Stora Enso’s wood-product deliveries down by 10%

The “Wood Products” division of Stora Enso sold around 1.043m m³ of sawnwood and wood products in the fourth quarter, 9.8% less than a year earlier. As such, the sold volume fell from 4.508m m³ to 4.235m m³ in the year as a whole. The division’s sales revenue fell by 7.5% in the period under review to €471m. Lower selling prices and higher variable costs were only partly compensated for by revenue generated from sales of by-products. EBITDA and EBIT consequently slipped into the negative zone at -€1m (+€101m) and -€14m (+€89m), respectively. At -0.1% and -2.9%, respectively, the margins turned out to be negative, as was the return on operating capital (ROOC) at -7.5%. Logistics, energy, and roundwood proved to be key cost drivers in the reporting period.

In contrast, the “Forest” division profited from higher roundwood prices. Despite a reduction of 5.9% in the delivered volume of roundwood to 9.136m m³, sales revenue increased 11.1% to €664m. The key performance figures were also considerably better than a year earlier and compared to the third quarter. EBITDA rose by 31.9% to around €79m, and EBIT by 29.5% to €62m whereby sales of land worth around €10m were also entered in the balance sheet here. This caused the margins to improvement by roughly one to two percentage points to 11.9% and 8.0%, respectively.

At group level, Stora Enso recorded growth of 5.3% in sales revenue to €2.864bn. EBITDA was 14.4% down at €515m, which equates to a margin of 18%. EBIT fell a little more sharply by 16.7% to €355m, but the margin remained in double figures here, too, at 12.4%. The pre-tax result (IFRS) fell by 16.1% to €666m.

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