FINLAND

Metsä Tissue to cut 40 jobs

Metsä Tissue has said it is to axe 40 jobs as part of restructuring plans to improve profitability at its Finnish units.

Metsä Tissue’s chief executive Mika Joukio:
“Profitability has not developed as planned”

The Finnish statutory negotiations started on 1 October and will last a minimum of six weeks. They are part of a company-wide organisational restructuring targeted to improve profitability.

A spokeswoman for the company told TW that around 150 staff are involved in the process and the maximum headcount reduction is not expected to exceed 40.

Metsä Tissue’s chief executive Mika Joukio said: “The company’s profitability has not developed as planned. It has become clear that the current organisational structure and centralised decision-making are not optimally responding to our challenges.

“In order to grow, improve profitability and ensure agility, we must reduce complexity as well as clarify roles and responsibilities. Moreover, we must increase sales and push down costs.”

He added that there has been an “increasing competition and continuous tightening of EU regulation” which posed additional challenges.

“Additionally, the Finnish government’s stricter national adaptation of EU directives concerning areas such as waste taxation and landfill regulations is a major threat to our competitiveness.

“By restructuring and reorganising our operations, we aim to secure our future competitiveness on the growing tissue and cooking paper market.” Metsä Tissue will also restructure its management team with the new roles valid from 1 December 2012.

The management team will now consist of: Mika Joukio, chief executive, Mariusz Jedrzejewski, SVP, tissue, Central Eastern Europe, Jori Sahlsten, SVP, tissue, North Eastern Europe, Mark Watkins, SVP, tissue, Scandinavia, Christoph Zeiler, SVP, tissue, Western Europe, Juha Tilli, SVP, Baking and Cooking, Markus Holm, CFO, Ghita Jansson-Kiuru, SVP, Human Resources, Hubert Schönbein, SVP, Brand Marketing and International Sales, and Lars Warvne, SVP, Technology.

Turkey

Turkey’s Hayat Kimya to build 60,000tpy tissue PM in Russia

The Turkish tissue producer Hayat Kimya is going to expand to Russia.

The company is planning to install a 5.6m wide tissue PM with a capacity of 60,000tpy in Yelabuga, some 250km from Kazan in Russia.

Hayat Kimya will soon collect quotations from machine suppliers and expects to start technical discussions with them in November, paper group director Lütfi Aydin told RISI.

The plan is to begin building the factory next year and to commission it in the second quarter of 2015. The plant will also house tissue converting equipment for making toilet rolls and kitchen towels.

Aydin said that this kind of factory usually costs around $100m to build and requires a workforce of some 650 people.

Iranian plant to start up this year: Hayat Kimya is also on track to launch production at its new tissue factory in Zencan, Iran.

Aydin said the company has completed the construction of the factory building and is almost done installing the 65,000tpy machine. He hoped trial runs could start next month.

Hayat Kimya first announced its intention to build a new tissue plant in Iran in July 2009, with the aim of commissioning it in the middle of 2011.

Since then, the project has run into some delays and the startup has been postponed a couple of times, which the company has said is due to bureaucracy, among other things. Hayat Kimya operates one mill in Izmit, northwestern Turkey, where it houses two machines with a combined capacity of some 135,000tpy of tissue.

The site’s newest unit, PM2, was started in December 2010.

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Sweden

SCA issues layoff notices for 42 employees as Jönköping tissue mill set to close

SCA has sent out layoff notices to all 42 workers at its Jönköping tissue mill in southern Sweden.

Of these, four are white-collar workers and 38 blue-collar workers.

The company has said it intends to close its 25,000tpy tissue mill in Jönköping, Sweden.

At the time of going to press, a spokesman told TW: “So far SCA has only initiated negotiations with the local union. The intention is to close the Jönköping mill, but at this point very little has been communicated externally.” The company has stated its intention to close the 25,000tpy Jönköping mill.

The spokesman said the potential closure is a result of overcapacity of mother reels, and added that as Jönköping has no conversion of its own, it is the most natural site to cut capacity.

SCA has not communicated a timeframe for the planned closure.

SCA reveals three tissue mills it will sell as part of G-P acquisition deal

SCA has announced that it will divest the 55,000tpy Llangynwyd Mill in Bridgend, UK, the 22,000tpy Drammen mill in Norway, and the tissue converting plant in Horwich, Lancashire, UK, as part of the EC clearance requirements for the takeover of G-P’s EMEA tissue business.

The sites proposed for sale were made public during SCA’s conference call for its H1 results.

According to SCA’s chief executive Jan Johansson, the firm intends to complete the divestments within a six-month timeframe following the G-P deal’s closure, as required by the EC. The acquisition of G-P’s tissue business was completed on 19 July.

“We have a lot of interested parties in this, and there will be a trustee appointed as well for this process,” Johansson told the press conference, adding that the firm started the divestment process long before it got the information from the commission, since “it knew quite well where the problems will be”.

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UK

UK tissue converter Accrol Papers starts investment programme

Accrol Papers, one of the UK’s leading independent soft tissue converters, has started a £30m investment project that will create up to 100 jobs over the next two years.

According to the firm, the initial phase of the project consists of an £11m investment in machinery and the construction of a new production facility on its Roman Road/ Davyfield Road site in Blackburn, Lancashire.

“The work should be completed in the early part of next year and help the company cope with exceptional demand for its products,” it said in a statement.

Moreover, Accrol Papers is investing in its own brands which include Triple Softy toilet paper and Thirsty Bubbles kitchen towel in addition to providing private label products.

According to Majid Hussain, managing director of Accrol Papers, this is part of a rapid, continuing and sustainable expansion plan.

At present, Accrol Papers has a manufacturing capacity of more than 75,000tpy. The firm produces over one million toilet rolls and 250,000 kitchen rolls each day.

Founded in 1993, the family-run firm has spent some £25m on new machinery and premises in recent years. The latest investment was a 120,000 square foot office space and warehouse facility in Blackburn that was officially opened in late March.

News from RISI (www.risiinfo.com)

France

Aquila Holding acquires French tissue paper company Global Hygiène

Aquila Hygiène Holding, owned by Luc Brami, has acquired the tissue paper company Global Hygiène, based in France.

The purchase price of the transaction was not disclosed.

Aquila took over the company in a leveraged buyout with the assent of the managing director and the support of three investment funds – 123 Venture, A Plus Finance and Calliode.

The new managing director Luc Brami intends to develop the company’s production capacity and its export strategy in western Europe.

Brami told PPI Europe he is not planning to restructure or reorganise the company at the moment.

Global Hygiène specialises in tissue paper and non-woven converting. The firm employs 130 people and had a turnover of €43m in 2011.

Italy

OMET installs latest machines at ICT Group

OMET has completed testing of the latest two TV 840 multi-line converting machines for the Industrie Cartarie Tronchetti (ICT Group).

The machines can be used in the production and printing of napkins, printing up to 5,000 napkins per minute.

ITC Tronchetti napkins products

They are installed in Coreglia, Italy, one of the four plants the group owns in Tuscany. So far, ICT has purchased a total of six machines from OMET.

An OMET spokesman said: “What makes these two machines a novelty is the presence of an innovative micro-embossing cassette that reduces the changeover time of any printed job due to the presence of an easy and quick system for the replacement of the rotating cylinders.

“The efficiency of the machines is ensured not only by the speed of the job change but also by the presence of an in-line cleaning system.”

Massimo Nofori, ICT technical director, said: “In OMET we have found a reliable partner who has supported our growth by offering products with a high degree of innovation and customised according to our needs.

“The technological level achieved by this machinery helps us stay competitive by speeding up the production process while maintaining a high level of reliability.”

ICT is an ISO 14001-certified company and its products include the Foxy brand. Annually, it produces around 470,000 tonnes of high-quality paper for domestic use and personal hygiene.

In addition to its four sites in Italy it has a plant in Poland and Spain, and a paper mill in France.