The consistently positive outlook for the timber-construction sector led to further investment in the enlargement of production capacity in the gluelam-timber and prefabricated-construction sectors in 2021 as well. Here, companies in the sawmilling industry also reinvested their high profits from the last few years in expanding their internal value-adding operations. Last year, too, the focus of these measures was not only on building more cross-laminated timber (CLT) works, but also on enlarging existing gluelam-timber and pellet-production capacity.
The timber-construction and prefabricated-construction sectors further increased their share of the residential-building market in 2021. Besides investment in enlarging production capacity, such as the centre of competence for timber-construction in Tirschenreuth planned by Ziegler Holding, major changes driven by institutional investors also occurred in the prefabricated-construction sector again. These also included the sale of Oikos Group to the West Street Capital Partners VIII L.P. fund of New York managed by Goldman Sachs and the sales of the Streif group to Adcuram Group.
In the gluelam sector, Katerra and Bengalurubecame the first CLT producer to get into financial difficulties. In the course of the ensuing Chapter 11 proceedings, Mercer International took over the 140,000 m³ works in Spokane, Washington, and thereby entered the gluelam-timber market. A variety of new or extended CLT as well as gluelam works were put into operation in 2021 as well along with announcements of the construction of further works.
The complete overview summarising corporate changes in the wood-products sector is available in the printed version of issue 1-2/2022 or as pdf.