CANADA / CHILE - In the third quarter (3Q) of 2018, Chilean Arauco stood out among its peers, recording the best performance figures of the Notifix® Index.

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

Compared to 3Q-2017 Arauco obtained the highest EBITDA growth (+ 36.4%), had the highest EBITDA Margin (33.8%), the greatest improvement in the EBITDA margin (6.2 percentage points) and significant profit growth (+ 48.7%).

While Duratex obtained the highest growth in sales (61.3%), followed by Norbord and Eucatex, with improvements of 10.7% and 9.4% respectively. Masisa was the only company with a sale drop in 3Q-2018 (-10.5%).

In 3Q-2018, German Pfleiderer was second in terms of EBITDA growth (+ 16.9%), above Eucatex (+ 11%) and Norbord (+ 5.5%). Portuguese Sonae Industria had the biggest drop in EBITDA (-14.9%) compared to the same period in 2017.

After Arauco, Canadian Norbord obtained the second best EBITDA margin (33%), followed by Eucatex with an EBITDA margin of 19.2%.