Metsä Board to Divest Alizay Mill Site
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Metsä Board, Finland, plans to sell its Alizay office paper mill in France to the French department of Eure that will resell it to different buyers. Eure will acquire the site for a total of EUR 22.2 million and resell it to Thai paper manufacturer Double A, which reportedly intends to buy the properties and assets needed to restart paper activities for an amount of EUR 15 million, while French energy company Neoen is to take over energy operations for EUR 3 million. The remaining land and parcels are to be managed by EPFN (Établissement Public Foncier de Normandie), which will develop new activities and create a river port, among others activities.
The department of Eure explained it acted as a mediator between Metsä Board and the buyers since the two parties had not been able to find an agreement. The takeover was to guarantee reindustrialization and exploit the economic potentials of the site, it added. Between 150 and 200 jobs are said to be created in a first step, and possibly 250 in the long term. According to Metsä Board, an agreement on the sale to the department of Eure will probably be signed before the end of the year.
A spokesman of French trade union Filpac CG, stated in a EUWID Pulp and Paper (Germany) report that Double A would continue to produce office paper at Alizay with an unchanged capacity of around 300,000 tpy and also planned to add copy A paper to the product portfolio. The group would initially only use virgin fiber as a raw material, but envisaged continuing the production of recycled office paper at a later date, he added. Operations are scheduled to be resumed in April 2013.
Metsä Board had earlier decided to close the Alizay mill and stopped paper production. The site was permanently shutdown in early 2012.
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