The cost of printing a catalog on newsprint is expected to go up about 10% later this year, the result of an October hike in the price of newsprint planned by Abitibi-Consolidated Inc., Montreal, and Bowater Inc., Greenville, SC.
The price hike could trigger a comparable rise for coated paper used by most catalogers for their books. Consolidated Papers Inc., Wisconsin Rapids, WI, seemed to suggest that possibility last week when it released its second-quarter financials.
According to published reports, both Abitibi and Bowater have been notifying commercial printers and newspaper publishers that they want to raise the price of a metric ton of newsprint to about $550, from just under $500. Their goal is to recover some of the losses suffered since last year when the market went soft causing prices to drop because of overproduction.
Last month Abitibi said the soft market caused gross sales to drop from $1.093 billion to $1.065 billion in the first three months of this year, for which the company posted a net loss of $83 million, compared to net income of $40 million the year before (all figures are Canadian dollars).
The soft market also cut into Consolidated’s second-quarter sales, which dropped to $435.1 million from $508.4 million the year before. Consolidated reported an 8% drop in coated paper shipments while attributing the decline in sales and production to “low selling prices and reduced operating rates caused by global over capacity” of assorted paper products.
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