South American Celulosa Arauco y Constitutión and Portuguese Sonae Industria want to create a 50/50 joint venture. Sonae Industria is to bring its wood-based panel activities in Europe and South Africa, including adhesive and impregnating resin production in Sires, Portugal and German ImPaper Europe to the joint venture. For its part, Arauco is to spend €137.5m to become a shareholder in Sonae Industria’s subsidiary Tableros de Fibras S.A. (Tafisa) in a capital increase. Tafisa will then be renamed Sonae Arauco.
The transaction excludes Sonae Industria’s North American operations with its particleboard mill in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, which does business as Tafisa Canada, as well as its laminate and elements business, which includes laminate production in Maia, an elements plant in Portugal and a site in Horn-Bad Meinberg, Germany. The old Hornitex headquarters in Horn-Bad Meinberg has specialised in laminate and element production, which had already been spun off legally and organisationally as the non-board business, and in running a power plant since particleboard production ended in the first quarter of 2014.