UPM-Kymmene

Planning to reduce its graphic paper capacity in Europe, UPM will permanently close two paper machines.

Madison Paper, located in Maine, ceased paper production on May 21. The closure impacts approximately 214 employees.

UPM-Kymmene Inc. and Northern SC Paper Corp., a subsidiary of The New York Times Co., announced today the dissolution of Madison Paper.

UPM-Kymmene and Stora Enso are being driven towards a merger of their European units by a relentless fall in demand and prices in the digital era. Now after years of speculation about a possible tie-up, investors have in recent weeks raised bets UPM and Stora will fold most of their paper businesses into a joint venture over the next year.

Such a move, followed by more mill closures, would help trim output and costs and allow the owners to focus more on their growth areas such as pulp and packaging board. The cuts could also help stabilize market prices and make

Two Paper machines will be closed by UPM—the paper machine 3 at the UPM Rauma mill in Finland; and the paper machine 4 at the Ettringen mill in Germany. The number of employees will be reduced by 87 in the UPM Rauma mill and by 150 in the UPM Ettringen mill.

The acquisition of Myllykoski has made UPM the undisputed leader in publication papers. We can now serve our customers even better than before with a best in class offering—products, services, reliable and accessible supplies and sustainable operations.

UPM will permanently close down the unprofitable Albbruck paper mill in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The mill manufactures coated magazine papers on three production lines with a combined annual capacity of 320,000 tonnes. Discussions between UPM, employee representatives and local authorities did not lead to a solution for continuing the operations at the mill.

UPM will permanently cease production at the Myllykoski paper mill by the end of this year. The personnel reductions will affect 371 people at the mill and 21 people at Myllykoski Corp. and Myllykoski Sales Nordic. The company and its employees were unable to establish a way to meet the commercial requirements for continuation of operations at the mill during employee negotiations

As a result of its operations review with the integration of Myllykoski assets, UPM plans to adjust its magazine paper capacity by permanently removing 1.3 million tonnes of production. This will reduce its staffing by approximately 1,170 people.

“When the strike begins, we most probably must start to running down paper mills already within a couple of days,” said Jyrki Ovaska, president of UPM’s Paper Business Group. The two-week strike is set to begin on April 6.