State-owned forest company Coillte has reported record earnings and revenues for 2018 and said it was in a strong overall position to weather any Brexit impacts and to invest in future growth opportunities.
Coillte reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of €115m for last year, an increase of 35% on 2017.
Its revenues also rose by 10% to a new record high of €330m, the dividend Coillte paid to the state increased by 87% to €15m.
Coillte, which manages a forest and land estate of about 44,000 hectares - equivalent to about 7% of the country's land - said its operating cash flow at €60m was double that of 2017.
The company operates three businesses - its core forest business, a wood panels manufacturing business, MEDITE SMARTPLY, and its Land Solutions business.
It said each of these businesses made excellent progress on achieving their strategic objectives last year.
Coillte's Forest division delivered its best ever commercial performance last year, generating EBITDA of €71.9m and operating cash of €36.8m, up from €66.5m and €25.7m respectively in 2017.
It said the good performance was driven by strong timber prices on the back of increased activity in the construction sector and good demand for sawwood in the UK, despite the ongoing uncertainty caused by Brexit.
The division last year extracted over 2.5 million cubic metres of timber and restocked 8.125 hectares of forests by planting over 20 million trees - its biggest reforestation planting programme.
It said was a particularly significant achievement given the challenges of snow and drought experienced during the year of weather extremes.
Turnover at MEDITE SMARTPLY, Coillte's panel manufacturing business, rose by 11% last year due to strong prices and demand for sustainable panel products in the UK market.
Based in the south-east of Ireland, the business supplies sustainable, market led MDF and OSB wood products and is a key outlet for pulp supply from Coillte's core forestry division.
Coillte also said its Land Solutions division continues to make progress towards becoming a leader in providing innovative, land solutions.
During the year, Coillte sold the majority of its interests in operating wind farms for a total consideration of €127m, greater than five times return on original investment.
Coillte's chairperson Bernie Gray said the strong performance by Coillte in 2018 was the culmination of a transformation which has been taking place in the business over the last number of years.
Ms Gray said the transformation targets set by the management team four years ago have been exceeded and Coillte is now positioned as one of the best Forestry and Land Solutions companies in Europe.
"Financially, the company's operating cash flow has increased significantly from €0m to €60m over the last four years and Coillte is now generating a cash yield of 4.6% on its €1.3 billion net asset base," she said.
The chairperson said the Group has been aggressively reducing debt levels over the last number of years, which leaves it in a strong overall position to weather any Brexit impacts and to invest steadily in future growth opportunities.
Earlier this year, Coillte's chief executive Fergal Leamy said he was stepping down from the job after more than four years in the job.
Gerry Britchfield, he company's chief operations officer and chief financial officer, assumed the role of acting CEO in April.
