Stora Enso Oyj (SEOAY.PK) reported first quarter net profit attributable to owners of 72.9 million euros or 0.09 euros per share, lower than 155.6 million euros or 0.20 euros per share a year ago.
Net profit, excluding non-recurring items, was 80.2 million euros, down from 175.3 million euros a year ago. Net profit per share, excluding non-recurring items, was 0.10 euros versus 0.22 euros last year.
Operational EBIT decreased year-over-year to 147 million euros, mainly due to lower prices in Printing and Reading and Biomaterials, and lower volumes in Renewable Packaging.
Sales declined to 2.67 billion euros from 2.73 billion euros in the prior-year quarter.
CEO Jouko Karvinen commented,
"Our first quarter earnings performance was overall in line with our guidance in February. However, the return on capital employed was below cost of capital, which shows the never-ending need to improve our cost position and operational performance. In addition to the expected price pressures and variable cost reductions only slowly improving our profit, we also had operational issues in several of our mills, for instance the Nordic mills of the Biomaterials Business Area. The good thing is that we can tackle these challenges ourselves, instead of just waiting for external conditions to improve.."
Moving ahead, in the second quarter of 2012, the company forecasts group sales to be slightly higher and operational EBIT approximately in the range of the first quarter of 2012 as there will be maintenance stoppages in several European mills and the benefits of improving variable costs are expected to become only slowly apparent in the results. The main maintenance impact is anticipated to be in the Biomaterials Business Area.
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