The company is undertaking activities to convert the Jackson mill from production of paper products, which the mill historically produced, to production of containerboard. This conversion is intended to increase the company's capacity to produce containerboard on a cost-effective basis.

The company notified customers of a $70 per ton price increase for linerboard and a $100 per ton price increase for medium effective January 1, 2024. This price increase is intended to improve profitability in the Packaging segment.

The company issued $400 million of 5.70% senior notes due 2033 through a registered public offering. The company intends to use the net proceeds from this issuance, together with a portion of cash on hand, to redeem, repurchase, or otherwise repay at or prior to maturity its outstanding 3.65% senior notes due 2024.

In order to match our supply with the demand for our products, we reduced production of containerboard at our packaging mills during the first three quarters of 2023, including idling the Wallula, WA mill in June. We began ramping up production in the fourth quarter to meet increasing demand and restarted the No. 3 machine at the Wallula mill.

Selling, general, and administrative expenses (SG&A) decreased $28 million in 2023 compared to 2022. The decrease was primarily due to lower employee-related expenses, outside services, and bad debt expense.

PCA regularly conducts employee engagement surveys to measure our employees' overall satisfaction as well as gain a better understanding of how to improve our employees' work experience. Our last survey, conducted in 2022, had a high level of participation, assuring us that the results were an accurate reflection of the feelings and opinions of our employees.

General global and domestic economic conditions directly affect the levels of demand and production of consumer goods, levels of employment, the availability and cost of credit, and ultimately, the demand for our products and the profitability of our business. The U.S. economy has experienced persistent inflation, and we have experienced, and continue to experience, cost inflation across our business.

Macroeconomic conditions and fluctuations in industry capacity can create changes in prices, sales volumes, and margins for most of our products, particularly commodity grades of packaging and paper products. Prices for all of our products are driven by many factors, including demand for our products, industry capacity and decisions made by other producers with respect to capacity and production, and other competitive conditions in our industry.

The market price of wood fiber varies based upon availability, source, and the costs of fuels used in the harvesting and transportation of wood fiber. The cost and availability of wood fiber can also be impacted by weather, general logging conditions, geography, and regulatory activity.

PCA is the third largest producer of containerboard products and a leading producer of uncoated freesheet paper in North America. We operate eight mills and 86 corrugated products manufacturing plants.

Our industries are highly competitive, with no single containerboard, corrugated packaging, or UFS paper producer having a dominant position. Certain containerboard grades and UFS paper products cannot generally be differentiated by producer, which tends to intensify price competition.

UFS paper products compete with electronic data transmission and document storage alternatives. Increasing shifts to electronic alternatives have had and will continue to have an adverse effect on usage of these products. As a result of such competition, the industry is experiencing decreasing demand for existing UFS paper products.

Over the past several years, we made extensive capital investments throughout the packaging segment to improve productivity and efficiencies at our containerboard mills and corrugated products facilities and believe that our success in execution of these capital investments has helped us to mitigate cost inflation and better serve our customers.

Selling, general, and administrative expenses (SG&A) decreased $28 million in 2023 compared to 2022. The decrease was primarily due to lower employee-related expenses, outside services, and bad debt expense.

Extreme weather events like hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and winter storms have caused disruptions to our business both directly and indirectly in recent history. Climate change may increase the frequency and intensity of these extreme weather events.

We are continuously focused on ensuring our Company is protected from potential cyber threats. Our Information Technology (IT) team is comprised of employees with a diverse mix of skills, backgrounds, perspectives, and relevant expertise, that undergo extensive training as part of their employment with the Company.

We regularly work to identify and implement projects that will improve our efficiency. To what extent and when we embark upon major capital projects to reduce emissions will depend in part upon technology advancements, emerging regulatory and tax policies involving greenhouse gas emissions and incentives to invest in projects that reduce emissions.

As part of our broader risk management and control framework we have implemented cybersecurity controls over the information technology and process control systems of the Company and of its third-party service providers.

We paid $449 million in dividends on our common stock in 2023, compared to $420 million paid in 2022.

We repurchased and retired 0.3 million shares of the Company's common stock for $42 million in 2023, compared to repurchases of 4.0 million shares for $523 million in 2022.

We expect capital investments in 2024 to be between $470 million and $490 million. These expenditures could increase or decrease as a result of a number of factors, including our financial results, strategic opportunities, future economic conditions, and our regulatory compliance requirements.

We are seeking to further improve our environmental impact and have voluntarily set goals to reduce our absolute Scope 1 and 2 (market-based) greenhouse gas emissions by 35% by 2030 from a 2021 baseline year and to reach net-zero carbon emissions within our own operations and our value chain by 2050.

We are committed to sourcing wood fiber through environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable practices and promoting resource and conservation stewardship ethics.

We are also subject to extensive federal, state and local laws related to workplace health and safety, and our safety management system includes measures to assure compliance with these laws and regulations.

Trade publications reported North American industry-wide corrugated products shipments were down (5.0%) during 2023, compared to 2022.

The market for communication papers competes heavily with electronic data transmission and document storage alternatives. Increasing shifts to these alternatives have reduced usage of traditional print media and communication papers.

General global and domestic economic conditions directly affect the levels of demand and production of consumer goods, levels of employment, the availability and cost of credit, and ultimately, the demand for our products and the profitability of our business.