Renkane

Was about to buy some shares after your post, but couldn't log in fast enough: WSC 364.62 +39.87 (12.28%)

FWIW, here's Goldman's most recent commentary on the pulp market: Pulp: Some Reversal in Market Conditions After Record Run Published 24 Aug 2010 12:29:41 pm CST Global shipments of market pulp totaled 3.338 million tonnes in July 2010, down 6.2% from 3.558 million tonnes in July 2009. Although shipments to Western Europe increased 6.4% on a year-over-year basis, shipments to China fell 33.6%, shipments to North America were down 6.7%, and volumes to Other Asia/Africa were off 14.6%. Through the first seven months of 2010, global market pulp shipments were flat with the comparable 2009 period. Although shipments to China sunk 29.5%, volumes were higher into major regions North America (+9.1%), Western Europe (+10.7%), and Latin America (+18.1%). The global shipment to capacity ratio was 88% in July 2010, down from 93% one year earlier. However, for the first seven months of the year, this ratio was 92%, up from 91% in the 2009 period. Pulp inventories held by producers ended July 2010 at 29 days of supply, flat with one year earlier. While considered to be a comfortable level, this represents an increase from 25 days of supply at the end of June 2010. After shooting up to a high $1,020/tonne in July 2010, the price of NBSK pulp fell $30/tonne, to $990/tonne in August 2010. This is still 35.6% higher than the $730/tonne price in August 2009. While the direction of the pulp market during the remainder of 2010 is unclear, we believe that some additional selling price declines are likely, but do not expect prices to plummet to 2009 levels. In our opinion, key determinants of near-term price trends will be the timing of a resumption of Chinese buying to more normal levels, the amount of shuttered North American capacity that is restarted, and the pace of the global economic recovery. Major market pulp producers in the high yield market include Domtar, Georgia-Pacific, Millar Western, Tembec, and Catalyst Paper.

Cardboard, Ucc--thanks for the input. Agree with your assessment on the rationale for the change to a corporation. In regards to the discrepancies in reporting, I finally got an answer back from the Company: "We have changed the calculation of our EBITDA to reflect operations and exclude financial and non cash items. The definition of EBITDA is included on page 1 of the MD&A under the heading «Non GAAP measures». This method of calculating EBITDA is in line with other public entities in our industry." As the company states, the definition is properly disclosed on pg 1 of the MD&A: "References to “EBITDA” are to earnings before amortization, financial charges and income taxes and, effective with this MD&A, also before other non-operating income and expense such as gain or loss on derivative instruments, disposal of capital assets and foreign currency translation." Unfortunately, this tells me that absent this change in reporting method, EBITDA would very likely have been negative for Q4. I'm not very fond of a management team that changes its method of reporting for aesthetic purposes rather than for business reasons, but I guess it's up to the investor to do his/her homework--and at the end of the day EBITDA should not be a substitute for cash-flow. From a business standpoint, aside from the outage, it seems to me that RBK prices were the biggest headwind facing the company during Q4. Does anyone have any market data on the trend for RBK prices? Has anyone been able to point out any other major issues/headwinds from the Q4 release?

Could the unexpected conversion to a corporation be related to a company sale strategy? Are there any limitations imposed on potential buyers under the current structure (such as inability to strip away certain assets or limitiation in the nationality of buyer)?

I was going through the Q4 MD&A and noticed on pg 28 that EBITDAs for prior quarters vary from those reported in the Q3 MD&A (pg 27): 2009 Q3: 6.4M vs 2.3M 2009 Q2: (16.3M) vs (20.3M) 2009 Q1: (2.4M) vs (2.8M) Same thing for numbers reported in 2008. There must be some disclosed explanation, but I can't seem to find it. Could someone point me to the source of the discrepancy? Thanks!