Lower sales activities and simultaneously higher roundwood-procurement costs were amongst the reasons why sales revenue and key performance figures of the “Wood” division of Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget (SCA) for the fourth quarter remained short of the respective figures of a year earlier. The 7% higher sales volume of 541,000 m³ was unable to compensate for this. At SEK1.422bn, the division’s sales revenue fell 24% below the previous year’s level, EBITDA and the operating result slumped by 66% and 79%, respectively, to SEK129m and SEK69m. The EBITDA margin for the period under review turned out to be in single figures again 9.1%. In spite of the increases in the fourth quarter, the volume of 2.069m m³ of wood delivered in 2022 as a whole fell slightly to 2.022m m³.
In the fourth quarter, the “Forest” division profited from a higher share of the volume of wood harvested in SCA’s own forests as well as from generally higher roundwood prices. The volume of wood harvested in the company’s own forests rose by 35% against the previous year to 1.509m m³. The division’s sales revenue increased accordingly by 19% to SEK1.757bn. In contrast, the key performance figures were influenced by significantly smaller changes in the valuation of biological assets than in the same quarter of a year earlier. At SEK475m, the change in value turned out to be 34% lower than in 2021. As a consequence, EBITDA and the operating result remained 15% and 14% short, respectively, of the before at SEK790m and SEK732m. Irrespective of the reductions, the EBITDA margin remained at a far above-average level at 45.0%.
