OREANDA-NEWS. August 07, 2013. In 2012, total revenue of the Top-50 Russian forest based companies fell by 17.1% y-o-y and amounted to 249,56 billion rubles, according to the annual rating published by Russian Lesnaya Industriya Magazine.

A large portion of the net sales (73.3%) occurred in the leading ten of the rating, which is by 4.2% higher than last year. Profitability of the industry is also reduced: the net income margin was only 1.4%, which is by 3.3 p.p. lower than in 2011. The leader of the rating was Ilim Group, with revenues of 52.7 billion rubles (which is less by 11.1% than in 2011).

According to the rating, in 2012, the biggest increase in sales was observed in wood processing sector - 11.3%. In the Russian pulp and paper industry sales have declined by 5.7%. In the rating Top-50, the largest increase of revenue the company Rusforest showed - by 38.1%, to 2.6 billion rubles. At the same time, the company leads in the rating for losses (5.1 billion rubles).

Total net profit of the pulp and paper companies in the rating was 6.1 billion rubles, while woodworking companies in 2012 suffered a loss of 3.4 billion rubles. The highest net profit in the Top-50 for several years Ilim Group shows. In 2012, it decreased by 59.9% to 3.4 billion rubles. Only 31 companies out of 50 were able to realize a profit.

According to the rating, in 2012 in the pulp and paper industry had the highest profit margin (10.1%), as well as a significant increase in production (6.3%) due to packaging products. The increase in pulp production has stopped. The most difficult segment in Russian pulp and paper industry was newsprint.

As for the woodworking sector in Russia, in 2012 its profitability was less by half than pulp and paper sector, and amounted to 5%. The significant negative factor was continued to be the increase in prices for natural monopolies’ services, especially railroad. Because of the growth of railway transportation, in 2012 tariffs for timber transportation decreased by 10.8%

The annual Top-50 Russian forest based companies is compiled and published by Lesnaya Industriya Magazine. The position of the companies in the rating depends on the amount of revenue received by them in 2012. In the rating it is also marked the position of the companies in 2011. As the basis for estimate of revenue and net profits, the information officially provided by the companies to Lesnaya Industriya Magazine were taken, as well as the information derived from the annual reports of the companies, from the disclosure servers and from website Lesprom Network.