John Jacunski
Analyst · Steven Chercover
Thank you, Dante. For the third quarter, we reported adjusted earnings of $19.4 million or $0.44 per share, compared to $12.8 million or $0.28 per share, after adjusting to exclude gains on land sales and the impact of the conversion of alternative fuel mixture to Cellulosic biofuel credits.
Slide 7 shows a bridge of our earnings from last quarter to this quarter. Strong results from Specialty Papers increased earnings per share by $0.07. Our continuing progress with our Advanced Airlaid Materials business increased earnings by $0.01 and the debt refinancing we completed in late 2011, as well as our share purchase programs increased earnings by $0.06.
Turning to slide 8, we see our Specialty Papers results. For the third quarter this year, net sales increased 3.2% driven in large part by shipments that increased 2.5%. This 2.5% increase in shipments well outperformed the broader uncoated free sheet market which was down 4.8%.
Shipments of book publishing and carbonless products were down as expected. We saw increased shipments in our forms, envelope and engineered products with the continuing growth in our engineered products driven by a wide range of products including high speed inkjet, packaging and postal applications and industrial products.
As we have consistently done over the last several years, our flexible operating platform, operational excellence and new product and new business development capabilities have allowed us to keep our facilities running at or near capacity. From an operating profit perspective as Dante said, operating profit increased by 26% to $21.4 million for the quarter. Selling prices and higher shipments increased operating profit by $2.6 million.
Input cost declined approximately $3.5 million, largely driven by lower purchase pulp prices. The only negative in the quarter was the net margin from our sales of electricities and renewable energy credits, hurt earnings by $1 million due to lower prices for both those items.
Turning to Slide 9, you see our results for Composite Fibers. Net sales for Composite Fibers declined by 11% during the quarter, driven largely by changes in foreign currency. On a constant currency basis, net sales were down 4% and volumes declined 2%. This was driven by the generally weak European economy, which showed softer markets in these segments and is driving customers to aggressively manage inventory levels.
From an operating profit perspective, despite the headwinds from foreign currency which reduced earnings in the quarter by $1 million, we were able to increase operating profit by $200,000 to $10.3 million. Selling prices and volumes declined earnings by $700,000. This was more than offset by lower input cost which improved results by $1.8 million, largely driven by purchased pulp and energy prices.
Also I would make a few comments about capacity expansion project, as well as the fire we add in our facility in France in October. Our detailed plans for our capacity expansion project have now been completed and our machine upgrade to expand our inclined work capacity is progressing and we are planning to take the machine down in the middle of first quarter of 2013 with a startup around the middle of May.
We expect the cost related to this project to negatively impact earnings by $0.02 to $0.03 in each of the first quarter and the second quarter of next year. With respect to the fire, as I mentioned we had fire in our facility in France on October 14. The fire started in a transformer and we are still trying to determine the root cause. The fire destroyed electrical equipment as well as cabling, primarily serving paper machine three of facility, but it also left a significant amount of soot throughout the operation.
Our work is progressing as expected and we are now well into to the cleanup. We've also ordered electrical and other equipment that is necessary to restart the facility. When we issued our release a few weeks ago, we expected to restart paper machine four in three to four weeks, and paper machine three in six weeks to eight weeks and we are tracking to this timeline.
We have been shipping products from inventory after completing product quality tests and product trials are underway of machines in our other facilities. So we expect to be able to meet all customer demands while these machines are down. The total impact of the fire is estimated as $4 million to $6 million. We expect the event will be fully covered by insurance subject, to deductible of $500,000. While we expect most of the cost to be incurred in the fourth quarter, the timing of the recording of the insurance recovery may not well happen during the fourth quarter, so it could impact our fourth quarter results beyond the deductible.
Moving to slide 10, we see our results for the Advanced Airlaid Materials business. Again this business was also impacted significantly by foreign currency translation with net sales declining 8% overall but down only 1.5% on a constant currency basis. Shipping volume was down slightly with declines in feminine hygiene products in Europe, largely offset by increased shipments of Specialty Wipes.
From an operating income perspective, operating income improved by 12% to $4.6 million during the quarter. We saw lower selling prices but I’d like to remind you that approximately 80% of our revenue in this business is subject to raw material cost test arrangements.
Raw material and energy cost declined approximately $2.7 million, primarily related to flat pulp prices. Our selling prices declined to a lesser extent by $1.1 million with select price increases somewhat offsetting the pass through and as shown on the slide, foreign currency translation negatively impacted results by $1.3million. Our operating margins and EBIDTA margins improved during the quarter with EBITDA margins at 11%, this is the best we've achieved since our acquisition in 2010.
Turning to Slide 11, we see a number of other financial highlights. Pension expense for the quarter was $2.9 million, down from $4.1 million in the third quarter of 2011. Third quarter 2011 included a $2 million one-time settlement charge and our plans remain over funded. So, we have no cash contributions acquired in 2012 and we do not expect to have to make any for the foreseeable future. We did have one unusual item during the quarter. We completed the sale of 979 acres of timberlands, realizing a $1.5 million pre-tax gain. This item, as it has been our practice, has been excluded from adjusted earnings.
Slide 12 outlines our free cash flow. Now, the third quarter was a strong quarter for free cash flow at $26 million, when we adjust for our Composite Fibers capacity expansion as well as the CBC and alternative fuel mixture credits.
Our capital expenditures on a year-to-date basis are $45 million. This includes $11 million related to the Composite Fibers capacity expansion and we expect total capital expenditures for the year of $85 million with significant payments related to our expansion project to be made in the fourth quarter.
Working capital was a significant drag on our cash flow in nine months of 2012. This is largely due to seasonality with our accounts receivable declining typically at the end of the year and then increasing in the first quarter. That has caused a use of cash of $26 million in the first nine months of this year.
We also are rebuilding some inventory positions, where last year our inventories got low and it was creating some problems with us servicing customers. So, we’ve invested another $14 million in inventories to better serve those customers.
Turn to slide 13, you see our balance sheet. Our balance sheet remains quite strong with $28 million of cash and net debt of a $191 million with our leverage at 1.1 times. We also have significant availability under our revolving credit facility of $326 million. So, we’re well positioned to continue to fund growth initiatives and strategic investments.
After the close of the third quarter, we should complete a private placement offering of $250 million, of 5 3/8% senior notes due 2020. We used the proceeds from this offering to redeem our $200 million 7 1/8% notes due 2016. We redeemed them early so we expect to take a charge in the fourth quarter of approximately $5 million on an after tax basis related to that refinancing.
That concludes my comments and I’ll turn the call back to Dante.