Smurfit-Stone Sees Slight Profit for Quarter

Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. reported net income available to common shareholders of $6 million for the first quarter. The company earned $12 million for the first quarter of 2001. Sales for the quarter were $1.9 billion compared to $2.2 billion in the first quarter of 2001.

Patrick J. Moore, president and CEO, said the primary factors affecting quarterly profits were persistent weakness in demand for packaging, the continuing impact of containerboard mill downtime and modest packaging price erosion.

Reflecting the difficult economic environment at the start of the quarter, North American shipments of the company's two main packaging products, corrugated containers and folding cartons, declined compared to both fourth quarter and year-ago levels.

``Our quarterly corrugated container shipments, on a per day basis, fell a little less than 1 percent versus year-ago levels. This brings us back in line with industry performance, despite the rationalization of four corrugated container plants over the period.'' Moore said that the company took 279,000 tons of economic downtime at the containerboard mills in the quarter.

Commenting on the outlook, Moore said, ``We expect that the quarter was the trough from a demand standpoint, and we have begun to see some signs of a seasonal upturn.'' Moore said that with inventories at low levels any sustained pick up in demand could support price improvement. ``We continue our focus on profitable revenue growth and cash flow generation to pay down debt.''