Universal Forest Products Shares Fall 8.2% After-Hours

Universal Forest Products UFPI today announced measures to align its costs with its current business, primarily due to significantly weaker-than-expected sales in the first five months of the year. Specifically, from the same period of 2010, year-to-date net sales through May 2011 were down 9.5 percent to $765 million, including a decline of 15.0 percent in net sales to retail customers. In addition, contrary to typical seasonal trends, the lumber market declined for 11 consecutive weeks from March 2011 through the end of May 2011. That decline, coupled with significantly higher fuel prices, contributed to a decline in gross margin to 10.5 percent, or a year-to-date decline of 2.2 percent in May 2011 from the same period of 2010. The decline in year-over-year net sales was due, in part, to lower lumber prices in 2011. Read morhere.