Stora Enso completes €210m divestment of Maxau paper site

Stora Enso has completed the divestment of its Maxau paper production site in Germany to Schwarz Produktion, part of Schwarz Group.

The enterprise value of the divestment is approximately €210 million. The transaction will reduce Stora Enso’s annual supercalendered paper capacity by 530,000 tonnes and, based on 2022 figures, will reduce the packaging giant’s annual sales by approximately €385 million.

Schwarz Produktion is the umbrella brand for the production companies of Schwarz Group. The Group has more than 4,500 employees who produce food, beverages and sustainable packaging materials for retail companies Lidl and Kaufland.

The sale is part of Stora Enso’s plan, announced in March 2022, to divest four of its five paper production sites in order to focus on strategic growth areas. According to the company, “Stora Enso’s focus is on long term growth potential for its renewable products in packaging, building solutions and biomaterials innovations”.

In January this year, Stora Enso signed an agreement to divest its paper production site in Hylte, Sweden, and all of its related assets to Sweden Timber, a Swiss sawmill and planing mill company.

At the same time, Stora Enso discontinued the Anjala, Finland, site divestment process. “For the Anjala site, we have concluded that the benefits from retaining the site within the Group exceed the value of explored divestment opportunities,” said Seppo Parvi, CFO at Stora Enso.

Additionally, Stora Enso completed the divestment of its Nymölla paper production site in Sweden, and all related assets to Sylvamo, a US-based global producer of uncoated paper.

In January this year, Stora Enso acquired the Netherlands-based company De Jong Packaging, a corrugated packaging producer, for an enterprise value of approximately €1,020 million.