UPM buys APRIL's mill

UPM buys APRIL's mill

HELSINKI (Reuters): Finnish forest industry group UPM-Kymmene will buy a Chinese fine paper mill from its Indonesian partner Asia Pacific Resources Holding (APRIL), changing an earlier cooperation deal, Finnish MTV3 television news reported yesterday.

The television channel said that instead of swapping parts of fine paper operations with APRIL, UPM would buy "a significant part" of ARPIL's fine paper mill being built in China.

It said the mill is worth over two billion markka ($365 million).

In the broadcast, UPM chairman Lauri Jouhki neither confirmed nor denied the report, but he said "the process is alive all the time, and I believe decisions will come fairly soon."

Nobody at UPM-Kymmene was immediately available to comment on the report.

UPM and APRIL agreed last September on a fine paper joint venture which would include the swap of 30 percent of each their fine paper operations, but the deal came under scrutiny after Indonesia was hit by financial turmoil.