Georgia-Pacific swings to profit

Mark Niesse

Friday, July 18, 2003 | 11:35 a.m.

ATLANTA -- Paper and building products company Georgia-Pacific Corp. reported a profit of $62 million for its second quarter Thursday, bouncing back from a loss in the same period last year. But the company said weak demand and tough competition hurt sales.

Second-quarter net income for the Atlanta-based manufacturer was equivalent to 25 cents per share, compared with a loss of $83 million, or 36 cents a share, in the second quarter of 2002.

The results were well ahead of the 14 cents per share that analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had been expecting.

Sales fell 19 percent to $5.04 billion from $6.22 billion. But the company said sales would have been higher had the sale of its Unisource Worldwide paper distribution business been excluded from reported results.

"The fundamentals in almost all of our businesses were weaker than a year ago, impacting performance in every segment," A.D. "Pete" Correll, Georgia-Pacific's chief executive, said in a prepared statement.

"In addition, typical seasonal improvement in building products demand were much slower developing than originally anticipated and did not begin having an effect until late in the quarter," Correll said.

Profits for the first six months of the year were $34 million, or 14 cents a share, compared with a loss of $567 million, or $2.47 a share, in 2002. Sales were $9.62 billion compared with $12.02 billion.