11:05 AM EDT, 05/01/2026 (MT Newswires) -- CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows:

After Q1 earnings, we keep our 12-month target price at $26. This is based on an EV/EBITDA of 6.7x our 2026 EBITDA estimate - one standard deviation (1.3x) below IP's five-year average of 8.0x. We lower our 2026 EPS view to $1.83 from $1.92 and keep our 2027 EPS view at $2.99. IP reported mixed Q1 results that beat EPS expectations ($0.15 vs. $0.14 consensus) but missed on revenue ($5.97B vs. $6.01B), prompting the company to lower its full-year 2026 EBITDA guidance to $3.2B-$3.5B from prior targets. North America was revised to $2.35B-$2.5B and EMEA to $900M-$1.0B. The company expects a significant second-half improvement of $650M in North America driven by pricing flow-through ($50/ton net increases), seasonal volume recovery, cost initiatives, and normalization of maintenance outages, while EMEA faces near-term margin compression before recovering as energy-driven paper price increases (EUR100/ton) flow through to packaging contracts with a three- to six-month lag.