MeadWestvaco's First-quarter Loss Widens

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — MeadWestvaco Corp. said Wednesday its first-quarter loss widened on reduced volumes of packaged goods, office supplies and specialty chemicals.

For the three months ended in March, the company lost $79 million, or 46 cents per share, compared with a loss of $4 million, or 2 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.

The results include restructuring charges of 30 cents per share. Those charges cover employee separation, asset writedowns and facility closures plus after-tax bad-debt charges from two customer bankruptcies.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected, on average, a loss of 24 cents per share. Such estimates typically exclude one-time items like restructuring charges.

Revenue declined to $1.35 billion from $1.52 billion. Analysts expected $1.44 billion.

MeadWestvaco's packaging sales fell to $568 million from $631 million. Consumer and office products revenue declined to $163 million from $208 million, and sales of specialty chemicals fell to $94 million from $124 million.

Cash flow from operations more than doubled to $90 million compared with $40 million in the first quarter of 2008.

The company declined to issue a forecast of earnings or revenue because of the "continued worldwide economic uncertainty."