International Paper Q1 Adj. Profit Tops View, But Revenues Miss

(RTTNews) - Paper and packaging company International Paper Co. (IP) reported Wednesday a loss for the first quarter compared to a profit last year, hurt by significant charges. Operating earnings per share topped analysts' expectations, while quarterly revenues missed their estimates.

The company noted that results were also impacted by headwinds from unfavorable weather and high input costs, partially offset by price improvement across many businesses.

"Despite the severe weather that impacted our North American businesses, International Paper delivered solid results. North America and Western Europe demand is slowly improving, while emerging market growth has slowed," Chairman and CEO John Faraci said in a statement.

The Memphis, Tennessee-based company reported a net loss attributable to common shareholders of $95 million or $0.21 per share for the first quarter, compared to net earnings of $318 million or $0.71 per share in the prior-year quarter.

The results for the latest quarter primarily include a charge of $0.76 per share associated with the Courtland mill shutdown.

Excluding items, operating earnings for the quarter was $265 million or $0.61 per share, compared to $292 million or $0.65 per share in the year-ago quarter.

On average, 16 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.55 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Net sales for the quarter declined to $7.01 billion from $7.09 billion in the same quarter last year, and missed fourteen Wall Street analysts' consensus estimate of $7.10 billion.

Industrial packaging revenues grew to $3.69 billion from $3.56 billion, while printing papers revenues declined to $1.41 billion from $1.54 billion in the prior-year quarter.

Consumer packaging revenues edged down to $829 million from $830 million, and revenues for xpedx the North American distribution business, decreased to $1.30 billion from $1.39 billion in the year-ago quarter.

"In this uneven environment, we remain intensely focused on IP initiatives that will allow us to expand margins and continue to generate strong free cash flow in 2014," Faraci added.

In Wednesday's regular trading session, IP is currently trading at $47.40, up $1.50 or 3.27% on a volume of 1.80 million shares.