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• Overview: Packaging Corporation of America experienced strong operations across business sectors during the second quarter of 2025, which offset the effects of inflation and lower containerboard production, said CEO Mark Kowlzan during Thursday’s earnings call. During the quarter, PCA “fully realized our earlier announced price increases” for containerboard and corrugated products, said President Tom Hassfurther.
• Mill operations: Mills ran efficiently, despite some operations taking downtime due to lack of demand, Kowlzan said. “​​​​​We ran to demand during the quarter, producing 85,000 fewer tons of containerboard than the second quarter of 2024, and 55,000 fewer tons of containerboard than the first quarter of 2025,” he said.
• Greif containerboard assets: Executives shared more details about PCA’s acquisition of Greif’s containerboard business, announced earlier this month. Some of Greif’s existing assets overlap with geographical areas that PCA already had been exploring, Kowlzan said, including for producing recycled products. PCA’s recycled mix has historically been around 20% of its portfolio, and the acquisition will bump that up to roughly 30%, he said. Executives pointed to complementary assets in areas like Texas that will enable growth with a lower level of capital spending. “We'd already been looking at what we would be doing down in the Dallas region, which would have entailed, more than likely, building out a new, very large plant down there,” Kowlzan said. “Yet, with the acquisition, with Greif, we've got the platform already sitting there that we can build out with just some converting equipment.”
• Containerboard market: Executives declined to directly comment on the numerous competitor containerboard plant closures so far in 2025 that have resulted in an approximately 6% capacity reduction for the North American market, but broadly this trend is positive for PCA, Hassfurther said. “It's a very small, limited outside market for containerboard today in the United States,” he said. “Of course, you've got the export situation and what's going on globally. And if you're focused in that market, you got some real challenges as well.”
• Tariffs and customer patterns: While all of PCA’s assets are in the U.S., uncertainty over tariffs and trade appears to have driven “some spikes, and then some valleys” with customers’ ordering patterns in Q2, Hassfurther said, noting that economic conditions are causing some segments to be “off.” PCA sees “tremendous upside for us relative to getting these tariffs behind us and some interest rate movement,” he said, explaining that certain customers are “managing their inventories very closely” right now. “There's a lot of questions around tariffs and what's happened globally, and everybody's just kind of waiting for something that they can count on long term,” Hassfurther said. 
• Outlook: Executives anticipate the trade environment will continue to hurt sales from exported containerboard in the coming quarters, and the company plans to build inventory ahead of Q4. While corrugated customers were cautious in June and early July, recent weeks have brought improvements for bookings and shipments, Kowlzan said. Bookings are up 10% compared with June, Hassfurther said. Packaging segment prices are expected to remain flat.

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify the nature of the synergies in Texas that executives discussed.