Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Potlatch Expects Earnings To Drop

Potlatch Corporation recently announced that it expects fourth quarter 1999 earnings to be significantly below the $0.48/share consensus of analysts' estimates.

The company attributes the shortfall to a sharp decline in wood products realizations from its unusually strong levels in the third quarter, relatively high startup costs associated with the last major phase of its expanded and modernized pulp mill in Cloquet, Minn., and operating difficulties at its pulp and paperboard mill in Idaho, which have mitigated the impact of improving realizations for paper and paperboard.

Potlatch chairman and chief executive officer L. Pendleton Siegel noted that startup of the final phase of the Cloquet pulp mill this month is going extremely well. "Both production and quality targets are already being exceeded, in part because of the investments we have made in preparation and training," he said.

Potlatch is a diversified forest products company with timberlands in Arkansas, Idaho and Minnesota.