CANADA / CHILE - In the first semester (1S) of 2018 the Canadian wood panel manufacturer Norbord and the Chilean forestry company Arauco stood out among their peers when recording the best performance figures of the Notifix® Index.

This index is the product of the evaluation of the seven leading international manufacturers of wood panels that publish comparable results: Arauco (Chile), Duratex (Brazil), Eucatex (Brazil), Masisa (Chile), Norbord (Canada), Pfleiderer (Germany) and Sonae Industria (Portugal).

Compared to 1H -2017 Norbord stood out in terms of sales growth (+27.9%) and EBITDA growth (+65.3%). Arauco had the greatest improvement in the EBITDA margin (+8.3 percentage points), slightly outperforming Norbord (+7.5 percentage points) and the highest growth in profits (+1,023.5%).

In the sales growth comparison, Norbord was followed by Duratex and Arauco, with improvements of 17.3% and 7.3% respectively. While Sonae Industria was the only one whose sales fell in 1H-2018 (-8.2%).

In 1H-2018, Duratex was third in terms of EBITDA growth (+23.3%), above Eucatex (+8.3%) and Pfleiderer (+5.0%). Sonae Industria had the biggest drop in EBITDA (-32.2%) compared to the same period in 2017, followed by Masisa (-5.4%).