Inventories were up $25 million during the quarter, with about half of that coming from planned restocking after the June outage at Foley and the other half due to weaker demand in some markets. Share repurchases were very limited in the first quarter, but have picked up again in October, as we have repurchased about 290,000 shares for $8.9 million in October through today.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John B. Crowe said, “Our first quarter fiscal 2013 financial results came in as we expected, except that the impact of the June outage at Foley on the quarter was less than expected. We are experiencing some weaker conditions in a few of the specialty fibers markets, namely in tire cord, auto filtration and fluff pulp.
“We are seeing positive signs as well, though, in the LCD/LED markets for our cotton specialty fibers, where we see growth returning in 2013, and in nonwovens, where our shipment volume is up year over year. We were pleased to see our gross margin improve to above 25% in the quarter. During the quarter, we made good progress on our Specialty Expansion Project and the Oxygen Delignification Project at our Florida wood fibers facility.
“Both are important projects and are expected to come on-line in April and July 2013 respectively, and will be key contributors for revenue growth and cost reduction. In our Nonwovens business, we continue to work toward transitioning the supply of our current customers from our Delta facility to our other two Nonwovens facilities following the Delta closure, which remains on schedule for December 2012.”
Mr. Crowe went on to say, “While the headwinds we forecasted in August did arrive, we are committed to disciplined execution of our strategy. With continued strong cash flow and a strong balance sheet, we are well-positioned to continue to provide shareholder value and to meet the challenges of a sluggish economy over the next couple of quarters.”
Buckeye Technologies Inc