As you may have heard Powerflute has a new owner. The past 12 years have been extremely interesting; I have been able to follow very closely how our Chairman Dermot Smurfit first led the buy-out of the company and then, together with our team, took it to where we are today. We all at Savon Sellu are very grateful to Dermot – we sincerely believe that without him we would not have been able to achieve the remarkable turnaround that has occurred. Under Dermot’s leadership the Savon Sellu mill has been transformed from “most likely to close” to “most successful” paper and board mill in Finland; indeed quite a leap given that the forest products industry is the most important industry in our country!

As one era ends, maybe with a feeling of some sadness, another one immediately starts offering new and exciting prospects! Our new owner Madison Dearborn Partners is a very experienced investor in our industry with an excellent investment track record. I am convinced that Madison Dearborn has bought a very good company in Powerflute; a company with excellent personnel, mills and products, and that we in Savon Sellu have gotten a very good new owner. We are already looking forward to see how much more we can improve!

During the due diligence process the operative focus has been “business as usual”. For us that, among other, has meant that we have made a new quarterly production record in Q3, continued our long term development plan by installing a breast roll shaker on the paper machine and new refiners in the pulping section and that we have opened a new sales office in Italy. The optimisation process of the new equipment and quality fine-tuning is currently in process and I hope to be able to tell you some interesting quality-related news latest by the end of Q1 2017.

I would like to thank you all, dear customers and friends, for your support and co-operation during 2016. Wishing you all relaxing festive season and a prosperous New Year 2017!

Juha Koukka
CEO of Savon Sellu Ltd.