UPM will permanently cease production at its Chapelle newsprint mill in Grand-Couronne, France today. The consultation process with employee representatives was completed on June 15th, 2020 according to French legislation and approved by French authorities on July 15th, 2020.
The closure impacts 228 people. UPM offers support to employees in order to alleviate the effects caused by staff reductions in relation to the closing of the mill.
With the closure of the mill UPM will reduce a total of 240.000 tonnes of its newsprint paper capacity.
“After UPM announced the intention to sell the Chapelle mill in September we started an active sales process and have been in discussions with interested parties since. However, we have not received binding offers by potential buyers. Consequently, we decided to close the mill, while at the same time working with employee representatives to mitigate the social impact on our employees. We remain committed to selling the mill assets if we receive a suitable offer,” says Anu Ahola, Senior Vice President, News & Retail, UPM Communication Papers.
UPM recognizes restructuring charges in total of EUR 78 million, whereof EUR 61 million as cash costs. EUR 45 million was booked as items affecting comparability in Q1 2020 and EUR 33 million in Q2 2020. The action will result in annual savings of approximately EUR 30 million.
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