UPM Interim Report Q1/2018: UPM continues to grow earnings – Strong customer demand in all businesses

Q1 2018 highlights
•Comparable EBIT increased by 17% to EUR 355 million (305 million in Q1 2017).
•Sales prices increased in all business areas, outweighing the impact of higher input costs and unfavourable currencies.
•Operating cash flow was EUR 208 million (396 million), including an increase in working capital.
•Net debt decreased to EUR 41 million (807 million).

Jussi Pesonen, President and CEO, comments on Q1 results: “Commercially the first quarter was excellent. Customer demand was strong and we succeeded in increasing sales prices in all businesses, practically in all products. With this we were able to expand our margins and recover the impact of clearly higher input costs.

Our comparable EBIT increased by 17% to EUR 355 million, marking the 20th consecutive quarter of earnings growth. Operating cash flow was at EUR 208 million and net debt decreased to EUR 41 million during the quarter.

UPM Biorefining benefitted from significantly higher pulp prices in the first quarter. Operationally, however, the quarter left room for improvement. Challenges in wood harvesting and operational efficiency limited our production and we were not able to fully benefit from the strong market demand.

UPM Energy achieved an excellent result with higher electricity prices and a good level of hydropower generation.

UPM Communication Papers (formerly UPM Paper ENA), UPM Specialty Papers and UPM Plywood continued good performance. They were able to offset most of the heavy cost increases with sales price actions in favourable customer demand and tight markets.

The market demand was also good for self-adhesive labels. UPM Raflatac was able to restore its unit margins with price increases after 12 months of continued heavy input cost increases, but gave up some volumes in the process.
more detail at:  http://www.upm.com/About-us/Newsroom/Releases/Pages/UPM-Interim-Report-Q12018-UPM-continues-to-grow-earnings—Strong-customer-deman-001-Thu-26-Apr-2018-09-42.aspx

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