Verso Corporation Confirms Receipt of Unsolicited Acquisition Proposal from Atlas Holdings LLC

Metsä Board announced its plan to strengthen its position as Europe’s leading producer of folding boxboard by increasing production capacity. The company has started pre-engineering for increasing the annual production capacity of folding boxboard machine BM1 at the Husum mill in Sweden by approximately 200,000 tonnes. The pre-engineering phase includes also an evaluation of the mill port’s capacity for increased volumes of raw materials and finished goods. The planned investment would further strengthen Husum BM1’s position as the biggest folding boxboard machine in Europe. The readiness to make the final investment decision is expected to be achieved in the summer of 2021 and if the investment is implemented the ramp-up of the additional capacity would start in 2023.

Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. announced that De Lyle W. Bloomquist has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, effective immediately. Mr. Bloomquist succeeds Vito J. Consiglio, who has stepped down as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, and as a member of the Company’s Board of Directors (the “Board”), with the mutual agreement of the Board. In connection with Mr. Bloomquist’s appointment, the Board named Lisa M. Palumbo as Non-Executive Chair of the Board. Mr. Bloomquist has served on the Company’s Board since 2014 and was named Non-Executive Chair of the Board in May 2020. He has decades of domestic and international leadership experience in the chemicals, minerals and materials industries, including in finance, sales, logistics, operations, IT, strategy and business development capacities. Mr. Bloomquist most recently served as a partner at Windrunner Management Advisors LLC, a management advisory services business, and prior to that served as the President, Global Chemical Business of Tata Chemicals Limited, and President, CEO and Director of Tata Chemicals North America Inc.

HEINZEL GROUP announces the conversion of an idled paper machine at the Steyrermühl mill in Austria for the production of sustainable kraft papers for flexible packaging. Heinzel will take over the Steyrermühl site from UPM on January 1st, 2024, according to an agreement signed in 2022, and will enter the market with a new range of unbleached and bleached kraft papers shortly thereafter. The Steyrermühl paper mill, currently still owned by UPM, has a long history of producing top-quality graphic paper products. The conversion of the machine will enable the mill to enter the growing market for packaging papers. The new kraft paper grades produced will be used in the production of bags, pouches, and other flexible packaging products. At the site UPM today operates one paper machine for newsprint production, a sawmill, and a residue incineration plant co-owned with Heinzel's Laakirchen Papier. UPM plans to continue operations as-is until the end of 2023 when the production of graphic papers in Steyrermühl will be ceased.