Weyerhaeuser Co. logged fourth-quarter 2016 net earnings attributable to common shareholders of $551 million, or 73 cents per share, compared to $59 million, or 11 cents per share, in the 2015 fourth quarter.
The company noted that the fourth-quarter results included $489 million in after-tax earnings from discontinued operations, mainly comprising gains from the divestment of its cellulose fibers pulp mills and printing papers businesses. The results also include net after-tax charges of $44 million for special items.
Excluding the discontinued operations and special items, the fourth-quarter net earnings came in at $106 million, or 14 cents per common share.
For the 2016 full year, the company reported net earnings of approximately $1.01 billion, or $1.39 per diluted share, on net sales of $6.4 billion. The full-year 2016 results include net after-tax charges of $141 million from special items. In 2015, Weyerhaeuser posted net earnings of $462 million on net sales of $5.2 billion.
Excluding the special items, the company's full-year 2016 net earnings came in at $534 million, or 75 cents per diluted share.
Company President and CEO Doyle Simons said in a release: "2016 was a transformational year for Weyerhaeuser. Through our merger with Plum Creek and the $2.5 billion divestiture of our Cellulose Fibers business, we became a focused timber, land and forest products company and nearly doubled the size of our timberland holdings."
The S&P Capital IQ consensus for fourth-quarter and full-year 2016 normalized EPS was 15 cents and 79 cents, respectively.