Ilkka Hämälä
“Metsä Group’s result for 2021 was excellent,” Metsä Group’s president and CEO Ilkka Hämälä

Metsä Group has reported sales of €6,017m – up from €5,055m in 2020 – in its 2021 full-year results and announced plans to increase prices in its Metsä Tissue division.

The group’s operating result for the year was €874m compared to €376m a year earlier. 

Between October – December 2021, sales were €1,560m (€1,357m), while its operating result was €221m compared to €97m year-on-year.

In its Metsä Tissue division, the company said that during the second half of the year, “drastic increases” in energy prices in Europe deprived Metsä Tissue of its chance for profitable operations”.

In the near-term outlook, it added that uncertainty remained about the impact the pandemic will have on the short-term demand for products in countries where Metsä Tissue operates.

However, it said that demand for tissue paper products is expected to grow as restrictions imposed due to the pandemic continue to be lifted.

“To restore profitability, the company is responding to an increase in the costs of raw materials, energy and other costs with price increases and surcharges.”

President and Chief Executive Ilkka Hämälä said: “Metsä Group’s result for 2021 was excellent.

“In the last quarter, it was supported by the paperboard market which remained strong, and in China, by the price and delivery volume of pulp which began to rise again.”

He added that the effects of the pandemic were visible in the markets “in many ways”.

“The tissue paper industry saw the effect that the restriction measures of societies had on public spaces’ tissue paper demand early in the year.

“During the second half of the year, the drastic increases in energy prices in Europe deprived Metsä Tissue of its chance for profitable operations.”

He said that the “global megatrends – urbanisation; demographic changes; economic growth, particularly in developing economies; and the transition from a fossil-based economy to renewable materials – guided the group’s business operations” and supported the result in 2021, and “will steer the development of our business in the years to come”.