International Paper Q2 Profit Rises - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - International Paper (IP) said second-quarter net earnings attributable to common shareholders rose to $227 million or $0.54 per share from $161 million or $0.37 per share in the second quarter of 2014.

The company attributed the earnings increase to outstanding North American Industrial Packaging results.

Operating earnings were $0.97 per share, while it totaled $0.93 per share last year. On average, 18 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.92 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Quarterly net sales fell to $5.714 billion from $5.899 billion in the prior year. Analysts expected revenues of $5.75 billion.

Mark Sutton, CEO, said, "Our North American Industrial Packaging business performed very well on seasonally higher sales and increased margins. Operations around the globe ran well and we executed our heaviest quarter of maintenance outages safely and effectively. As we look forward, we are confident in our ability to continue to deliver strong results and remain focused on long term value creation for our shareholders."