Sweden’s SCA has made a binding offer to acquire the EMEA operations of US-based manufacturer Georgia-Pacific, it has been announced.
The price offered by SCA is €1.32 billion.
The proposed transaction includes Georgia-Pacific's consumer and away-from-home tissue paper products and personal care businesses and manufacturing assets across Europe, including consumer brands as well as away-from-home and private label products.
Georgia-Pacific’s consumer tissue products account for some 60 per cent of the unit’s total sales, with home-away-from-home tissue accounting for approximately 30 per cent of sales. Personal care products such as cotton pads and facial cleansing wipes account for around five per cent. In the consumer tissue business, close to 70 per cent of sales are branded products and the remainder are private label products.
In the proposed transaction, SCA has agreed to hire all 5,000 Georgia-Pacific EMEA employees, who work across 15 production sites in seven countries.
Commenting, Jan Johansson, president and CEO of SCA, said: “The deal is a strategic fit and will strengthen our product offering and geographic reach in Europe. It also leads to substantial synergies.”
Jim Hannan, CEO and president of Georgia-Pacific, added: "Georgia-Pacific employees in Europe have worked hard over the last few years to make significant improvements in the business. We believe SCA would be acquiring an excellent business with talented people."
Stockholm-based SCA is a global hygiene and paper company that develops and produces personal care products, tissue, packaging solutions, publication papers and solid-wood products. Sales in 2010 amounted to €11.3 billion. The company has approximately 45,000 employees.
Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia-Pacific is one of the world's leading manufacturers and marketers of building products, tissue, packaging, paper, cellulose and related chemicals. The company employs more than 40,000 people at approximately 300 locations in North America, South America and Europe.
