Cascades releases full year 2012 results

Cascades recently announced its unaudited financial results for the three-month period and the fiscal year ended December 31, 2012. Sales amounted to $3,645 million, compared to $3,625 million in 2011 (+1%))
 
Mr. Alain Lemaire, President and Chief Executive Officer, had the following comments on the fourth quarter results:

"We ended 2012 on a better note than last year. Despite a sequential performance which reflects inherent seasonality associated with the fourth quarter in North America, the results released today are encouraging in a number of ways. Our Tissue Papers Group continues to perform well. The sequential decline in recycled paper costs and the gradual implementation of price hikes contributed positively to the results of our Containerboard Group manufacturing activities. The maintenance downtime period did not allow this segment to achieve the desired utilization rate but the performance of our flagship operations is gradually improving. The implementation of price increases in the corrugated products sector is in line with our expectations but the product mix negatively impacted the performance of our converting operations during the fourth quarter. In our Specialty Products Group, shipments of specialty papers and converted products were lower than expected, which had a negative impact on financial results. In Europe, we have been able to capitalize on capacity closures to make the best of a difficult market environment."