In 2024, TWM interviewed tissue mill executives in Latin America, India, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Africa, and Türkiye for Country Reports. One year on, we revisit a selection of the leading companies to assess their progress.
BRAZIL
“This new company brings together two global players that are leaders in their respective markets.”
In January 2024, TWM’s headline for our interview with Leonardo Grimaldi, Suzano’s Head of Global Pulp Sales, Marketing and Logistics, was: “The Latin American pulp giant emerging as a major force in tissue.”
Now in June 2025, a new joint venture has confirmed that assessment. Suzano entered a $3.4bn agreement with Kimberly-Clark to form a joint venture, creating an international tissue and professional products company. It will focus on the manufacture, marketing and distribution of consumer and professional tissue products, including toilet paper, napkins, paper towels and facial tissues in over 70 countries.
Kimberly-Clark will own a 49% interest in the new venture, which will include all the assets of its International Family Care and Professional business, and Suzano will own 51%. This includes 22 manufacturing facilities, approximately 9,000 employees, and marketing and selling regional and global brands such as Kleenex, Scott and WypAll.
At the time, Beto Abreu, Suzano Chief Executive, said: “This new company brings together two global players that are leaders in their respective markets, with complementary capabilities that combine Suzano’s industrial expertise and operational management efficiency with Kimberly-Clark’s know-how in brand management, marketing and commercialisation of both regional and global brands, as well as its extensive experience in managing operations across multiple regions worldwide.
The move follows Suzano’s 2023 acquisition of Kimberly-Clark’s Brazilian tissue assets and brands.
The company is also in the process of building a R$650m tissue paper mill at its site in Aracruz in the state of Espírito Santo, which will add 60,000 tonnes of annual capacity to the company’s Consumer Goods Business Unit.
It will start up a Valmet-supplied complete tissue paper making line, tissue converting equipment and a biomass boiler, and the investment is in response to an increase in demand by Brazilian consumers for high-quality tissue products, and start-up is scheduled for the first quarter of 2026.
The scope of supply includes a complete tissue production line including Advantage DCT 200 tissue machine with OptiFlo headbox and Yankee cylinder with an annual production capacity of 60,000 tons, and that the tissue making line and converting lines are optimised to save energy. The value of the total order will not be disclosed, but is expected to be around €100m.
