<p>Higher sales helped wood-products giant Georgia-Pacific Corp. swing to a profit in the fourth quarter, beating Wall Street expectations.</p><p>The Atlanta-based maker of Brawny paper towels said Tuesday that for the three months ending Dec. 31, it had net income of $31 million, or 12 cents a share, compared to a loss of $234 million, or 94 cents a share, in the year-ago period.</p><p>Excluding one-time items _ mostly charges, credits and gains related to streamlining efforts and insurance costs _ Georgia-Pacific reported a profit of $132 million, or 52 cents a share, in the October to December period. On that basis, analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call were expecting earnings of 48 cents a share.</p><p>Revenue in the fourth quarter was $5.36 billion, compared to $5.10 billion in the same period a year ago. The company says its year-ago revenue was only $4.5 billion if you exclude $570 million in sales from its Unisource distribution business. Georgia-Pacific has sold its majority interest in Unisource.</p><p>Chairman and chief executive A.D. Correll said the companys North America consumer products business finished the fourth quarter with momentum that carried into January. He also cited strength in the companys structural panels business.</p><p>During the year, we made significant progress in advancing our strategic goals by further reducing overhead and operating costs, repaying a significant amount of debt, advancing our ongoing process of rationalizing our asset portfolio and launching massively improved versions of our flagship tissue and towel brands, he said.</p><p>Georgia-Pacific is one of the worlds leading manufacturers of tissue, packaging, paper, building products, pulp and related chemicals. It employs about 61,000 people in North America and Europe.</p><p>Besides Brawny, its consumer tissue brands include Quilted Northern, Angel Soft, Mardi Gras and Vanity Fair.</p><p>For all of 2003, Georgia-Pacific had net income of $254 million, or $1.01 a share, compared to a net loss of $735 million, or $3.09 a share, in 2002. Twelve-month revenue was $20.26 billion, a decrease from the $23.27 billion recorded in 2002.</p><p>Shares of Georgia-Pacific fell 17 cents to close at $27.83 on the New York Stock Exchange.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x28664ac)</p>
