Stora Enso Oyj - Company Announcement

Stora Enso plans to shut down coated magazine paper machine in Finland

Helsinki, Finland, 2014-01-24 08:00 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- STORA ENSO OYJ
STOCK EXCHANGE RELEASE 24 January 2014 at 9.00 EET 


Stora Enso is starting co-determination negotiations with employees at
Veitsiluoto Mill in Finland regarding a plan to shut down permanently paper
machine (PM) 1 with annual capacity of 190 000 tonnes of coated magazine paper
by the end of the first quarter of 2014 due to structural weakening of magazine
paper demand in Europe. The planned closure would affect up to 90 employees. 



Stora Enso will record a restructuring provision and a working capital
write-down as a non-recurring item related to the planned closure with a
negative impact of approximately EUR 8 million on operating profit in its first
quarter 2014 results. 





Segment        Annual   Annual Fixed        Working    Provisions        Planned
                Sales  Cost Decrease        Capital     with Cash   Reduction in
            Reduction                   Write-downs        Impact      Personnel
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Printing       EUR 12         EUR 11  EUR 2 million         EUR 6             90
 and          million    million, as                      million               
 Reading                from Q2 2014                                            



The planned shutdown would decrease Stora Enso's coated mechanical paper
capacity by about 15%, which represents about 2% of total European coated
mechanical paper capacity. 



If PM1 was permanently shut down, Stora Enso would be able to serve its
NovaPress customers from Veitsiluoto Mill PM5 and from Kabel Mill in Germany. 



No decisions regarding the planned closure and employee reduction will be taken
until the co-determination negotiations have been concluded. Stora Enso would
make every effort in co-operation with the local community to help the affected
personnel find new employment opportunities, and all job openings in other
Stora Enso units would be available to those affected. 

For further information, please contact:
Karl-Henrik Sundström, EVP, Printing and Living, tel. +46 1046 71660

Ulla Paajanen-Sainio, SVP, Investor Relations, tel. +358 2046 21242

Ulrika Lilja, SVP Communications, Printing and Living, tel. +46 72 221 92 28

www.storaenso.com
www.storaenso.com/investors

Stora Enso is the global rethinker of the paper, biomaterials, wood products
and packaging industry. We always rethink the old and expand to the new to
offer our customers innovative solutions based on renewable materials. Stora
Enso employs some 28 000 people worldwide, and our sales in 2012 amounted to
EUR 10.8 billion. Stora Enso shares are listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki (STEAV,
STERV) and Stockholm (STE A, STE R). In addition, the shares are traded in the
USA as ADRs (SEOAY) in the International OTCQX over-the-counter market. 

STORA ENSO OYJ