HELSINKI, Finland The Finnish forestry company Stora Enso (OTC:SEOAY) announced on Tuesday that it would sell its paper factory in Maxau, Germany, to Schwarz Group, which owns the discount supermarket chains Lidl GB and Kaufland.
The deal is part of Stora Enso’s plan to sell off four of the five paper production sites it still owns as it shifts its focus to packaging.
When the deal closes, which is expected to happen in the first quarter of 2023, the company will record a gain of about 50 million euros ($50.7 million). It said that the German site is worth about 210 million euros as a business.
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“Schwarz’s plan is to keep making paper at the site,” Stora Enso said in a statement. “The 440 employees of the Maxau Mill Organization will be part of the transaction.”
In a strategy update, Stora Enso said that by the end of the decade, it wanted more than 60% of its group sales to come from renewable packaging.
“By 2030, we want to have much less exposure to market pulp and less cyclicality by increasing integration and growth in Renewable Packaging (NYSE:PKG), Building Solutions, and new innovative biomaterials in our portfolio,” it said.
Last week, Stora Enso said it had agreed to pay 1.02 billion euros ($1.02 billion) to buy the Dutch packaging company De Jong.
($1 = 0.9867 euros)
