Cascades, a manufacturer of packaging and tissue paper products, announces its unaudited financial results for the three-month period ended September 30, 2013. Q3 2013 highlights include:
- Sales of $995 million (compared to $982 million in Q2 2013 (+1%) and $906 million in Q3 2012 (+10%))
- Excluding specific items EBITDA of $96 million (compared to $83 million in Q2 2013 (+16%) and $78 million in Q3 2012 (+23%))
- Net earnings per share of $0.07 (compared to net earnings of $0.09 in Q2 2013 and net earnings of $0.05 in Q3 2012)2
- Including specific items EBITDA of $83 million (compared to $82 million in Q2 2013 (+1%) and $83 million in Q3 2012 (+0%))
Mr. Mario Plourde, President and Chief Executive Officer, had the following comments on the third quarter results:
"We are pleased with our third quarter results that represent our best EBITDA performance since 2010. Our two largest sectors, Containerboard and Tissue Papers, performed better, both sequentially and year-over-year. Both sectors benefited from improved productivity. The pricing environment in the Containerboard sector and sustained demand in the Tissue Papers sector have also helped to counterbalance higher raw material costs. In Europe, our boxboard activities also slightly improved their results compared to last year and the sequential decrease in volume is usual for this quarter. The Specialty Products Group continues to improve its financial performance. Our EBITDA was negatively impacted by approximately $4 million during the third quarter following flooding incidents resulting in additional maintenance and repair expenses and unplanned downtime for a shortfall of 5,800 tons at our existing containerboard mill in Niagara Falls and 4,000 tons at our fine paper mill in St-Jérôme.
"The Greenpac mill successfully started its production as planned on July 15. The ramp-up is progressing according to plan and we are pleased with the efficiency of the machine and the quality of the board. Average daily production during the quarter was 532 tons per day with recent peaks at over 1,300 tons on a nameplate capacity of 1,500 tons per day. In addition, although not consolidated in our results, positive operating income before depreciation was achieved in September."
