American paper and pulp giant International Paper has recorded a net profit of $80m, compared to the $209m the company earnt in the first quarter of this year.
Last year, during the same period, the company earned $40m. The earnings translate to $0.19 diluted earnings per share for this quarter. Compared to previous quarter, it was $0.50 per share.
The company's sales for the period were $5.77bn. For the last quarter, the sales stood at $5.5bn. For the second quarter of last year, the company’s sales were $5.3bn.
The company attributed increase in sales to the acquisition of the Weyerhaeuser's pulp business in late 2016. The business was acquired for a cash of $2.2bn.
The company stated that the net profit for the period has been impacted by special items such as non-operating pension expense and discontinued operations.
One of the major expenses that were noted in the consolidated statement was the inclusion of a pre-tax charge of $354m related to an agreement to settle the lawsuit with Kleen Products.
Another major expense that was also included in the statement was the pre-tax charge of $439m for settling accounting charge associated with term-vested lump sum pension payments.
International Paper has added gains from special items expense, which is $169m and a non-operating pension expense of $21m. This has increased the adjusted net earnings to $270m, which has significantly increased the earnings per share from $0.19 to $0.65.
International Paper chairman and CEO Mark Sutton said: "Solid second quarter results were supported by healthy demand in our North American Industrial Packaging business and record fluff pulp sales which were partially offset by higher than expected OCC costs.
"Looking forward, we see margin expansion associated with the realization of our announced price increases, acquisition synergies and significantly lower outage expenses driving a very strong second half and putting IP on track to deliver our full year earnings target."
