Paper & Packaging: Q2‘26 previews: A quarter of costs with pricing power coming later

Research evidence excerpt

Paper & Packaging: Q2‘26 previews: A quarter of costs with pricing power coming later

J P M O R G A N Europe Equity Research

09 July 2026

Paper & Packaging

Q2’26 previews: A quarter of costs with pricing power

coming later

We expect Q2’26 to reflect a significant amount of cost push from the Middle East EMEA Forestry, Paper & Packaging

crisis. Freight, diesel, fibre and energy prices have all gone up significantly since and South African Industrials

the onset of the conflict and this will be evident in Q2’26 results. This should not Detlef Winckelmann AC

come as a surprise to investors considering that this was well flagged at Q1’26 (44-20) 3493-5190

results and again as recently as the 10th of June where Packaging Corporation of detlef.winckelmann@jpmorgan.com

America signaled that costs are even higher than they thought earlier in the quarter. J.P.LimitedMorgan Securities plc / J.P. Morgan Markets

Not all sell-side estimates are up to date and therefore we are below consensus for Madhumita Phadke

all names into Q2’26 and Q3’26 (higher absolute level of costs in Q2’26 leads us (91-22) 6157-3935

to assume higher costs in Q3’26 as well) but we wouldn’t be surprised if the buy- madhumita.phadke@jpmchase.com

side is already expecting below sell-side consensus. Despite this, we remain J.P. Morgan India Private Limited

constructive on the box makers (Smurfit WestRock and Packaging Corporation of

America are our top picks) price increases have exceeded cost inflation (see our

cost tracker here) and, in the case of North America, we expect this price/cost

positive delta to persist into 2027 as the supply/demand environment remains

healthy. Due to contractual lags in pricing, we will only see the first evidence of