Condat paper mill in Dordogne, France, is ceasing its activities. The new owner, the Canadian group SPB Group, is retaining only 21 of the 202 jobs, and plans to create a "Biopark" at the site combining green energy, digital infrastructure, and new low-carbon industrial activities.
Four months after the Condat paper mill in Dordogne was placed under court-ordered administration, the Bordeaux Commercial Court announced on Monday that it had chosen the takeover bid submitted by Condat Solutions, a subsidiary of Groupe SPB.
For Condat, acquired from the Spanish company Lecta, SPB's offer was the least attractive in terms of job preservation: only 21 positions would be retained out of the 202 remaining at the paper mill, which has been shut down for several weeks. Its Czech competitor, Finesta, which had the support of the unions, stated its intention to retain 100 employees and to continue paper production, but the financial guarantees appeared insufficient.
SPB, which has already converted of a former Arjowiggins paper mill in France, where medical gloves are now produced, plans to create 300 jobs at the site through a "multi-sector reindustrialization project" designed to "adapt it to market changes."
The group cites, in particular, the production of decarbonized alumina—a raw material used primarily in the automotive industry—a low-carbon substitute for petrochemical components in cosmetics, and the deployment of a supercomputer cluster for artificial intelligence.
