Stora Enso is hosting its Forest and Wood Products Day for investors in Stockholm with a focus on its recently acquired Swedish forest assets and the establishment of a new Forest division. Source: Timberbiz
Stora Enso will establish a Forest division and start reporting it separately at the beginning of 2020. The new Forest division will include Stora Enso’s Swedish forest assets (including the recently-acquired Bergvik Skog Väst AB) and its 41% share of Tornator with the majority of its forest assets located in Finland.
The Forest division will also include wood supply operations in Finland, Sweden, Russia and Baltic countries. Tree plantations in the southern hemisphere linked to local pulp mills continue to be reported as before under the Biomaterials and Consumer Board divisions.
“As a major player in the bioeconomy, access to wood is critical for us. Taking forest assets under direct ownership gives us more flexibility to optimise our wood supply and operations.
“Furthermore, as wood is the single most important raw material and the biggest share of our costs, as well as a large part of the balance sheet, it will make sense to increase the transparency of reporting now, when we have successfully finalised the acquisition of Swedish forest holdings,” Stora Enso’s CEO, Karl-Henrik Sundström said.
Stora Enso has forest assets valued at more than EUR 4.1 billion (land and biological assets) in its balance sheet, the highest value being of biological assets of EUR 3.6 billion among Nordic companies.
In Sweden, Stora Enso owns 1.4 million hectares of forest, of which 1.14 million hectares are productive forest land with standing stock of 143 million m³.
The new division will begin its segment reporting on 1 January 2020. The restated historical figures will be published in the first quarter of 2020. Stora Enso is now disclosing an illustrative statement of income and operating capital for the new division for 2018 and first half of 2019.
