Ahlstrom-Munksjö explores strategic opportunities for its Decor paper business

Photo: Ahlstrom-Munksjö

Ahlstrom-Munksjö is currently exploring potential acquisitions, mergers and joint-ventures with decor paper suppliers in China to speed up the execution of its strategy and capture the attractive value-creation opportunity in the decor business. In addition, the company is investigating the possibility to attract outside capital investment into the Decor business to further fund such objectives.

"With the aim to strengthen our platform of businesses, Ahlstrom-Munksjö regularly assesses what is the best structure of its businesses. The opportunities currently being explored are based on strong strategic and financial rationales. Partnering with a leading Chinese supplier would create a global leader with strong presence in the world’s two largest markets. Together our capabilities would be highly complementary and significantly strengthen our market coverage and customer offering. It would allow us to offer an industry leading brand with premium quality and service, while at the same leverage from the state-of-the-art production capabilities on a global scale. Our intention is to attract outside capital to the Decor business to accelerate the development of the business into a stand-alone global operation. This will also allow further investments to enhance its operating performance and enable expansion via M&A in China,” says President and CEO Hans Sohlström.

Tomas Wulkan, Executive Vice President Decor business area, continues: “We are highly committed to our Decor business and want to continue to develop and grow our business in a sustainable manner. A partnership would strengthen our business and our abilities to serve our customers in the short- and long-term as well as help us to remain an attractive employer.”

The Decor business area is one of Ahlstrom-Munksjö‘s five reporting segments, with net sales of EUR 451.9 million and comparable EBITDA of EUR 37.1 million in 2018. The Decor business produces paper in a wide range of colors, grades and grammages for decorative applications, mainly used in laminated furniture, flooring and interior applications both for technical and esthetical purposes. Production takes place at three dedicated plants; Unterkochen and Dettingen in Germany and Tolosa in Spain, and at two shared sites, Caieiras in Brazil and Arches in France.