Discontinued Operations

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2014

Discontinued Operations and Disposal Groups [Abstract]

Discontinued Operations

Discontinued Operations

On August 7, 2012, USG and its indirect wholly owned subsidiaries, USG Foreign Investments, Ltd. and USG (U.K.) Ltd., together the Sellers, entered into a Share and Asset Purchase Agreement, or SAPA, with Knauf International GmbH and Knauf AMF Ceilings Ltd., together Knauf, pursuant to which the Sellers agreed to sell to Knauf certain of their wholly owned European business operations. Those businesses include the manufacture and distribution of DONN^® brand ceiling grid and SHEETROCK^® brand finishing compounds principally throughout Europe, Russia and Turkey.

On December 27, 2012, the sale of the European business operations was completed in accordance with the terms of the SAPA, and we received net proceeds of $73 million resulting in a gain of $55 million, net of tax. Affiliates of Knauf are the beneficial owners of approximately 10% of USG’s outstanding shares of common stock.

The results of our European business operations sold to Knauf are classified as discontinued operations in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying footnotes presented in this report.

Sales from discontinued operations, operating profit from discontinued operations and income (loss) from discontinued operations before income taxes were as follows:

	For the year ended December 31,
(millions)	2014		2013			2012
Sales from discontinued operations	$	—	$	—		$	106
Operating profit from discontinued operations	—		—			7
Income (loss) from discontinued operations before income taxes	—		(1		)	6