Consumables

Stora Enso First Quarter Results 2014

Wednesday 23. April 2014 - Clearly higher operational EBIT due to lower costs

Q1/2014 (compared with Q1/2013)*
Operational EBIT EUR 182 (EUR 118) million, an increase of EUR 64 million and margin of 7.1% (4.4%).
Clearly higher operational EBIT due to lower costs and lower depreciation.
EPS excluding NRI EUR 0.09 (EUR 0.07).
Cash flow from operations EUR 152 (EUR 126) million, cash flow after investing activities EUR 20 (EUR -46) million.
Net debt to operational EBITDA 2.8 (3.1), liquidity remained strong at EUR 2.0 (1.8) billion.
Q1/2014 (compared with Q4/2013)*
Operational EBIT higher at EUR 182 (EUR 152) million, mainly due to seasonally lower maintenance costs, higher production volumes and progress in fixed cost reduction.
Operational ROCE 8.6% (7.0%).
Transformation
Montes del Plata (MdP) Pulp Mill ready for start-up, subject to granting of the operation permit by the local authorities in the coming weeks. In 2014 Stora Enso’s share of MdP’s production expected to be approximately 350 000-400 000 tonnes, a reduction from the earlier estimate of half a million tonnes.
Consumer board machine investment in Guangxi, China proceeding as planned: approximately 2/3 of mill site levelling work completed, plantation harvesting building up, key equipment selected and equity injected together with IFC into the companies in early April. Board machine expected to be operational in early 2016, as previously announced.
Restructuring
The EUR 200 million streamlining and structure simplification programme announced a year ago is progressing faster than initially expected and nearly all the originally targeted annualised cost reductions are already apparent in the financial results. Finalisation of the programme is continuing in the second quarter.
Veitsiluoto Mill PM 1 has been permanently shut down as planned.
As earlier announced, Stora Enso will invest EUR 28 million in modernising and developing Murow Sawmill in Poland to increase its capacity and improve its competitiveness. Sollenau Sawmill in Austria was permanently shutdown at the end of the first quarter as planned.
Outlook
Second quarter 2014 sales are forecast to be similar to the EUR 2 568 million and operational EBIT in line with the EUR 182 million in the first quarter of 2014. Biomaterials is expected to be negatively impacted by maintenance costs at Veracel and Sunila pulp mills and Renewable Packaging by maintenance at Imatra Pulp Mill and Ostro??ka Mill, where a one-time maintenance shutdown in the Polish national electricity grid will extend the mill maintenance shutdown to two weeks.