry. So wondering what's happened with it in terms of the outperformance. Is it just a matter of you maybe focusing more on price and less so on volumes?
Well, Mike, let's put it this way. Our objective is profitable revenue growth. That can come in a number of different ways. Price is our supreme focus at the moment. That is what is driving our results at the moment.
As I mentioned before, we did have a couple of segments that we are pretty large in that have been a little bit of a drag, but it has nothing to do with losing business. It is just that they had some issues of their own, which cut down some of their demand.
Got it. Makes sense. If I could squeeze one more in, just quickly. Kent, you guys guided 4Q to be down around $0.20 sequentially. How should we think about the progression from 4Q to 1Q this year, particularly given the fact that the third price increase is flowing through?
All right, Mike, without putting too fine of a point on this, because we really only guide one quarter in advance, but these are the drivers. You will see continued price improvement from 4Q to 1Q as the $70 increase, the remainder of that comes in. Okay? Mix also improves a little bit from 4Q to 1Q as well. Outage expense also, significantly the P&L hit moves in the right direction. Volume goes down, just seasonally. 4Q is sort of the peak. 1Q then it comes down a little bit. Mill production up a little bit because we have less outage impact. On the cost side, you are going to see mill operating costs primarily at 4Q, if not even a little unfavorable just because you are in winter. Then you have the normal inflation that hits the labor benefits, services, all that sort of thing. Starting at about 3%.
We do the best on that, though, to whittle that down through operational efficiency. I gave you a lot of factors there, but hopefully that gives you at least a start based upon our historical performance when you try to model all this.
Very helpful. Thanks, guys. And good luck in 4Q.
Thank you.
Thanks, Mike. Next question, please.
Next question comes from Mark Weintraub from Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead with your question.
Great. Thank you. First, maybe just following up a little bit on these kind of sequential type analysis since we've been going there. As we think about 4Q versus 3Q, I think at a conference you had sort of talked about something less than $0.45 having been experienced last year, might be what you would see this year. Is the difference now the kind of more $0.20 reduction you're projecting from 3Q to 4Q? Is that a function of the September pricing? Would that be the main reason why that would have changed?
Oversimplified, yes, but I'll give you a little more color on this. We saw a fairly large sequential increase from 2Q to 3Q in price. Given the mix and given the timing of roll-in, we won't be nearly as favorable 3Q to 4Q, but the price favorability should be enough to offset the additional cost that we're taking on in the outages. That's about even. We then have higher operating costs, and if you look across the portfolio of costs in our mills and operations, you're going to have higher recycled, higher freight, higher seasonal. Offset a little bit by favorable in the corrugated operations, just due to better cost absorption. So you have all those factors into place. We're about $0.20-$0.25 down from 3Q to 4Q, but the big help there is realization of the $70 increase, the beginning of realizing that.
Hope that helps, Mark.
Yes, it does. Thank you. Obviously, you've been doing a terrific job offsetting a very difficult cost environment on the pricing side. I mean, your long-term track record has been a lot about company-specific value creation as well. You've alluded to several things that should help 2027 versus 2026 on that score already. Maybe if you could sort of give us a laundry list, Jackson, Counce, the box plant in Ohio, further gains from the Greif improvements, et cetera. I mean, what are the things that, big picture, we should be thinking about? Lastly, I think the energy projects are more 2028, but maybe update us on your thoughts there.
Let me start. The energy projects you'll see the benefit more into the 2028 period. Again, we're in construction mode right now at Jackson and breaking ground at DeRidder. We're waiting on permits for the gas turbine installation at the Riverville Mill. That's pending. You just hit it on the head. We continue with our capitalization program. Tom, comment on the successful startup of the new box plant in Ohio. We hit it out of the park on that one.
We had an incredibly good startup in our new Newark plant, which also allowed us to announce the closure of Middletown a little bit earlier than what we probably would have otherwise. We've got further installations going in there as we speak, and we're continuing the same cadence, basically, with putting in other equipment and upgrading other equipment in box plants all across the United States. So we have to be incredibly well-equipped to continue to deliver at the levels that we do for our customers, and provide them the quality that we have and those sorts of things. I might mention in addition the work we continue to do on our proprietary grades of paper is allowing us a lot of opportunity, and we'll continue to do that going forward. That has a lot to do with our CapEx as well. Mark, we're in
We continue to do what we do incredibly well, and we've been doing on a regular basis for the last decade.
Yeah. Another example, Mark, is the new winder at the Jackson Mill. That had been under construction for over a year, and we got that started up at the end of September, in really the last couple of weeks now, but it came up incredibly well, and that winder is running as planned. Jackson's got a duplicate winder now running 10,000 feet a minute if we need it, which the plan would be to put more fiber over that machine. I fully see the Jackson Mill, over the course of the next year and a half or so, will become a million-ton-a-year mill. We've been talking about that for the last six or seven years, that was the direction we were taking the mill, and that's where we're going. Counce is another example.
We've got the second phase of the work going on on the No. 2 machine at Counce to upgrade that capability. We'll be seeing further benefits, significant benefits, out of the Counce No. 2 machine, which will be productivity, quality, cost. Again, we've got approximately 200 people in the corporate technology organization dealing with these matters seven days a week. Those of us at the corporate level, this is what we do, and either we're doing and working on operational matters or the group's working on customer-based marketing and sales matters. That's what we focus on, and that's what we do well. Anything else?
Actually, one really quick one if I could, then. Maintenance outage expense, it's high this year. Is that just because things are more expensive, or were you just taking more outages this year than normal? If we think about next year, should we just assume similar to this year or not necessarily?
Good question. It's both. We undertook, obviously, with the Massillon Mill and the Riverville Mill, we undertook more activity. We're just doing some things at the legacy mills that we want to get done, and we always take care of these assets in terms of we may have older mills, but if I took you into these mills, you'd think they were new mills. Also it's the cost of capital. The equipment costs today are significantly higher than they were just a few years ago. Whether you're buying a pump or a motor or a new headbox, the costs have gone up dramatically just in the last year or so. Then again, the labor cost to install, if you're having contractors come in, that labor cost is up significantly.
That's really, it's the amount of work we're doing and taking advantage of the time and the capability to do it, and the pure capital cost of these components and the labor cost to do it. I would mention, we are in a really good position. For the last 10 years, we have gotten ahead of the curve, so to speak, on recapitalizing our box plant assets. Our mills are in great shape. Everything we're doing is more on autopilot opportunity, taking care of the customer base, growing with the customers. Tom, why don't you add a little bit more to that?
Well, just to follow up on that, Mark. I think we've mentioned this numerous times, but this cost of capital has gone up 2, 3x in a lot of cases, both at the mills and at the box plants. It's imperative in order to be able to continue to grow with our customers and be able to take care of our customers and all those other sorts of things, to be able to earn your cost of capital. That's part of a struggle that we have every day to make sure that we're able to do that. To Mark's point, also as I mentioned, we've been at this for a long time, so a lot of those improvements that we put in place were prior to some of these exorbitant increases that we're now encountering. Those are definitely considerations going forward.
All these projects that we've got going on also, God only knows we need all these tons too. They're sold already.
Appreciate all the detail. Thank you.
Thanks, Mark. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Anojja Shah from UBS. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi, good morning.
Good morning, Anojja.
Morning. I wanted to ask about synergies. I think you said they are running ahead of plan. Any way to put a finer point on that, like how much it contributed in 3Q? Also, are you still expecting $30 million for this year, next year? Or do you think you can end up doing a little better than that?
No, we are doing a little better than that. We are on a run rate now between $40 million and $50 million. We called out 45,000 tons of increased integration from PCA into the acquired. That is a big piece of it. There are other integration benefits, and then there is just the reliability, cost performance, and whatnot at the acquired Greif mills. Run rate of 70,000 more tons now than what it was doing at the time of the acquisition. So really those buckets are the factors in the synergies at this point.
Right. Okay. Then switching over to end markets. Have you seen any pickup? So I know the FDA declared the Cyclospora outbreak done. Have you seen any improvement in your shipments, recognizing that it is probably a bit of a seasonal market? Also, can you talk about what you are seeing in your other end markets, industrial and consumer?
Anojja, I will take a stab at this. I have mentioned ag numerous times. We do see some recovery in ag. The question will be, is how much of that occurs in the fourth quarter and how much rolls over into the first quarter? Does weather cooperate? That has been also a little bit of a drag. Protein markets, especially on the beef side, have been down now for quite some time. Everybody has heard about the level of the herds and how long it is going to take to get those herds back up and get that volume back up. So that is going to still take some time. But the other market, e-com, is still not growing at the same rate it had grown for a long time, but still is a growing market and still doing quite well. Outside of that, the other markets are kind of where they are.
We'd like building products to pick up some and things like that. That has to do with government regulations and a whole bunch of other things, and interest rates. There's lots of puts and takes, and we're in so many different markets, and we've got thousands and thousands of customers in these various markets. So it's hard to predict any single one. Ag has stuck out more than others just because of what's gone on weather-wise and the lettuce and all the other things that have occurred.
Right. Okay, thank you very much for that. I'll turn it over.
Thanks, Anojja. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Phil Ng from Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.
Hey, guys. Congrats on another strong quarter. I think if I heard you correctly, you guys are doing a little more extensive work in the fourth quarter with a DeRidder, and I think Massillon as well. My question is, does that unlock potentially more capacity, more debottlenecking? I think when you guys announced idling Wallula and debottlenecking some of the other mills, I had a number in mind, roughly 6 million tons of capacity once it's all said and done, but you guys always find new things to do. Can you kind of help us think through your capacity to produce, just because, as you kind of pointed out, market's very tight.
Yeah, if you think about our expected run rate for 2026 is probably going to be 5,757,000 tons. I would think we're on track, and I've been talking about this for the last year, that we'll get to be a 6 million ton system with this work that we're doing. It's basically, we get through these outages next year at Counce and some of the work we've got going on at Jackson. We certainly have that capability that depending on the grade mix you're producing, we're bumping up against that 6 million ton capability. But this is ongoing. This is what we do. We continue to stretch the capability. We see the opportunities. That's why I mentioned earlier on the call, the annual shutdown that just occurred at Riverville Mill.
It unlocked these opportunities before our eyes in terms of some capital input will greatly improve the productivity and performance of the Riverville Mill. That's going to be another piece of the containerboard supply over the next couple of years as we get that equipment installed and that mill stretched out. Massillon Mill is a good example. Massillon Mill is performing incredibly efficiently compared to a year ago. These are the little things that we do that make Massillon such an important mill to us. You've got the new box plant down in Newark. I believe it's like 80 mi from the Massillon Mill.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
It is basically shuttle truck distance away. The Ashland box plant is probably 40 mi away from Massillon. Massillon being a very efficient mill just within the first year of ownership presents an incredible opportunity. But we will continue to stretch out. Long answer to your question, we are definitely at that 6 million ton, bumping that capacity and with the projects we have got coming on over the next six months to a year.
Got you. Any early read on CapEx next year and big projects in the horizon? You spent more than I think most people would be happy with, but anything that you have up your sleeve that we can talk about?
Well, we will give you a better target in the January call, as we always do. But I mentioned some of the bigger projects. Really, the big spend over the next 24 months will come from the gas turbine installations. We have got three gas turbines going in, and we have got to finish up the Counce No. 2 machine improvement work. That was a fairly sizable amount of work. Then the rest of it is just the whole host of opportunities that present themselves across the board in the box plants. It is going to be the one-off equipment. It is the EVOL, the BOBST, the various rotary die cutters, new corrugators to continue to grow with our customer base.
That is all customer driven. Yeah.
That is the beauty of that we invest with the customer. I think without giving you a number, if you think about the cadence of our capital for the last couple of years, we are going to take advantage of those type of opportunities. We are generating significant cash flows. I think the question will come as it has always been, what are we doing with all the excess cash? I will leave it at that.
Okay, super. Perhaps a question for Kent. Kent, you were kind enough to give some color sequentially from Q4 to Q1. Outside of the labor and benefits piece, which steps up every year around 1Q, are you starting to see your major input costs level off here, just your operations, freight, and stuff like that? Then any color on the September increase, how much of that is flowing through in Q4 versus 1Q? Is it like a 20/80 split?
Okay, so I will take your last one. I think it is probably a little more into Q4 than what you said. I do not want to throw a number, but it is better than 20/80 in terms of Q4 versus Q1. All right, so on input costs, freight recycled. Right now at least, looking past 4Q, we got to assume it stays at elevated levels, okay?
Okay.
Until we see some sort of breakthrough in the drivers on those. Right now I am assuming at fairly high levels, similar to what we are forecasting for Q4.
Okay. That's helpful. Margins should improve nicely with costs leveling off. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Phil.
Thanks, Phil.
Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Anthony Pettinari from Citi. Please go ahead with your question.
Good morning.
Morning, Anthony.
Just following up on the energy projects. I think at the beginning of the year, you talked about the gas turbine projects taking maybe two and a half years. I am wondering if I got that right, and if in the current operating environment, which is pretty tight, are you sort of on track for that? Are there possibilities to pull that forward or just yeah?
Because there are three installations at three different mills, they are moving in three different paces. We are actually in installation mode at the Jackson Mill. That is moving along very quickly, and part of that was we were able to get the permits very quickly and move on that through your summertime period. So DeRidder is somewhat behind that. Then Virginia, with the Riverville Mill, we are going through a permitting process, and that is taking a little extra time. Part of it is we are just comprehensively looking at the entire mill footprint with the mill opportunities in terms of productivity on the paper machine side, the pulp mill side, and comprehensively looking at what that mill will become over the next few years. So there is a little bit of extra time in the permitting process.
So that would be kind of like a late 2028 into truly just the two and a half years out to see that one come on at best. That is why it is really a multi-year phased project.
Got it. That is very helpful. Apologies if this was asked earlier, but in terms of the most recent box price hike, when we think about the implementation and the timeline for that hike, should we think about that as being basically the same as the first and the second hikes this year? Or is there anything about we are kind of towards the end of the year or the competitive environment? Just how would you compare the implementation timeline for the third one versus the first two, just based on where we are close to the end of the year?
Anthony, this is Tom. Our timeline is pretty much the same on each of these. I gave you in the commentary, we got the first is the end. We still are realizing some of the second $50 in the fourth. We will realize a little bit of the $70 in the fourth, and the majority will come in Q1 of next year. So the cadence on these are pretty much the same. Now, you may be asking the question because it is not every day that we get three back to back to back. But that is how the cadence is working for us right now, and it is all based on the normal procedures that we go through with our customers.
Okay. That's helpful. I'll turn it over.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Hillary Cacanando from Deutsche Bank Securities. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Just a quick clarification question on the $70 increase. You said you expect obviously more in the first quarter than the fourth quarter. But are you expecting the full $70 increase to be realized by the first quarter, or do you think that that could extend beyond the first quarter into the second or even the-
Hi, Hillary, this is Tom. In the normal cadence that I just talked about, the great majority of the realization will all be in the first quarter next year.
Okay. Got it. Thank you. That's helpful. Just with recycled fiber costs continuing to increase, has anything changed in how you're optimizing the mix between recycled and virgin fiber?
No. Again, we take advantage that it's a mill-specific opportunity, mill by mill, location by location. You got transportation considerations on OCC. Then again, just what the pulp mill itself is designed to do, and so you balance out your fiber needs with OCC in general, DLK. But in the conditions we're under in terms of with the tight market, need for containerboard, we've got everything pretty well maxed out. Virgin kraft productivity, OCC plant productivity. So it's basically utilizing everything we can take advantage of right now.
Got it. Thank you. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Any more questions?
Yes, sir. We have a follow-up question from George Staphos from Bank of America. Please go ahead with your follow-up.
Hi. Thanks, guys. I will make it quick. Mark, can you talk a little bit about what kind of lead times you are seeing on equipment? You talked a little bit about turbines, and obviously, you already had purchased those, and opportunistically so. If we think about converting equipment versus equipment you might need at the mill, what are your lead times right now? How would those compare versus what you are hearing about elsewhere, perhaps? When we think about Greif, the synergies which have now moved up, the turbine project, and then the mill realignment optimization program you announced last year into this year, or maybe it was the beginning of this year. I know it depends on where you start the clock, but I think we have talked in the past.
Do you think you have added from all of that, $0.5 billion to your EBITDA when you think about those three or four larger buckets? Thanks, and good luck in the quarter.
Hey, George, I'll knock off your last one. The answer is we're pretty darn close to that. There are some inflation effects to that, but yeah, we've talked about that before publicly in response to your prior questions. But yeah, that's still a pretty good number there.
Just marking a market there. Go ahead.
On some of the lead times, it depends on what you're ordering. If you're ordering some very complex pieces of unit operations, the lead times can be longer. In some ways, there's some opportunities that have taken place. Some of the equipment suppliers actually don't have as big a backlog as they had a few years ago, so the lead times have shortened up. But more than the lead times, it's the cost.
Whether two years ago it took 14 months to get something delivered, and now you can get it delivered in 10 months. It doesn't matter if the cost is up 60% from what it was a year and a half ago. So it's the absolute cost to acquire the piece of equipment and then the installation labor that goes into it and the associated installation factors that have increased, in many cases, have doubled the cost of capital projects just in the last two years.
I would add that if we are building it all, you are now competing with data centers for land and for steel and all these other things that are going on. So those construction costs are just going through the roof as well.
We are definitely seeing, if you think about contractor availability is a good example, and what Tom just said about data centers. With any specific region, if you are in the building and trades and you have an opportunity to go work at a data center, quite frankly, if you look at the pay scales and locations, and quite frankly, just the magnitude of the build-out, it has put an incredible demand nationwide on a lot of the building and trades.
That is another factor that we deal with. We are fortunate we have a good group of contractors that we have aligned ourselves with. Again, we have our own incredibly talented maintenance organization that we use across the board. We call that the traveling team, and in conjunction with the technology group. So we are able to overcome a lot of that, but still. Again, the delivery times, it is one factor, but it is the absolute cost of the equipment that is really the factor.
Mark, I understand, but if I was ordering a new paper machine, I was converting something, I am not getting into the business, but let us say I was. Am I looking at two years on that? If I was buying a new flexo folder gluer, let us say I was buying an EVOL. Not you, but me. Am I a year before I get that equipment? That is just what I am getting at. Thank you, and good luck in the quarter. Thanks again.
Yeah, it just depends on the equipment you're buying, the vendor you're buying it from, what country it's coming from. Again, the permitting issues, the contractor's availability to install it. But I can tell you, investing in this business is not for the faint of heart anymore.
Okay.
The game has changed significantly.
Got it. Thank you so much.
All right, George. Thank you. Jamie, any more questions?
Mr. Kowlzan, I see that there are no more questions at this time. Do you have any closing comments?
Yeah, I'd like to thank everybody for joining us today, and as usual, we appreciate the back-and-forth question and answer period, and look forward to talking to everybody in January. With that, have a great rest of the year and a great holiday period. Thank you.
And with that, we'll wrap up today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.
Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-21Compared to Estimates, Packaging Corp. (PKG) Q3 Earnings: A Look at Key Metrics
Zacks
Compared to Estimates, Packaging Corp. (PKG) Q3 Earnings: A Look at Key Metrics
Packaging Corp. (PKG) reported $2.6 billion in revenue for the quarter ended September 2026, representing a year-over-year increase of 12.5%. EPS of $3.04 for the same period compares to $2.73 a year ago. The reported revenue represents a surprise of +1.46% over the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.56 billion. With the consensus EPS estimate being $2.95, the EPS surprise was +3.05%. While investors closely watch year-over-year changes in headline numbers -- revenue and earnings -- and how they compare to Wall Street expectations to determine their next course of action, some key metrics always provide a better insight into a company's underlying performance. As these metrics influence top- and bottom-line performance, comparing them to the year-ago numbers and what analysts estimated helps investors project a stock's price performance more accurately. Here is how Packaging Corp. performed in the just reported quarter in terms of the metrics most widely monitored and projected by Wall Street analysts: - Segment Sales- Packaging: $2.41 billion versus $2.27 billion estimated by three analysts on average. Compared to the year-ago quarter, this number represents a +13.4% change. - Segment Sales- Corporate and Other: $24.5 million versus $24.93 million estimated by three analysts on average. Compared to the year-ago quarter, this number represents a +1.7% change. - Segment Sales- Paper: $163.2 million versus $160.15 million estimated by three analysts on average. Compared to the year-ago quarter, this number represents a +1.2% change. - Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items- Packaging: $407.7 million versus $482.65 million estimated by two analysts on average. - Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items- Corporate and Other: $-38.9 million versus $-49.49 million estimated by two analysts on average. - Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items- Paper: $29 million compared to the $39.9 million average estimate based on two analysts. View all Key Company Metrics for Packaging Corp. here>>> Shares of Packaging Corp. have returned +0.3% over the past month versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's +1% change. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), indicating that it could perform in line with the broader market in the near term. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best…Read full documentShow less
Packaging Corp. (PKG) reported $2.6 billion in revenue for the quarter ended September 2026, representing a year-over-year increase of 12.5%. EPS of $3.04 for the same period compares to $2.73 a year ago. The reported revenue represents a surprise of +1.46% over the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.56 billion. With the consensus EPS estimate being $2.95, the EPS surprise was +3.05%. While investors closely watch year-over-year changes in headline numbers -- revenue and earnings -- and how they compare to Wall Street expectations to determine their next course of action, some key metrics always provide a better insight into a company's underlying performance. As these metrics influence top- and bottom-line performance, comparing them to the year-ago numbers and what analysts estimated helps investors project a stock's price performance more accurately. Here is how Packaging Corp. performed in the just reported quarter in terms of the metrics most widely monitored and projected by Wall Street analysts: - Segment Sales- Packaging: $2.41 billion versus $2.27 billion estimated by three analysts on average. Compared to the year-ago quarter, this number represents a +13.4% change. - Segment Sales- Corporate and Other: $24.5 million versus $24.93 million estimated by three analysts on average. Compared to the year-ago quarter, this number represents a +1.7% change. - Segment Sales- Paper: $163.2 million versus $160.15 million estimated by three analysts on average. Compared to the year-ago quarter, this number represents a +1.2% change. - Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items- Packaging: $407.7 million versus $482.65 million estimated by two analysts on average. - Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items- Corporate and Other: $-38.9 million versus $-49.49 million estimated by two analysts on average. - Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items- Paper: $29 million compared to the $39.9 million average estimate based on two analysts. View all Key Company Metrics for Packaging Corp. here>>> Shares of Packaging Corp. have returned +0.3% over the past month versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's +1% change. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), indicating that it could perform in line with the broader market in the near term. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Packaging Corporation of America (PKG) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research
Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-21Packaging Corporation of America Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results
Business Wire
Packaging Corporation of America Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results
LAKE FOREST, Ill., October 21, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE: PKG) today reported third quarter 2026 net income of $262 million, or $2.93 per share, and net income of $272 million, or $3.04 per share, excluding special items. Third quarter net sales were $2.6 billion in 2026 and $2.3 billion in 2025. Diluted earnings per share attributable to Packaging Corporation of America shareholders | | | | | | | | | | Three Months Ended | | | September 30, | | | 2026 | | 2025 | | Change | Reported Diluted EPS | | $ | 2.93 | | $ | 2.51 | | $ | 0.42 | Special Items Expense (1) | | | 0.11 | | | 0.22 | | | (0.11 | ) Diluted EPS excluding Special Items (2) | | $ | 3.04 | | $ | 2.73 | | $ | 0.31 | | | | | | | | (1) For descriptions and amounts of our special items, see the schedules with this release. | (2) Diluted EPS excluding Special Items is a non-GAAP financial measure. For information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures and descriptions and amounts of our special items, see the schedules with this release. | Reported earnings in the third quarter of 2026 include special items primarily for facility closure costs, acquisition and integration-related costs, the impact of a fire at a corrugated products facility, and restructuring charges relating to the Wallula, WA containerboard mill. Reported earnings in the third quarter of 2025 included special items for costs and charges related to the Greif containerboard business acquisition and closures of corrugated products facilities. Excluding special items, the $.31 per share increase in third quarter 2026 earnings compared to the third quarter of 2025 resulted from $.24 higher earnings from the acquired Greif operations and $.07 higher earnings in the legacy business. The acquired Greif operations generated earnings of $.13 in the third quarter of 2026 compared to a loss of ($.11) in the third quarter of 2025. The higher earnings in the legacy business were driven by favorable price and mix in the Packaging segment $.79, favorable production and sales volume in the Packaging segment, including the benefit of a higher volume of containerboard supplied by the legacy mills to the acquired Greif operations $.12, favorable price and mix in the Paper segment $.05 and a lower share count $.02. These items were partially offset by higher labor…Read full documentShow less
LAKE FOREST, Ill., October 21, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE: PKG) today reported third quarter 2026 net income of $262 million, or $2.93 per share, and net income of $272 million, or $3.04 per share, excluding special items. Third quarter net sales were $2.6 billion in 2026 and $2.3 billion in 2025. Diluted earnings per share attributable to Packaging Corporation of America shareholders | | | | | | | | | | Three Months Ended | | | September 30, | | | 2026 | | 2025 | | Change | Reported Diluted EPS | | $ | 2.93 | | $ | 2.51 | | $ | 0.42 | Special Items Expense (1) | | | 0.11 | | | 0.22 | | | (0.11 | ) Diluted EPS excluding Special Items (2) | | $ | 3.04 | | $ | 2.73 | | $ | 0.31 | | | | | | | | (1) For descriptions and amounts of our special items, see the schedules with this release. | (2) Diluted EPS excluding Special Items is a non-GAAP financial measure. For information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures and descriptions and amounts of our special items, see the schedules with this release. | Reported earnings in the third quarter of 2026 include special items primarily for facility closure costs, acquisition and integration-related costs, the impact of a fire at a corrugated products facility, and restructuring charges relating to the Wallula, WA containerboard mill. Reported earnings in the third quarter of 2025 included special items for costs and charges related to the Greif containerboard business acquisition and closures of corrugated products facilities. Excluding special items, the $.31 per share increase in third quarter 2026 earnings compared to the third quarter of 2025 resulted from $.24 higher earnings from the acquired Greif operations and $.07 higher earnings in the legacy business. The acquired Greif operations generated earnings of $.13 in the third quarter of 2026 compared to a loss of ($.11) in the third quarter of 2025. The higher earnings in the legacy business were driven by favorable price and mix in the Packaging segment $.79, favorable production and sales volume in the Packaging segment, including the benefit of a higher volume of containerboard supplied by the legacy mills to the acquired Greif operations $.12, favorable price and mix in the Paper segment $.05 and a lower share count $.02. These items were partially offset by higher labor and operating expense ($.28), higher freight expense ($.26), higher corporate and other expense ($.13), higher fiber costs ($.12), higher depreciation and amortization expense ($.06), higher maintenance outage expense in the Paper segment ($.04), lower volume in the Paper segment ($.01), and higher interest expense, excluding Greif acquisition indebtedness ($.01). Excluding the impact of special items, earnings were $.13 above third quarter guidance of $2.91 per share primarily due to favorable price and mix in the Packaging segment and favorable earnings from the acquired Greif operations, partially offset by higher labor and operating costs and unfavorable corrugated products sales volume. Financial information by segment is summarized below and in the schedules with this release. | | (dollars in millions) | | | Three Months Ended | | | September 30, | | | 2026 | | | 2025 | Segment operating income (loss) | | | | | | Packaging | | $ | 397.8 | | | $ | 327.5 | Paper | | | 29.0 | | | | 35.6 | Corporate and Other | | | (41.5 | ) | | | (38.6 | ) | | $ | 385.3 | | | $ | 324.5 | | | | | | | Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items (1) | | | | | | Packaging | | $ | 407.7 | | | $ | 347.9 | Paper | | | 29.0 | | | | 35.6 | Corporate and Other | | | (38.9 | ) | | | (32.7 | ) | | $ | 397.8 | | | $ | 350.8 | | | | | | | EBITDA excluding special items (1) | | | | | | Packaging | | $ | 577.7 | | | $ | 491.8 | Paper | | | 33.6 | | | | 40.1 | Corporate and Other | | | (34.1 | ) | | | (28.5 | ) | | $ | 577.2 | | | $ | 503.4 | | | | | | | (1) Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items and EBITDA excluding special items are non-GAAP financial measures. We provide information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations of historical non-GAAP financial measures presented in this press release to the most comparable measure reported in accordance with GAAP in the schedules to this press release. | Total corrugated products shipments were up 10.6% per day and in total compared to the third quarter of 2025. In the legacy packaging business, corrugated products shipments were down 0.5% per day and in total compared to the third quarter of 2025, with the same number of shipping days in each period. Containerboard production was 1,489,000 tons, and containerboard inventory was up 34,000 tons compared to the second quarter of 2026 and down 29,000 tons compared to the third quarter of 2025. In the Paper segment, sales volume was down 2.5% from the third quarter of 2025. Commenting on reported results, Mark W. Kowlzan, Chairman and CEO, said, "We executed very well across all aspects of our operations, resulting in very strong earnings performance for the quarter despite continued cost headwinds from freight, recycled fiber and chemicals and some weakness in agricultural end markets in our corrugated business. Our mills ran at full capacity during the quarter, and we are meaningfully realizing production benefits from projects at our Jackson mill as well as improved operating performance at the acquired Greif mills. We managed to build sufficient inventory to put us in position to efficiently supply our corrugated operations in the fourth quarter and help us continue to mitigate escalating freight costs. Our white paper operations turned in another excellent quarter, with higher than expected sales volumes, strong price realization and safe and successful completion of the maintenance outage at the International Falls mill." Mr. Kowlzan added, "Looking ahead as we move from the third quarter into the fourth quarter, we expect solid corrugated products demand with some seasonal improvement. Shipments per day are expected to be at or around last year's fourth quarter level with two fewer shipping days than the third quarter and total shipments are expected to be higher than the third quarter. Prices for containerboard and corrugated products are expected to improve as we continue to implement earlier price increases, but corrugated products mix will be seasonally weaker with higher e-commerce volumes. Containerboard production will be lower with maintenance outages at three of our mills, and mill maintenance outage expenses, including the impact on production volume from fourth quarter outages, will be significantly higher in the fourth quarter. We expect seasonally lower volume and slightly higher prices in the Paper segment. We expect freight costs to increase with diesel fuel prices increasing above third quarter levels. We also expect costs for recycled fiber to continue to increase as well as higher wood fiber costs due to winter yields and mill mix. Costs for chemicals and energy will increase due to higher prices and higher seasonal energy usage. Considering these items, we expect fourth quarter earnings of $2.81 per share, excluding special items." We present our earnings expectation for the upcoming quarter excluding special items as special items are difficult to predict and quantify and may reflect the effect of future events. We currently expect to incur acquisition and integration related costs and costs related to the closure of corrugated products facilities during the fourth quarter; however, additional special items may arise due to fourth quarter events. PCA is the third largest producer of containerboard products and a leading producer of uncoated freesheet paper in North America. PCA operates ten mills and 90 corrugated products plants and related facilities. Some of the statements in this press release are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements about our future earnings and financial condition, expected benefits from acquisitions and restructuring activities, our industry and our business strategy. Statements that contain words such as "will", "should", "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "hope" or similar expressions, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on the current expectations of PCA. Because forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, the plans, actions and actual results of PCA could differ materially. Among the factors that could cause plans, actions and results to differ materially from PCA's current expectations include the following: the impact of general economic conditions; conditions in the paper and packaging industries, including competition, product demand and product pricing; fluctuations in wood fiber and recycled fiber costs; fluctuations in purchased energy costs; the possibility of unplanned outages or interruptions at our principal facilities; and legislative or regulatory requirements, particularly concerning environmental matters, as well as those identified under Item 1A. Risk Factors in PCA's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, and in subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available at the SEC's website at "www.sec.gov." Conference Call Information: WHAT: | | | Packaging Corporation of America's 3rd Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call | | | Conference ID: Packaging Corporation of America | | | WHEN: | | | Thursday, October 22, 2026 at 9:00am Eastern Time | | | PRE-REGISTRATION: | | | https://dpregister.com/sreg/10205357/102fc34e0c7 OR | | CALL-IN NUMBER: | | | (833) 816-1102 (U.S.); (866) 605-3852 (Canada) or (412) 317-0684 (International) | | | Dial in by 8:45am Eastern Time | | | WEBCAST INFO: | | | www.packagingcorp.com | | | REBROADCAST DATES: | | | October 22, 2026 through November 5, 2026 | | | REBROADCAST NUMBERS: | | | (855) 669-9658 (U.S. and Canada); (412) 317-0088 (International) | | | Passcode: 8981933 | | | Packaging Corporation of America | Consolidated Earnings Results | Unaudited | (dollars in millions, except per-share data) | | | | | | | | | | Three Months Ended | | Nine Months Ended | | September 30, | | September 30, | | | 2026 | | | | 2025 | | | | 2026 | | | | 2025 | | Net sales | $ | 2,601.7 | | | $ | 2,313.4 | | | $ | 7,459.3 | | | $ | 6,625.7 | | Cost of sales | | (1,997.8 | ) | (1) | | (1,809.1 | ) | (2) | | (5,890.2 | ) | (1) | | (5,183.6 | ) | (2) Gross profit | | 603.9 | | | | 504.3 | | | | 1,569.1 | | | | 1,442.1 | | Selling, general, and administrative expenses | | (182.7 | ) | | | (154.3 | ) | | | (542.3 | ) | | | (468.9 | ) | Other expense, net | | (35.9 | ) | (1) | | (25.5 | ) | (2) | | (99.1 | ) | (1) | | (34.7 | ) | (2) Income from operations | | 385.3 | | | | 324.5 | | | | 927.7 | | | | 938.5 | | Non-operating pension income | | 1.2 | | | | - | | | | 3.5 | | | | - | | Interest expense, net | | (32.3 | ) | | | (19.3 | ) | | | (98.3 | ) | | | (45.2 | ) | Income before taxes | | 354.2 | | | | 305.2 | | | | 832.9 | | | | 893.3 | | Provision for income taxes | | (91.9 | ) | | | (78.3 | ) | | | (207.6 | ) | | | (221.0 | ) | Net income | $ | 262.3 | | | $ | 226.9 | | | $ | 625.3 | | | $ | 672.3 | | | | | | | | | | Earnings per share: | | | | | | | | Basic | $ | 2.94 | | | $ | 2.52 | | | $ | 7.02 | | | $ | 7.48 | | Diluted | $ | 2.93 | | | $ | 2.51 | | | $ | 6.98 | | | $ | 7.45 | | | | | | | | | | Computation of diluted earnings per share under the two class method: | | | | | | | | Net income | $ | 262.3 | | | $ | 226.9 | | | $ | 625.3 | | | $ | 672.3 | | Less: Distributed and undistributed income available to participating securities | | (1.5 | ) | | | (1.5 | ) | | | (3.7 | ) | | | (4.5 | ) | Net income attributable to PCA shareholders | $ | 260.8 | | | $ | 225.4 | | | $ | 621.6 | | | $ | 667.8 | | Diluted weighted average shares outstanding | | 89.0 | | | | 89.7 | | | | 89.1 | | | | 89.7 | | Diluted earnings per share | $ | 2.93 | | | $ | 2.51 | | | $ | 6.98 | | | $ | 7.45 | | | | | | | | | | Supplemental financial information: | | | | | | | | Capital spending | $ | 247.3 | | | $ | 192.1 | | | $ | 617.9 | | | $ | 509.9 | | Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable debt securities | $ | 761.8 | | | $ | 806.4 | | | $ | 761.8 | | | $ | 806.4 | | | | | | | | | | (1) The three and nine months ended September 30, 2026 include the following: a.$6.2 million and $23.1 million, respectively, of charges consisting of closure costs related to corrugated products facilities and the write-off of expenditures related to sustainability and renewable energy projects. The costs were recorded in "Cost of sales" and "Other expense, net", as appropriate. b.$3.0 million and $9.8 million, respectively, of charges for acquisition and integration costs related to recent acquisitions. The costs were recorded in "Cost of sales" and "Other expense, net", as appropriate. c.$3.0 million of charges related to fire damage at a corrugated products facility. The costs were recorded in "Other expense, net." d.$0.3 million and $60.0 million, respectively, of charges related to the announced discontinuation of the No. 2 machine and kraft pulping facilities at the Wallula, Washington containerboard mill. The costs were recorded in "Cost of sales" and "Other expense, net", as appropriate. | | | | | | | | (2) The three and nine months ended September 30, 2025 include the following: a.$1.3 million of charges and $17.5 million of income, respectively, related to the closure of certain corrugated products facilities. For the three months ended September 30, 2025, the charges were partially offset by a gain on an asset disposal related to a closed corrugated products facility. For the nine months ended September 30, 2025, the charges were completely offset by gains from the sales of closed corrugated products facilities during the second quarter of 2025. These items were recorded in "Cost of sales" and "Other expense, net", as appropriate. b.$25.0 million and $26.6 million, respectively, of charges for acquisition and integration costs related to the announced Greif, Inc. acquisition, which were recorded in "Cost of sales" and "Other expense, net", as appropriate. Packaging Corporation of America Segment Information Unaudited (dollars in millions) | | Three Months Ended | | Nine Months Ended | September 30, | | September 30, | | 2026 | | | | 2025 | | | | 2026 | | | | 2025 | Segment sales | | | | | | | Packaging | $ | 2,414.0 | | | $ | 2,128.1 | | | $ | 6,913.9 | | | $ | 6,104.4 | Paper | | 163.2 | | | | 161.2 | | | | 480.4 | | | | 461.2 | Corporate and Other | | 24.5 | | | | 24.1 | | | | 65.0 | | | | 60.1 | | $ | 2,601.7 | | | $ | 2,313.4 | | | $ | 7,459.3 | | | $ | 6,625.7 | | | | | | | | Segment operating income (loss) | | | | | | | Packaging | $ | 397.8 | | | $ | 327.5 | | | $ | 971.2 | | | $ | 952.0 | Paper | | 29.0 | | | | 35.6 | | | | 96.2 | | | | 96.9 | Corporate and Other | | (41.5 | ) | | | (38.6 | ) | | | (139.7 | ) | | | (110.4 | ) Income from operations | | 385.3 | | | | 324.5 | | | | 927.7 | | | | 938.5 | Non-operating pension income | | 1.2 | | | | - | | | | 3.5 | | | | - | Interest expense, net | | (32.3 | ) | | | (19.3 | ) | | | (98.3 | ) | | | (45.2 | ) Income before taxes | $ | 354.2 | | | $ | 305.2 | | | $ | 832.9 | | | $ | 893.3 | | | | | | | | Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items (1) | | | | | | | Packaging | $ | 407.7 | | | $ | 347.9 | | | $ | 1,052.0 | | | $ | 953.6 | Paper | | 29.0 | | | | 35.6 | | | | 96.2 | | | | 96.9 | Corporate and Other | | (38.9 | ) | | | (32.7 | ) | | | (124.6 | ) | | | (102.9 | ) | $ | 397.8 | | | $ | 350.8 | | | $ | 1,023.6 | | | $ | 947.6 | | | | | | | | EBITDA excluding special items (1) | | | | | | | Packaging | $ | 577.7 | | | $ | 491.8 | | | $ | 1,548.0 | | | $ | 1,354.0 | Paper | | 33.6 | | | | 40.1 | | | | 110.4 | | | | 110.7 | Corporate and Other | | (34.1 | ) | | | (28.5 | ) | | | (110.1 | ) | | | (89.4 | ) | $ | 577.2 | | | $ | 503.4 | | | $ | 1,548.3 | | | $ | 1,375.3 | (1) Income (loss) from operations excluding special items, segment operating income (loss) excluding special items, earnings before non-operating pension income, interest, income taxes, and depreciation, amortization, and depletion (EBITDA), segment EBITDA, EBITDA excluding special items, and segment EBITDA excluding special items are non-GAAP financial measures. Management excludes special items as it believes these items are not necessarily reflective of the ongoing results of operations of our business. We present these measures because they provide a means to evaluate the performance of our segments and our company on an ongoing basis using the same measures that are used by our management, because these measures assist in providing a meaningful comparison between periods presented and because these measures are frequently used by investors and other interested parties in the evaluation of companies and the performance of their segments. The tables included in "Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures" on the following pages reconcile the non-GAAP measures with the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Any analysis of non-GAAP financial measures should be done only in conjunction with results presented in accordance with GAAP. The non-GAAP measures are not intended to be substitutes for GAAP financial measures and should not be used as such. Packaging Corporation of America Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures Unaudited (dollars in millions) | | | | | | | | Three Months Ended | | Nine Months Ended | September 30, | | September 30, | | 2026 | | | | 2025 | | | | 2026 | | | | 2025 | Packaging | | | | | | | Segment operating income | $ | 397.8 | | | $ | 327.5 | | | $ | 971.2 | | | $ | 952.0 | Facilities closure and other costs (income) | | 5.9 | | | | 1.3 | | | | 17.1 | | | | (17.5 | ) Acquisition and integration-related costs | | 0.7 | | | | 19.1 | | | | 0.7 | | | | 19.1 | Corrugated products facility fire | | 3.0 | | | | - | | | | 3.0 | | | | - | Wallula mill restructuring | | 0.3 | | | | - | | | | 60.0 | | | | - | Segment operating income excluding special items (1) | $ | 407.7 | | | $ | 347.9 | | | $ | 1,052.0 | | | $ | 953.6 | | | | | | | | Paper | | | | | | | Segment operating income | $ | 29.0 | | | $ | 35.6 | | | $ | 96.2 | | | $ | 96.9 | Segment operating income excluding special items (1) | $ | 29.0 | | | $ | 35.6 | | | $ | 96.2 | | | $ | 96.9 | | | | | | | | Corporate and Other | | | | | | | Segment operating loss | $ | (41.5 | ) | | $ | (38.6 | ) | | $ | (139.7 | ) | | $ | (110.4 | ) Acquisition and integration-related costs | | 2.3 | | | | 5.9 | | | | 9.1 | | | | 7.5 | Facilities closure and other costs | | 0.3 | | | | - | | | | 6.0 | | | | - | Segment operating loss excluding special items (1) | $ | (38.9 | ) | | $ | (32.7 | ) | | $ | (124.6 | ) | | $ | (102.9 | ) | | | | | | | Income from operations | $ | 385.3 | | | $ | 324.5 | | | $ | 927.7 | | | $ | 938.5 | | | | | | | | Income from operations, excluding special items (1) | $ | 397.8 | | | $ | 350.8 | | | $ | 1,023.6 | | | $ | 947.6 | | | | | | | | (1) See footnote (1) on page 3, for a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures. Packaging Corporation of America Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures Unaudited (dollars in millions) Net Income Excluding Special Items and EPS Excluding Special Items (1) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Three Months Ended September 30, | 2026 | | 2025 | Incomebeforetaxes | | IncomeTaxes | | NetIncome | | DilutedEPS | | Incomebeforetaxes | | IncomeTaxes | | NetIncome | | Diluted EPS As reported in accordance with GAAP | $ | 354.2 | | $ | (91.9 | ) | | $ | 262.3 | | $ | 2.93 | | $ | 305.2 | | | $ | (78.3 | ) | | $ | 226.9 | | | $ | 2.51 | Special items (2): | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Facilities closure and other costs | | 6.2 | | | (1.3 | ) | | | 4.9 | | | 0.05 | | | 1.3 | | | | (0.3 | ) | | | 1.0 | | | | 0.01 | Acquisition and integration-related costs | | 3.0 | | | (0.7 | ) | | | 2.3 | | | 0.03 | | | 25.0 | | | | (6.2 | ) | | | 18.8 | | | | 0.21 | Corrugated products facility fire | | 3.0 | | | (0.7 | ) | | | 2.3 | | | 0.03 | | | - | | | | - | | | | - | | | | - | Wallula mill restructuring | | 0.3 | | | (0.1 | ) | | | 0.2 | | | - | | | - | | | | - | | | | - | | | | - | Total special items | | 12.5 | | | (2.8 | ) | | | 9.7 | | | 0.11 | | | 26.3 | | | | (6.5 | ) | | | 19.8 | | | | 0.22 | Excluding special items | $ | 366.7 | | $ | (94.7 | ) | | $ | 272.0 | | $ | 3.04 | | $ | 331.5 | | | $ | (84.8 | ) | | $ | 246.7 | | | $ | 2.73 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Nine Months Ended September 30, | 2026 | | 2025 | Incomebeforetaxes | | IncomeTaxes | | NetIncome | | DilutedEPS | | Incomebeforetaxes | | IncomeTaxes | | NetIncome | | Diluted EPS As reported in accordance with GAAP | $ | 832.9 | | $ | (207.6 | ) | | $ | 625.3 | | $ | 6.98 | | $ | 893.3 | | | $ | (221.0 | ) | | $ | 672.3 | | | $ | 7.45 | Special items (2): | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Facilities closure and other costs (income) | | 23.1 | | | (5.8 | ) | | | 17.3 | | | 0.19 | | | (17.5 | ) | | | 4.3 | | | | (13.2 | ) | | | (0.15 | ) Acquisition and integration-related costs | | 9.8 | | | (2.4 | ) | | | 7.4 | | | 0.08 | | | 26.6 | | | | (6.6 | ) | | | 20.0 | | | | 0.22 | Wallula mill restructuring | | 60.0 | | | (14.9 | ) | | | 45.1 | | | 0.50 | | | - | | | | - | | | | - | | | | - | Corrugated products facility fire | | 3.0 | | | (0.7 | ) | | | 2.3 | | | 0.03 | | | - | | | | - | | | | - | | | | - | Total special items | | 95.9 | | | (23.8 | ) | | | 72.1 | | | 0.80 | | | 9.1 | | | | (2.3 | ) | | | 6.8 | | | | 0.07 | Excluding special items | $ | 928.8 | | $ | (231.4 | ) | | $ | 697.4 | | $ | 7.78 | | $ | 902.4 | | | $ | (223.3 | ) | | $ | 679.1 | | | $ | 7.52 | (1) Net income excluding special items and earnings per share excluding special items are non-GAAP financial measures. Management excludes special items as it believes these items are not necessarily reflective of the ongoing results of operations of our business. We present these measures because they provide a means to evaluate the performance of our company on an ongoing basis using the same measures that are used by our management, because these measures assist in providing a meaningful comparison between periods presented and because these measures are frequently used by investors and other interested parties in the evaluation of companies and their performance. Any analysis of non-GAAP financial measures should be done only in conjunction with results presented in accordance with GAAP. The non-GAAP measures are not intended to be substitutes for GAAP financial measures and should not be used as such. (2) Pre-tax special items are tax-effected at a combined federal and state income tax rate in effect for the period the special items were recorded and this rate is adjusted for each subsequent quarter to be consistent with the estimated annual effective tax rate, in accordance with ASC 270, Interim Reporting, and ASC 740-270, Income Taxes – Intra Period Tax Allocation. For all periods presented, income taxes on pre-tax special items represent the current amount of tax. For more information related to these items, see the footnotes to the Consolidated Earnings Results on page 1. Packaging Corporation of America Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures Unaudited (dollars in millions) EBITDA and EBITDA Excluding Special Items (1) | | | | | | | EBITDA represents income before non-operating pension income, interest, income taxes, and depreciation, amortization, and depletion. The following table reconciles net income to EBITDA and EBITDA excluding special items: | | | | | | | | Three Months Ended | | Nine Months Ended | September 30, | | September 30, | | 2026 | | | 2025 | | | 2026 | | | | 2025 | Net income | $ | 262.3 | | | $ | 226.9 | | $ | 625.3 | | | $ | 672.3 | Non-operating pension income | | (1.2 | ) | | | - | | | (3.5 | ) | | | - | Interest expense, net | | 32.3 | | | | 19.3 | | | 98.3 | | | | 45.2 | Provision for income taxes | | 91.9 | | | | 78.3 | | | 207.6 | | | | 221.0 | Depreciation, amortization, and depletion | | 181.3 | | | | 152.6 | | | 582.8 | | | | 431.2 | EBITDA (1) | $ | 566.6 | | | $ | 477.1 | | $ | 1,510.5 | | | $ | 1,369.7 | Special items: | | | | | | | Facilities closure and other costs (income) | | 5.0 | | | | 1.3 | | | 16.4 | | | | (21.0 | ) Acquisition and integration-related costs | | 2.3 | | | | 25.0 | | | 9.1 | | | | 26.6 | Corrugated products facility fire | | 3.0 | | | | - | | | 3.0 | | | | - | Wallula mill restructuring | | 0.3 | | | | - | | | 9.3 | | | | - | EBITDA excluding special items (1) | $ | 577.2 | | | $ | 503.4 | | $ | 1,548.3 | | | $ | 1,375.3 | | | | | | | | (1) See footnote (1) on page 3, for a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures. Packaging Corporation of America Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures Unaudited (dollars in millions) | | | | | | | The following table reconciles segment operating income (loss) to segment EBITDA and segment EBITDA excluding special items: | | | | | | | | Three Months Ended | | Nine Months Ended | September 30, | | September 30, | | 2026 | | | | 2025 | | | | 2026 | | | | 2025 | Packaging | | | | | | | Segment operating income | $ | 397.8 | | | $ | 327.5 | | | $ | 971.2 | | | $ | 952.0 | Depreciation, amortization, and depletion | | 171.9 | | | | 143.9 | | | | 554.1 | | | | 403.9 | EBITDA (1) | | 569.7 | | | | 471.4 | | | | 1,525.3 | | | | 1,355.9 | Facilities closure and other costs (income) | | 4.7 | | | | 1.3 | | | | 10.4 | | | | (21.0 | ) Corrugated products facility fire | | 3.0 | | | | - | | | | 3.0 | | | | - | Wallula mill restructuring | | 0.3 | | | | - | | | | 9.3 | | | | - | Acquisition and integration-related costs | | - | | | | 19.1 | | | | - | | | | 19.1 | EBITDA excluding special items (1) | $ | 577.7 | | | $ | 491.8 | | | $ | 1,548.0 | | | $ | 1,354.0 | | | | | | | | Paper | | | | | | | Segment operating income | $ | 29.0 | | | $ | 35.6 | | | $ | 96.2 | | | $ | 96.9 | Depreciation, amortization, and depletion | | 4.6 | | | | 4.5 | | | | 14.2 | | | | 13.8 | EBITDA (1) | | 33.6 | | | | 40.1 | | | | 110.4 | | | | 110.7 | EBITDA excluding special items (1) | $ | 33.6 | | | $ | 40.1 | | | $ | 110.4 | | | $ | 110.7 | | | | | | | | Corporate and Other | | | | | | | Segment operating loss | $ | (41.5 | ) | | $ | (38.6 | ) | | $ | (139.7 | ) | | $ | (110.4 | ) Depreciation, amortization, and depletion | | 4.8 | | | | 4.2 | | | | 14.5 | | | | 13.5 | EBITDA (1) | | (36.7 | ) | | | (34.4 | ) | | | (125.2 | ) | | | (96.9 | ) Acquisition and integration-related costs | | 2.3 | | | | 5.9 | | | | 9.1 | | | | 7.5 | Facilities closure and other costs | | 0.3 | | | | - | | | | 6.0 | | | | - | EBITDA excluding special items (1) | $ | (34.1 | ) | | $ | (28.5 | ) | | $ | (110.1 | ) | | $ | (89.4 | ) | | | | | | | EBITDA excluding special items (1) | $ | 577.2 | | | $ | 503.4 | | | $ | 1,548.3 | | | $ | 1,375.3 | | | | | | | | (1) See footnote (1) on page 3, for a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261021071793/en/ Contacts Barbara Sessions Packaging Corporation of America INVESTOR RELATIONS: (877) 454-2509 PCA's Website: www.packagingcorp.com
Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-21Packaging Corp.: Q3 Earnings Snapshot
Associated Press
Packaging Corp.: Q3 Earnings Snapshot
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Packaging Corp. of America (PKG) on Wednesday reported third-quarter profit of $262.3 million. The Lake Forest, Illinois-based company said it had net income of $2.93 per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs and costs related to mergers and acquisitions, came to $3.04 per share. The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $2.95 per share. The maker of containerboard and corrugated packaging products posted revenue of $2.6 billion in the period, which also beat Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $2.56 billion. _____ This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on PKG at https://www.zacks.com/ap/PKG
Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-21Packaging Corporation of America’s (NYSE:PKG) Q3 2026 earnings results: revenue in line with expectations
StockStory
Packaging Corporation of America’s (NYSE:PKG) Q3 2026 earnings results: revenue in line with expectations
Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE:PKG) met Wall Street's revenue expectations in Q3 2026, with sales up 12.5% year on year to $2.60 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $3.04 per share was 4.3% above analysts' consensus estimates. Is now the time to buy Packaging Corporation of America? Find out in our full research report. - Revenue: $2.60 billion vs analyst estimates of $2.61 billion (12.5% year-on-year growth, in line) - Adjusted EPS: $3.04 vs analyst estimates of $2.92 (4.3% beat) - Adjusted EBITDA: $577.2 million vs analyst estimates of $565.1 million (22.2% margin, 2.1% beat) - Operating Margin: 14.8%, in line with the same quarter last year - Sales Volumes rose 18.6% year on year (-2.9% in the same quarter last year) - Market Capitalization: $21.16 billion Commenting on reported results, Mark W. Kowlzan, Chairman and CEO, said, "We executed very well across all aspects of our operations, resulting in very strong earnings performance for the quarter despite continued cost headwinds from freight, recycled fiber and chemicals and some weakness in agricultural end markets in our corrugated business. Our mills ran at full capacity during the quarter, and we are meaningfully realizing production benefits from projects at our Jackson mill as well as improved operating performance at the acquired Greif mills. We managed to build sufficient inventory to put us in position to efficiently supply our corrugated operations in the fourth quarter and help us continue to mitigate escalating freight costs. Our white paper operations turned in another excellent quarter, with higher than expected sales volumes, strong price realization and safe and successful completion of the maintenance outage at the International Falls mill." Founded in 1959, Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE: PKG) produces containerboard and corrugated packaging products as well as displays and package protection. Examining a company's long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but many enduring ones grow for years. Over the last five years, Packaging Corporation of America grew its sales at a tepid 5.8% compounded annual growth rate. This was below our standard for the industrials sector and is a poor baseline for our analysis. We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within industrials, a half-decade histo…Read full documentShow less
Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE:PKG) met Wall Street's revenue expectations in Q3 2026, with sales up 12.5% year on year to $2.60 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $3.04 per share was 4.3% above analysts' consensus estimates. Is now the time to buy Packaging Corporation of America? Find out in our full research report. - Revenue: $2.60 billion vs analyst estimates of $2.61 billion (12.5% year-on-year growth, in line) - Adjusted EPS: $3.04 vs analyst estimates of $2.92 (4.3% beat) - Adjusted EBITDA: $577.2 million vs analyst estimates of $565.1 million (22.2% margin, 2.1% beat) - Operating Margin: 14.8%, in line with the same quarter last year - Sales Volumes rose 18.6% year on year (-2.9% in the same quarter last year) - Market Capitalization: $21.16 billion Commenting on reported results, Mark W. Kowlzan, Chairman and CEO, said, "We executed very well across all aspects of our operations, resulting in very strong earnings performance for the quarter despite continued cost headwinds from freight, recycled fiber and chemicals and some weakness in agricultural end markets in our corrugated business. Our mills ran at full capacity during the quarter, and we are meaningfully realizing production benefits from projects at our Jackson mill as well as improved operating performance at the acquired Greif mills. We managed to build sufficient inventory to put us in position to efficiently supply our corrugated operations in the fourth quarter and help us continue to mitigate escalating freight costs. Our white paper operations turned in another excellent quarter, with higher than expected sales volumes, strong price realization and safe and successful completion of the maintenance outage at the International Falls mill." Founded in 1959, Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE: PKG) produces containerboard and corrugated packaging products as well as displays and package protection. Examining a company's long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but many enduring ones grow for years. Over the last five years, Packaging Corporation of America grew its sales at a tepid 5.8% compounded annual growth rate. This was below our standard for the industrials sector and is a poor baseline for our analysis. We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss cycles, industry trends, or a company capitalizing on catalysts such as a new contract win or a successful product line. Packaging Corporation of America's annualized revenue growth of 9.6% over the last two years is above its five-year trend, suggesting its demand recently accelerated. We can dig further into the company's revenue dynamics by analyzing its number of units sold, which reached 1.49 million in the latest quarter. Over the last two years, Packaging Corporation of America's units sold averaged 7.7% year-on-year growth. Because this number is lower than its revenue growth, we can see the company benefited from price increases. This quarter, Packaging Corporation of America's year-on-year revenue growth was 12.5%, and its $2.60 billion of revenue was in line with Wall Street's estimates. Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 10.7% over the next 12 months, similar to its two-year rate. This projection is noteworthy and suggests its newer products and services will catalyze better top-line performance. ONE MORE THING: 3 Hidden Platforms Growing 3X Faster than Amazon, Google, and PayPal. Amazon, Google, and Meta all followed the same playbook: Dominate an ignored market. Build an unbeatable moat. Scale until you're unstoppable. These three platforms are running that exact playbook right now. The early investors in Amazon made fortunes. The early investors in these could do the same. Get All 3 Stocks Here for FREE. Packaging Corporation of America has been an efficient company over the last five years. It was one of the more profitable businesses in the industrials sector, boasting an average operating margin of 13.9%. This result was particularly impressive because of its low gross margin, which is mostly a factor of what it sells and takes huge shifts to move meaningfully. Companies have more control over their operating margins, and it's a show of well-managed operations if they're high when gross margins are low. Looking at the trend in its profitability, Packaging Corporation of America's operating margin decreased by 6.3 percentage points over the last five years. This raises questions about the company's expense base because its revenue growth should have given it leverage on its fixed costs, resulting in better economies of scale and profitability. This quarter, Packaging Corporation of America generated an operating margin profit margin of 14.8%, in line with the same quarter last year. This indicates the company's cost structure has recently been stable. We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company's growth is profitable. Packaging Corporation of America's unimpressive 4.9% annual EPS growth over the last five years aligns with its revenue performance. This tells us it maintained its per-share profitability as it expanded. Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a more recent period because it can provide insight into an emerging theme or development for the business. For Packaging Corporation of America, its two-year annual EPS growth of 7.8% was higher than its five-year trend. Accelerating earnings growth is almost always an encouraging data point. In Q3, Packaging Corporation of America reported adjusted EPS of $3.04, up from $2.73 in the same quarter last year. This print beat analysts' estimates by 4.3%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Packaging Corporation of America's full-year EPS to grow 24.3% from $10.11 to $12.57. It was encouraging to see Packaging Corporation of America beat analysts' EBITDA expectations this quarter. We were also glad its EPS outperformed Wall Street's estimates. On the other hand, its revenue was in line. Zooming out, we think this was a mixed quarter. The stock remained flat at $236.79 immediately following the results. Is Packaging Corporation of America an attractive investment opportunity at the current price? The latest quarter does matter, but not nearly as much as longer-term fundamentals and valuation, when deciding if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it's free.
Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-21Packaging Corp. (PKG) Tops Q3 Earnings and Revenue Estimates
Zacks
Packaging Corp. (PKG) Tops Q3 Earnings and Revenue Estimates
Packaging Corp. (PKG) came out with quarterly earnings of $3.04 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.95 per share. This compares to earnings of $2.73 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +3.05%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this maker of containerboard and corrugated packaging products would post earnings of $2.31 per share when it actually produced earnings of $2.35, delivering a surprise of +1.73%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. Packaging Corp., which belongs to the Zacks Containers - Paper and Packaging industry, posted revenues of $2.6 billion for the quarter ended September 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.46%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $2.31 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Packaging Corp. shares have added about 15.9% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 12.7%. While Packaging Corp. has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Packaging Corp. was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the n…Read full documentShow less
Packaging Corp. (PKG) came out with quarterly earnings of $3.04 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.95 per share. This compares to earnings of $2.73 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +3.05%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this maker of containerboard and corrugated packaging products would post earnings of $2.31 per share when it actually produced earnings of $2.35, delivering a surprise of +1.73%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. Packaging Corp., which belongs to the Zacks Containers - Paper and Packaging industry, posted revenues of $2.6 billion for the quarter ended September 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.46%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $2.31 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Packaging Corp. shares have added about 15.9% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 12.7%. While Packaging Corp. has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Packaging Corp. was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $2.79 on $2.6 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $10.46 on $10.08 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Containers - Paper and Packaging is currently in the bottom 23% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. One other stock from the same industry, AptarGroup (ATR), is yet to report results for the quarter ended September 2026. The results are expected to be released on October 29. This maker of consumer-product dispensing systems is expected to post quarterly earnings of $1.46 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -9.9%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 1.1% lower over the last 30 days to the current level. AptarGroup's revenues are expected to be $976.17 million, up 1.6% from the year-ago quarter. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Packaging Corporation of America (PKG) : Free Stock Analysis Report AptarGroup, Inc. (ATR) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research
Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-20What To Expect From Packaging Corporation of America’s (PKG) Q3 Earnings
StockStory
What To Expect From Packaging Corporation of America’s (PKG) Q3 Earnings
Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE:PKG) will be reporting earnings this Wednesday after market hours. Here's what to look for. Packaging Corporation of America met analysts' revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $2.49 billion, up 14.7% year on year. It was a softer quarter for the company, with a significant miss of analysts' EPS estimates. Is Packaging Corporation of America a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it's free for active Edge members. This quarter, the market is expecting Packaging Corporation of America's revenue to grow 12.9% year on year, improving from the 6% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business will stay the course heading into earnings. Packaging Corporation of America has missed Wall Street's revenue estimates multiple times over the last two years. Looking at Packaging Corporation of America's peers in the industrials segment, some have already reported their Q3 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Crown Holdings delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 15.9%, beating analysts' expectations by 8.4%, and Richardson Electronics reported revenues up 18.9%, topping estimates by 10.1%. Richardson Electronics's stock price was unchanged following the results. Read our full analysis of Crown Holdings's results here and Richardson Electronics's results here. Over the past year, investors have repeatedly shifted their focus from one macro narrative to another (AI disruption and AI capex spending to geopolitics, interest rates, and the broader health of the economy). While some of the industrials stocks have shown solid performance in this choppy environment, the group has generally underperformed, with share prices down 5.9% on average over the last month. Packaging Corporation of America's stock price was unchanged during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $261.10 (compared to the current share price of $236.47). ONE MORE THING: The $21 AI Application Stock Wall Street Forgot. While Wall Street obsesses over who's building AI, one company is already using it to print money. And nobody's paying attention. AI chip stocks trade at ridiculous valuations. This company processes a trillion con…Read full documentShow less
Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE:PKG) will be reporting earnings this Wednesday after market hours. Here's what to look for. Packaging Corporation of America met analysts' revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $2.49 billion, up 14.7% year on year. It was a softer quarter for the company, with a significant miss of analysts' EPS estimates. Is Packaging Corporation of America a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it's free for active Edge members. This quarter, the market is expecting Packaging Corporation of America's revenue to grow 12.9% year on year, improving from the 6% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business will stay the course heading into earnings. Packaging Corporation of America has missed Wall Street's revenue estimates multiple times over the last two years. Looking at Packaging Corporation of America's peers in the industrials segment, some have already reported their Q3 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Crown Holdings delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 15.9%, beating analysts' expectations by 8.4%, and Richardson Electronics reported revenues up 18.9%, topping estimates by 10.1%. Richardson Electronics's stock price was unchanged following the results. Read our full analysis of Crown Holdings's results here and Richardson Electronics's results here. Over the past year, investors have repeatedly shifted their focus from one macro narrative to another (AI disruption and AI capex spending to geopolitics, interest rates, and the broader health of the economy). While some of the industrials stocks have shown solid performance in this choppy environment, the group has generally underperformed, with share prices down 5.9% on average over the last month. Packaging Corporation of America's stock price was unchanged during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $261.10 (compared to the current share price of $236.47). ONE MORE THING: The $21 AI Application Stock Wall Street Forgot. While Wall Street obsesses over who's building AI, one company is already using it to print money. And nobody's paying attention. AI chip stocks trade at ridiculous valuations. This company processes a trillion consumer signals monthly using AI and trades at a third of the price. The gap won't last. The institutions will figure it out. You need to see this first. Read the FREE Report Before They Notice.
Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-16Countdown to Packaging Corp. (PKG) Q3 Earnings: A Look at Estimates Beyond Revenue and EPS
Zacks
Countdown to Packaging Corp. (PKG) Q3 Earnings: A Look at Estimates Beyond Revenue and EPS
Wall Street analysts expect Packaging Corp. (PKG) to post quarterly earnings of $2.95 per share in its upcoming report, which indicates a year-over-year increase of 8.1%. Revenues are expected to be $2.56 billion, up 10.8% from the year-ago quarter. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has undergone a downward revision of 1.5% in the past 30 days, bringing it to its present level. This represents how the covering analysts, as a whole, have reassessed their initial estimates during this timeframe. Before a company announces its earnings, it is essential to take into account any changes made to earnings estimates. This is a valuable factor in predicting the potential reactions of investors toward the stock. Empirical research has consistently shown a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and the short-term price performance of a stock. While investors typically rely on consensus earnings and revenue estimates to gauge how the business may have fared during the quarter, examining analysts' projections for some of the company's key metrics often helps gain a deeper insight. In light of this perspective, let's dive into the average estimates of certain Packaging Corp. metrics that are commonly tracked and forecasted by Wall Street analysts. The consensus among analysts is that 'Segment Sales- Packaging' will reach $2.27 billion. The estimate points to a change of +6.6% from the year-ago quarter. According to the collective judgment of analysts, 'Segment Sales- Corporate and Other' should come in at $24.93 million. The estimate points to a change of +3.4% from the year-ago quarter. The combined assessment of analysts suggests that 'Segment Sales- Paper' will likely reach $160.15 million. The estimate suggests a change of -0.7% year over year. Analysts predict that the 'Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items- Paper' will reach $37.40 million. Compared to the current estimate, the company reported $35.60 million in the same quarter of the previous year. The average prediction of analysts places 'Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items- Packaging' at $397.65 million. Compared to the current estimate, the company reported $347.90 million in the same quarter of the previous year. View all Key Company Metrics for Packaging Corp. here>>> Over the past month, Packaging Corp. shares have recorded returns of…Read full documentShow less
Wall Street analysts expect Packaging Corp. (PKG) to post quarterly earnings of $2.95 per share in its upcoming report, which indicates a year-over-year increase of 8.1%. Revenues are expected to be $2.56 billion, up 10.8% from the year-ago quarter. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has undergone a downward revision of 1.5% in the past 30 days, bringing it to its present level. This represents how the covering analysts, as a whole, have reassessed their initial estimates during this timeframe. Before a company announces its earnings, it is essential to take into account any changes made to earnings estimates. This is a valuable factor in predicting the potential reactions of investors toward the stock. Empirical research has consistently shown a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and the short-term price performance of a stock. While investors typically rely on consensus earnings and revenue estimates to gauge how the business may have fared during the quarter, examining analysts' projections for some of the company's key metrics often helps gain a deeper insight. In light of this perspective, let's dive into the average estimates of certain Packaging Corp. metrics that are commonly tracked and forecasted by Wall Street analysts. The consensus among analysts is that 'Segment Sales- Packaging' will reach $2.27 billion. The estimate points to a change of +6.6% from the year-ago quarter. According to the collective judgment of analysts, 'Segment Sales- Corporate and Other' should come in at $24.93 million. The estimate points to a change of +3.4% from the year-ago quarter. The combined assessment of analysts suggests that 'Segment Sales- Paper' will likely reach $160.15 million. The estimate suggests a change of -0.7% year over year. Analysts predict that the 'Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items- Paper' will reach $37.40 million. Compared to the current estimate, the company reported $35.60 million in the same quarter of the previous year. The average prediction of analysts places 'Segment operating income (loss) excluding special items- Packaging' at $397.65 million. Compared to the current estimate, the company reported $347.90 million in the same quarter of the previous year. View all Key Company Metrics for Packaging Corp. here>>> Over the past month, Packaging Corp. shares have recorded returns of -1.3% versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's +2.4% change. Based on its Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), PKG will likely exhibit a performance that aligns with the overall market in the upcoming period. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>> . Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Packaging Corporation of America (PKG) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research
Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-16Packaging Corp. Gears Up for Q3 Earnings: What to Expect?
Zacks
Packaging Corp. Gears Up for Q3 Earnings: What to Expect?
Packaging Corporation of America PKG is set to release third-quarter 2026 results on Oct. 21, after the closing bell. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PKG's third-quarter revenues is pegged at $2.56 billion, indicating 10.8% growth from the year-ago reported figure. The consensus estimate for earnings is pegged at $2.95 per share. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PKG's third-quarter earnings has remained unchanged in the past 60 days. The estimate indicates year-over-year growth of 8.1%. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Packaging Corp.'s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimates in two of the trailing four quarters and missed in the other two, with the average surprise being 1.27%. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Our proven model predicts a likely earnings beat this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat. That is precisely the case here. You can uncover the best stocks before they are reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Earnings ESP: Packaging Corp. has an Earnings ESP of +0.71%. Zacks Rank: PKG currently carries a Zacks Rank of 3. Packaging Corp. acquired the containerboard business of Greif, Inc. GEF in September 2025. The acquired business included two containerboard mills with about 800,000 tons of production capacity and eight sheet feeder and corrugated plants across the United States. Contributions from the acquired Greif business, as well as strong demand for packaging products, are likely to have aided the Packaging segment in the to-be-reported quarter. The third quarter had one more shipping day than the second quarter of 2026, supporting higher shipments. The segment is also expected to have seen price and mix improvement in the third quarter, reflecting price increases implemented by the company. Packaging mill production is likely to have benefited from an additional operating day, fewer annual maintenance outages and improved operating performance across the containerboard mill system. Our model projects Packaging segment volumes to increase 5.5% year over year, accelerating from the 2.9% growth reported in the second quarter of 2026. Price and mix are expected to have improved 2.7% in the quarter. The segment had reported a 2.9% volume decline in the third quarter of 2025. The revenue estimate for the Packaging seg…Read full documentShow less
Packaging Corporation of America PKG is set to release third-quarter 2026 results on Oct. 21, after the closing bell. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PKG's third-quarter revenues is pegged at $2.56 billion, indicating 10.8% growth from the year-ago reported figure. The consensus estimate for earnings is pegged at $2.95 per share. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PKG's third-quarter earnings has remained unchanged in the past 60 days. The estimate indicates year-over-year growth of 8.1%. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Packaging Corp.'s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimates in two of the trailing four quarters and missed in the other two, with the average surprise being 1.27%. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Our proven model predicts a likely earnings beat this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat. That is precisely the case here. You can uncover the best stocks before they are reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Earnings ESP: Packaging Corp. has an Earnings ESP of +0.71%. Zacks Rank: PKG currently carries a Zacks Rank of 3. Packaging Corp. acquired the containerboard business of Greif, Inc. GEF in September 2025. The acquired business included two containerboard mills with about 800,000 tons of production capacity and eight sheet feeder and corrugated plants across the United States. Contributions from the acquired Greif business, as well as strong demand for packaging products, are likely to have aided the Packaging segment in the to-be-reported quarter. The third quarter had one more shipping day than the second quarter of 2026, supporting higher shipments. The segment is also expected to have seen price and mix improvement in the third quarter, reflecting price increases implemented by the company. Packaging mill production is likely to have benefited from an additional operating day, fewer annual maintenance outages and improved operating performance across the containerboard mill system. Our model projects Packaging segment volumes to increase 5.5% year over year, accelerating from the 2.9% growth reported in the second quarter of 2026. Price and mix are expected to have improved 2.7% in the quarter. The segment had reported a 2.9% volume decline in the third quarter of 2025. The revenue estimate for the Packaging segment stands at $2.3 billion, implying 8.3% growth from the year-ago quarter. Our model projects operating income of $394 million, up 13.3% from the prior-year period. In the Paper segment, a planned mill maintenance outage is expected to have constrained sequential volume growth. However, continued implementation of previously announced paper price increases is likely to have supported pricing. Our model projects a 3% improvement in price and mix compared with 1.4% in the second quarter of 2026. Paper segment volumes are expected to have increased 5% year over year, moderating from the 6.2% growth reported in the second quarter but improving from the 0.6% decline recorded in the third quarter of 2025. The Paper segment's third-quarter revenues are estimated at $174 million, up 8.1% from the year-ago quarter. Operating income is projected at $46.8 million, up 31.5% year over year. On the cost front, higher freight expenses and recycled fiber prices are expected to have weighed on margins relative to the second quarter of 2026. Increased mill production is also likely to have driven higher chemical and electricity consumption. These pressures are likely to have been partly offset by improved employee benefit costs, as unfavorable costs incurred in the second quarter are not expected to have recurred in the third quarter. PKG had guided third-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $2.91 per share, suggesting 6.6% year-over-year growth and a 24% sequential improvement. Over the past year, PKG shares have gained 13.3% compared with the industry's 3.4% growth. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Here are some other companies with the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat in their upcoming releases. Ball Corporation BALL, slated to release third-quarter 2026 results on Nov. 3, has an Earnings ESP of +0.26% and a Zacks Rank of 2 at present. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Ball's third-quarter 2026 earnings is pegged at $1.06 per share, suggesting a year-over-year rise of 3.9%. BALL has a trailing four-quarter average surprise of 3.9%. W.W Grainger Inc. GWW, slated to release third-quarter 2026 results on Nov. 4, has an Earnings ESP of +0.83% and a Zacks Rank of 2 at present. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Grainger's third-quarter 2026 earnings is pegged at $11.64 per share, suggesting a year-over-year rise of 14%. Grainger has a trailing four-quarter average surprise of 5.9%. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Packaging Corporation of America (PKG) : Free Stock Analysis Report W.W. Grainger, Inc. (GWW) : Free Stock Analysis Report Greif, Inc. (GEF) : Free Stock Analysis Report Ball Corporation (BALL) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research
Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-14Packaging Corp. (PKG) Reports Next Week: Wall Street Expects Earnings Growth
Zacks
Packaging Corp. (PKG) Reports Next Week: Wall Street Expects Earnings Growth
Wall Street expects a year-over-year increase in earnings on higher revenues when Packaging Corp. (PKG) reports results for the quarter ended September 2026. While this widely-known consensus outlook is important in gauging the company's earnings picture, a powerful factor that could impact its near-term stock price is how the actual results compare to these estimates. The earnings report, which is expected to be released on October 21, might help the stock move higher if these key numbers are better than expectations. On the other hand, if they miss, the stock may move lower. While management's discussion of business conditions on the earnings call will mostly determine the sustainability of the immediate price change and future earnings expectations, it's worth having a handicapping insight into the odds of a positive EPS surprise. This maker of containerboard and corrugated packaging products is expected to post quarterly earnings of $2.94 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +7.7%. Revenues are expected to be $2.56 billion, up 10.8% from the year-ago quarter. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 1.48% lower over the last 30 days to the current level. This is essentially a reflection of how the covering analysts have collectively reassessed their initial estimates over this period. Investors should keep in mind that the direction of estimate revisions by each of the covering analysts may not always get reflected in the aggregate change. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Estimate revisions ahead of a company's earnings release offer clues to the business conditions for the period whose results are coming out. This insight is at the core of our proprietary surprise prediction model -- the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction). The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a more recent version of the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier. Thus, a positive or negative Earnings ESP reading theoretically indicates the likely deviation of the actual earnings from the cons…Read full documentShow less
Wall Street expects a year-over-year increase in earnings on higher revenues when Packaging Corp. (PKG) reports results for the quarter ended September 2026. While this widely-known consensus outlook is important in gauging the company's earnings picture, a powerful factor that could impact its near-term stock price is how the actual results compare to these estimates. The earnings report, which is expected to be released on October 21, might help the stock move higher if these key numbers are better than expectations. On the other hand, if they miss, the stock may move lower. While management's discussion of business conditions on the earnings call will mostly determine the sustainability of the immediate price change and future earnings expectations, it's worth having a handicapping insight into the odds of a positive EPS surprise. This maker of containerboard and corrugated packaging products is expected to post quarterly earnings of $2.94 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +7.7%. Revenues are expected to be $2.56 billion, up 10.8% from the year-ago quarter. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 1.48% lower over the last 30 days to the current level. This is essentially a reflection of how the covering analysts have collectively reassessed their initial estimates over this period. Investors should keep in mind that the direction of estimate revisions by each of the covering analysts may not always get reflected in the aggregate change. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Estimate revisions ahead of a company's earnings release offer clues to the business conditions for the period whose results are coming out. This insight is at the core of our proprietary surprise prediction model -- the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction). The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a more recent version of the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier. Thus, a positive or negative Earnings ESP reading theoretically indicates the likely deviation of the actual earnings from the consensus estimate. However, the model's predictive power is significant for positive ESP readings only. A positive Earnings ESP is a strong predictor of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). Our research shows that stocks with this combination produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time, and a solid Zacks Rank actually increases the predictive power of Earnings ESP. Please note that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss. Our research shows that it is difficult to predict an earnings beat with any degree of confidence for stocks with negative Earnings ESP readings and/or Zacks Rank of 4 (Sell) or 5 (Strong Sell). For Packaging Corp., the Most Accurate Estimate is higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate, suggesting that analysts have recently become bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This has resulted in an Earnings ESP of +2.21%. On the other hand, the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank of #3. So, this combination indicates that Packaging Corp. will most likely beat the consensus EPS estimate. Analysts often consider to what extent a company has been able to match consensus estimates in the past while calculating their estimates for its future earnings. So, it's worth taking a look at the surprise history for gauging its influence on the upcoming number. For the last reported quarter, it was expected that Packaging Corp. would post earnings of $2.31 per share when it actually produced earnings of $2.35, delivering a surprise of +1.73%. Over the last four quarters, the company has beaten consensus EPS estimates two times. An earnings beat or miss may not be the sole basis for a stock moving higher or lower. Many stocks end up losing ground despite an earnings beat due to other factors that disappoint investors. Similarly, unforeseen catalysts help a number of stocks gain despite an earnings miss. That said, betting on stocks that are expected to beat earnings expectations does increase the odds of success. This is why it's worth checking a company's Earnings ESP and Zacks Rank ahead of its quarterly release. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported. Packaging Corp. appears a compelling earnings-beat candidate. However, investors should pay attention to other factors too for betting on this stock or staying away from it ahead of its earnings release. Stay on top of upcoming earnings announcements with the Zacks Earnings Calendar. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Packaging Corporation of America (PKG) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research
Related articleQuarter not tagged2026-10-01What You Need to Know Ahead of Packaging Corporation’s Earnings Release
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What You Need to Know Ahead of Packaging Corporation’s Earnings Release
Lake Forest, Illinois-based Packaging Corporation of America (PKG) is a leading North American producer of corrugated packaging and containerboard, supplying the boxes, displays and protective packaging used to ship and merchandise everything from food and beverages to industrial and consumer products. Valued at a market cap of $20.8 billion, PCA operates 10 mills and 91 corrugated-products facilities, giving it an integrated footprint from producing containerboard to converting it into finished packaging. PKG is expected to announce its FY2026 Q3 earnings after the market closes on Wednesday, Oct. 21. As the earnings date approaches, analysts expect this packaging company to report a profit of $2.94 per share, up 7.7% from $2.73 per share in the year-ago quarter. The company has topped Wall Street's bottom-line estimates in two of the last four quarters, while missing on two other occasions. - Dear Accenture Stock Fans, Mark Your Calendars for October 1 - Dear Nike Stock Fans, Mark Your Calendars for Oct. 1 - Why It's Time to Load Up on ServiceNow Stock - Stop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. Sign Up Now! For the current fiscal year, ending in December, analysts expect PKG to report a profit of $10.45 per share, up 6.2% from $9.84 per share in fiscal 2025. Furthermore, its EPS is expected to grow 28.4% year over year to $13.42 in fiscal 2027. www.barchart.com Shares of PKG have gained 5.2% over the past 52 weeks, underperforming the S&P 500 Index's ($SPX) 14% return. However, the stock has outpaced the State Street Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF's (XLY) 9.2% downtick over the same time period. PKG shares gained 1.9% on Sept. 2 after Packaging Corporation of America announced a $1.50-per-share quarterly dividend. The dividend is payable on Oct. 15, 2026, to shareholders of record as of Sept. 15, providing investors with another boost from the company's shareholder-return strategy. Wall Street analysts are moderately optimistic about PKG's stock, with a "Moderate Buy" rating overall. Among 12 analysts covering the stock, seven recommend "Strong Buy," and five indicate "Hold." The mean price target for PKG is $262.25, suggesting 14.4% potential upside from current levels. On the date of publication, Kritika Sarmah di…Read full documentShow less
Lake Forest, Illinois-based Packaging Corporation of America (PKG) is a leading North American producer of corrugated packaging and containerboard, supplying the boxes, displays and protective packaging used to ship and merchandise everything from food and beverages to industrial and consumer products. Valued at a market cap of $20.8 billion, PCA operates 10 mills and 91 corrugated-products facilities, giving it an integrated footprint from producing containerboard to converting it into finished packaging. PKG is expected to announce its FY2026 Q3 earnings after the market closes on Wednesday, Oct. 21. As the earnings date approaches, analysts expect this packaging company to report a profit of $2.94 per share, up 7.7% from $2.73 per share in the year-ago quarter. The company has topped Wall Street's bottom-line estimates in two of the last four quarters, while missing on two other occasions. - Dear Accenture Stock Fans, Mark Your Calendars for October 1 - Dear Nike Stock Fans, Mark Your Calendars for Oct. 1 - Why It's Time to Load Up on ServiceNow Stock - Stop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. Sign Up Now! For the current fiscal year, ending in December, analysts expect PKG to report a profit of $10.45 per share, up 6.2% from $9.84 per share in fiscal 2025. Furthermore, its EPS is expected to grow 28.4% year over year to $13.42 in fiscal 2027. www.barchart.com Shares of PKG have gained 5.2% over the past 52 weeks, underperforming the S&P 500 Index's ($SPX) 14% return. However, the stock has outpaced the State Street Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF's (XLY) 9.2% downtick over the same time period. PKG shares gained 1.9% on Sept. 2 after Packaging Corporation of America announced a $1.50-per-share quarterly dividend. The dividend is payable on Oct. 15, 2026, to shareholders of record as of Sept. 15, providing investors with another boost from the company's shareholder-return strategy. Wall Street analysts are moderately optimistic about PKG's stock, with a "Moderate Buy" rating overall. Among 12 analysts covering the stock, seven recommend "Strong Buy," and five indicate "Hold." The mean price target for PKG is $262.25, suggesting 14.4% potential upside from current levels. On the date of publication, Kritika Sarmah did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com