Cascades Inc. has released its unaudited financial results for the three-month Q4 period and fiscal year ended December 31, 2022.
Q4 22 highlights included sales of $1,135m (compared with $1,174m in Q3 2022 and $1,028m in Q4 2021). An operating loss of $(20)m (compared with $25m in Q3 2022 and $(90)m in Q4 2021).
For FY 22, sales of $4,466m was achieved ($3,956m in 2021) and operating income of $33m ($50m in 2021).
Mario Plourde, President and CEO, commented, “We are pleased with our fourth quarter consolidated performance, which showed continued positive momentum in our Tissue Papers segment, and good underlying performance in our packaging segments. The wide-ranging profitability and operational initiatives that we have been progressively implementing throughout our operations gained traction as the year progressed, and fuelled the 10.2% consolidated EBITDA margins in Q4. Our operations have faced more than $475m of production, raw material, freight and energy cost headwinds within the span of the calendar year 2022 alone, and our teams have done an excellent job at executing multiple countermeasures.
“Our Containerboard segment generated solid results in the fourth quarter. As expected, sales decreased 5% sequentially, reflecting slightly softer shipment levels and average selling prices. These impacts were more than mitigated at the EBITDA level by benefits from lower raw material pricing, more favourable FX, production and energy cost levels, and a $5m partial insurance settlement related to water effluent treatment issues that occurred at our Niagara Falls, NY complex in mid-2021. Sequentially, fourth quarter sales levels also decreased for our Specialty Products business, largely driven by lower volumes in the cardboard and plastics sub-segments, resulting in lower EBITDA levels for this business. Lastly, Corporate Activities generated a higher negative EBITDA in the fourth quarter, a reflection of the impact that lower recycled paper prices and volume had on results in the Company’s Recovery & Recycling operations.”
Plourde concluded, “The start-up of the Bear Island project is scheduled for the end of March. Capital investments for this project totaled $107m in the fourth quarter and $335m in the calendar year 2022. The company expects to invest $175m to complete the project in 2023, with these investments weighted to the first half of the year.”
