Georgia-Pacific sees operating results below Wall Street views

Georgia-Pacific Corp., the maker of paper and building materials, Tuesday said it expects core results for its latest quarter to miss Wall Street's estimates.

The Atlanta-based company expects fourth-quarter profit, excluding unusual items, of 45 cents to 50 cents a share _ below Thomson First Call's average of analyst projections at 57 cents a share.

Including charges, mostly asbestos-related expenses, the company expects to report between a loss of 1 cent a share and net income of 4 cents a share for the recently completed fourth quarter.

In the same period a year ago, the company earned 12 cents a share including charges and gains and 52 cents a share excluding items.

In midday trading, shares of Georgia-Pacific fell $1.83, or 5.1 percent, to $33.71 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Georgia-Pacific expects unusual items to include pretax asbestos-related charges of $159 million, or 38 cents a share.

The company also expects to post a pretax charge of $32 million, or 8 cents a share, for a combination of other unusual items.

In addition, Georgia-Pacific expects the fourth quarter to include a pretax charge of $27 million, or 6 cents a share, in net stock-based compensation expense.

The company expects its North American and international consumer products businesses, and the paper business, to report strong results at or above the company's expectations.

However, the company expects its packaging and building products segments to report performance below expectations, as results were hurt by maintenance downtime and in the packaging segment, a larger-than-usual drop-off in seasonal demand.

Georgia-Pacific said during 2004, new asbestos claims fell 32 percent from 2003, with about 59,700 claims pending at year end. Total payments to resolve claims in 2004 were $200 million, up from $189 million in the prior year.

The company will report its fourth quarter earnings Feb. 1.