CANADA - Canadian panel manufacturer Norbord stood out once again among its peers recording the best performance figures in the Notifix® Index for the 1Q-2018 period.

This index is the product of the evaluation of the seven main international manufacturers of wood panels that publish comparable results: Arauco, Duratex, Eucatex, Masisa, Norbord, Pfleiderer and Sonae.

Compared to 1Q -2017 Norbord stood out in terms of sales growth (+23.3%) and EBITDA growth (+65.0%). Arauco had the greatest improvement in the EBITDA margin (+7.8 percentage points), slightly outperforming Norbord (+7.5 percentage points).

In sales growth Norbord was followed by Chile's Arauco and Brazil's Eucatex, with improvements of 11.0% and 8.9% each. Chilean Masisa recorded the largest drop in sales in 1Q-2018 (-12.1%), followed by the Portuguese Sonae Industria (-8.7%).

In 1Q-2018 Brazilian Duratex was third in terms of EBITDA growth (+22.9%), above Pfleiderer (+18.5 %%) and Eucatex (+13.7%). Whereas Sonae Industria had the biggest drop in EBITDA growth compared to the same period in 2017.

As for the EBITDA margin, after Arauco and Norbord, Duratex was third with an improvement of 2.5 percentage points. While Sonae Industria and Masisa saw their EBITDA margin drop by 5.6 and 0.4 percentage points respectively.